- 
 
 - tis ^f^f^- 
 
 
 
 MATTER AND SPIRIT; 
 
 
 OK, THE 
 
 PROBLEM OF HUMAN THOUGHT. 
 
 A PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUMENT. 
 
 BY ELDER D. M. CANRIGHT. 
 
 • W I will praise Thee: for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." 
 
 —Psalmist. 
 
 
 battle creek, mich.: 
 
 Review & Herald Publishing House. 
 
 1882. 
 
 
 f 
 
MATTER AND SPIRIT; 
 
 OR, THE 
 
 PROBLEM OF HUMAN THOUGHT. 
 
 A PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUMENT. 
 
 BY ELDER D. M. CANRIGIIT 
 
 "I will praise Thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." 
 
 —Psalmist. 
 
 BATTLE CREEK, MICH.: 
 
 Review & Herald Publishing House. 
 1S82. 
 
& 
 
 <9$>0 
 
 *5r± 
 
 IE LIBRAltT 
 
 1 
 
 OF CONGRESS 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1882, by 
 
 DUDLEY M. CANRIGHT, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
PUBLISHERS' NOTE, 
 
 The subject treated in this work is intimately 
 connected with many of the problems that are be- 
 ing freely discussed in the religious world at the 
 present day. The publishers believe that the 
 plain and logical method with which the author 
 has dealt with the question will greatly assist the 
 reader in the solution of these problems, and di- 
 vest them of many of their intricacies by estab- 
 lishing correct premises upon which to base con- 
 clusions. Commending it to the careful consider- 
 ation of the candid reader, they send it forth on 
 its mission, asking the blessing of Heaven on its 
 perusal. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 -^-*~-r- 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Introductory * 7 
 
 Organization of Matter Imparts to It New Qual- 
 ities 10 
 
 Confessions of Eminent Men 14 
 
 What Is Matter? 18 
 
 What Is Vegetable and Animal Life? 24 
 
 How Different Species of Plants and Animals 
 
 Are Perpetuated 27 
 
 God Has Organized Matter in Certain Forms so 
 
 that It Does Think 30 
 
 The Beauty and Power of Matter Lies in Its 
 
 Organization 40 
 
 Cause and Effect Confounded 45 
 
 Instinct and Reason 48 
 
 From Whence Comes the Immortal Spirit ? 52 
 
 The Disembodied Spirit 56 
 
 Material and Immaterial 57 
 
 Cause of Infidelity among Scientists 62 
 
 Is Matter Naturally Corrupt ? 63 
 
MATTER AND SPIRIT; 
 
 OR THE 
 
 Problem of Human Thought. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY, 
 
 w 
 ,)S an3^thing too hard for God? Is he not al- 
 mighty? Certain persons limit the power 
 of God when they claim that matter cannot 
 be organized by the Almighty so as to be 
 able to think and reason. They take up a 
 stone, they weigh it, measure it, and divide 
 it, and then ask if that thing can think. Of 
 course not. Examine that piece of wood. Can 
 it think? Take a handful of the dust of the 
 ground, from which all things grow. Is there 
 anything here able to think? They analyze a 
 dead body, and find that it is made up chiefly of 
 water, nitrogen, a little phosphorus, a little sul- 
 phur, and some lime, with a few other earthy 
 materials. Go farther, and analyze a man's 
 brain. It is found to be composed of eight-tenths 
 water, with a little albumen, a little fat, phos- 
 phorus, sulphur, etc. Then they ask us if these 
 
 («) 
 
8 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 elements can think. Can sulphur reason? Can 
 water love? Can oxygen hate? No. Hence they 
 conclude that no matter, in whatever form or or- 
 ganization, can be made to think. And, therefore, 
 all intelligences, whether men, angels, or Deity, 
 must be immaterial. So heaven is fancied to be 
 a vast region entirely void of matter. God who 
 dwells there has no body, no form, no visible 
 parts, but is a mere essence pervading all space. 
 The angels are the same in essence, having no 
 bodies, being nothing that can be felt, or handled, 
 or seen. The souls of men are the same also in 
 kind, — bodiless, intangible essences. All matter 
 is incapable of thought, and all intelligence pro- 
 ceeds from immateriality. One more assumption, 
 and the hard labored conclusion is triumphantly 
 reached; namely, Whatever is immaterial is in- 
 destructible and therefore immortal. Hence the 
 thinking part of man is immortal. 
 
 But let us examine this pretentious fabric. If 
 God is without body, parts, or shape, a mere es- 
 sence filling all space, and if angels and the souls 
 of men are the same, only smaller, then how can 
 either be a person, or' have a separate existence 
 from the other? But waiving this, where is the 
 proof that an immaterial being cannot be de- 
 stroyed? Has God said so? No. Do they know 
 it by experience? No. Then it is .a mere ground- 
 less assumption. This theory of the immaterial- 
 ity of the soul is a modern invention to sustain 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 9 
 
 the tottering notion of the soul's immortality. 
 But the most noted theologians now confess that 
 immateriality does not prove immortality. That 
 which had a beginning can have an end. What 
 God has made, he can destroy. 
 
 But to the question, Can God organize matter 
 so that it can think? we answer, Yes. But our 
 opponents say, "A stone, a stick, dust, water, 
 iron,— these are material. They have no intelli- 
 gence. Hence matter cannot think." True, mat- 
 ter in these particular forms cannot think ; but it 
 does not follow that it cannot in a different form, 
 or when differently organized. A ball of snow is 
 very white and very cold. It is material. Shall 
 I therefore conclude that all matter must be white 
 and cold? A piece of coal is just as material 
 as the snow-ball; and yet it is very black, just 
 opposite in color from the snow. Again, burn- 
 ing coal is very hot, just the opposite of the cold 
 snow. Has it ceased to be material? Lift that 
 block of lead. How very heavy! Now handle 
 those feathers. How light! They seem to be 
 just the opposite of each other, yet both are mat- 
 ter. One form of matter is sour, as a lemon ; an- 
 other is sweet, as sugar. 
 
 Indeed, the various combinations of matter 
 may be said to be almost infinite. Yet it takes 
 only a very few original or primary elements to 
 make all these. " The number of the elements, or 
 simple substances, with which we are at present 
 
10 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 acquainted, is sixty-four. These substances are 
 not all equally distributed over the surface of the 
 earth: most of them are exceedingly rare, and 
 only known to chemists. Some ten or twelve 
 only make up the great bulk, or mass, of all 
 the objects we see around us." * But God has so 
 variously arranged and organized these few ele- 
 ments that many forms seem the very opposite 
 of others, as we have mentioned; as heat and 
 cold, black and white, light and heavy, sour and 
 sweet, and yet all are material. 
 
 ORGANIZATION OF MATTER IMPARTS 
 TO IT NEW QUALITIES, 
 
 It is objected that no combination or organiza- 
 tion of material particles can give to matter any 
 new qualities it did not possess before. But nature 
 furnishes a thousand illustrations contradicting 
 this statement. One of the characteristic prop- 
 erties of steam is its remarkable elasticity; but 
 when it is condensed into water, this property of 
 the matter entirely disappears, and is replaced by 
 an exactly opposite property called incompressibil- 
 ity. So hardness and brilliancy are distinctive 
 properties of the diamond, yet both these totally 
 disappear when the gem is converted into a gas, 
 though not a particle of the matter is lost. So a 
 
 * Wells' Natural Philosophy, pp. 11, 12. 
 
ORGANIZATION OF MATTER. 11 
 
 cold piece of steel is hard and brittle, but when 
 heated, is soft and ductile. Here is a cold lump 
 of lime. I pour upon it a quantity of cold wa- 
 ter, and immediately both become extremely hot. 
 Who has not seen two colorless liquids when 
 poured together become of a bright color, as red 
 or pink? A candle is burning in a room. I blow 
 out the blaze, and all is total darkness. Have I 
 destroyed a particle of that matter? No; yet I 
 have destroyed the light which was a property of 
 that matter in that condition. A change of con- 
 dition in matter, then, does change its properties. 
 So it is reasonable that by the organization of 
 particles in the brain, thought may be produced 
 when none of those particles separately could 
 think. 
 
 I hold in my hand two kernels of corn exactly 
 alike. I plant one, and it has the property of ap- 
 propriating to itself the particles of matter which 
 surround it, and of building up a stalk of corn. 
 The other kernel I break up fine, and carefully 
 bury every particle of it together. Can it 
 sprout? Can it grow? Will it now build up a 
 stalk? No, indeed. Why? Simply because I 
 have broken up the peculiar arrangement of its 
 particles which gave it the property to do that. 
 The particles are all there, but differently arranged. 
 In crushing that kernel to meal did I drive out a 
 living, immaterial spirit entity which now goes off 
 to live somewhere else? No one claims such a 
 
12 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 thing. Organization, then, does give to matter 
 qualities which it does not possess unorganized. 
 Now take a higher organization, — a living man. 
 He is thinking. A timber falls and crushes him 
 to death. Can he think or reason now? No, 
 and why not? That organization which gave 
 him this attribute is destroyed, and hence thought 
 ceases. 
 
 We utterly deny the distinction between mat- 
 ter and spirit which is claimed. We believe that 
 everything is material, and that these diversities 
 previously mentioned are only different conditions 
 of matter. No man can successfully deny this. 
 The wisest and most scientific men freely admit 
 that they know but little abort matter. The 
 more they study, and the deeper they search into 
 it, the more they are convinced that its different 
 attributes and capabilities have been but partially 
 understood. Because a certain fact is true of 
 matter in one condition, it is argued that it must 
 be true of matter always and everywhere. But 
 this is illogical and false, for matter is capable of 
 infinite diversity. Matter in one form may even 
 seem to be the opposite of the same matter in an- 
 other form. For instance, I have before me a 
 piece of ice. I put my hand upon it; it is ex- 
 ceedingly cold. It is a square block ; I can cut it 
 with a knife, or saw it with a saw into blocks. 
 It is solid. But I put this ice into a vessel and 
 warm it. It soon becomes water, — a liquid. It 
 
ORGANIZATION OF MATTER. 13 
 
 now looks very different from that piece of ice 
 which I held in my hand a few minutes before. 
 I closely confine this water in a tight vessel, and 
 heat it very hot. It now becomes steam, a vapor, 
 and is invisible. Says Mr. Wells, " Steam, which 
 is the vapor of boiling water, is invisible, but 
 when it comes in contact with air, which is cooler, 
 it becomes condensed into small drops, and is thus 
 rendered visible."* It is so hot it would scald 
 your hand in a moment. It can neither be cut, 
 nor poured from vessel to vessel. It now seems 
 to be precisely the opposite from that piece of. ice, 
 and yet it is the very same material, only in an- 
 other condition. 
 
