"Is that what is meant by soul and conscience and honor? Does the "spiritual side of man"s nature," when stripped of its camouflage, mean a shrewd calculation which seeks to gain a lasting reward for the spirit, after the body is used up?"
In the face of such a question, of such a line of thought, there is something within us which revolts. If we can find words to express the cause and nature of this revolt, so much the better; but even if we cannot, a vague but unshakable feeling persists within us that any views of this sort are superficial, inadequate and uncomprehending.
Just as we found, in connection with human sympathy and affection, that cold reason might make the mistake of trying to explain them in terms of selfishness, so we find that when reason undertakes to penetrate into the human soul, it is apt to emerge with a distortion which lacks the essence of the whole thing.
In the first place, so far as reason goes, after countless generations of man on earth, what evidence has yet been discovered to prove conclusively that when a man dies, the spirit of him disengages itself from the dead body and goes on to an unknown world to continue life there?
When a dog dies, does the spirit of him do the same thing? A bird? A spider? A germ? A flower? They all have the spirit of life within them--a wonderful complex life--and a struggle for existence on earth--of much the same sort as man"s.
I was talking to a charming lady, the other day, who said she firmly believes that the spirits of them all go on to a better world, along with man"s.
But whether they do, or whether they don"t, what means has any intellect been able to find in all these centuries to settle the question and prove it scientifically, without fear of contradiction?
Even if the intellect were satisfied to take so much for granted, at a guess, for the sake of having something to go by, there still remains the same element of uncertainty surrounding the question: "Why am I here? If my spirit is the only part of me that is destined to live on, what was the need of chaining it for this short s.p.a.ce of time to animal instincts and a perishable body?"
All sorts of theories have been advanced, in the search for a plausible explanation, but again, in all the ages of civilization, no conclusive proof has been found that any one of them is the right one.
In ancient times the theory seemed to be that the purpose of life was to develop the body to its highest state of prowess and beauty and to make liberal sacrifices to the G.o.ds, in order to gain and retain their favor.
The idea seems to have been current for many centuries that when the spirit mounted to another world, it somehow carried the shape and characteristics of the earthly body along with it. Reason enough to make the body strong and beautiful, if the spirit were to continue tied up to it eternally.
Even in Shakespeare"s time and all through the Middle Ages, whenever departed spirits were supposed to come back to earth to communicate with mortals, they always appeared in the same bodily form they had had on earth.
On this a.s.sumption, if one individual happened to die when his body was young and strong and handsome, his spirit would have an advantage over another individual, who lasted on earth until his body was old, decrepit and ugly.
It may be that the unfairness of this thought had something to do with the eventual discarding of the belief. It may also be that in the course of time and acc.u.mulated experience, the more advanced intellects arrived at the conclusion that sacrifices made to the G.o.ds had little perceptible effect on the course of events. In any case European civilization appears to have arrived at a stage where it was ripe and ready for another sort of conception.
This other conception was the unimportance and unworthiness of the body and all material things. The spirit was the only thing that signified and that was to be dedicated to the service of the Lord, as announced in divine commandments. Sacrifices on the altar or gifts to the priests would avail nothing, if the spirit were undutiful. The Lord was to be worshipped and addressed in prayer--and He was at all times prepared to mete out rewards and punishments in strict accordance to the deserts of the spirit. Good and worshipful spirits would be blessed with everlasting life in paradise, while those who disobeyed the commandments, or neglected to be baptized and worship in the ordained way would be consigned to eternal torture and d.a.m.nation.
This theory was accepted by many millions of people and for a long time held an awe-inspiring sway over their imaginations.
At the same time, in different parts of the world, India, China, Mexico, Egypt and various countries, a number of other theories concerning the spirit and the body were advanced as the basis of religious beliefs; and these were accepted by countless other millions of people with the same awe-inspiring credulity.
One feature of these various religions which appears to apply to them all, is worth noting. Each professed the belief that their G.o.d or G.o.ds ruled in supreme control of the entire universe, eternally, and that all other so-called G.o.ds and so-called religions of other peoples which interfered with this idea must necessarily be false and spurious.
In this respect, our own Christian view is like the others. In pursuance of it, immense sums of money, untiring effort and many lives have been spent by devout believers to convince remote peoples of the error of their doctrines and the truth of ours.
But if an unbiased and impartial intellect were permitted to go about among all the different religious sects on earth, and found each and every one proclaiming with the same fervid conviction the unique and everlasting truth of their doctrine and the error of all others, how far could it get in the way of a reasonable conclusion?
There is a sort of conclusion, which appears fairly obvious.
