CHAPTER IV.

THE RELATION OF MAN TO NATURE.

There are two widely distinct views concerning the relation of man to Nature; the one as old as the history of human thought, the other only now urged upon us by modern science. According to the one, man is the counterpart and equivalent of Nature. He alone has--in fact is--an immortal spirit, and therefore he belongs to a world of his own. According to the other, man is but a part, a very insignificant part of Nature, and connected in the closest way with all other parts, especially with the animal kingdom. He has no world of his own, nor even kingdom of his own: he belongs to the animal kingdom. In that kingdom he has no department of his own: he is a vertebrate. In the department of vertebrates he has no privileged class of his own: he is a mammal. In the class of mammals he has no titled order of his own: he is a primate, and shares his primacy with apes. It is doubtful if he may enjoy the privacy of a family of his own--the Hominidæ--for the structural differences between man and the anthropoid apes are probably not so great as between the sheep family and the deer family.

Now it is evident that these two are only views from different points, psychical and structural. From the psychical point of view it is simply impossible to exaggerate the wideness of the gap that separates man from even the highest animals. From this point of view man must be set over as an equivalent, not only to the whole animal kingdom, but to the whole of Nature besides. From the structural point of view, on the contrary, it is impossible to exaggerate the closeness of the connection. Man’s body is identified with all Nature in its chemical constituents, with the body of all animals in its functions, with all vertebrates, especially mammals, in its structure. Bone for bone, muscle for muscle, ganglion for ganglion, almost nerve-fiber for nerve-fiber, his body corresponds with that of the higher animals. Whether he was derived from lower animals or not, certain it is that his structure even in the minutest details is precisely such as it would be if he were thus derived by successive slight modifications.

Now, of these two views, the latter has been in recent times enormously productive in increasing our knowledge. Anatomy has become truly scientific only through comparative anatomy; physiology through comparative physiology; embryology through comparative embryology. Sociology is fast following in the same line, and becoming scientific through comparative sociology. Is not the same true also of psychology? Will not psychology become truly scientific only through comparative psychology, i. e., by the study of the spirit of man in relation to what corresponds to it in lower animals? But this view and this method, when pushed to what seems to many their logical conclusion, end in identification of man with mere animals, of spirit with mere physical and chemical forces, immortality with mere conservation of energy, and thus leads to blank and universal materialism. Thus, while it increases our knowledge, it destroys our hopes. Is there any escape? There is. The two extreme views given above are not irreconcilable. As already said, they are only views from different points, and therefore, although both true, are equally one-sided and partial, and a true and rational philosophy, in this as in all other cases of vexed questions, is found only in a higher view, which combines and reconciles these mutually excluding extremes. Can we find such a view? I think we can.

Let us first, however, trace some of the stages of this scientific materialism. There are two main branches of the argument for materialism: one derived from _brain-physiology_, the other from _evolution_. As we wish to be perfectly fair, we will present and even press the argument in both these directions, although the latter alone bears directly on the subject in hand.

In recent times, physiology has made great and, to many, startling advances in the direction of connecting mental phenomena with brain-changes. Physiologists have established the correlation of vital with chemical and physical forces,[40] and probably in some sense, at least, of mental with vital forces. They have proved, in every act of perception, first a physical change in a nerve-terminal, then a propagated thrill along a nerve-fiber, and then a resulting change, physical or chemical, in the brain; and in every act of volition, a change first in a brain-cell, then, a return thrill along a nerve-fiber, and a resulting contraction of a muscle. Even the velocity of the transmission to and fro has been measured, and the time necessary to produce brain-changes estimated. They have also established the existence of physical and chemical changes in the brain corresponding to every change of mental state, and with great probability an exact quantitative relation between these changes of brain and the corresponding changes of mind. In the near future they may do more: they may localize all the different faculties and powers of the mind, each in its several place in the brain, and thus lay the foundations of a truly scientific phrenology. In the far-distant future we may possibly do much more. We may connect each kind of mental state with a different and distinctive kind of brain-change. We may find, for example, a right-handed rotation of atoms associated with _love_, and a left-handed rotation associated with _hate_, or a gentle sideways oscillation associated with _consciousness_, and a vertical pounding associated with _will_. Now, suppose all this, and even much more, be done in the way of associating, both in degree and in kind, mental changes with brain-changes. What then? “Why,” say the materialists, “we thereby identify _mind_ with _matter_, mental forces with material forces. Thought, emotion, consciousness and will become products of the brain, in the same sense as bile is a product of the liver, or urea a product of the kidneys.”