 If a man had never seen ice thus converted into 
 steam, he would pronounce such a change impos- 
 sible. Let him examine a piece of ice, put his 
 hands upon it, and then let him examine steam in 
 its most heated condition ; let him try it with his 
 hand, then tell him that they are both the same 
 material, and he would pronounce it the greatest 
 absurdity imaginable. Yet we all know by act- 
 ual observation that ice, and water, and steam 
 are only different conditions of the same material. 
 
 There is apparently as great a difference be- 
 tween steam and ice as is claimed by our oppo- 
 nents between spirit and matter. We claim, 
 therefore, that they cannot show that a spirit is 
 not one form of matter. The Bible nowhere says 
 
 * Wells' Natural Philosophy, p. 238. 
 
14 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 it is not. On the other hand, it plainly shows 
 that it is. 
 
 So because matter in one form does not reason, 
 it is no evidence that it cannot when organized in 
 some other way. Look at that coarse, filthy mud 
 in the road. That is matter. Shall we conclude 
 that all matter is like that? How absurd! for 
 here lies a beautiful gold watch, measuring off the 
 seconds, minutes, and hours in exact time! The 
 watch is as material as the mud, but how differ- 
 ent! Again, there is a piece of black charcoal, 
 hardly worth picking up. Here is a diamond of 
 priceless value, one as large as a thimble being 
 worth millions. Two small diamond ear-rin^s 
 sold for $75,000. One diamond owned by Napo- 
 leon was worth $1,000,000. The king of Portugal 
 has one worth $28,000,000. Now, that charcoal 
 and that diamond are not only both material; but, 
 wonderful to tell, they are both of exactly the 
 same material, only differently arranged. The 
 contrast between senseless matter and thinking 
 matter would not be greater. 
 
 CONFESSIONS OF EMINENT MEN, 
 
 How presumptuous for puny man, with his 
 narrow range of vision and almost utter ignorance 
 of the ways and means of the Almighty, and the 
 endless capabilities of matter, to say what God 
 
CONFESSIONS OF EMINENT MEN. 15 
 
 can do with matter and what he cannot do! 
 Though for six thousand years men have been 
 using matter, handling matter, eating it, drinking 
 it, wearing it, surrounded on every side by mat- 
 ter, and they themselves are made of it; yet how 
 little do they know about it ! 
 
 The most profound philosophers, the keenest 
 students of nature, the sharpest chemists, acknowl- 
 edge their ignorance of the simplest forms and 
 operations of matter. Bishop Clark makes this 
 confession : " If it is asked what is meant by mat- 
 ter, or what matter is, we must confess that we 
 know not what constitutes its essence. In this 
 respect its ontology is beyond our reach; and the 
 only advance we find it possible to make is to 
 point out some of the properties of matter as dis- 
 cerned by our senses, and to exhibit some of the 
 laws by which it is governed." * 
 
 Yes, all that the wisest man can do is to tell a 
 few of the laws and properties of matter. Here 
 they are stranded on the shore. The great ocean 
 lies beyond them, all unknown. So said Sir 
 Isaac Newton, the prince of philosophers. An- 
 other learned author says: "All the great forces 
 or agents in nature, those which produce, or are 
 the cause of, all the changes which take place in 
 matter, may be enumerated as follows: Internal, 
 or molecular forces, the attraction of gravitation, 
 heat, light, the attractive and repulsive forces of 
 
 *Man All Immortal, p. 21. 
 
16 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 magnetism and electricity, and finally, a force or 
 power which only exists in living animals and 
 plants, which is called vital force. Concerning 
 the real nature of these forces, we are entirely ig- 
 norant In the present state of science, 
 
 it is impossible to know whether they are merely 
 properties of matter, or whether they are forms of 
 matter itself." * When scientific men make such 
 confessions of their ignorance of matter, others 
 would better be more modest in their statements. 
 
 All confess that they know as little about what 
 spirit is as about what matter is. Here is what 
 a believer in im materialism says, "Now we are 
 frank to confess that we do not know precisely 
 what a spiritual body is. Some of its character- 
 istics may be, perhaps, pretty well defined, and 
 that is about as far as we can go." •)• A doctor 
 of divinity says, -"It must not be thought amiss, 
 nor awaken surprise, if we confess that we know 
 not in what the essence of soul, or spirit, con- 
 sists." I They can neither tell what matter is 
 nor what spirit is, so they are all compelled to 
 confess. Then how do they know that spirit is 
 not one form of matter ? Is not the spirit located 
 in the body? Certainly. Well, whatever has lo- 
 cality must have extension, must have a center 
 and circumference, and hence must be material. 
 
 * Wells' Natural Philosophy, p. 21. 
 
 f N. V. Hull, Editor Sabbath llecvrder, Aug. 30, 1877. 
 
 jMan All Immortal, p. 29. 
 
CONFESSIONS OF EMINENT MEN. 17 
 
 Newham writes: "We do not consider the ques- 
 tion of the materiality of the soul as being very 
 important, because what we call spiritual may, 
 in fact, be an infinitely fine modification of mat- 
 ter, far too subtile to be apprehended by our pres- 
 ent powers." * 
 
 Dr. Knapp says: " This doctrine respecting the 
 immateriality of the soul, in the strict philosoph- 
 ical sense of the term, is of far less consequence 
 to their religion than is commonly supposed. 
 The reason why so much importance has been 
 supposed to be attached to this doctrine is, it was 
 considered as essential to the metaphysical proof 
 of the immortality of the soul. But since the im- 
 materiality of the soul, in the strictest sense, can 
 never ^>e made fully and obviously certain, what- 
 ever philosophical arguments may be urged in its 
 favor, the proof of immortality should not be 
 built upon it. -(• 
 
 To these pertinent testimonies we add one more, 
 that of the renowned philosopher, John Locke, 
 who says: "We have the ideas of matter and 
 thinking, but possibly shall never be able to know 
 whether any mere material being thinks or not; 
 it being impossible for us, by the contemplation 
 of our own ideas, without revelation, to discover 
 whether Omnipotence has not given to some 
 systems of matter, fitly disposed, a power to per- 
 
 *Body and Mind, p. 97. 
 | Christian Theology, Vol. ii, p. 373. 
 
18 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 ceive and think, or else joined and fixed to matter 
 so disposed, a thinking, immaterial substance; it 
 being, in respect of our notions, not much more re- 
 mote from our comprehension to conceive that God 
 can, if he pleases, superadd to matter a faculty of 
 thinking, than that he should superadd to it an- 
 other substance, with a faculty of thinking; since 
 we know not wherein thinking consists, nor to 
 what sort of substance the Almighty has been 
 pleased to give that power which cannot be in 
 any created being but merely by the good pleas- 
 ure of the Creator. For I see no contradiction in 
 it, that the first eternal thinking Being should, if 
 he pleased, give to certain systems of created, 
 senseless matter, put together as he thinks fit, 
 some degrees of sense, perception, and thought." * 
 Then, for all that the wisest men can tell, it may 
 be matter after all which thinks. 
 
 WHAT IS MATTER? 
 
 Who can tell what light is? You are in a 
 dark room. You hold in your hand a match. 
 It is nothing but a bit of wood and a little phos- 
 phorus, — both gross matter, and no light in either 
 of them. You scratch the match, and lo ! the 
 whole room is full of light. What is that light? 
 It is not a living thing, an immaterial intelligence, 
 
 * Essay, Book iv., chap. 3. 
 
WHAT IS MATTER? 19 
 
 is it? No ; it must be matter in some form, or some 
 action of matter. But why does it give light? 
 We see that it does, but it is hard to tell why. 
 Is not the production of light out of these dark 
 materials in the above case as wonderful as the 
 production of thought by the human, material 
 brain? The one is as inexplicable as the other. 
 Light travels with the velocity of 180,000 miles 
 a second, that is, seven times around the earth 
 while you are winking your eye once ! Yet this 
 same light is either material or some action of 
 matter; for it can be analyzed. Pass a ray of 
 light through a prism, and it is separated into 
 seven distinct parts; viz., red, orange, yellow, 
 green, blue, indigo, and violet * Can the body 
 of an angel be of a purer or higher substance than 
 this? It may be; for perhaps God has matter in 
 his great laboratory far more refined than any 
 with which we have to do. 
 