If any one of the doctrines should in truth be all that is claimed for it--the divine revelation, or the divine inspiration, of an Almighty Providence--then all the other doctrines can be no more than theories, more or less ingenious, more or less erroneous, mere products of man"s imagination. Then countless millions of people for countless generations have been left to lead their lives without a right understanding of life or death, the body or the soul, or the real purpose or design for which they were created and by which they will be judged? Only the few lucky ones who happened to be born and brought up in the one true belief can have the advantage of grasping the situation. To an impartial intellect, there would seem to be something about such an arrangement hardly fair or just to all the other countless millions.
But even so, and admitting what is apparently obvious, how could any amount of reasoning arrive at a decision in the matter?
There is nothing to prove that _all_ the theories and doctrines may be any more than guesses, bolstered up with impressive formalities and imagery, according to the needs and temperament, of the races for whom they were made. Taken as a whole, they suggest a great confusion of ideas and many curious contradictions concerning the purpose of man"s earthly life and the destiny of his soul.
Has man really a soul, at all? In what part of his body is it located?
What ground is there for imagining that it is any more immortal than his heart or his eye? We can study the eye and dissect it and arrive at a fairly accurate idea of how it works. We know that it can be blinded--put out; also we know that if anything stops the heart from beating, the eye, the brain and our other functions cease to operate and become transfixed in death. Why should this not apply as well to the soul, if there is a function in man which goes by that name?
Enough has been said to indicate a few of the difficulties which stand in the way, when we approach the consideration of man"s spiritual nature. A study of the various religions and spiritualistic beliefs which are current in the world to-day would be a tedious task for the average mind and would probably be of little practical use or help to any one.
The same may be said about the scientific theory of evolution. That is essentially an effort of the intellect, focusing the attention on details, processes and stages of development in living things and arriving no nearer to a solution of the unexplainable than we were in the beginning.
Suppose I happen to be impressed by the beauty and wonder of an orange tree, with its golden, luscious fruit, its delicately tinted and deliciously scented blossoms, its graceful leaves and branches, its symmetrical trunk so firmly rooted in the ground? Merely as a piece of machinery, as a little factory, designed to manufacture a certain kind of edible product, it is far more ingenious, economical and generally marvellous than anything the combined brains of mankind have been able to design throughout the centuries. It is automatic, self-lubricating, self-repairing and goes on, year after year, in fair weather or foul, turning out its brand of juicy pulp, done up charmingly in little yellow packages. How does it operate? How does it always manage to get the necessary raw materials from the earth and the air? How do the roots and the leaves and the sap ever contrive to convert these into perfume and blossoms and pulp and pigment?
Now suppose a scientific intellect comes along and, after investigating, dissecting, a.n.a.lyzing, eventually holds out before my eyes a tiny white seed which it has located in the centre of the yellow package--and says:
"This is the explanation of the whole thing. That orange tree is merely the result, by a process of natural development and evolution, of this seed. We have studied it all out, step by step. If you will give us one of these seeds to start with and some ground to put it in, there is no mystery about it at all. We can show you how the whole thing happens. Of course, it takes considerable time--but time is nothing to Nature. In this case, only four or five years are required for the seed to become transformed into a fruit-bearing orange tree."
"But," say I, "your investigations and explanations only add to my amazement. The design and formation of that little seed is even more wonderful and incomprehensible than the full-grown orange tree. Within its tiny compa.s.s, it not only contains all the complicated miraculous processes which convert earth and air and water into fragrant blossoms, juicy pulp and golden oranges, but it contains in addition to that, other miraculous powers which enable it to develop and transform itself into a special kind of beautiful tree, with roots and branches and leaves. As compared to this one little seed, all the greatest inventions and achievements of man seem like the crudest bungling."
"Tut, tut," replies the scientific intellect, "this is only one sort of seed. There are hundreds, thousands of others, some so small that they look like grains of dust. Each one of these is a complete manufacturing plant, perfect in every detail, each designed to turn out a special kind of product, different from all the others. One of the most remarkable points about them is that they require no special materials--each and every one of them makes use of the same common ingredients, earth, air, light, water. From those ingredients, this little machine, for instance, working automatically, can turn out a giant red-wood tree, which will last for centuries. This other little one, next to it, working in the same way, will produce thousands upon thousands of roses, of a certain beautiful shade of color and a certain delicate fragrance. And so it is with all these other little machines, which we call seeds,--however amazing the difference in the kind of product, it is due entirely to certain subtle differences in their design."
"But," say I, "what sublime intelligence conceived the plan of those machines, and what kind of sublimely skilful craftsman was able to fashion them?"