Such is, in brief, the argument. Now, the answer: We may do all we have supposed and much more. We may push our knowledge in this direction as far as the boldest imagination can reach, and even then we are no nearer the solution of this mystery of the relation of brain-changes and mental changes than we are now. Even then it would be impossible for us to conceive _how_ brain-changes produce mental changes or _vice versa_. Physical changes in sense-organs, transmitted along nerve-fibers, determine changes in brain-substance. So much is intelligible. But now there appear--how it is impossible to imagine--consciousness, thought, emotion, etc.--phenomena of an entirely different order, belonging to an entirely different world. So different, that it is impossible to imagine the nature of the nexus between, or to construe the one in terms of the other. Brain-cells are agitated and thought appears: Aladdin’s lamp is rubbed, and the genie appears. There is just as much intelligible causal relation between the two sets of phenomena in the one case as in the other.

Now, this mystery is not of the nature of those which disappear under the light of knowledge. On the contrary, science only brings it out in sharper relief, and emphasizes its absolute unsolvableness. Suppose an absolutely perfect knowledge, perfect in degree, but human in kind. Suppose an ideally perfect science--a science which has so completely subdued its domain, and reduced it to such perfect simplicity, that the whole cosmos may be expressed in a single mathematical formula--a formula which, worked out with plus signs, would give every phenomenon and event which shall ever occur in the future, and with minus signs every phenomenon and event which has ever occurred in the past. Surely, this is an ideally perfect science. Yet, even to such a science, the relation of brain-changes to mental states would be as great a mystery as now. It would even come out in stronger relief, because so many other apparent mysteries would disappear. Like the essential nature of matter or the ultimate cause of force, this relation lies evidently beyond the domain of science. It requires some other _kind_ of knowledge than human to understand it.

But materialists insist so much on the identity of brain-physiology with psychology, that even at the risk of tediousness we will multiply illustrations in order, if possible, to make this point still clearer. Suppose, then, we exposed the brain of a living man in a state of intense activity. Suppose, further, that our senses were absolutely perfect, so that we could see every change, of whatever sort, taking place in the brain-substance. What would we see? Obviously nothing but molecular changes, physical and chemical; for to the outside observer there is absolutely nothing else there to see. But the subject of this experiment sees nothing of all this. His experiences are of a different order, viz., consciousness, thought, emotions, etc. Viewed from the _outside_, there is--there can be--nothing but motions; viewed from the _inside_, nothing but thought, etc.--from the one side, only _physical_ phenomena; from the other side, only _psychical_ phenomena. Is it not plain that, from the very nature of the case, it must ever be so? Certain vibrations of brain molecules, certain oxidations with the formation of carbonic acid, water, and urea on the one side, and there appear on the other sensations, consciousness, thoughts, desires, volitions. There are, as it were, two sheets of blotting-paper pasted together. The one is the brain, the other the mind. Certain ink-scratches or blotches, _utterly meaningless_ on the one, soak through and appear on the other as _intelligible writing_, but how we know not, and can never hope to guess. But when the paste dissolves, _shall the writing remain_? We shall see.

But some will object. There is nothing specially strange and unique in all this, for the same mystery underlies the essential nature of all kinds of force and matter, and therefore all phenomena. True enough, but with this difference. Physical and chemical forces and phenomena are indeed incomprehensible in their essential nature; but once accept their existence, and all their different forms are mutually convertible, construable in terms of each other and all in terms of motion. But it is impossible by any stretch of the imagination to thus construe mental forces and mental phenomena. It may, indeed, be impossible to conceive _how came_ the plane of material existence, but, standing on that plane, all phenomena fall into intelligible order. But there is another plane above this one, having no intelligible relation with it. We must climb up and stand on this before its phenomena fall into intelligible order. In a word, material forces and phenomena are, indeed, a mystery, but only of the _first order_. But mental and moral forces and phenomena are a mystery even from the standpoint of the other, and are therefore a mystery of the _second order_--a mystery within a mystery.

We repeat, then, with additional emphasis after this examination, that we can not imagine between physical and psychical phenomena a relation of cause and effect _in the same sense_ in which we use these terms in physical science, although in some sense there is doubtless such a relation. If man were the only animal we had to deal with, there would be no standing ground left for materialism. But there is still another difficulty which sticks deeper. It is that suggested by the _law of evolution_ and enforced by the _comparative method_.