 " As there are forces in the universe unknown 
 and even inconceivable to man, so there may also 
 be celestial bodies called spirits totally unlike 
 what he sees about him, real and substantial each 
 in its kind, but too subtile for human understand- 
 ing. Science asserts that there is no such thing as 
 pure space. The air is displaced by our walking- 
 through it, and the ether may be cut in twain by 
 an angel's winged form, our eyes perceiving 
 neither air, ether, nor angel. Man's ignorance of 
 
 * Wells' Natural Philosophy, p. 320. 
 3 
 
20 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 the essence of things is too patent. Spirits, good 
 and bad, belong to the realm of the supernatural, 
 are of the order of the celestial material, but not 
 gross. I think God may have some other sub- 
 stances besides ' oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon ' out 
 of which to make them. Science, very probably, 
 could neither 'weigh, analyze, nor measure' Ga- 
 briel. Nevertheless, this royal being is somebody, 
 and immateriality, as referred to him and his 
 heavenly fellows, is a misnomer, a theological 
 blunder." * 
 
 But it is not necessary to suppose any other 
 substances than those with which we are already 
 acquainted. A being created out of light, elec- 
 tricity, air, and heat would be sufficiently ele- 
 vated to meet our highest conceptions of even a 
 seraph. What is heat? I enter a cold room. 
 The. stove is cold, the wood is cold, the match is 
 cold. I light the match, ignite the wood, and 
 shortly the room is filled with heat. What is 
 that? From whence did it come? It is produced 
 by gross matter and nothing else. We can feel 
 it, we can see the effects of it; but here our 
 knowledge stops. Neither heat nor light has any 
 weight. Take the most powerful burning-glass, 
 and pour ten thousand rays of light upon the 
 most delicate balance, and they will have no per- 
 ceptible weight. So an iron rod as cold as ice, or 
 
 *I). T. Taylor, in Bible Banner, 
 
WHAT IS MATTER? 21 
 
 white hot does not vary a particle in weight.* 
 What are they then? Not immaterial, intelli- 
 gent spirits certainly. They are either a subtile 
 kind of matter, or the action of matter in certain 
 conditions. 
 
 Brand's "Encyclopedia of Science" says, "The 
 cause of the phenomena of heat is unknown ; but 
 they are supposed to depend upon the presence of a 
 highly attenuated, imponderable, and subtile form 
 of matter, the particles of which repel each other, 
 but are attracted by other bodies." -|* 
 
 That wonder of all wonders, — electricity, — 
 what is it? All nature is running-over full of it, 
 — the earth, the clouds, the metals, our own 
 bodies; yet who can explain it? It is easily pro- 
 duced by rubbing two pieces of matter together, 
 as glass and silk, or a child's hand and a cat's 
 back. See the electric sparks fly! Take this 
 simple fact, now of every-day occurrence. A man 
 stands in New York. He touches the end of a 
 wire, and a man across the ocean in London im- 
 mediately perceives the fact. He cannot explain 
 how this is done. We say it is done by electricity. 
 Ah! but what is electricity? Is it an immaterial, 
 intangible, conscious spirit from the other world? 
 Three centuries ago it probably would have been 
 explained as such, but now we know it is simply 
 an action of matter, wonderful as it is. It is pro- 
 
 * Wells' Natural Philosophy, pp. 293, 207. 
 tArt f , Heat. 
 
22 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 cluced from matter; hence it must be either a 
 subtile kind of matter, or the product of matter. 
 Any way, its whole origin is material. It is not 
 an immaterial intelligence. Says Mr. Wells, 
 "Neither do we know whether electricity is a 
 material substance, a property of matter, or the 
 vibration of ether."* 
 
 The nature and action of electricity is just as 
 marvelous as that of thought itseJf. It is no 
 more wonderful or unreasonable that the nat- 
 ural brain should produce thought than that a 
 piece of glass should produce electricity. Every 
 year scientific investigation is revealing new 
 wonders of matter. A man only exposes his ig- 
 norance when he says matter cannot do this and 
 cannot do that. He is simply asserting that of 
 which he knows nothing. It is our humble 
 opinion, well founded, we think, too, both in rev- 
 elation and science, that angels and the celestial 
 beings are as material as men, only that they are 
 more highly organized, more refined, — matter on 
 a higher plane. Who that has carefully observed 
 the wonderful and infinite diversity of matter, 
 even as seen in this earth, will deny the reason- 
 ableness of this position? It cannot be disproved, 
 to say the least. When we have found out God 
 to perfection, have entered into his secret labora- 
 tory, when we have explored earth, heaven, and 
 hell, and have fathomed all the infinite diversities 
 
 * Wells' Natural Philosophy, p, 369 
 
WHAT IS MATTER? 23 
 
 and capabilities of matter, then, and not till then, 
 will it do for us to say what God can do with 
 matter and what he cannot do. 
 
 Attraction of gravitation, what is it? It is 
 that power which 1 holds all bodies down to the 
 earth. It pulls the apple off the tree, and causes 
 it to fall to the ground. I hold a stone in my 
 hand. I let it go, and it falls to the ground. 
 Why is this? Because attraction pulls it there. 
 Attraction operates upon all bodies in the universe, 
 however distant: The sun attracts the earth, and 
 holds it in its orbit. Says Wells, " Every portion 
 of matter in the universe attracts every other 
 portion."* 
 
 Attraction, then, is either a very subtile kind 
 of matter or else the product of matter. Its source 
 is wholly material. Imagine the tremendous 
 power with which the sun attracts this huge 
 earth. Hitch ten thousand monster ropes and 
 chains to Jupiter, fasten the other end to the 
 earth, and then let the earth drop. How quickly 
 all would be snapped in twain ! Yet the sun, by 
 the simple power of attraction, holds this same 
 earth as easily as a boy holds his kite. But can 
 you dissect attraction? Can you cut it and carve 
 it? Can you see it and handle it? Can you 
 hear, smell, or taste it? Can you say it is so long, 
 so wide, and so high? it is black or white, sweet 
 or sour? No; it is just as indefinable and inscru- 
 
 * Natural Philosophy, p. 30. 
 
24 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 table as thought itself. Yet no one claims that 
 it is a living being. Its root and source is in 
 matter and of matter. Till our theologians can 
 explain some of these wonders of matter, they 
 need not come to us with their assumptions that 
 matter cannot think, because we cannot tell how 
 it thinks. 
 
 WHAT IS VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL 
 LIFE? 
 
 Who can explain so simple a thing as vegetable 
 life, that force by which all vegetables grow? I 
 have in my hand a seed. It is round, hard, and 
 apparently lifeless. I can weigh it, measure it, 
 open and dissect it. I now take a handful of 
 common earth, mere particles of dust. There is 
 no life here that I can see. This dust I can weigh, 
 measure, divide, and analyze. I put the seed into 
 it, and add a few drops of water. The water I 
 can handle, measure, and analyze. It is com- 
 posed of oxygen and hydrogen, — common matter 
 in its crudest form. All these elements are noth- 
 ing but matter. Now can matter do anything? 
 Can it stir itself? Can it move? Can it arrange 
 itself in a different manner from that in which 
 you place it? Our immaterialist friends say, No, 
 never; but we say, Yes, when vitalized. 
 
 Now look. Shortly that seed swells out, — be- 
 comes larger. A little sprout begins to put forth, 
 
VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL LIFE. 25 
 
 and tiny roots are thrown out. Particles of that 
 water are taken up, and atoms of matter are ap- 
 propriated. Day by day a stalk grows up inch 
 by inch, until it stands six feet high and two inches 
 through. Is not all this matter from beginning 
 to end? Is it not all done by matter? Yes. None 
 would be so foolish as to claim that that stalk in- 
 closed an immaterial, intelligent entity, to which 
 this action is due. It is done by the power of 
 vegetable life which the Creator has stored in that 
 little seed, a particle of matter. Ah ! there is the 
 secret of it. The principle of life, vegetable life, 
 has been placed there by God. Then inanimate 
 matter can be endowed by the Creator so as to 
 move, and act, and live. Open that green stalk 
 of corn, and you will find that the sap is con- 
 stantly running up through all its pores. There 
 is life and action; yet it is nothing but matter 
 after all, — matter vitalized. So we see a brain 
 growing larger and stronger and developing 
 thought daily. How and why we don't know 
 any more than why the plant grows. If we as- 
 sume an immaterial spirit to do the thinking in 
 the brain, we may just as reasonably assume one 
 to do the growing in the plant. But can that 
 stone, that piece of iron, grow? No; God has 
 never bestowed that power upon these, but he has 
 upon other matter, or rather matter in other 
 forms. Is it, then, any harder for God so to or- 
 ganize and endow matter that it will think and 
 
26 
 
 MATTER AND SPIttlT. 
 
 reason, than it is to give it vegetable life so that 
 it will grow? 
 
 But going a step higher than vegetable life, we 
 have animal life. First we have matter in its 
 crudest form, a mere lifeless mass. The next step 
 higher, as we have seen, is matter in the vege- 
 table form, with vegetable life. The next and 
 third step in matter is when it is organized in the 
 animal. This is seen in the dumb brutes in com- 
 mon with man. Some orders of vegetable life and 
 of animal life are so nearly alike that it is some- 
 times difficult to mark the dividing line. 
 
 But what is animal life? Take that little flea, 
 that fly, that musquito. Each has animal life, is 
 possessed of sensation, of power to do, to move, 
 and to propagate its species. Yet these are noth- 
 ing but matter organized. No one claims that 
 they have immortal souls. Indeed, believers- in 
 the immortality of man's spirit generally agree 
 in denying even intelligence to the higher brutes, 
 much more to the lower. 
 
 Now we ask them to tell us what animal life 
 is? It is not reason, it is not intelligence, it is not 
 an immaterial person, an intelligent, thinking be- 
 ing, dwelling in all these fleas, flies, and, gnats. 
 No ; they say it is simply animal life. Well, then, 
 gross matter can be endowed with life so as to 
 move, eat, drink, propagate, etc. Can these wise 
 spiritualizers put their finger on that animal life 
 and tell us what it is? How long, how wide, 
 
PERPETUATION OF SPECIES. 27 
 
 and how deep is it? How much does it weigh? 
 Can they open and dissect it, can they analyze it 
 chemically? No; yet they are compelled to ac- 
 knowledge that it is an attribute which God has 
 bestowed upon certain organizations of matter. 
 Simple matter has been endowed by the Creator 
 with this wonderful faculty. 
 
 Now we appeal to any candid man to say 
 whether this attribute of matter is not just as 
 mysterious, just as incomprehensible, and just as 
 difficult to conceive of, as that God should also 
 organize matter in certain forms so as to be able 
 to think, reason, and be intelligent. We cannot 
 tell how matter can think, neither can they tell 
 us how matter can live, and yet it does both. 
 
