Chapter 9

The seeds of death do not lie, as Weismann appears to assume, in the differentiation of the cells of the higher animals. On the contrary, all the cell series, not only those of the reproductive cells, are immortal. As a matter of fact all must die; not because they themselves contain the germs of death and have contained them from the beginning, but because the structure which is built up by them collectively finally brings about the death of all. The living plasm in every cell is itself immortal. It is the higher life of the collective organism which continually condemns countless cells to death. They die, not because they cannot continue to exist as such but because conditions necessary for their preservation are no longer present.

Thus, while the cells are themselves immortal, the whole organism which they build up is mortal. The complex inter-dependence between the single cells, which, since they have adapted themselves to division of labor, has become necessary, carries with it, from the beginning, the seeds of death. The mutual dependence ceases to work, and the various cells are killed.

The death of the individual is a consequence of the defective precision in the working of the division of labor among the cells. This defect, after a longer or shorter time, causes the death of all the cells composing the body. Only those which quit the body retain their power of living.

Of all those countless cells which, in the course of a lifetime, are thrown off from the body, only one kind is adapted for existence outside the body, namely, the reproductive cells.

Among the lower animals the reproductive cells often leave the body of their parents only after the death of the latter. This is not the case in man.

All the cell series which do not take part in the formation of reproductive cells, as well as all the reproductive cells without exception, or with only a few exceptions, die through unfavorable external conditions; just as all, or almost all, of the infusoria which arose from the double cell die before they can conjugate again.

At times, however, some of the infusoria persist till the next period of conjugation, and in the same way, from time to time, some of the human reproductive cells succeed in conjugating, and from them a new individual arises.

A man is the outgrowth of the double cell produced from the conjugation of two human reproductive cells, and consists of all the cells which arise from this and remain in connection with each other. The human individual originates at the moment of the mingling of the nuclei of the reproductive cells; and the details of this mingling determine his individual peculiarities.

The end of man is manifestly to preserve, to nourish, and to protect the series of reproductive cells which are continually developing within him, to select a suitable mate and to care for the children which he produces. His whole structure is acquired by means of selection with this one object in view, the maintenance of the series of reproductive cells.

From this standpoint the individual loses his significance and becomes, so to speak, the slave of the reproductive cells. These are the important and essential and also the undying parts of the organism. Like raveled threads whose branches separate and reunite, the series of reproductive cells permeate the successive generations of the human race. They continually give off other cell series which branch out from this network of reproductive cells, and, after a longer or shorter course, come to an end. Twigs from these branches represent the human individuals, and any one who considers the matter must recognize that, as was said above, apart from the preservation of the reproductive cell series the individuals are purposeless.

It is on this basis that the moral ordering of the world must place itself if it is to stand on any basis at all. It is an easy and a pleasant task to interpret the facts of history from this standpoint. Everything fits together and harmonizes, and each turn in the historical development of civilization when observed from this point of view acquires a simple and a clear causality.

I cannot enlarge on this topic, engaging as it is, but here a further question obtrudes itself. May there not be some connection between the actual immortality of the germ cells, the continuity of their series and the importance of the part they play, and the origin of the idea of an immortal soul? May not the former have given rise to the latter?

As a matter of fact, the series of reproductive cells possess the essential attributes of the human soul; they are the immortal living part of a man, which contain, in a latent form, his spiritual peculiarities. The immortality of the reproductive cells is only potential and is essentially different from that absolute eternal life which certain religions ascribe to the soul.

We must not, however, forget that at the time when the conception of a soul arose among men, owing to a defective knowledge of the laws of logic, no clear distinction was made between a potential immortality and an absolute life without end.

Herbert Spencer has pointed out that all religions have their origin in reverence paid to ancestors. Each religion must have a true foundation, and the deification of our forefathers has this true and natural foundation inasmuch as they belong to the same series of reproductive cells as their descendants. Of course our barbaric ancestors who initiated the ancestor worship had no idea of this motive for their religion, but that in no way disproves that this and this alone was the _causa efficiens_ of the origin of such religions. It is indeed typical of a religion that it depends upon facts which are not discerned and which are not fully recognized.

With the origin and development of every religion the origin and development of the conception of the soul progresses step by step.

We find the justification of ancestor worship in the immortality of the reproductive cells, and in the continuity of their series. This should also take a part in the origin of the conception of the soul.

