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the soul.

PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE SOUL.

A. We recognise matter by means of our senses, and matter has dimensions. It is long, or short; it is heavy or light, etc. The soul is not seen with the eyes, nor heard with the ears; it is not known by any of the senses. The soul has not an outside and an inside as matter has.

B. We distinguish between ourselves, the soul,-and all matter. We are conscious when we are observing any matter that we,—the soul of the observer—, are different from that matter. We are also conscious that the soul is different from the senses. We are conscious of joy and sadness, but we are conscious that that joy and sadness are not the soul, but only the activities of the soul. Some say that the mental phenomena come from the motions of the brain; but we reply that there is absolutely no proof of this and there is strong presumptive evidence against the truth of this assumption. Mere motions of the particles of the brain cannot account for the feeling and the willing.

The telegraph needs chemicals but what the telegraph says does not come from the chemicals; the brain is the machine and not the thought.

The only manifestation of force that we know anything about is motion, and thought, emotion, choice and volition are not motion.

Again, so far as we know, all the force of the food in the body is expended in the production of heat and muscular

motion.

Nor does the mental power depend on the size of the brain alone nor on the minute convolutions of it. In man the proportion of the brain is to the whole body about as one to forty-eight; in the mouse it is as one to thirty, and in some birds it is as one to twelve. Again, the hog, the seacow and the right-whale are conspicuous among animals for the number of the convolutions of the brain, but those animals are the least intelligent among animals. Again, it is said that the phosphorus in man's brain is the seat of his intelligence, but among animals sheep and geese have the most phosphorus in the brain, and they are the dullest among the animal tribes.

But there are still other difficulties with this theory. Thoughts are registered in the brain and read again; there must be a registerer and a reader; again, the matter of the brain changes constantly but the registration does not change. Then we have another difficulty in the inconceivable number of registrations which are made on the minute.

PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE SOUL.

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surface of the brain during eighty years, according to this theory. Each brain becomes a palimsest as wonderful as the soul itself. And still, again, all the innumerable qualities and peculiarities of each soul-each individual,―must have existed in the first germ for unnumbered generations.

The existence of a spirit solves all difficulties and hence, the hypothesis of a spirit is scientific.

C. The soul opposes the activities of the body, as for example, in sleepiness, faintness, and approaching death. Take the example of the man who resists sleep which closes his eyelids only as the soul within forces them open again. Men resist faintness in the same way. Take the case of Pres. Garfield, who, when a mortal wound was inflicted upon him, one which all analogy and science said ought to have produced death in four, or five days, lived on eighty days, by the force of the indomitable will,—the self, the soul within.

This power is now recognised and acted upon by all our best physicians; in fact, a class of physicians, calling them-selves metaphysicians, have arisen who effect wonderful cures without the use of any medicine whatever, simply by the power which the mind has over the body.

For a vivid illustration of this principle see an article in the Century, for June, 1886, by Dr. J. M. Buckley. He there cites the charming away of warts, by mental power; also that, when at the seige of Breda in 1625, scurvy prevailed to such an extent that the Prince of Orange was about to capitulate, the following experiment was resorted to. "Three small phials of medicine were given to each physician, not enough for the recovery of two patients. It was publicly given out that three or four drops were sufficient to impart a healing virtue to a gallon of water." Dr. Frederic Van Der Mye, who was present and one of the physicians, says: "The effect of the delusion was really astonishing; for many quickly and perfectly recovered. Such as had not moved their limbs for a month before were seen walking the streets, sound, upright, and in perfect health."

Dr. Van Der Mye says that before this experiment was tried they were in a condition of absolute despair, and the scurvy and the despair had produced "fluxes, dropsies, and every species of distress, attended. with a great mortality."

Dr. Buckley also speaks of the use of metallic tractors and the wonderful cures performed by them, but he also states the fact that wooden tractors painted to resemble the metallic

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PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE SOUL.

ones were equally effective "and cured cases of chronic rheumatism in the ankle, knee, wrist, and hip, where the joints were swollen and the patient had been ill for a long time; and even a case of lockjaw of three or four days standing was cured in fifty minutes, when the physicians had given up all hope;" and this all by two pieces of wood having no galvanism about them. He also shows that from his own experience and practice, the application of a silver dollar, or of anything else which the patient has faith in will perform wonderful cures, and he tells of his experiment with a lady, an entire stranger, whose hand was fearfully swollen so that each finger was as large as a child's wrist, and the fist closed, so that it had not been opened for three weeks; he called for a pair of knitting needles and after talking to inspire confidence, he held the needles about two inches from the end of the lady's fingers, just above the clinched hand, and said, Now, Madam do not think of your fingers, and above all, do not try to move them, but fix your eyes on the ends of these needles." To her surprise and that of her daughter, the fingers became flexible and straightened out without the least pain. There is no question that much of the healing which is attributed to medicine is due entirely to the effect of mind upon the body, and that the effect of all medicine is heightened by this; there is no doubt, also, that very many of the faith cures, so called, are due to this same principle. Similar faith cures are not wanting in Japan and in other countries, where the patient, or a friend, makes a pilgrimage to a Buddhist or other shrine and the patient is cured.