"They were made automatically by the various trees and plants."
"But who conceived the plan of the trees and plants?"
"The trees and plants were produced automatically by other little seeds, like these."
"But the first one of these seeds, or the first one of these trees--who conceived and executed that?"
"Oh, that," says the scientific intellect, "came about through a process of evolution, which extends way back thousands of centuries. We have studied it carefully and reasoned it all out to our entire satisfaction.
"These plant seeds are only one part of it. There are also all the animals and animalculae, including man. There are thousands of different kinds of living creatures and each kind has a distinct design from all the rest, which appears to have been determined by the special purpose for which it was intended.
"As a matter of fact, they are nothing more or less than the results of evolution, natural selection and the survival of the fittest. All we require for the demonstration of our theory, is a little bit of protoplasm at the beginning of things and a ma.s.s of elemental matter in an unformed state."
"But," say I, "are you sure you are not trying to befuddle me and befuddle yourself by the use of obscure words? You use the word "protoplasm"--but if you mean by that a kind of machine, like the orange pit or the red-wood seed, your evolution theory and your scientific chain of reasoning and all your big words merely bring us back to the point where we started and really explain nothing at all. The orange seed, if left to itself in the midst of elemental matter will produce a certain kind of tree and countless oranges. A bit of protoplasm, if left to itself in the midst of elemental matter, will not only produce an orange tree and a red-wood tree, but an elephant, a spider, a human being--all the countless species of living things to be found in the universe. It may take the protoplasm a longer time to turn all this out, but it is a bigger job and time is of small account in such a consideration.
"All I can say is that I prostrate myself in abject and bewildered admiration before that bit of protoplasm. If anything could be more wonderful than the orange seed with which we started, your protoplasm is certainly it. It is a miracle of a million miracles.
"But there is one thing you forgot to tell me--the only thing of any real interest or importance to the average mind in such a theory. What sublime intelligence conceived the plan of that bit of protoplasm--and what kind of sublimely skilful craftsman was able to fashion it?"
"Oh that," says the scientific intellect--"that just happens to be one point which our chain of reasoning has not yet been able to demonstrate in a logical and satisfactory way. We have left that out of our theory."
"Well then," say I, "here are trees and flowers and animals and mankind, each perfectly adapted for the special function on earth for which they were apparently designed. The plan of them appears to have been determined, somewhere, somehow, by a sublime intelligence which surpa.s.ses understanding, for some sublime purpose, apparently, which I am yearning to know. All the details, complications and a.s.sumptions of your theory when boiled down to simple terms seem more or less of a quibble on words and meanings.
"Your conclusions are of much the same sort as those of the intellectual cynic whom we quoted in connection with sympathy and affection. He undertook to prove with a chain of reasoning that I obey only motives of selfishness when I shed tears of grief because my friend has lost his only son."
Here we are living together on earth to-day, and here were our fathers and forefathers living, in the same general way with the same general instincts and feelings, as far back as we have any record of; and here presumably will our children and their descendants continue to be living, as far as our imagination can carry us. Whether the process of our creation involved a bit of protoplasm in the midst of chaos, or whether we were evolved from a thought and a breath of an Almighty G.o.d, is of very slight consequence as a human consideration.
In view of the wonderful harmony and fitness of the countless processes and things which we see everywhere about us in nature, it is not strange that mankind seems always to have taken it for granted that a supremely wise and a supremely resourceful intelligence of some sort is responsible for it all. The beginning, the end, the scheme and purpose of so many miracles, extend into the beyond, the unknown, the incomprehensible. What the Supreme Being is like--how or why He came into existence--where matter or life first came from--or even what the connection is between the creatures of this world and the countless stars and planets which may be other worlds--all this is shrouded in the mystery of mysteries.
If we get to thinking very much about it, one of the effects is to make the affairs of man and the like of man seem tiny and unimportant in comparison to the whole--one kind of little creatures on one little globe, when we know there are thousands upon thousands of bigger globes in the firmament and possibly millions and billions of larger and more exalted creatures on many of them.
But it is only man"s intellect that gets tangled up and discouraged by that kind of reasoning. Another side of man"s nature comes to the fore and disposes of this tangle with more inspiring sentiments. These sentiments tell us that a marvellous scheme of life is at work in our world, every detail of which from the lowest to the highest appears to have received exactly the same sort of sublime consideration--and that of this entire scheme, the spirit of man has been const.i.tuted the leader and master. On this earth at least man is a kind of divine lieutenant, the captain, the commander, the generalissimo of all living things.