Spencer derives the conception of the existence of the soul from dreams, and from the imagination of the mentally afflicted. The savage dreams he is hunting, and wakes up to find himself at home. In his dream he talks with friends who are not present where he sleeps; he may even in the course of his dream encounter the dead. From this he draws the conclusions--(1) that he himself has two persons, one hunting while the other sleeps; (2) that his acquaintances also have a double existence; and, from those cases in which he met with the dead, (3) that they are not only double persons, but that one of the persons is dead while the other continues to live.

Thus, according to Spencer, the idea arises that man consists of two separable thinking parts, and that one of these can survive the other.

When a person faints and recovers, we say he comes to himself. That is, a part of his person left him and has returned. But in this case, as in the dream, the body has not divided, so that in a swoon the outgoing portion is not corporeal.

The savage will think that this is what remains alive after death, for he is incapable of distinguishing between a swoon and death. Then he will associate the part which leaves the body during a swoon with that which gives life, and some will regard the heart, which fails to beat after death, and others the breath, which ceases when life does, as this life-giving part or soul.

Thus far I am quoting from Spencer.

The conception of the soul, which has thus arisen, has been utilized by astute priests to obtain power over their fellow-men; while the genuine founders of religions have made use of it, and by threats of punishment, and promises of reward, have tried to induce mankind to live uprightly.

With this purpose in view, the teachers of religion have changed the original conception of the soul and have added to it the attribute of absolute immortality and eternal duration, an attribute which is in no way connected by people in a low state of development with their conception of the soul.

At the present time among the religions of all civilized people the undying soul plays an extraordinarily important part.

I start from the position that no doctrine can receive a general acceptation among men which does not depend on a truth of nature. The various religions agree on one point, and this is the doctrine of the immortal soul. Such a point of universal agreement, I am convinced, cannot have been entirely derived from the air. It must have had some foundation in fact, and the question arises, What was this foundation? Dreams and phantasms, as Spencer believes? No; there must have been something real and genuine, and the path we have entered upon to find traces of this true foundation of the conception of the soul cannot be distrusted.

We must compare the conception of the soul as held by various related religions, and strip off from it all those attributes which are not common to all. But those which all the various religions agree in ascribing to the soul we may regard as its true attributes.

It would take too long to go into the details of this examination of the conception of the soul. As the general result of a comparison of the various views of the soul we may put down the following characteristics which are invariably ascribed to it:

(1) The soul is living.

(2) It survives the body, and can continue to exist without it.

(3) During life it is contained in the body, but leaves it after death.

(4) The soul participates in the conduct of the body: after the death of the latter, causality (retribution) can still affect the soul.

The characteristics (1) to (3) hold also for the series of reproductive cells continually developing within the body; and these attributes of the germ cells may well be the true but unrecognized cause of the origin of those conceptions of the soul's character.

This like holds true for (4), although the connection is not so obvious. For this reason it will be advisable to consider the point in more detail.

It has been already indicated that the founders of religions have made use of the survival of the soul after death to endeavor to lead mankind to live righteously, by threats of punishments or promises of reward, which will affect the soul after the death of the body.

It is precisely on this point that in the most highly developed religions there is the greatest falling off from the original conception of the after-effect of human conduct on the soul, and the most astounding things are inculcated by the Koran and other works with respect to this.

But here again we may separate the true kernel from the artificial shell, and reach the conclusion that good conduct is advantageous for the soul after the death of the body, and that bad conduct is detrimental. In no other way can the Mohammedan paradise or the Christian hell be explained than as sheer anthropomorphic realizations of these facts, which can appeal even to the densest intellect.

What then is good conduct, or bad?

The question is easily asked, but without reference to external circumstances impossible to answer. _Per se_ there is no good or bad conduct. Under certain circumstances a vulgar, brutal murder may become a glorious and heroic act, a good deed in the truest sense of the word; as, for example, in the case of Charlotte Corday. Nor must the view of one's fellow creatures be accepted as a criterion of good or bad conduct, for different parties are apt to cherish diametrically opposed opinions on one and the same subject. There remains then only one's own inner feeling or conscience. Good conduct awakes in this a feeling of pleasure, bad conduct a feeling of pain. And by this alone can we discriminate. Now let us further ask. What sort of conduct produces in our conscience pleasure and what sort of conduct induces pain? If we investigate a great number of special cases, we shall recognize that conduct which proves advantageous to the individual, to the family, to the state, and finally to mankind, produces a good conscience, and that conduct which is injurious to the same series give rise to a bad conscience. If a collision of interests arise, it is the degree of relationship which determines the influence of conduct on the conscience. As, for instance, among the clans in Scotland, a deed which is advantageous for the clan produces a good conscience, even if it be injurious to the state and to mankind.