=Relation of Man to Animals.=--Man, we say, is endowed with, _is_, in fact, an immortal spirit. What is spirit? We know things only by their phenomena; what are the phenomena of spirit? Consciousness, will, intelligence, memory, love, hate, fear, desire--surely these are some of them. But has not a dog or a monkey all these? Pressed with this difficulty, some have indeed felt compelled to accord immortal spirit to higher animals. But we can not stop here. If to these, then also to all animals; for we have here only a sliding scale without break. Can we stop now and make it coextensive with sentiency? No; for the lowest animals and lowest plants merge into each other so completely that no one can draw the line between them with certainty. We must extend it to plants also. Shall we stop here and make immortal spirit coextensive with life? We can not; for life-force is certainly correlated with, transmutable into, and derivable from, physical and chemical forces. We must extend it into dead nature also. Therefore, everything is immortal or none. Our boasted immortality by continued extension becomes thinner and thinner until it evaporates into thin air. It becomes naught else than _conservation of energy_, and not, as we had hoped, conservation of _self-conscious personality_. This may be interesting as a scientific fact; but of what value to us personally is a continued existence of our spiritual forces as heat, light, electricity, or any other form of unconscious force? Thus, then, if once we pass the gap between man and the higher animals, there is no possibility of a stopping-place anywhere.

Such is the difficulty presented by comparison in the _taxonomic_ series. Take now the _embryonic_ series. Each one of us, individually, was formed gradually by a process of evolution, from a microscopic spherule of protoplasm undistinguishable in structure from the lowest forms of protozoal life. Now, in this gradual process of evolution, where did immortal spirit come in? Was it in the germ-cell? Then why deny it to the protozoan? Was it at the quickening, or at the birth, or at the moment of first self-consciousness, or at some later period of capacity of abstract thought? Again, when it did come in, was it something superadded or did it grow out of something already existing in the embryo or the infant?

Or take the _evolution series_ from protozoan to man. This we have already seen is similar in outline to the other two. Now, in the gradual evolution of the animal kingdom throughout all geological time, terminating in man, when did immortal spirit come in? Did it enter with life, or with sentient life, or somewhere in the ascending scale of animals, or with the advent of man? If with man, was it some new thing added at once out of hand, or did it grow out of something already existing in animals?

This last, we are persuaded, is the only tenable view--the only view that can effect that reconciliation between the two extreme, mutually excluding views now usually held, which, as already seen, is the true test of a rational philosophy. I believe that the spirit of man _was_ developed out of the _anima_ or conscious principle of animals, and that this, again, was developed out of the lower forms of life-force, and this in its turn out of the chemical and physical forces of Nature; and that at a certain stage in this gradual development, viz., with man, it _acquired_ the property of immortality precisely as it now, in the individual history of each man at a certain stage, acquires the capacity of abstract thought. This is, in brief, the view which I wish to enforce. The reader must understand, however, that this is _my own view_ only, a view for which I have earnestly contended for twenty years. It appeals, therefore, not to authority, but only to reason. I wish now to present it as briefly as possible.

First, then, I would draw attention to the fact that there is nothing wholly exceptional in such transformation with the sudden appearance of new powers and properties; but, on the contrary, it is in accordance with many analogies in the lower forces, and therefore _a priori_ not only credible but probable. For example, force and matter may be said to exist _now_ on several distinct planes raised one above another. There is a sort of taxonomic scale of force and matter. These are, 1, the plane of elements; 2, the plane of chemical compounds; 3, the plane of vegetal life; 4, the plane of animal life; and 5, the plane of rational and, as we hope, immortal life. Each plane has its own appropriate force and distinctive phenomena. On the first operates physical forces, producing physical phenomena only--for the operation of chemical affinity immediately raises matter to the next plane. On the second plane operates, in addition to physical, also chemical forces, producing all those changes by action and reaction, the study of which constitutes the science of chemistry. On the third plane, in addition to the two preceding forces, with their characteristic phenomena, operates also life-force, producing the distinctive phenomena characteristic of living things. On the fourth plane, in addition to all lower forces and their phenomena, operates also a higher form of life-force characteristic of animals, producing the phenomena characteristic of sentient life, such as sensation, consciousness, and will. On the fifth plane, in addition to all the preceding forces and phenomena, we have also the forces and phenomena characteristic of rational and moral life.

