CAN GOD ORGANIZE MATTER TO THINK? by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 6, 1877

CAN GOD ORGANIZE MATTER TO THINK?

By Dudley Marvin Canright

(Continued.)

It is not the mere size of the brain that is the measure of mental power, but the fineness of the material and the way it is organized must be considered. Hence it is that a practiced phrenologist can read a man's character by simply feeling of his head. What is insanity? Generally the wildest ravings result from some derangement of the brain, a nervous disease, a fracture of the skull, or a derangement of the fluids in the system. Cure the nervous disease, restore the fractured skull to its position, and thus put it in order again, and the mental disorder at once ceases. But if the mind is immortal and indestructible, how can it ever become insane? How can it become diseased?

Another fact proves that the mind results

from the physical organization; namely, the fact that the mind grows with the growth of the body, and decays with its decay. Hence, who expects to find a man's intellect in the body of a babe or of a child? As the brain grows up to maturity, the mind also develops; and then in old age, as the body grows weak, the mind grows weak also, till you have second childhood, so familiar to everybody. This should not be so, if the mind of man is immaterial and separate from the physical man. But it is objected that in some cases the body is weak and sickly while the mind is vigorous and powerful; that sometime in old age the mind retains its full faculties, even to the last breath. But this is a very small objection, easily answered. Cases like these are rare; they are the exception. All parts of the body are not always affected alike by health or by sickness. That is, a man may be dying of the consumption, his lungs nearly consumed; and yet his heart may be sound and healthy, his eye bright and keen, his ear sharp to hear. Or a man's eyes may be very weak, but his hearing acute; his liver may be wholly diseased, and his lungs may be sound. A man may be sick in any one part of his body, and well and strong in another. Hence the cases mentioned simply show that while other parts of the body are feeble, the brain is sound and healthy. But the general rule, the world over, is, “A sound mind in a sound body.”

A further fact to be noticed is that the mind, the intellect, can be developed and enlarged by exercise and training the same as any other part of the system. See that awkward, clumsy-fingered young man learning to write. What great, awkward scratches he makes! What is the matter? His fingers have not been disciplined. They have not learned how to hold and guide the pen with ease. But after long training he can execute the finest penmanship with great precision. Or take it in a more physical sense. A strong young man undertakes to lift a heavy weight for the first time. He finds it very difficult. He can not lift much. But he keeps practicing, training his muscles till by and by he can lift several times as much as in the beginning. His muscles have grown stronger by exercise. Just so with the mind. An undisciplined, unexercised mind is very weak intellectually; but close application and continued training develop strong, vigorous powers of thinking. All these facts show that the intellect is wholly dependent upon the physical organization, the same as any other power of a man.

Instinct and reason. Our opponents are constantly decrying matter, and attributing all excellence to immateriality. But an examination of nature shows that the Creator has used this same matter, to bring about the infinite diversity which is seen everywhere, from the grain of sand up to the highest intelligence. First we have matter in its coarsest and crudest form,—mineral matter, unorganized matter, such as a handful of dust, a piece of granite, a wedge of gold. Next higher we have organized and vitalized matter in the vegetable kingdom. Going still higher, we have the same matter more highly organized in the animal kingdom.

I have in my hand a school book, “The Philosophy of Natural History,” by John Ware, M. D. He has so clearly stated many points bearing upon this question that I quote from him, as follows:—

“Practically there is not often any difficulty in distinguishing an animal from a vegetable. But when it is attempted to point out the philosophical or essential principle in which their difference consists, the task is not so easy. In fact, there does not appear to be any such principle lying at the foundation of the distinction between animals and plants, that there is between organized and unorganized bodies; namely, the principle of life. There are certain close points of resemblance between the composition, the structure, the functions, and the conditions of the existence of animals and vegetables, which do not exist between either of them and minerals. So much is this the case, that some writers, among whom was the celebrated Buffon, have believed that there is no exact boundary, but that so close a resemblance of characteristics exists between those living at the two extremes, that individuals possessing peculiarities of animal life in the lowest degree are not essentially different from the plants which possess them in the highest.”—P. 12.

D. M. CANRIGHT.

(To be Continued.)