The conscience is one of the mental faculties of man acquired by selection and rendered possible by the construction and development of the commonwealth of the state. Conscience urges us to live rightly, that is, to do those things which will help ourselves and our family, whereby our fellow creatures according to their degree of relationship may be benefited. These are good deeds, and they will merit from the teachers of religion much praise for the soul. We find, therefore, that the only possible definition of a good deed is one which will benefit the series of germ cells arising from one individual, and further which will be of use to others with their own series of germ cells, and that in proportion to the degree of connection (relationship).

It is clear that in this point also the ordinary conception of the future fate of the soul agrees fundamentally with the result of observation on the prosperity of the series of germ cells.

As all the forces of nature, known to the ignorant barbarian only by their visible workings, call forth in him certain vague and, therefore, religious ideas, which are but a reflection of these forces in an anthropomorphically distorted form, so the apparently enigmatical conception of the eternal soul is founded on the actual immortality and continuity of the germ plasma.

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COCOS PYNAERTI.

This is an acquisition to the dwarf growing palms, and a graceful table plant. It first appeared in the nurseries of M. Pynaert, Ghent, and is evidently a form of C. Weddelliana, having similar character, though, as shown by the accompanying illustration, it is quite distinct. The leaves are gracefully arched, the pinnules rather broader than in the type, more closely arranged, and of a deep tone of rich green. Such a small growing palm possessing elegant and distinct character should become a favorite.--_The Gardener's Magazine_.

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THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.[1]

[Footnote 1: Read May 17, 1890, before the Engineers' Club of Philadelphia.]

By JACQUES W. REDWAY.

INTRODUCTION.

The purport of the following paper is to show that corrosion of its banks and deposition of sediment constitute the legitimate business of a river. If the bed of the Mississippi were of adamant, and its drainage slopes were armored with chilled steel, its current would do just what it has been doing in past ages--wear them away, and fill the Gulf of Mexico with the detritus.

Many thoughts were suggested by Mr. S.C. Clemens, erstwhile a Mississippi pilot, and by Mr. D.A. Curtis. Both of these gentlemen _know_ the river.

GENERAL GEOGRAPHY.

The Mississippi River, as ordinarily regarded, has its head waters in a chain of lakes situated mainly in Beltrami and Cass counties, Minnesota. The lake most distant from the north is Elk Lake, so named in the official surveys of the U.S. Land Office. A short stream flows from Elk Lake to Lake Itaska, a beautiful sheet of water, considerably larger than Elk Lake. From Lake Itaska it flows in a general northeasterly direction, receiving the waters of innumerable springs and ponds, among them Lake Bemidji, a body of water equal in size to Lake Itaska. After a course of 135 miles the steam flows into Cass Lake, absorbing in the meantime the waters of another chain of lakes, discharged through Turtle River. From Cass Lake the waters flow a distance of twenty miles, and are poured into Lake Winnibigoshish. The latter has an area of eighty square miles; it is twice the size of Cass Lake and more than six times that of Lake Itaska. From Lake Winnibigoshish to the point where it receives the discharge of Leech Lake, the river flows through an open savannah, from a quarter of a mile to a mile in width. Forty miles beyond are Pokegama Falls. Here the river flows from Pokegama Lake, falling about fourteen feet before quiet water is reached. All the country about the headwaters is densely wooded with Norway pine on the higher ground, and with birch, maple, poplar and tamarack on the lower ground. Between Pokegama Falls and the Falls of St. Anthony, the river receives the waters of a number of other similar streams, all flowing from the lake region.

At St. Paul the navigable stage of the river practically begins, although there is more or less navigable water above the falls at certain seasons. From St. Paul to Cairo the river flows between bluffs, the terraces of Champlain times, from ten to fifty miles apart. Between the bluffs are the bottom lands, often coincident with the flood plain, along which the river channel wanders in a devious course of 1,100 miles. The soil of the bottom lands is, of course, alluvial, and was deposited by the river during past ages; that beyond the bluffs is a part of the great intermontane plain, and is sedentary--that is, it has not been materially disturbed since the plain was raised above the sea level by the uplift of the continent.