Now, although there are doubtless great differences of level on each of these planes, yet there is a very distinct break between each. Although there are various degrees of the force characteristic of each, yet the difference between the characteristic forces is one of kind as well as of degree. Although energy by transmutation may take all these different forms, and thus does now circulate up and down through all these planes, yet the passage from one plane upward to another is not a gradual passage by sliding scale, but _at one bound_. When the necessary conditions are present, a new and higher form of force at once appears, _like a birth_ into a higher sphere. For example, when hydrogen and oxygen are brought together under proper conditions, water is born--a new thing with new and wholly unexpected properties and powers, entirely different from those of its components. When CO2, H2O, and NH3 are brought together under suitable conditions, viz., in the green leaves of plants, in the presence of sunlight, living protoplasm is then and there born, a something having entirely new and unexpected powers and properties. It is no gradual process but sudden, like birth into a higher sphere.

Now, there is not the least doubt that the same is true of the order and manner of the _first appearance_ of the natural forces in the phylogenic series. In the history of the evolution of the cosmos, the forces of Nature have appeared successively and suddenly when conditions became favorable. There was a time in the history of the earth when only physical forces existed, chemical affinity being held in abeyance by the intensity of the heat.[41] By gradual cooling, chemical affinity at a certain stage came into being--was born, a new form of force, with new and peculiar phenomena, though doubtless derived from the preceding. Ages upon ages passed away until the time was ripe and conditions were favorable, and life appeared--a new and higher form of force, producing a still more peculiar group of phenomena, but still, as I believe, derived from the preceding. Ages upon ages again passed away, during which this life-force took on higher and higher forms--in the highest foreshadowing and simulating reason itself--until finally, when the time was fully ripe and conditions were exceptionally favorable, spirit, self-conscious, self-determining, rational, and moral, appeared--a new and still higher form of force, but still, as I am persuaded, derived from the preceding.

Now, that these forces are really of derivative origin is proved by the fact that we see every step of this process taking place daily under our very eyes. I pass over the conversion of physical into chemical force because this is admitted on all hands. I begin, therefore, with vital force. Sunlight falling on green leaves disappears as light and reappears as life--is consumed in doing the work of decomposing CO2, H2O, and NH3, and the C, H, O, and N thus set free from previous combination unite to form living protoplasm.[42] Again, in the embryonic history of every animal we see the next change take place--i. e., the emergence of the psychic out of the vital. In the germ-cell, in the egg, and even in the early stages of the embryo, there is no distinctive animal life--i. e., no consciousness, nor volition, nor response of any kind to stimulus. At a certain stage distinctive animal or psychic life appears. We call it quickening. Materials for psychology are now present for the first time. In man alone, and that only some time after physical birth, we see the last change. The new-born child has animal life only. The emergence of self-consciousness--a change so wonderful that it may well be called the birth of spirit--takes place only at the age of two to three years. Now for the first time we have phenomena distinctive of humanity.

But some will ask, “How is this consistent with immortality?” In answer, let me again remind the reader that with every new form of force, with every new birth of the universal energy into a higher plane, there appear new, unexpected, and, previous to experience, wholly unimaginable properties and powers. This last birth is of course no exception. Why may not immortality be one of these new properties? But this point is so important that we must treat it more fully.

Remember, then, the view of the relation of God to Nature, already explained. Remember that the forces of Nature are naught else than different forms of the one omnipresent Divine energy. Remember that, as just shown, this Divine omnipresent energy has taken on successively higher and higher forms in the course of cosmic time. Now this upward movement has been wholly by _increasing individuation_, not only of matter, but also _of force_. This universal Divine energy, in a generalized condition, _unindividuated_, diffused, pervading all Nature, is what we call physical and chemical force. The same energy in higher form, individuating matter, and itself individuated, but only yet very imperfectly, is what we call the life-force[43] of plants. The same energy, more fully individuating matter and itself more fully individuated, but not completely, we call the _anima_ of animals. This anima, or animal soul, as time went on, was individuated more and more until it resembled and foreshadowed the spirit of man. Finally, still the same energy, completely individuated as a separate entity and therefore self-conscious, capable of separate existence and therefore immortal, we call the spirit of man.