 HOW DIFFERENT SPECIES OF PLANTS AND 
 ANIMALS ARE PERPETUATED, 
 
 Inorganic matter has not the power of produ- 
 cing a living animal, or even a plant ; but at crea- 
 tion God made the first specimen of all vegetables 
 and animals, and gave each the power to reproduce 
 its kind, some one way, some another. Plant a 
 thousand different seeds in the same soil, and out 
 of these same material elements each will con- 
 struct a plant like itself; so each animal begets 
 another after its own kind. How this can be we 
 cannot possibly say, yet there is the fact. 
 
MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 I hold in my hand six little seeds. They do 
 not seem to differ much in size, weight, or color. 
 They are nothing but matter, at the best. I 
 place them all side by side in the same soil. 
 They are moistened by the same dew, warmed 
 by the same sun, and they grow up together. 
 But how marvelous! Each little seed has pro- 
 duced a plant quite different from all the rest. 
 Then look at the various shapes and colors of the 
 flowers as they open their leaves and blossoms. 
 One is red, one is white, another is pink, another 
 violet. Who can explain this mystery ? No- 
 body. Yet this is all the work of mere matter 
 vitalized by the power of God six thousand years 
 ago. Look at that apple tree. It bears sour ap- 
 ples. I take a twig from a sweet apple tree, and 
 graft it into one of the limbs. On that little 
 twig grow sweet apples, while all around it on 
 the same tree the apples are sour. The same sap 
 rises up from the root, and feeds all the limbs 
 alike; but when it comes to that limb, the same 
 sap is made into sweet apples instead of sour. 
 What does this ? Is there a mysterious intelli- 
 gence in that little limb ? Oh ! no. It is noth- 
 ing but matter at work, and gross matter at that. 
 Cannot the God, who can make matter work such 
 marvels as these, make it think. 
 
 Our pleaders for immateriality see such a dif- 
 ference between matter in its higher forms, as 
 when organized into an angel or the higher classes 
 
PERPETUATION OF SPECIES. 29 
 
 of men, and the grosser forms of matter as seen 
 in the lower animals, plants, and minerals, that 
 they conclude these cannot both be material. 
 But we fully belie v r e that the whole difference 
 lies in the quality and superior organization of 
 the matter which the Creator has given one over 
 the other. 
 
 Take another simple illustration. Here sits a 
 skillful painter. Before him are his canvas, his 
 brushes, and several kinds of paint, — all nothing 
 but gross matter. They do not look very beau- 
 tiful in that shape. But now he commences his 
 work. He puts on a little of this paint, a little 
 of that, and some of the other. In due time, 
 lo and behold! there is the fio-ure of an ano-el. 
 The innocence and loveliness of heaven sit upon 
 it. We cannot admire it too much. Ag-ain he 
 takes up the same brushes, with the same paint, 
 and on the same canvas soon is represented the 
 hideous form of a horrid devil. What a contrast 
 in the two pictures ! Can they be of the same 
 material? Oh! yes: the only difference is in the 
 way they are put together, or at most, a little 
 tinting of some other paint is added. With the 
 same material he can paint a plant, a beast, or a 
 man. Then cannot God do as much? Yes; we 
 know he does, for we see it every day. Gather 
 up promiscuously a hundred pounds of vegetable 
 matter, a hundred pounds of brute flesh, and as 
 much human flesh, and analyze them all. They 
 
30 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 will be found to consist largely of the same 
 materials. 
 
 Then, reader, it is the organization that makes 
 the plant, the beast, or the man. Yes, sir; and it 
 is the organization that makes the mind, which 
 neither the stone nor the plant possesses. 
 
 GOD HAS ORGANIZED MATTER IN CERTAIN 
 FORMS SO THAT IT DOES THINK. 
 
 If a false theology had not utterly blinded our 
 eyes to reason and the plainest facts of every-day 
 observation, it would require no argument to 
 prove this proposition. There sits a fly. Is he 
 not material? Is he anything but matter? Will 
 any be foolish enough to claim an immortal soul 
 for him? No: all any one claims is that he has 
 animal life, but no spiritual or immaterial nature. 
 Well, I carefully reach out my hand to put my 
 finger on him. He sees the motion, and, conscious 
 of danger, flies away. Man in danger acts the same 
 as that fly. We know that he reasons in doing 
 so; so does the fly, or else it would not move. 
 I raise my hand to strike that chair, but it 
 does not try to move. Why not, as well as the 
 fly? Because it knows nothing, while the fly 
 understands its danger. 
 
 Here is my dog. He thinks. I know he 
 thinks, for I see the fullest evidence of it. I speak 
 to him, and he moves his head, wags his tail, and 
 
MATTER SO ORGANIZED AS TO THINK. 31 
 
 comes to me. Could unthinking matter do that? 
 No. I tell him to do this or that, and he obeys 
 me. This shows that he knows, that he under- 
 stands what I say. But our opponents say this 
 is nothing but instinct; there is no thought, 
 reason, or intelligence about it. This is sheer 
 nonsense, for which any reasonable man ought to 
 blush ; but be it so, it only helps our case. For 
 according to their own position they must admit 
 that matter can be organized so as to hear, see, 
 feel, and act. I run a pin into my dog, or I 
 strike him. See how quickly and keenly he feels 
 it. He cries out for pain. See his flesh quiver. 
 There is feeling here: none can deny this. So 
 our opponents must now admit that matter can 
 be made to feel. There is no possibility of avoid- 
 ing this conclusion. 
 
 But further. My dog can see. Look at his 
 twinkling eyes. He has as good sight as man 
 has. Does n't he hear also? How acute his sense 
 of smelling! You may deny him a mind and 
 reason, but you cannot deny that he sees, hears, 
 smells, and feels. Well, he is wholly material, as 
 we both agree. Then here we have proof which 
 cannot be evaded in any possible manner that 
 matter can be organized so as to see, hear, smell, 
 and feel. This gives us the whole question ; for 
 if God can organize matter to see, to hear, and to 
 feel, he can as easily organize it to think. Unless 
 they admit that the dog has an immortal soul, 
 
32 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 which they will by no means do, they cannot re- 
 sort to the favorite evasion which is employed when 
 we argue that the human eye does see. They re- 
 ply that it is not the eye that sees, but the imma- 
 terial spirit behind it, which sees through the eye 
 as we see through a telescope. But the dog has 
 no such immaterial entity back of his eye, yet 
 he sees ; so it must be the material eye that sees 
 after all. 
 
 Take another familiar illustration: Here are a 
 dozen hen's eggs. I open one, and find nothing 
 but common matter, largely water with a little 
 phosphorus, lime, etc. I can see no signs of 
 thought or even animal life here, nothing which 
 can see, or hear, or move itself. I put another of 
 the eggs under a setting hen. In a few days I 
 behold a living animal breaking out of that shell. 
 It now has eyes, ears, and can run around,- and 
 feed itself. It can see, hear, and feel. What has 
 wrought this great difference in the matter which 
 was in that egg^ Has God sent an immortal 
 soul down to animate it? Oh! no. Simply the 
 latent animal life in that egg has been developed. 
 It is just the same matter that it was before, only 
 it is differently organized. Now that matter can 
 see and feel. 
 
 Let us carry this further. A man is asleep. 
 Prick his foot with a pin. His foot feels it, and 
 the nerve immediately carries the impression to 
 the mind, and the man awakes, In this case it 
 
MATTER SO ORGANIZED AS TO THINK. 33 
 
 is the material flesh which feels the pin and in- 
 forms the mind of it. It is claimed that the im- 
 material soul is of the same size and shape as the 
 body, and hence it is present in all parts of the 
 body, and that it is after all the soul that feels, 
 and not the flesh? But this theory will not work 
 well for our opponents. According to this view, 
 the immaterial soul of a child can only be the size 
 of a child. Hence it must grow larger as the 
 child grows to man's size. But how can an im- 
 material thing grow? That which can grow lar- 
 ger must be composed of parts. Hence it can be 
 divided, separated, and thus destroyed, and there- 
 fore is not immortal any more than the material 
 body. But to return to that foot. We can pos- 
 itively demonstrate, beyond any contradiction, 
 that in this case it is the material flesh, not the 
 soul at all, which feels the prick of the pin. Here 
 is the proof: Cut off that material leg. Have 
 you cut off the leg of the spirit body which they 
 claim is inside of the material body? Of course 
 they dare not admit that; for if you can cut off 
 the leg of the immaterial body, you could also 
 cut off its head and cut it all up ! No, that will 
 not do; so the leg of the spirit body must be 
 there still, hanging out after the material leg of 
 flesh has been amputated ! What a predicament 
 that must be for the unfortunate spirit leg ! 
 
 But the point is, which feels, the material fleshy 
 leg, or the immaterial spirit leg? We will try it. 
 
34 
 
 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 flesh was there, the prick of 
 
 the 
 
 When 
 
 blow of a cane, could be felt. But now that the 
 flesh is gone, thrust in the pin, strike at it and 
 through it with a cane; is there any feeling? 
 Not a particle, as any man will tell you who has 
 lost a limb. So one told me yesterday, when I 
 asked him, and tried the experiment. Then it is 
 not the immaterial body, but the fleshy body, 
 which feels. Take another case. A man's limb 
 is paralyzed. The nerves no longer act. The leg 
 or arm is still alive, but it has no feeling. You 
 may prick it, freeze it, or burn it; but the man 
 feels nothing. I know a person in just this con- 
 dition. He has frozen all his fingers off because 
 he could not feel when they were cold. What is 
 the difficulty in this case? The material nerve of 
 flesh, the one which feels, is paralyzed and inac- 
 tive ; hence there is no feeling in that limb, though 
 the limb is alive. Now if it is the spirit which 
 feels, and this is present in all the body, why does 
 it not feel as well as before? What can our op- 
 ponents say to this? Nothing; for it utterly de- 
 molishes their immaterial-spirit theory. 
 