D. The soul is self-moved from within in many of its activities, but mere matter, unless moved from without, would remain stationary forever. The motions of animals are really no exception to this principle; they are only moved by external things which gratify their appetites and passions, but man's highest and noblest impulses are for things which have no material existence.

E. The highest activities of the soul do not depend upon force or matter. The whole realm of the higher philosophies and of metaphysics is above the realm of matter and the highest and purest joy of the soul comes from its activities along the line of the immaterial.

So, too, the joy with which millions of martyrs have met torture and death is inexplicable on any merely material theory; thousands of them have sung in the midst of the flames, the soul rising triumphant over the torture of the body.

PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE SOUL.

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F. Some of the phenomena of dreams and somnambulism are inexplicable, save on the hypothesis of a soul. Take, for example, the case of the artist, mentioned by Prof. Haven in his Mental Philosophy, who was in the habit of rising in his sleep and in total darkness, or nearly so, and of working upon the beautiful oil painting which he had left unfinished at night, and then, in the morning, declaring that some better painter than himself had been there in his absence and touched it up, so well was the work done; and it made no difference if a friend who was watching him held a board between his eyes and the canvass; the artist did not notice it at all, but worked on, mixing the delicate shades of colors and laying them on the canvass. If there is no soul which is different from matter and which can rise transcendent above it, how is this phenomenon to be explained?

The case of dreams, when a friend sees the death of another, or the great danger of a friend, at a distance, and learns afterwards that just at this time the friend died, or was in great danger, just as seen in the dream, points to the same fact of the existence of an immaterial soul in man.

II. There is absolutely no proof that the soul dies with the body. It is true that the body decomposes at death and passes out of existence as a body, but that is no proof that the soul dies with it, unless we admit that the soul is material, which is the very point in dispute; those who believe in a soul claim that it is immaterial.

Although, in this present state, the body is the organ of the soul in many of its activities, so that the decay of the organ generally diminishes the apparent activity of the soul, yet, there are enough exceptions to this rule to show that the soul is not necessarily dependent on the body for its activity; take the examples of the somnambulist and the dreamer given above; take the example of Alex. Stephens, who, for fifteen years before his death, was wasted away to a mere skeleton, and yet who was wheeled into the Congressional chamber at Washington and made most masterly speeches sitting in his chair. Take the case of Pres. Hopkins, who, although physically feeble, presided, when over eighty years of age, at the great annual meetings of the A.B.C.F.M., and made speeches which the whole world read. Take the case of the dying hero, Gen. Grant, who when the terrible disease which killed him had wasted away his strength so that he was able to put forth but little physical exertion, wrote or dictated a large part of his massive Memoirs. Take the case of men whom a long fever has reduced to a mere

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PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE SOUL.

skeleton, in whom just before death, the soul rises triumphant over the body and speaks forth with wonderful power and beauty. These cases are inexplicable, unless there is a soul in man. The fact that when the bodily medium of the soul decays and dies the soul gives forth no sounds is no more proof of the death of the operator, than the failure of an organ to respond to the touch of the player would be proof that the player does not exist.

III. The universal belief and expectation of mankind of an existence after death is presumptive evidence of the existence of a soul. Whence this universal belief? All nations during all ages cling to this hope and expectation as the dearest of all their possessions. A belief which is thus universal and persistent is to be considered as true unless there is evidence to the contrary.

Herbert Spencer says, First Prin. p. 4. "We must believe that beliefs that have long existed, and have been widely diffused, beliefs that are perennial and universal, have some foundation and some amount of verity." The burden of proof, in all these cases of a universal belief, is with those who deny it, but in this case there is no proof presented.

IV. The high and exalted powers of the soul are proof that it does not die with the body. Understanding, reflection, judgment, the feelings, memory, hope, fear, all the powers of mind, are high and noble, and there is no limit to their capability for expansion and growth. The most advanced scholar in the world, at the end of his life, feels that he is only partly prepared to live, that he has hardly begun to reach the ideal,-the goal of his being. If this life is all, then man's soul is like the massive foundation of a great temple which is never completed, and man is the only being in all the creation, who does not reach the end and perfection of his being. We look through the whole animal and vegetable world and we find every class, save man, without an exception, reaching the end, the perfection of their being; how unlikely that man, the noblest being of them all, is an exception to this otherwise universal rule, and perishes when he has just begun to reach up towards perfection!

V. We may find at least a presumptive argument for the existence of a higher order of being than man, considered simply as a material being, in the theory of evolution, as advocated by some men who deny the existence of a soul in man, or any spiritual existences higher than man. Leaving