According to this view, the vital principle of plants and the anima of animals are but different stages of the development of spirit in the womb of Nature: _in man at last it came to birth_. In plants and animals it was in deep embryo sleep--in the latter, quickened, indeed, but not viable--still unconscious of self, incapable of independent life, with physical, umbilical connection with Nature; but now at last in man, separated from Nature, capable of independent life, born into a new and higher plane of existence. Separated, but not wholly: Nature is no longer _gestative_ mother, but still _nursing_ mother of spirit. As the _organic embryo_ at birth reaches independent _material_ or _temporal_ life, even so _spirit embryo_ by birth attains independent _spiritual_ or _eternal_ life.

Although birth is its truest correspondence and best illustration, yet we may vary the illustration in many ways:

1. Nature may be likened to a level water-surface. This represents unindividuated physical and chemical force. On this surface some individuating force pulls up a portion of the water into a _commencing_ drop. This represents the condition of spirit in plants. Or by greater force the surface may be lifted higher into a nipple-like eminence _simulating a drop_, or even into an almost complete drop with only a neck-like connection with the general surface. This represents the condition of spirits in the higher animals. In all these cases, even though the drop be nearly completed, if we remove the individuating or lifting force, the commencing drop is immediately drawn back by cohesion and refunded into the general watery surface. But, once complete the drop, and there is no longer any tendency to revert, even though the lifting force is removed. This represents the condition of spirit in man.

2. Or Nature may, again, be likened to a water-surface beneath which the anima of animals is deeply and tranquilly submerged, wholly unknowing of any higher, freer world above. In man spirit emerges above the surface into a higher world, looks down on Nature beneath him, around on other emerged spirits about him, and upward to the Father of all spirits above him. Emerged, but not wholly free--head above, but not yet foot-loose.

3. Or, again: As a planet must break away from physical, cohesive connection with the central sun (planet-birth) in order to enter into higher gravitative relations, which thenceforward determine all its movements in beautiful harmony; as the embryo must break away from physical umbilical connection with the mother in order to enter into higher spiritual bonds of love, which thenceforward determine all their mutual relations--even so spirit must break away from physical and material connection with the forces of Nature, which are but the omnipresent Divine energy, in order thereby to enter into higher relations of filial love to God and brotherly love to man.

4. As the new-born child differs little in grade of physical organization from the mature but unborn embryo, but at the moment of birth there is a sudden and complete change, not so much in the grade of organization but in the whole plane of existence--a change absolutely necessary for further advance, for another cycle of life; even so at the moment of the origin of man, howsoever this may have been accomplished, there may have been no great change in the _grade_ of _psychical_ structure, but yet a complete change in the _plane_ of psychical life--a change absolutely necessary for further advance, for another cycle of evolution. In both cases there is a sudden entrance into a new world, the sudden appearance of a new creature with entirely different capacities--a passing out of an old world, a waking up in a new and higher. According to this view, man alone is a _child_ of God, capable of separate spirit-life--separate but not yet wholly independent of Nature. As already said, Nature is no longer gestative mother, but still nursing mother of spirit--we are weaned only by death.

5. Or, again: As in passing up the _organic_ scale, we find all grades of completeness of organic individuality, an increasing individuation of bodily form which completes itself as a perfect organic individual only in the higher animals, so, also, in passing up the _dynamic_ scale, force or energy is individuated more and more until the process reaches completeness as a spirit-individual or dynamic individual--a person only in man. _Organic_ individuality completes itself in animals. _Psychic_ individuality only in man.

6. One more illustration and the last. The animal body may be likened to an exquisitely adjusted instrument of communication between two worlds--the material world without and the spiritual world within. The key-boards of this marvelous instrument are the nerve-terminals of the sense-organs in contact with the material world, and the brain-cells in touch with the spirit-world. External Nature plays on the one by sensation and determines changes in spirit. Spirit plays on the other by will and muscular contraction, and determines changes in external Nature. Now, in animals spirit is fast asleep or at most dreaming, or even perhaps somnambulistic, but at least unconscious of _self_, and acts only by stimulus--only responds in some sense automatically as sleepers do. In man spirit is wide awake and may respond automatically like animals, or may choose not to respond at all. Moreover, it acts freely in its own domain--the world of ideas--_without external stimulus_; or of its own free-will may _initiate_ changes in the external world. With God all phenomena commence at the _spirit-end_. In animals all commence at the _matter-end_, and by automatic response terminate in the same. Man alone lives in both worlds, partakes of both natures, and acts according to either method.