 But further: we positively know that their 
 pretended spirit-man inside can neither see, hear, 
 smell, taste, nor feel. How do we know this? 
 Put out a man's material eyes, and can he see 
 anything now? No, nothing at all, as any blind 
 man will tell you. So of all the five senses. De- 
 stroy the material, physical organs of seeing, hear- 
 
MATTER SO ORGANIZED AS TO THINK. 35 
 
 ing, smelling, tasting, or feeling, and the soul can 
 neither see, hear, smell, taste, nor feel. This dem- 
 onstrates that it is the material man which sees, 
 hears, etc. If the spirit can see, why does it not 
 do so? Why does not the soul of the blind man 
 see? Why does not the soul of the deaf man 
 hear? Oh ! you say, it is cumbered with the flesh. 
 Then it cannot see through matter, can it? But 
 it has been always asserted that the immaterial 
 spirit is so superior to matter that it can go 
 through the most solid matter, as through a wall, 
 through a board, through glass or iron. But now 
 this has to be given up, and it is admitted that it 
 cannot even see, nor hear, nor smell through so 
 thin a material substance as the human skull! 
 Poor weak thing ! the material ear can do better 
 than that. Reader, that boasted immaterial spirit- 
 man inside is all a fable. There is no such use- 
 less tenant there. God has organized the mate- 
 rial, physical man to see, hear, and think ; and we 
 see him in the exercise of this power every day. 
 
 In the case of an amputated limb the person 
 still feels it to be there for a time. This is merely 
 because the mind has so long been accustomed to 
 having it there that it still seems that it must be 
 so. Gradually the brain and nerves become ac- 
 customed to the new arrangement, and the sense 
 of the limb's still being there ceases. 
 
 It is a favorite argument with our opponents 
 that matter cannot possibly be organized so as to 
 
 3 
 
36 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 think and feel. Take as a specimen of all this 
 reasoning the following from Rev. D. W. Clark, 
 D. D., Bishop of the M. E. Church, in his book, 
 " Man All Immortal." He has here stated their 
 side as forcibly as it can be done. He says: 
 " We are accustomed to say the eye sees, the ear 
 hears, the finger feels, and so forth; but such 
 language is used only in accommodation to our 
 ignorance, or from the force of habit. It is in- 
 correct. The eye itself no more sees than the 
 telescope which we hold before it to assist our 
 vision; the ear hears not any more than the 
 trumpet of tin which the deaf man directs toward 
 the speaker to convey the sound of his voice; and 
 so with regard to all the organs of sense. They 
 are but instruments which become the media of 
 intelligence to the absolute mind, and it uses them 
 whenever it is inclined or obliged to do so."* 
 This is the doctrine of the immaterialist. It will 
 do very well for them to reason that way in the 
 case of men ; but they cannot do it in the case of 
 the dumb beast, because, as does Bishop Clark in 
 this very book, they claim that brutes have no 
 mind, no soul ; hence in these cases they are com- 
 pelled to admit that the dumb animal does see, and 
 does hear. They have never answered this argu- 
 ment: they never will. They must either admit 
 that every flea, every musquito, every little gnat, 
 has an immortal soul, or else they must admit that 
 
 *Page 75. 
 
MATTER SO ORGANIZED AS TO THINK. 37 
 
 a material animal does see. But if the Almighty 
 can organize matter in a dumb brute so as to 
 see, hear, feel, then can he not do the same in 
 man, and also organize it to reason? But they 
 squarely deny that it is possible for the Almighty 
 to do this. 
 
 Hear Bishop Clark's argument upon this point: 
 " The opinion that even organic matter could, by 
 any possibility, be made to exhibit such power, 
 cannot be received without the most clear and in- 
 dubitable evidence. What is there to be found in 
 the composition of the brain and nervous system, 
 or in their organization, that would lead us to look 
 for the development of thought, feeling, or con- 
 science in them? The brain has been analyzed, 
 and more than eight- tenths of its substance has 
 been found to be water. Indeed, this, mixed up 
 with a little albumen, a still less quantity of fat, 
 osmazome, phosphorus, acids, salts, and sulphur 
 constitutes its material elements. In all cases, 
 water largely predominates. Take even the pineal 
 gland — that interior and mysterious organ of the 
 brain, supposed by Descartes, and by many 
 philosophers after him, to be the peculiar seat of 
 the soul — even this has been analyzed. Its 
 principal elements are found to be phosphate of 
 lime, together with a smaller proportion of carbo- 
 nate of lime and phosphates of ammonia and mag- 
 nesia. 
 
 " If the brain at large constitutes the soul, then 
 
38 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 the soul is only a peculiar combination of oxygen 
 and hydrogen, with albumen, acids, salts, sulphur, 
 etc. Or, if the pineal gland constitutes the soul, 
 then the principal element of soul is phosphate of 
 lime!"* 
 
 To immaterialists this may sound like good 
 reasoning ; but to us it seems wholly inconclusive. 
 It is simply setting aside the power of God entirely, 
 and arguing that what we cannot do, cannot be 
 clone. How foolish ! 
 
 Try his argument on the organization of dumb 
 beasts. I have in my hand a little live mouse. 
 Behold how bright his eye, how keen his sio-ht. 
 Look at his ear. How sharp his hearing. Prick 
 him with a pin. How quickly he feels it. Again, 
 how acute is his smell. How soon he will find a 
 piece of cheese, or detect the presence of a cat. 
 Here we certainly have sight, hearing, smelling, 
 feeling, and, indeed, all the senses. Let us analyze 
 this little animal as the bishop did the brain, and 
 what do we find? " Eight- tenths of its substance 
 has been found to be water. Indeed, this, mixed 
 up with a little albumen, a still less quantity of 
 fat, osmazome, phosphorus, acids, salts, and sul- 
 phur, constitutes its material element. In all 
 cases water largely predominates." We have 
 found simply "a peculiar combination " of oxygen, 
 hydrogen, sulphur, etc. 
 
 * Man All Immortal, pp. 57, 58. 
 
MATTER SO ORGANIZED AS TO THINK. 39 
 
 How unreasonable to suppose that these gross 
 materials could ever see, hear, or smell! No: it 
 cannot be so. There must be an immaterial, 
 immortal, never-dying soul in that mouse, which 
 did all the seeing and hearing. The mouse must 
 have an immortal soul, and the mosquito surely 
 has a never-dying spirit ! Reader, to such absurd 
 conclusions are our opponents driven, to maintain 
 their immaterial theory. It is simply a square 
 denial of the power of God and the common-sense 
 observation of every-day life. Such reasoning is 
 mere appeal to the vulgar prejudices against 
 matter. Let me try it in a different manner. 
 
 Here is a fond mother with a dear sweet little 
 girl of four summers, whom she greatly loves : nor 
 can we blame her for being fond of so beautiful a 
 child. The little girl has bright, twinkling eyes, 
 plump, rosy cheeks, curly hair, finely shaped, 
 dimpled hands, and a fair complexion. She is 
 neatly dressed in the most tasteful manner. How 
 the mother loves to throw her arms around her, 
 and press her to her heart! But stop. Let us 
 put this lovely object into the chemical laboratory, 
 and analyze it. A thorough analysis shows that 
 four- fifths of that body is nothing but water, a 
 few parts albumen, sulphur, phosphorus, salts, 
 acids, and a little fatty matter. Lay them out 
 here each by itself. Is there anything very lovely 
 here? Would you like to embrace and kiss these? 
 Oh, no ; the loveliness is all gone. And yet but a 
 
40 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 few minutes ago, that mother was caressing these 
 very elements in the most affectionate manner. 
 Was she then so much in love with a little water, 
 phosphorus, and sulphur? How ridiculous this 
 seems to be ! It is no more absurd, however, than 
 the arguments of our opponents, — that a little 
 water, sulphur, etc., cannot think. 
 
 THE BEAUTY AND POWER OF MATTER 
 LIES IN ITS ORGANIZATION, 
 
 But the falsity of this kind of reasoning lies 
 just in this: It takes the unorganized, un vitalized 
 elements separately, and reasons as to what these 
 can do, and what these can be, and what they 
 cannot do in this condition. It sets aside the 
 very points at issue; namely, organization and 
 proper combination. It is just like taking an 
 exquisite painting, and undertaking to prove that 
 there is nothing beautiful about it by the same 
 process. Put that painting into the chemical 
 laboratory, wash off the paint with an acid, ana- 
 lyze its elements; and what do you find? A 
 little oil, a few ounces of lead, and several differ- 
 ent minerals. Lay them out there side by side. 
 Now I can sneeringly say, Where is its beauty? 
 Where its comely form? Where is there any- 
 thing to be admired? But how absurd would 
 be such a course? The whole beauty of that 
 
BEAUTY AND POWEtl OE MATTER. 41 
 
 picture is, not in the rough material, but in their 
 skillful combination and arrangement. Destroy 
 the combination, and the beauty is gone, the 
 picture is destroyed. 
 
 Just so foolish does he reason who undertakes 
 to analyze a man's brain, and finding only water, 
 phosphorus, albumen, etc., sneeringly says, " This 
 cannot reason, this cannot think." No, very 
 true; in that shape they cannot. But as God 
 put them together, they can think, and they do. 
 Further than this, we know that a man's brain 
 does think; because in more than one case it has 
 been seen in the act of thinking. A certain man 
 had by an injury a large piece entirely removed 
 from the top of his skull. It exposed two or 
 three square inches of his brain, but did not kill 
 him. Interesting observations were made in his 
 case by physicians. When he was asleep, the 
 brain would settle down, and become greatly 
 contracted. It would be all quiet. The moment 
 he awoke, the brain would grow larger and begin 
 to quiver. As he entered into conversation, this 
 motion of the brain increased. When his mind 
 became agitated, this motion was very rapid. 
 
