It is, to say the least, a divine accident that the Celt and the Anglo-Saxon lie in juxtaposition—a most striking spiritual object-lesson of two syllables, with the accent thus placed on each: The Irishman, naturally the peer of the other, with capabilities as great as those of any nationality on earth (I dare affirm it), actually an age-long inferior, subject civilly, abject spiritually, nationally subordinate because spiritually servile—sold like a commodity by the hand he licks;—but Britain! free, imperial!—and why?
Admirable, aye, most worthy of all imitation is the national characteristic of the Englishman, discerned through all the heart of his history, of following the light or leading of his religion only until its practise conflicted with his personal liberty, and then quietly taking counsel of his common sense, preferring its teachings to the uncertain refinements of his theology.
The guide-boards of common sense were erected by God on the highway of holiness toward the celestial city; duty-charts are the invention of theological metaphysicians—too frequently of interested casuists.
Jonathan Edwards might well have exchanged for an anthem of praise and thanksgiving the lachrymal brine he spilled into the ink with which he signed the death-warrant of span-long infants (he wept, ’tis said, as he offered innocent babes in the arms of the red-hot Moloch of his Calvinistic theology), if he had used his fine powers to consider thoughtfully for a few moments, how long it would be before the common sense of mankind would consign his polemic conclusions to the place he intended for the infants.
Even tho a person may not be well enough versed in his Bible to answer therefrom the apparently logical theses of the thousand religious theorists he will certainly meet, we hold it as the chiefest article of our creed, that he were better to reject every element of any doctrine which insults common sense, revolts the moral nature, or does violence to the organic instinct of benevolence. This is a sovereign household antiseptic for all sorts of pious fudge. If some zealot tells you that the command, “Thou shalt not kill,” restrains you from taking the life of bedbugs, fleas, potato-beetles, etc.; if he would convince you of the truthfulness of the theory of “Christian Science;” if he would have you enamored of the celestial nature of polygamy, it would be a sufficient answer that these things fall within the rule just given.
All hail, common sense!
In thine honored defense
Even this humble scribe shall most proudly enlist!
Tho priests may decry thee,
Tho schemers deny thee,
In chanting thy praises my song shall persist!
Let scholars cease laughing,
And prelates cease chaffing,
There are millions of simple to one that is wise;
And thy modest pleading
Gives practical leading
When their soaring follies get lost in the skies.
A patent on wisdom
No deity gives them;
Wise or unwise, we must follow our light.
To us simple creatures
What profit are teachers
Whose skilled disagreements bewilder our sight?
Let them settle their quarrels
O’er the science of morals,
And tilt, if they like, over dogmas and creeds;
’Midst tangled devices,
Their plain wit suffices
The commons to follow the Book as it reads:
I trow that Who gave us
The Guide-Book to save us
Has made it so clear that the runner may read;
And plain common sense
Is the grandest defense
Of divine Inspiration for common man’s need.
Permit, therefore, a fellow-mortal, who has stood awed and silent before the profound problem of human destiny, to emulate this virtue of his ancestors; with little confidence in his capacity, making no boast of originality, to record some meditations and conclusions, not hasty, but sincere; not profound, but true to his light; not expansive, but suggestive; not scholarly, but which he trusts may prove no less helpful and satisfactory on this account to some others who, like himself, have found themselves struggling with the sphinx-riddle of human existence. No claim is made of speaking ex cathedra, nor is any one bound to adopt his conclusions. A searcher for truth, he will at all times be happy to be set right by any one who, by broader inductions, is able to bring more accurate generalizations.
The Question Stated.
Without further preliminaries, laying aside all preconceived notions, especially those inherited, concerning the whence and the whither of the human bubble, which floats for a moment on the mysterious sea of existence only to break and disappear, let us, with a candor equal to the gravity of the theme, address ourselves in a practical manner to a consideration of the nature of the human soul.
To prevent obscurity, to secure clearness and definiteness, every science begins by stating its axioms or defining its initial working-elements. In physics, for instance, matter and motion, with their properties and laws, are the fundamental things. No correct theory in physics can omit from its reckoning the known properties of matter—mass, extension, impenetrability, indestructibility, and inertia. No system of mathematics can fail to take into account the essential properties of number.
But our knowledge of the human soul has not yet been reduced to scientific formula—notwithstanding we have seen a spiritualistic book (of which later) pretentiously claiming to give a scientific demonstration of the immortality of the soul. It is precisely on the questions as to what the soul is, and what are its properties, that the travail of thought and the turmoil of pen have thus far been expended.
It would be difficult to overstate the value of the contribution to perspicuity, not only in science but in all discussions, of primary, or introductory definitions, as accurate as possible, of the exact points involved. Not seldom a proper definition is the whole controversy. A demonstrably correct definition of the soul,—or, if this be impossible, an accurate summary of its properties or phenomena,—would settle forever the entire point at issue. What a pity that teachers of religion can not content themselves with being ministers of the Word, rather than striving to be theo-logicians amusing themselves and bewildering mankind with their assumptions, inferences, guesses, and what-not! What an inestimable gain to the whole field of religion, as well as science, if our controversialists could only be confined in some sort of mental straight-jacket compelling them to deal with what they know! What an epoch would be marked in the history of thought, if every theory-chaser would resolve not to talk dogmatically on subjects of which he is ignorant! What an amount of time, patience, and friendship might be saved, what a vast deal of misunderstanding would be spared, if disputants would first reduce to definite statement the points in controversy, instead of assuming mentally definitions agreeable to their preconceived opinions, and then arguing from that point of view.
The incident is perhaps familiar of the two London clergymen who walked the streets for half a day, debating a certain point, until one of them, having an appointment, excused himself, saying that his views were expressed exactly in a certain tract which his opponent might get and read. The other replied that he himself had written the tract. There was no disagreement in fact; they had merely failed to define.
O, the ink we spill, and the books we fill,
And the prodigal waste of breath,
Over terms whose meanings we do not see
Definitions on which we could never agree
Tho we cudgelled each other to death.
O, the tongue we use in an aimless cruise
For points we’ve not defined,
And the battles we wage to reform the age
When, bless your soul, there is never a sage
Could tell what we have in mind.
Let no one accuse us of treating in a spirit of mere facetiousness so serious and vital a question as the one under consideration; let no one impugn our motive, even tho it be a mistaken judgment which leads us to hope that an occasional figure or meter—as in the above paraphrase of a portion of Kipling’s Vampire—or even a pleasantry, may serve to enliven our discussion or impress a point.
The next article considers the question, “What Is the Soul?”