The more we reflect on this subject, the more we shall be convinced that completed spirit individuality explains, as nothing else can, all that is characteristic of man. It is this which constitutes person, or the self-acting ego. It is this which constitutes self-consciousness, free-will, and moral responsibility. And out of these, again, grows, the recognition of relations to other moral beings and to God, and therefore ethics and religion. Out of these, also, grows the capacity of indefinite voluntary progress. This also means separate life, spirit-viability, or immortality. Self-consciousness especially seems to me the simplest sign of separate entity or spirit-individuality, and its appearance among psychical phenomena _the very act of spirit-birth_. We may imagine man to have emerged ever so gradually from animals: in this gradual development the moment he became conscious of self, the moment he turned his thoughts inward in wonder upon himself and on the mystery of his existence as separate from Nature, that moment marks the birth of humanity out of animality. All else characteristic of man followed as a necessary consequence. I am quite sure that, if any animal, say a dog or a monkey, could be educated up to the point of self-consciousness (which, however, I am sure is impossible), that moment _he_ (no longer _it_) would become a moral responsible being, and all else characteristic of moral beings would follow. At that moment would come personality, immortality, capacity of voluntary progress; and science, philosophy, religion, would quickly follow.

We have emphasized self-consciousness as the most fundamental sign of spirit-individuality; but a difference of exactly the same kind is found running through the whole gamut of human faculties as compared with corresponding faculties in animals. As animal consciousness is related to human self-consciousness, so exactly is animal will to human free-will, animal intelligence to human reason, animal sign-language to rational grammatical speech of man, constructive art of animals to true rational progressive art of man. In every one of these the resemblance is great, but the difference is immense, and not only in degree but also in kind. In every case it is like shadow and substance, promise and fulfillment, or, still better, it is like embryo and child. The change from one to the other is like to a birth into a higher sphere, the beginning of another cycle of evolution. We would like to follow this idea out in detail, but it would lead us beyond the scope of this work. Those who desire to do so we would refer to an article by the author on the “Psychical Relation of Man to Animals.”[44]

But it will be objected that there are other births of energy from lower to higher condition; but such births do not insure continued existence in the higher condition. In the gradual evolution of energy described on page 316, when a portion rises from physical to chemical, from chemical to vital, or from vital to sentient, it does not remain ever after in the higher condition--there is no immortality on the higher plane. On the contrary, all these lower forms of energy are continually ascending and descending; transformation is downward as well as upward. Why should there be an exception in this last birth? In these successive upward metamorphoses of energy why should the last only be permanent? I answer: Because it reaches at last its final goal, viz., complete individuation, as free, self-acting spirit; it reaches again the spiritual plane from which it sprang, and becomes thereby a partaker of the Divine nature; because it comes at last into moral relations with the absolute--the Divine--and therefore above the plane of shifting changes. If the scale of energy be likened to a ladder with many rounds, reaching from the plane of matter to the plane of spirit, then so long as energy is on the ladder it ascends and descends; but, once it reaches the plane of free spirit, it is in a wholly new world in which eternal ascent is the law.

Perhaps I can best bring out the reasonableness of my view by comparing it with other possible alternative views.

There are three possible views as to the nature, the origin, and the destiny of the human spirit: (1.) That it pre-existed always--uncreated, underived, eternal, both ways--backward as well as forward. Therefore, as it never began, so it will never end. It is _immortal of its own right_. This is substantially the view of Plato, of Leibnitz, and perhaps some other philosophers. (2.) That it is derived from God _directly_--created at once _without natural process_; that at the moment of creation of the first man Adam, and at some unknown time and in some inscrutable way in the history of each individual, it was _injected into the body from the outside_, and at the same time _endowed_ with immortality. This, I take it, is the orthodox view. (3.) That it was indeed derived from God, but not directly; created indeed, but only by natural process of evolution; that it indeed pre-existed, but only as embryo in the womb of Nature, slowly developing through all geological times, and finally coming to birth as _living_ soul in man. Thus it _attains_ immortality at a certain stage of development, viz., at spirit-birth. This is the view I have striven to enforce.

I hold up these three views: Which is the more rational? The view of Plato--that of self-existent, uncreated, eternal spirit--I think few will entertain at this time of the world’s day. The usual orthodox view I have shown is surrounded with insuperable difficulties; is wholly unscientific and irrational. What is there left but the view presented above? Plato is right in asserting pre-existence, but wrong in denying creation. The usual view is right in asserting creation, but wrong in denying natural process. The view I have presented asserts pre-existence in embryo and creation by natural process. It therefore combines and reconciles the two extreme views, and is more rational than either.

