The Claims of Philosophy.
AFTER the Bible, what next? When the word of God pronounces upon a question, what further evidence is needed to sustain the position, or what evidence is strong enough to break its decision? What can human reason, science, and philosophy, do for a theory upon which the Scriptures have written, “Ichabod”? We have in previous articles examined the teaching of the Bible on the whole subject of man’s creation, nature, death, intermediate state, and final doom. We have found that man was not created absolutely mortal or immortal, but relatively both: immortality was within his reach, and mortality lay as a danger in his path. He sinned and became absolutely mortal. Then death becomes an unconscious sleep in the grave, and his destiny beyond the tomb, if he does not secure through Christ, eternal life, is an utter loss of existence. But there are some who think that reason, science, and philosophy, are sufficient to disprove these conclusions; or, at least, that they are so strong that the Bible record must be made to harmonize with the claims drawn from these sources. But they forget that much that we call reason is in the sight of God “foolishness,” that there is a philosophy which the Bible pronounces “vain,” and some kinds of science which it says are “falsely so called.” We are willing to grant philosophy the privilege of trying to substantiate its claims. It may boast like Goliath, but it will be found weaker than Belshazzar before the handwriting on the wall. It is claimed that the soul is immaterial, and cannot therefore be destroyed, and hence must be immortal. Luther Lee says:— “If God himself has made the soul immaterial, he cannot destroy it by bringing material agents to act upon it.” This claim is good if whatever is indestructible is immortal. But this is a manifest error. The elements of the human body are indestructible, but the body is not therefore immortal. It is subject to change, death, and decay. But if it is claimed that the soul, being immaterial, is without elements, then perhaps it might follow that it is indestructible; for that which is nothing can never be made less than nothing. But if the soul of man, being immaterial, is thus proved to be immortal, what shall we say of the souls of the lower orders of animals? for they manifest the phenomena of mind as well as men. They remember, fear, imagine, compare, manifest gratitude, anger, sorrow, desire, &c. Bishop Warburton says:— “I think it may be strictly demonstrated that man has an immaterial soul; but then, the same arguments which prove that, prove likewise, that the souls of all living animals are immaterial.” Whoever, therefore, affirms the immortality of man from the immateriality of his soul, is bound to affirm the same, not only of the nobler animals, but also of all the lower orders of the brute creation. Here, believers in natural immortality are crushed beneath the weight of their own arguments. If it be said that God can, if he choose, blot from existence the immaterial soul of the beetle and the titmouse, we reply, so can he that of man; and then its immortality is at an end, and the whole argument is abandoned. “Matter cannot think.” This is the fundamental proposition on which the airy phantom of the immortality of the soul relies for its support. Since man does think, and matter cannot think, the mind or soul must be immaterial and immortal. It is one thing to make such an assertion; it is quite another thing to prove it; and the proof lies not within the power of man. That mind like electricity may be a property of matter, or result from material causes, Sidney Smith, in his Principles of Phrenology, 1838, very clearly states as follows:— “The existence of matter must be conceded, in an argument which has for its object the proof that there is something besides, and when that is admitted, the proof rests with the skeptic, who conceives that the intervention of some other principle is necessary to account for the phenomena presented to our experience. The hidden qualities of this substance must be detected, and its whole attributes known, before we can be warranted in assuming the existence of something else as necessary to the production of what is presented to our consciousness. And when such a principle as that of galvanism or electricity, confessedly a property of matter, can be present in or absent from a body, attract, repel, and move, without adding to or subtracting from the weight, heat, size, color, or any other quality of a corpuscle, it will require some better species of logic than any hitherto presented to establish the impossibility of mind being a certain form, quality, or accessory of matter, inherent in and never separated from it. We do not argue thus because we are confident that there exists nothing but matter; for, in truth our feeling is that the question is involved in too much mystery to entitle us to speak with the boldness of settled conviction on either side. But we assume this position, because we think the burden of proof falls on the spiritualists, and that they have not established the necessity of inferring the existence of another entity besides matter to account for all the phenomena of mind, by having failed to exhaust all the possible qualities or probable capacities of that substance which they labor so assiduously to degrade and despise.” “But while they have altogether failed to establish this necessity, whereon depends their entire proposition, they have recourse to the usual expedients of unsuccessful logicians, by exciting the ignorant prejudices of bigotry and intolerance, against all that is dignified with the name of dispassionate philosophy. “The truth is, it is time that all this fudge and cant about the doctrine of materialism, which affects the theory of immortality in no shape whatever—as the God who appointed the end could as easily ordain that the means might be either through the medium of matter or spirit—should be fairly put down by men of common sense and metaphysical discrimination.” On the same point Mr. W. G. Mocrieff says:— “Often do we hear the words, ‘matter cannot think,’ and the trumpet of orthodoxy summons us to attend. In our simplicity we have been led to reason thus: Matter cannot think—God made man of the dust of the ground—then of course man cannot think! He may grow like a palm tree, but can reason no more than it. Now this argumentation seems really valid, and yet every human being in his senses laughs it to scorn. I do think is