 What does this show? It shows that the 
 brain does think. The science of phrenology con- 
 firms the fact that the brain does think. It shows 
 that the size and quality of a man's brain deter- 
 mine the capacity of his mind. A large brain, of 
 a fine organization, always gives a giant mind. 
 
42 Matter and spirit. 
 
 Even Bishop Clark thus inadvertantly admits 
 this fact: "A finer and more perfect organization 
 in the human species affords finer development of 
 mental power."* Look at the charts and busts 
 exhibited by the phrenologist. It will be seen 
 that the . organization of the brain has been the 
 measure of the mental man. 
 
 "The average Hottentot is inferior in intellect- 
 ual capacity to the average European ; and this 
 is not because an inferior kind of soul has taken 
 up its abode in the Hottentot's tenement of clay, 
 but because his physical organization is less per- 
 fect. Among the lower animals, mental power is 
 manifested in proportion to the size and quality 
 of the brain; thus the superior sagacity of the 
 monkey, the dog, the horse, and the elephant is 
 owing to the possession of superior cerebral or- 
 ganization. ' The size of the brain,' says Dr. 
 Gray, 'appeai^s to bear a general relation to the 
 intellectual capacity of the individual. Cuvier's 
 weighed rather more than 64 ounces, that of the 
 late Dr. Abercrombie 63 ounces, and that of Du- 
 puytren 62J ounces. On the other hand, the brain 
 of the idiot seldom weighs more than 23 ounces.' "f 
 
 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 con- 
 sidered. Hence it is that a practiced phrenolo- 
 
 *Man All Immortal p. 99. 
 f Immortality, p. 75, by J. II. Whitmore. 
 
BEAUTY AND POWER OF MATTER. 43 
 
 gist 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, 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? 
 Paul truly says, "When I was a child, I spake as 
 a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a 
 child." 1 Cor. 13:12. As the brain grows up to 
 maturity, the mind also developes; and then in 
 old age, as the body grows weak, the mind grows 
 weak also, till you have second childhood, so fa- 
 miliar 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 sometimes the mind 
 retains its full faculties, even to the last breath. 
 But this is a very weak objection, easily an- 
 swered. Cases like these are rare; they are the 
 exception. All parts of the body are not alwa} T s 
 
44 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 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 eye 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-fin- 
 gered young man learning to write. What great 
 awkward scratches he makes ! What is the mat- 
 ter? 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 preci- 
 sion. 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 diffi- 
 cult. He cannot lift much; but he keeps prac- 
 ticing, 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. 
 
CAUSE AND EFFECT CONFOUNDED. 45 
 
 Just so with the mind. An undisciplined, unex- 
 ercised mind is very weak intellectually; but 
 close application and continue^ 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. 
 
 If a child should be born into the world, and 
 grow up without ever having the use of any of 
 his five senses, viz., hearing, seeing, smelling, tast- 
 ing or feeling, he could never have any thought, 
 for he would have nothing about which to think. 
 A babe's mind is a perfect blank. It knows 
 nothing. Every idea it afterward has, it must 
 learn from what it hears, sees, feels, tastes, or 
 smells. This clearly demonstrates that mind, 
 thought, and intelligence come from without, 
 from the material world; and not from Within, 
 from the spirit world. 
 
 CAUSE AND EFFECT CONFOUNDED, 
 
 Those who deny that matter can be so organized 
 as to think, love, hope, fear, etc., have contrasted 
 this action or attribute of organized matter with 
 matter itself; and because the distinctive charac- 
 teristics of matter, such as size, form, weight, etc., 
 are not applicable to these qualities, they have 
 fallen into the inexcusable error of assuming that 
 there must be an immaterial spirit to produce 
 
46 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 thought, love, hope, etc. They ask, Is love round 
 or square? Is fear triangular or hexagonal? Is 
 hope long or short? How much does anger 
 weigh? Thus they entirely ignore the difference 
 between matter and its operations. It is hard to 
 credit that learned men should make such blun- 
 ders, yet it is a fact. Thus Joseph Cook reasons: 
 "When Caesar saw Brutus stab, and muffled up 
 his face at the foot of Pompey's statue, was his 
 grief round or square, or triangular. [Laughter.] 
 When Lincoln, by a stroke of his pen, manumitted 
 four million slaves, was his choice hexagonal or 
 octagonal?" "These questions show that the 
 terms which we apply to matter are totally 
 inapplicable and meaningless when applied to 
 mind"* * 
 
 This superficial reasoning would prove that not 
 only beasts, but even vegetables, have immortal 
 souls. The dog is angry, the ox hopes for his 
 dinner, and the cat loves her kitten. Try the 
 same reasoning on the sweetness of sugar, the 
 sourness of a lemon, the elasticity of rubber, and ' 
 the density of iron. Is sweetness round, or sour- 
 ness square, or elasticity crooked, or density 
 triangular? [Laughter.] Then these intangi- 
 ble qualities must be proof of an immaterial 
 spirit in sugar, lemon, rubber, and iron, the same 
 as intangible thought proves an immaterial spirit 
 in man ! What nonsense ! As it is utterly impos- 
 
 • * Lecture on Biology, p. 224. 
 
CAUSE AND EFFECT CONFOUNDED. 47 
 
 sible for SAveetness or sourness, elasticity or density, 
 to exist separate and apart from the material 
 substances which give rise to these qualities, so 
 it is just as impossible for mind to exist separate 
 from the brain which produces it. Just try to 
 imagine pure thought wholly separate and apart 
 from any organized being! How would you 
 describe it? Nay; how would you even conceive 
 of it? You could as well conceive of motion with- 
 out a moving body, or sweetness as an abstract 
 thing without any material substance to produce 
 it. It is astonishing how a false theory will 
 blind the wisest men. 
 
 But it is said with much show of reason, If 
 intelligence is the result of organization, then 
 organization must precede intelligence. Who 
 then organized the first intelligent being? This is 
 simply the old and always recurring question as 
 to the origin of the Creator himself. It is a ques- 
 tion which no theory of existence has ever been 
 able to answer. It is no more difficult for us 
 with our view than for our opponents with their 
 view, for neither the one nor the other can answer 
 it at all. It is infinitely beyond all human 
 reasoning. The eternal pre-existence of God is 
 assumed, and has to be assumed by all be- 
 lievers in a Supreme Being. The how and why 
 of this incomprehensible existence none pretend to 
 know or even guess. 
 
48 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 The assumption that God is a pure, immaterial 
 spirit does not relieve the difficulty any ; for even 
 such an immaterial spirit essence, if there could be 
 such a thing, must be organized into a person, or 
 else it would be only a mere indefinite essence but 
 no person at all. But the God of the Bible is 
 a person, a real being, dwelling in a definite place, 
 sitting upon a throne, etc. Furthermore, those 
 who claim that God is an immaterial spirit, claim 
 just the same for angels. But are not angels 
 organized, personal beings? Did not God create 
 them? To say that they are not organized beings 
 is to claim that they are eternal, uncreated, self -ex- 
 istent, and equal to God himself ! So even a spirit 
 being must be organized. Hence, in assuming 
 that God, is immaterial, the difficulty is only 
 shifted, and moved a little farther off, but not 
 solved after all. In either case it must be admit- 
 ted that organization must precede thought what- 
 ever be the nature of his essence. 
 
 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 brinsr about 
 the infinite diversity which is seen everywhere, 
 from the grain of sand up to the highest in- 
 
INSTINCT AND REASON. 49 
 
 telligence. First we have matter in its coarsest 
 and crudest condition,— mineral matter, unorgan- 
 ized 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 Phi- 
 losophy of Natural History," by John Ware, M. 
 D. He has clearly stated many points bearing 
 upon this question. He says: — 
 
 " We have the most complete specimen of what 
 instinct alone can do in such insects as the ant, 
 bee, wasp, and spider; and of what intelligence 
 can do in such animals as the horse, dog, beaver, 
 and elephant, and more than all, in man. Instinct 
 probably predominates in all the animals below 
 man, and the presence of a true intelligence is not 
 directly detected below the vertebral animals, ex- 
 cept among the higher species of the articulata 
 and mollusca. Its influence becomes more marked 
 as we ascend through fishes, reptiles, and birds to 
 the mammalia; but it is only among the most 
 elevated of the last that it assumes an important 
 rank as a directing power, and it is never a pre- 
 dominant one except in man. 
 
 " Man thus stands on an eminence high above 
 all other animals ; and yet so far as we are able to 
 analyze their character, their faculties are not 
 
50 
 
 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 specifically distinct from his, but appear to differ 
 from them rather in degree than in kind. Animals 
 exhibit the same sentiments, the same affections, 
 the same emotions, the same passions as man. 
 Their lives are governed by certain motives, and 
 are directed to certain objects in common with 
 his."* 
 
 I believe that this author has candidly stated 
 the truth in the preceding extract. We simply 
 have an ascending gradation in the different forms 
 of matter, — mineral, vegetable, and animal, lower 
 and higher. 
 
 Here I might give innumerable examples of 
 clearly denned reason, intelligence, or mind in the 
 lower animals. But waiving all this, we will 
 grant just what our opponents claim, namely, 
 that the dumb beasts never reason nor think, 
 that they are wholly guided by instinct. Instinct 
 moves them to eat, to drink, to open their eyes, to 
 listen with their ears, to smell, to feel, to flee from 
 danger, and to do a thousand things which we 
 observe daily. This is all done by instinct, and 
 the beast is merely organized matter, and nothing 
 else. Now see what follows from this, — the 
 Creator has so vitalized, so organized this matter 
 that it can see and hear, can eat and drink, can 
 rise up and lie down, can defend itself, can come at 
 a call, or go at a command, can work, build houses, 
 
 Even Bishop Clark, 
 
 and do a thousand things. 
 
 *Page 405. 
 