=Some General Conclusions.=--There are still two or three thoughts so closely connected with what we have already said that we can not pass them over:

1. We have seen that every mental state corresponds with a particular brain state, and every mental change with a brain change. We have, therefore, here, two series, physical and psychical, corresponding with each other, term for term. For every change in the one there is a corresponding change in the other, both in kind and amount. Now, is not this the test of the relation of cause and effect? It certainly is. Yes, there must be a causal relation here, even though we are not able to understand the nature of the causal nexus. But which is cause and which effect? If the view above presented be correct, then in animals _brain changes_ are in all cases the _cause_ of psychical phenomena. In man alone, and only in his higher activities, _psychic_ changes precede and determines brain changes. In man alone brain changes are determined not only by external but by _internal_ impressions. Man alone perceives not only objects--_material things_--but also relations and properties _abstracted_ from the objects, i. e., _ideal things_; and, moreover, not only relations between objects, but also relations between relations or ideas. In man alone there is an inner world--microcosm--the _things_ of which are _thoughts_, ideas, etc. This _self-acting power_ of spirit on _the things of itself_, instead of merely reacting as played upon by external nature, is characteristic of man, and is a necessary result and a sign of severance, partial at least, of physical bond with Nature.

2. Again, I have used the term vital _principle_. I must justify it. I know full well that it is the fashion to ridicule the term as a remnant of an old superstition which regards vital force as a sort of supernatural entity unrelated to other forces of Nature. No one has striven more earnestly than myself to establish the correlation of vital with physical and chemical forces;[45] and yet, if the view above presented be true, there is a _kind_ of justification even for the term vital _principle_--much more, vital _force_. There is a kind of reason and true insight in the personification of the forces of Nature, and especially of vital force. All forces, by progressive dynamic individuation, are on the way toward entity or personality, but fully attain that condition only in man.

3. Again, to perceive relations and properties abstracted from material things, to form abstract or general ideas, to form not only _per_cepts but also _con_cepts, is admitted to be a characteristic of man--a characteristic on which all our science and philosophy rest. From time immemorial the vexed question has been debated, “Have such abstract or general ideas any _real_ existence, or are they mere _names_ of figments of the mind?” This is the famous question of _realism_ and _nominalism_. Now, if our view be correct, then there is one most fundamental abstraction, viz., _self_, which is indeed a _reality_. Self-consciousness is the direct recognition of the one reality, spirit, of which all others are the sign and shadow--the true reality which underlies and gives potency to all abstractions or ideas. Do we not find in this view, then, the foundation of a true realism, or rather a complete reconciliation of realism and nominalism?

4. Thus, then, Nature, through the whole geological history of the earth, was gestative mother of spirit, which, after its long embryonic development, came to birth and independent life and immortality in man. Is there any conceivable meaning in Nature without this consummation? All evolution has its beginning, its course, its end. Without spirit-immortality this beautiful cosmos, which has been developing into increasing beauty for so many millions of years, when its evolution has run its course and all is over, would be precisely as if it had never been--an idle dream, an idiot tale signifying nothing. I repeat: Without spirit-immortality the cosmos has no meaning. Now mark: It is equally evident that, _without this gestative method of creation of spirit_, the whole geological history of the earth previous to man would have no meaning. If man’s spirit were made at once out of hand, why all this elaborate preparation by evolution of the organic kingdom? The whole evolution of the cosmos through infinite time is a gestative process for the birth of spirit--a divine method of the creation of spirits.

Thus, again, man is born of Nature into a higher nature. He therefore alone is possessed of two natures--a lower, in common with animals, and a higher, peculiar to himself. The whole mission and life-work of man is the progressive and finally the complete dominance, both in the individual and in the race, of the higher over the lower. The whole meaning of sin is the humiliating bondage of the higher to the lower. As the _material_ evolution of Nature found its goal, its completion, and its significance in man, so must man enter immediately upon a higher _spiritual_ evolution to find its goal and completion and its significance in the ideal man--the Divine man. As spirit, unconscious in the womb of Nature, continued to develop by _necessary_ law until it came to birth and independent life in man, so the new-born spirit of man, both in the individual and in the race, must ever strive by _freer_ law to attain, through a newer birth, unto a higher life.