the protest of each child of humanity. Then if you do, we respond, in your case, matter must perform the function of reflection and kindred operations. More than living organization you are not, and if you declare living organized matter incapable of thought, we are bound to infer that you have no thought at all. Accepting your premises, we must hand you the conclusion. The logic is good, but we are generous enough to allow that we cannot subscribe to it. It has often occurred to us as a fair procedure, just for the sake of bringing orthodoxy to a stand, to assert that spirit cannot think; of course, we are only referring to created beings, on this occasion. We have often tried to understand the popular idea of a spirit; and we must confess that it defies our apprehension. It is something, nothing; a substance, an essence; everything by turns, and nothing long. To believe that such a production could evolve thought, is an inordinate demand on human credulity. How the expedient was resorted to we cannot tell: was it because thought is invisible, that this invisible parent was sought for it? Then why not trace heat beyond the fire, perfume beyond the rose, attraction beyond the sun, and vitality beyond the branchy oak? Of all insane fancies, this popular idea of the human spirit is the most complete; we have no wish to give offense, but the truth must be spoken.” We arraign this theory also before the majesty of the brute creation. What about the immaterial minds of the lower animals? Does matter think in their cases? or have they also immortal souls? Dogs, horses, monkeys, elephants, &c., have been taught to perform different acts, imitate various movements, and even to dance the same tune over and over again, to accompanying strains of music: acts which involve the exercise of memory, will, reason, and judgment. The exercise of high mental powers is shown in the intelligence and sagacity of the horse and elephant, in the manifold cunning of the fox, in the beaver and bee, who construct their houses with such mechanical ingenuity, in the mules of the Andes which thread with so sure a foot, the gloomy gorges and craggy heights of the mountains, and in the dogs of St. Bernard, as they rescue benighted and half frozen travelers in the passes of the Alps. Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, speaking of the sagacity of one of his dogs says:— “He had never turned sheep in his life; but as soon as he discovered that it was his duty to do so, and that it obliged me, I can never forget with what anxiety and eagerness he learned his different evolutions; he would try every way, deliberately, till he found out what I wanted him to do; and when once I made him understand a direction, he never mistook or forgot it. Well as I knew him, he often astonished me, for when hard pressed, in accomplishing the task which was set him, he had expedients of the moment, that bespoke a great share of the reasoning faculty.” John Locke, the distinguished writer on metaphysical questions, says:— “Birds’ learning of tunes, and the endeavors one may observe in them to hit the notes right, put it past doubt with me that they have perception, and retain ideas in their memories, and use them for patterns. . . . It seems as evident to me that they [brutes] do reason as that they have sense.” Pritchard, On the Vital Principle, says:— “Sensation is an attribute of the mind, and the possession of mind certainly extends as far as its phenomena. Whatever beings have conscious feeling, have, unless the preceding arguments amount to nothing, souls, or immaterial minds, distinct from the substance of which they appear to us to be composed. If all animals feel, all animals have souls.” H. H. Dobney, Future Punishment, p. 101, says:— “While consciousness, reason, and the sense of right and wrong, are among the highest attributes of man, these in a degree are allowed to be possessed by some at least of the brute creation. Dr. Brown, according to his biographer, Dr. Welsh, ‘believed that many of the lower animals have the sense of right and wrong; and that the metaphysical argument which proves the immortality of man, extends with equal force to the other orders of earthly existence.’” Similar views are attributed to Coleridge and Cudworth. Dalton in his treatise on Human Physiology, p. 428, says:— “The possession of this kind of intelligence and reasoning power, is not confined to the human species. We have already seen that there are many instinctive actions in man as well as in animals. It is no less true that, in the higher animals, there is often the same exercise of reasoning power as in man. The degree of this power is much less in them than in him, but its nature is the same. Whenever, in an animal, we see any action performed, with the evident intention of accomplishing a particular object, such an act is plainly the result of reasoning power, not essentially different from our own. “The establishment of sentinels by gregarious animals to warn the herd of the approach of danger; the recollection of punishment inflicted, for a particular action, and the subsequent avoidance or concealment of that action; the teachability of many animals, and their capacity of forming new habits, or improving the old ones, are instances of the same kind of intellectual power, and are quite different from instinct, strictly speaking. It is this faculty which especially predominates over the other in the higher classes of animals, and which finally attains its maximum of development in the human species.” With these testimonies from such eminent witnesses, we leave the friends of the rational argument inextricably mixed up with the brute creation. The legitimate result of their theory is to confer immortality upon all orders of animated existence. We are sometimes accused of degrading man to the level of the brute. But if our friends of the other side elevate all brutes up to the level of man, how does that practically differ from what they accuse us of doing? The result is the same. If all come at last upon the same level, it matters not whether brutes come up or man goes down. But our view is not open to this objection. While we deny that immortality is proved for either man or beast by any vital or mental powers which they may exhibit, our theory finds a superior position for man in his more refined mental and physical organization, whereby he becomes possessed of a higher mental and moral nature, and is the proper recipient of the hope of immortality.