INSTINCT AND REASON. 51 
 
 writing against our position, makes the following 
 wonderful admission: — 
 
 "In fact, surveying the whole ground, we can 
 hardly wonder at the enthusiasm with which a 
 modern writer, quoted by Mr. Brodie, kindles up : 
 ' There is,' says he, 'hardly a mechanical pursuit 
 in which insects do not excel. They are excellent 
 weavers, house-builders, architects; they make 
 diving-bells, bore galleries, raise vaults, construct 
 bridges; they line their houses with tapestry, 
 clean them, ventilate them, and close them with 
 admirably-fitted swing-doors; they build and 
 store warehouses, construct traps in the greatest 
 variety, hunt skillfully, rob and plunder; they 
 poison, saber, and strangle their enemies; they 
 have social laws, a common language, division of 
 labor, • and gradations of rank ; they maintain 
 armies, go to war, send out scouts, appoint senti- 
 nels, carry off prisoners, keep slaves, and tend 
 domestic animals. In short, they are a miniature 
 copy of men rather than of the inferior verte- 
 brata.' This description is highly wrought, but 
 not so highly but that its substantial basis in fact 
 will be readily recognized." * 
 
 Reader, all this is done by mere matter! So 
 the bishop argues ; so our opponents believe. Now 
 if the blessed God can vitalize and organize mat- 
 ter so as to do all these wonderful things, can he 
 not just as easily go a little farther and organize 
 
 *Man All Immortal, p. 95. 
 4 
 
52 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 matter so as to think, be intelligent, and reason? 
 We believe the conclusion is legitimate, and that 
 facts in connection with the human mind show it 
 is the truth. God has organized a material brain 
 which does think and reason. 
 
 FROM WHENCE COMES THE IMMORTAL 
 SPIRIT? 
 
 We now have a few questions for our oppo- 
 nents to answer. If man has an immortal, imma- 
 terial, deathless spirit, we ask, From whence does 
 it come? and how is it propagated? Was it con- 
 scious in a pre-existent state, in some other world, 
 and from thence is sent into the human body at 
 birth? Or is soul created by the Lord at the 
 birth of every child? Or is it begotten, like the 
 body, and perpetuated with the body? One of 
 these three positions must be taken. Indeed, our 
 opponents have always taken some one of these 
 positions, though they are not all agreed which 
 one to adopt. Shall we advocate the pre-exist- 
 ence of the soul, that it lived in some other world 
 before it came into the body? If so, why do we 
 not remember having living somewhere else? 
 Strange that we should have so utterly forgotten 
 all the past. Then, why does not the soul come 
 into the body pure and sinless, inclined to holiness? 
 How does it happen, moreover, that children are so 
 
WHENCE THE IMMORTAL SPIRIT. 53 
 
 much like their parents, in their souls as well as in 
 their bodies, mentally as well as physically? But 
 as none except the Mormons now hold to the 
 foolish idea of pre-existence, we will let it pass. 
 
 Shall we say, then, that souls are created in 
 heaven and sent into each body at birth? This 
 theory would involve a greater difficulty than the 
 other. The Lord must be continually creating, 
 every minute, additional immortal souls. More 
 thanthat, this would make him sanction prostitu- 
 tion and adultery. A child is begotten in adultery, 
 in the most wicked and corrupt manner. Must 
 God immediately create a soul for that child? 
 This would make God a party to sin. Moreover, 
 if God thus creates immaterial souls, he must 
 either make them pure and holy, or impure and 
 sinful. The latter supposition is inconsistent with 
 the character of God; and if the former be the 
 true one, how shall we account for the natural 
 depravity of the human soul? The evidence of 
 our eyes proves that children are. born predisposed 
 to sin, some of them much more so than others. 
 According to this theory a father is not the father 
 of the soul of his child, for that was created in the 
 other world. But how does it happen, then, that 
 children are generally so much like their parents, 
 mentally as well as physically? In fact, this im- 
 mortal-soul theorv breaks down everywhere you 
 touch it. 
 
54 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 Then, again, if the soul is thus created a sepa- 
 rate entity, an intelligent being before it is placed 
 in the body, why do we not remember even that 
 little time that we existed before we were in the 
 body? And again, at what time is the soul sent 
 into the body, and what is its condition before it 
 is placed there? Is it. just at birth, or a little af- 
 ter, or some time before? Does it come fully 
 grown? or is it a baby soul that grows up after- 
 ward? If so, what makes it grow? On what 
 does it feed? Does it grow out of the material 
 which the body eats? Then it must be material 
 itself. No: that wont do. Well, is it placed in 
 the body fully grown — man's size? How, then, 
 can it be cramped up in so small a space? And 
 why does not the soul of a baby reason and think 
 like a man's, if it is a man's? 
 
 If the soul is not pre-existent, neither created 
 directly at birth, it must be propagated with the 
 body. Indeed, this theory has been heJd by 
 many. Says Dr. Knapp, " The reason why this 
 theory is so much preferred by theologians, is 
 that it affords the easiest solution of the doctrine 
 of native depravity."* But the moment you 
 adopt this theory you come upon our ground, and 
 admit that the soul is material. For how could 
 an immaterial soul beget another immaterial soul? 
 Are these intangible souls male and female? and 
 can they beget children? The very idea is utterly 
 
 * Knapp's Christian Theology, p. 202. 
 
WHENCE THE IMMORTAL SPIRIT. 55 
 
 absurd and untenable. No. If souls are begot- 
 ten, then they must be material. This is what 
 all admit who hold this theory. Thus Dr. Knapp 
 says:— 
 
 " This hypothesis is not, however, free from ob- 
 jections; and it is very difficult to reconcile it 
 with some philosophical opinions which are uni- 
 versally received. We cannot, for example, eas- 
 ily conceive how generation and propagation can 
 take place without extension. But we cannot 
 predicate extension of the soul without making it 
 a material substance. Tertullian and others of 
 the Fathers affirm, indeed, that the soul of man, 
 and that sjririt in general, is not perfectly pure 
 and simple, but of a refined, material nature, of 
 which, consequently, extension may be predica- 
 ted."* 
 
 But is this true that souls beget souls? and are 
 spirits male and female? If they are material, 
 and are begotten with the body, then the pre- 
 sumption is that they will also die with it. How 
 much more natural and consistent is the simple 
 truth, that man is a unit, "that his mental powers 
 grow out of his physical organization. A father 
 begets a child of his own person; hence that child 
 naturally partakes of the peculiarities of his fa- 
 ther, both physical and mental. This we every- 
 where see to be the case. "Like father, like 
 son." This accounts for our fallen natures, and 
 
 * Christian Theology, p. 202. 
 
56 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 inherited weaknesses of body and mind. The 
 mental likeness of children to their parents is gen- 
 erally just as great as their physical likeness, and 
 often even greater. With our view of man, this 
 is just what we should expect; but on the suppo- 
 sition that the soul is an immaterial entity sent 
 down directly from God, it is wholly inexplicable. 
 
 THE DISEMBODIED SPIRIT. 
 
 It is claimed by the believers in the immateri- 
 ality of the soul that the disembodied spirit is " an 
 entity " or a " principle," immaterial and without 
 any organism. If the spirit is not an organized 
 material body, then it has no head, no hands, no 
 feet, no eyes, no ears, no tongue, and no brain. 
 But how can a soul sing without a tongue, think 
 without a brain, see without eyes, walk without 
 feet, feel without nerves, and love without a 
 heart? It is strange beyond explanation that a 
 sane man should ever have conceived of such " an 
 entity." A queer kind of a world that spirit 
 land must be ! According to this theory as soon 
 as the soul leaves the body it becomes deaf, blind, 
 dumb, and idiotic, since it lacks every organ by 
 which to gain an idea or to express one ! 
 
 What must be the shape of this immaterial 
 spirit? As it has neither arms, legs, head, nor 
 heart, is it a body? If so, what is its shape? Is 
 
MATERIAL AND IMMATERIAL. 57 
 
 it round, flat, square, oblong, or three cornered? 
 But probably it has no shape, for if it has shape 
 it must be material. 
 
 What then is the size of the spirit? Is it as 
 large as a horse or as small as a flea? But size is 
 a property of matter, and therefore the spirit has 
 no size at all. It is neither big nor little. What 
 nonsense! a real man, and yet have neither form, 
 size, shape, body, head, hands, nor feet! 
 
 MATERIAL AND IMMATERIAL 
 
 It is the weakest nonsense to talk about mate- 
 rial and " immaterial substances." There are no 
 reasons for making such a distinction. The heav- 
 iest metal can be converted into gas many times 
 lighter than the air. Beginning with the heaviest 
 known substance, platinum, we have a regular 
 gradation up through the metals, wood, flesh, wa- 
 ter, air, gas, odor, magnetism, electricity, gravita- 
 tion, heat, and light — all material substances as 
 must be admitted. But are not light, heat, mag- 
 netism, electricity, and air sufficiently attenuated 
 and powerful to meet the popular ideas of an 
 " immaterial substance? " Certainly, and yet these 
 are all either material substances or the action of 
 matter. 
 
 Magnetism is one of the most wonderful forces 
 in nature. The magnetic rays will pass through 
 solid wood, glass, or even platinum, and seize a 
 
58 
 
 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 bar of iron and move it around rapidly. You 
 can see nothing, yet it must be material as the re- 
 sult shows. The air when at rest is unrecogniza- 
 ble by any of the senses. It can neither be seen, 
 heard, felt, tasted, nor smelled; and even when 
 in motion we only recognize it by its pressure 
 on our bodies. It might almost seem to justify 
 the term, " an immaterial thing." And yet this 
 same air is as material as a stone or a tree. It is 
 composed of -J oxygen and f nitrogen. It can be 
 analyzed, weighed, and measured. It has an act- 
 ual weight of fifteen pounds to the square inch 
 upon all bodies at the level of the sea. It has 
 been reduced by extreme cold and immense pres- 
 sure into a liquid substance of the density of wa- 
 ter. 
 
