PART I.

THE RELATION OF MATTER, THE BODY, THE SENSES, AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM TO THE SOUL.

CHAPTER I.

FORCE AND MATTER IN RELATION TO SOUL.

In some measure we can understand the difference between spiritual power and material force, as alike forms of energy.

We intuitively believe in material substances as occupying space and possessing properties affecting our senses, by which we know them to exist. Without a logical effort we believe in the union between things and their properties. We should be mad if we did not. We also believe that a change in the property or action of anything is a change in the condition of the thing itself in relation to other things. All this we associate with our idea of matter, and of the force, or power, inherent in matter and evinced by its action on our minds through our bodies. But when we speak of mind we immediately think of a power, which indeed we cannot define, but which we nevertheless perceive by our consciousness to be different from any force correlated with the recognised properties of matter. We are therefore unable to believe that mind-power and matter-power are

convertible one into the other. We know they cooperate, but cannot think they take each other's relations, because the laws of their working are not comparable except in a metaphorical sense. Mind implies thought and will, and these imply a thinker. As we know the constitution of a thing by its properties, and cannot conceive of qualities apart from substances, so neither can we think of mental powers and susceptibilities, but as the properties or qualities by which the soul, as a real distinct substantive existence, becomes known to us; and an existence, having such powers and properties as thought, feeling, and will, we can designate only as individual personal and spiritual existence, recognised by each one of us as a conscious being and called I, myself. We cannot believe that the being which perceives by a mental act, has any property or power akin to that of the matter which is perceived.

We derive our primary idea of force or power from the efforts, or acts of will, of which we are aware in moving our own muscles, and in causing other matter to move by their action. Thus we unavoidably connect the idea of active existence with the idea of will-power. At first the young child, with its will at work, personifies everything, because he is conscious of himself in becoming conscious of other agents. Comte contends that primitive man thus believed in the wilful and personal activities of all nature. Of course he did till taught to observe, compare and reason. Not to discover that the material forces of nature are involuntarily subservient to the Will that intentionally created matter and force, is a very childish state of mind, to say the least of it.

Believing in that Will as the source of physical laws and the laws of all creation, we believe in the permanency of existence so far only as consists with the purposes of that Will. And therefore until instructed

by reason, or by fact, that the purposes of that Will require the annihilation of existences produced by that Will, we must believe in the continued substantial and potential existence of whatever is, notwithstanding all the possible changes in their relations involved in their existence under the reign of law together. We, therefore, believing in our own entity and identity, through all changes of which we are conscious, also must believe in our future existence, until convinced that our Maker has a purpose to be answered by our annihilation. But we are not bound by any idea of our bodily connection to believe that our entity and identity as personal beings depend on our correlation with the force inherent in the matter of our bodies. In short, we do not, and cannot confound the power of spirit and that of matter together, as it is proposed we should do. Regarding the terms force, energy, and power, as employed to signify the same thing in the vocabulary of science, we cannot but see a distinction ought to be observed between the use of the word power as applied to the will, which originates a thing or an action, and the so-called force or law of action which maintains matter in its conditions. Will is not blind material force, but a power put forth with intent. By way of illustrating what is meant by force in relation to matter, let us take, say a piece of zinc, and consider its various qualities and possible conditions. What do we learn? That the properties by which our senses are impressed by it are variable, and that its conditions may be vastly altered. The substance zinc may be subjected to all possible modifications of force, and yet the substance, in quantity and quality, remain the same. That is to say, whether we treat it chemically or mechanically, there is a force proper to every atom of it, which, in fact, is essential to its existence. We may produce heat or motion among its particles, so that the solid metal shall flow as a liquid,

or pass into the air as a vapour; or we may combine it with other substances and form alloys with other metals, or salts with acids. The conditions alter immensely, and yet each atom of zinc is recoverable, because, as far as our experience goes, it is indestructible and incapable of transmutation. The force that in each case of its conditional change has acted on it, or with it, has been conserved by passing into other forms or other substances, and yet the zinc itself also has been conserved. Thus the law of force consists with the permanent existence of various elements, or orders of matter; and force and matter, so far as those elements are concerned, are not in union otherwise than as we suppose a force conserved in their atoms themselves, and that is the same as the atoms. We, therefore, must conceive of force as distinct from matter, so far as force alters the condition of matter, and actually passes as heat, electricity, magnetism, and mechanical force, from one order of atoms or matter to another, the matter serving only as a medium of motion. The heat or motion that burned the coal, that expanded the water, that moved the piston, that propelled the machinery, that spun the cotton, might have been made to produce so much heat or electricity, or light, or magnetism, instead of so much motion and so much manufactured fabric; but the coal consumed still existed in precisely the same quantity in its scattered elements. The chemical force of the atoms was not converted into some other force, but the change of relation in the elements of the coal was attended with the motion that became or excited the heat that expanded the water, and so on. It is manifestly absurd to confound force with motion, for motion must commence in a force which produced it; and motion can be nothing but a condition or state in the matter that is moved.

We cannot imagine change in the form of matter without change in the mode of the force acting on it, or

in it. But this is merely saying that the existence of any matter is conditioned by the Power that made it part of the material universe in relation to other parts. Hence we cannot imagine any Power but that which constituted the elements transmuting them, for to transmute would be to alter the whole course and relations of physical existence. For this reason we regard the atomic theory of Dalton, which explains combinations in definite proportions or equivalents, as true, and believe with Professor Tyndall, that the fundamental idea of this theory is perfectly secure.'*

All bodies occupy space, and all power manifested by action on bodies, must act in space. Yet we are not to confound the acting power with the matter of the body. All bodies are either organic or inorganic. The former is always connected with life. Whatever we may think of the relations of force and matter, we know that the world, as perceived through our senses-the world of phenomena connected with material force or motion-is only indicative of the presence of another world behind, of which we have no notion. The world hidden and the world manifest, doubtless correspond with each other, and we might read the one by the other if we had a little more light, and could see the meaning of phenomena in their true relations. With respect to our own existence, we can in some measure understand the fact that there is a twofold embodiment pertaining to each one of us. There is a natural or psychical body by which the soul manifests itself in connection with life in the visible manner so familiar to us. But there is also a spiritual body within the material body, which corresponds with it. Thus, whether the outward body be perfect or not, the soul has always a recognition of a complete body, and always seems to act, as in dreams

*Faraday as a Discoverer, p. 120.