 Any substance we see around us, as a piece of 
 flesh, a garment of cloth, a stick of wood, a stone, 
 or a silver dollar, can be converted into an invisible 
 gas, and yet not a particle of the matter be de- 
 stroyed. It is inconceivable how infinitely small 
 are the ultimate atoms of which all matter is com- 
 posed. " A grain of musk has been kept freely 
 exposed to the air of a room of which the door 
 and windows were constantly kept open, for a 
 period of two years, and during all this time the 
 air, though constantly changed, was densely im- 
 pregnated with the odor of musk, and yet at the 
 end of that time the particle was found not to 
 
 have greatly diminished in weight. 
 
 During all 
 
MATERIAL AND IMMATERIAL. 59 
 
 this period every particle of the atmosphere which 
 produced the sense of odor must have contained a 
 certain quantity of musk." * 
 
 It is a fact worth noticing that from matter in 
 an invisible condition come the most powerful 
 agents in nature, such as steam, compressed air, 
 heat, electricity, etc. It is not at all incredible, 
 then, that God should create the higher order of 
 beings, such as angels, out of matter in an invisi- 
 ble state; yet they would be material all the same. 
 
 In a drop of water there are thousands of liv- 
 ing, moving animals, each one perfect in its way, 
 full of life and activity. And though they are 
 wholly invisible to the unaided eye, yet they are 
 as material as the water itself. With such facts 
 before us, it is not best to hastily conclude that 
 whatever phenomenon in nature we cannot readily 
 comprehend, cannot weigh, measure, and analyze, 
 must be produced by immaterial spirits. Igno- 
 rance, not knowledge, is the source of this un- 
 philosophical notion of an immaterial entity. It 
 is a relic of the superstition handed down from 
 heathenism and the Dark Ap;es. 
 
 Moreover, we would ask these wise men who 
 are so positive as to what matter can do and 
 what it cannot do, how it is that the immaterial, 
 intangible essence which has not one particle of 
 materiality about it, which can in no wise be 
 grasped, nor held, nor handled by material or- 
 
 ♦Wells' Natural Philosophy, p. 13. 
 
60 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 gans, — we ask how this immaterial soul can come 
 in contact with a physical body any way? What 
 point of contact can there possibly be between 
 such a thing and the material brain? How can 
 it operate upon our organs of hearing, smelling, 
 or tasting? In fact, how can it be so closely con- 
 fined in this material form? Why can't it leave 
 the body at will? But it cannot. If there is 
 such a soul inside, we know that the body holds 
 it with a death-like grasp; and however much 
 the soul may desire to flee, it cannot possibly get 
 away till the material body is dead, and has lost 
 all its strength and power to hold even a straw. 
 These difficulties, to our mind, are tenfold greater 
 than those attending the admission of the simple 
 truth that the material brain has been so organ- 
 ized as to think. 
 
 The advocates of the immortal-soul theory 
 freely admit that they cannot explain how the 
 soul can act upon a material brain. Indeed, they 
 admit that they cannot tell what the soul is. 
 Bishop Clark himself thus speaks: " We confess 
 that we know not in what the essence of soul, 
 or spirit, consists. We readily acknowledge our 
 ignorance of the essence, the subject-being, of 
 matter. We make the same confession — and un- 
 der the same limitations — concerning the soul."* 
 Another doctor of divinity says, " We do not un- 
 
 *Man All Immortal, p. 29. 
 
MATERIAL AND IMMATERIAL. 61 
 
 derstand the true nature of spirit, and cannot 
 therefore determine what is or is not possible 
 respecting it." * 
 
 How do they know, then, but that the soul is 
 material after all? They do not know; and af- 
 ter they have argued and philosophized to the 
 end of the subject, one confession like the above 
 overturns all their speculations. They are arguing 
 about something of which they know nothing. 
 
 If the soul is a living, intelligent entity, capa- 
 ble of thinking, moving about, and acting as well 
 out of the body as in it, we ask, What was the 
 use of making the body for it any way? Why 
 not leave it without the clog of this poor, gross, 
 material body? Indeed, if our immaterialist 
 friends are right, it would have been a great bless- 
 ing to the spirit to have left it without the body ; 
 for they are always telling how the flesh weighs 
 down the immortal spirit, and clogs its move- 
 ments, and with what speed the disembodied 
 spirit will travel when freed from the body, with 
 what power it will then act. Then why do we 
 have the body at all? Let those answer who can. 
 
 *Knapp's Christian Theology, p. 202. 
 
 
62 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 CAUSE OF INFIDELITY AMONG 
 SCIENTISTS. 
 
 The intelligent reader is aware that modern 
 scientific men are, to a great extent, becoming 
 skeptical. I am fully satisfied that one great 
 cause of this skepticism is found in the false view 
 which theologians have held concerning mind and 
 matter. Scientific men readily see that, given 
 the first organization of each species to begin with, 
 and all the phenomena of nature, vegetable, ani- 
 mal, and mental, can be readily accounted for in 
 the physical organization. Hence physicians, 
 physiologists, and phrenologists in particular, 
 have been largely inclined to materialism. Says 
 Dr. Knapp, speaking of the view that the soul is 
 material, " It has always been the favorite theory 
 of psychologists and physicians."* Seeing the 
 absurdity of the doctrine of immateriality and 
 natural immortality, they have given up their old 
 theology, and thrown away their religion with it. 
 Had they been taught the true doctrine of mind 
 and intelligence, it would have done much to 
 save them from their skepticism. 
 
 * Christian Theology, p. 202. 
 
IS MATTER CORRUPT ? 63 
 
 IS MATTER NATURALLY CORRUPT? 
 
 These immaterialists are always asserting how 
 mean, corrupt, polluted, weak, and every way 
 inferior, matter is. To hear them talk, you 
 would suppose that matter must be very hateful 
 to God. But if matter is naturally so corrupt and 
 mean, why has God created so much of it? Who 
 made of matter all those numberless millions of 
 worlds on high? Every astronomer knows that 
 they are all as material as our own earth. Ghosts 
 do not cast shadows, but the moon and other heav- 
 enly bodies do. Who made the moon? Who 
 made the earth? the air? the water? the dust? 
 the rocks? the plants? the trees? the insects? the 
 animals? and our material bodies? God made 
 them all of matter; yea, and pronounced them 
 "very good." Gen. 1 : 31. To these very things 
 God always appeals as the highest proof of his 
 power, glory, and Godhead. "The heavens de- 
 clare the glory of God; and the firmament show- 
 eth his handiwork." Ps. 19 : 1. Again: "He hath 
 made the earth by his power, he hath established 
 the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out 
 the heavens by his discretion." Jer. 10 : 12. To 
 the idolatrous Athenians he is introduced as the 
 " God that made the world, and all things therein." 
 Acts 17 : 24. Paul declares that " by the things 
 
64 MATTER AND SPIRIT. 
 
 that are made, his eternal power and Godhead" 
 are clearly seen. Rom. 1 : 20. When the Lord 
 would convince Job of his might and greatness, 
 he pointed to the foundations of the earth, which 
 he had laid (Job 38 : 1-6), to the sea (verse 8), to 
 the clouds (verse 9), to the stars (verses 31-33), 
 to the lightnings (verse 35), to the lions (verse 39), 
 and to all of the beasts of the earth which he had 
 made (Chap. 39). All these are material, made 
 of the dust of the ground. God is not ashamed 
 to appeal to these material things as the highest 
 proof of his glory. 
 
 Is it true, then, that the matter which God has 
 made is so corrupt and naturally sinful as imma- 
 terialists claim? Then God would be the author 
 of sin. God made man of the dust of the ground. 
 Gen. 2 : 7. God made the beautiful and holy 
 Eden of matter, of the ground. Yea; even the 
 tree of life itself grew out of the ground. Gen. 
 2 : 8-15. God's divine Son, who came to redeem 
 men, was a material being. He was born of a 
 woman, had flesh and bones, walked upon our 
 earth, ate its material food, breathed its material 
 air, and drank its material water. 
 
 " It is not wise to repudiate materialism till we 
 see what connection it has with our final salvation. 
 And here we inquire, How are we to be saved? 
 From our opposers, as well as from the Bible, 
 comes the answer, By the death of Christ. Very 
 well. Then could we be saved without his death? 
 
IS MATTER CORRUPT ? 65 
 
 All agree we could not. This paves the way for 
 another important question, If we are saved by 
 the death of Christ, and could not be saved with- 
 out his death, are we saved by the death of a ma- 
 terial Christ? or by the death of an immaterial 
 Christ? Own the truth, let the result be what it 
 may. Did an immaterial Christ die for us? You 
 say No. Then was it not a material Christ that 
 died? Certainly. So you admit that a material 
 Christ died to save us, and that otherwise salva- 
 tion would not have been possible, thus predicat- 
 ing your hope of salvation upon the death of 
 materiality. No matter whether there was an 
 immaterial entity within him or not, so long as 
 that did not die; and we expressly read, "Christ 
 died for us," and " We are reconciled to God by 
 the death of his Son ; " so we are indebted for sal- 
 vation to the death of that part of Christ which 
 could and did die, even if he had forty entities 
 that could not and did not die; and the part that 
 died for our sins was material. Hear it, ye hat- 
 ers of materialism ! The foundation-stone of the 
 system of salvation, from your own showing, is 
 materiality, and there is no escape from the con- 
 clusion." * 
 
 Then in the resurrection, our material bodies 
 are to be saved and immortalized. 1 Cor. 15: 
 51-55. Yes, and finally, this material earth is to 
 
 * Bible Banner. 
 
' 
 
 66 
 
 MATTER AND SPIRT 
 
 HS, RARY 0F CONGRESS 
 
 019 953 543 2 
 
 be purified from the curse, and made the eternal 
 home of the saints. Rev. 21 : 1-5. 
 
 But here I leave this very interesting question, 
 having only glanced at a few of the innumerable 
 proofs in favor of the materiality of all things. I 
 have endeavored to avoid the fine metaphysical 
 arguments which are generally employed on this 
 topic, and use only those common facts of every- 
 day observation with which every child is famil- 
 iar.