From Cairo, at the junction of the Ohio River, the plain to the southward is nearly all made land, and in a few spots only does the river touch soil which it has not itself made. Here the Lower Mississippi proper begins, and here, at some not far distant time in the past,[2] was the head of the Gulf of Mexico. A fuller description of the Lower Mississippi is unnecessary here, inasmuch as the following pages are mainly devoted to this part alone.

[Footnote 2: Estimated at from 100,000 to 150,000 years. Such estimates, however, are but little better than guesses.]

HISTORICAL.

Nearly three and a half centuries have elapsed since De Soto, that prince among explorers, traversed the broad prairies that lie between the border highlands of the Western continent, and beheld the stream which watered the future empire of the world. His chroniclers tell us that he was raised to an upright position, so that he could catch a fleeting glimpse of the restless, turbulent flood; for even then the hand of death was upon him, and soon its waters were to enshroud his mortal remains. "His soldiers," says Bancroft, "pronounced his eulogy by grieving for their loss, and the priests chanted over his body the first requiems ever heard on the Mississippi. To conceal his death, his body was wrapped in a mantle, and, in the stillness of midnight, was silently sunk in the middle of the stream." Just across the river the Arkansas was pouring in its tumultuous flood, and its confluence was the site of the future town of Napoleon, which in coming years was to be historic ground.

Worn by suffering, hardships and peril, and racked by the pestilential fever that still hovers about the river lowlands, De Soto paid the debt of nature, and his thrice decimated followers made their way back to France. It seemed a strange, incredible story that they told, for such a mighty river, with its vast plain, was beyond conception. Its source, they said, was in the north--among the eternal snows--farther than it had ever been given to man to penetrate. Its waters, they thought, were poured into the Gulf of California, or perhaps into the great Virginia Sea. Its flood, they said, was so great that if all the rivers of Europe were gathered into one channel, they would not be a tithe as large. But the people who heard these wonderful accounts were unconcerned. The French monarch knew naught but to debauch his heritance; the French courtier intrigued and plundered; the French peasant, dogged and sullen in his long suffering, dragged out his miserable existence. The flood of waters rolled on, and a hundred and thirty years must come and go before the next white man should see the sheen of its rippling.

Let us cast a retrograde glance to the history of this period. It was only fifty years before that Columbus had dropped anchor off the coral reef of Samana Cay, and thrilled the Old World by announcing the discovery of the New. Elizabeth, the virgin Queen of England, was a proud, haughty girl just entering her teens, all unmindful of her eventful future. Mary Queen of the Scots was a tiny infant in swaddling clothes. The labors of Rafael Sanzio were still fresh in the memory of his surviving pupils. Michael Angelo was in the zenith of his fame, bending his energies to the beautifying of the great cathedral. Martin Luther was in the sere old age of his life, waiting for the command of the Master, which should bid him lay down his armor. A hundred years were to elapse before Charles I. of England must pay with his life the price of his folly.

Joliet, a French trader, was a man possessed of far more brains than marked the average men of his times. He had not only the indomitable courage which is essential to the successful explorer, but he had also the rare ability to manage men; and we find him in 1672 with a commission from the French king directing him to explore the valley which was to be a part of New France. The lands which he visited must be his fee to the king; certain rights of trade he wisely secured to himself. So, with Pere Marquette, a Jesuit priest, he undertook the mission, which we may doubt whether to call a journey of discovery or an errand of diplomacy. Crossing the ocean, their route lay along the St. Lawrence River to the Great Lakes; through the Great Lakes to the country of the Illini; down the Illinois to the Mississippi, and down the Mississippi to its junction with the Arkansas. Here they encamped near the site of Napoleon. Everywhere along their route they had won the hearts of the savage Illini. They possessed that rare tact which was born in French travelers, and which no English explorer ever had. When they had reached the junction of the Arkansas, "they were kindly received by the Indian tribes." They held a council with the various chiefs, with whom they made a treaty. The treaty was celebrated by a feast, and, if we may believe the record thereof, libations of wine were freely poured forth to pledge the stipulations of the business transaction. For a heavenly possession in the uncertain future, the Indian acknowledged, by the cross raised in commemoration, that he had bartered away his earthly kingdom. The title by which the Indian held the soil wrested from the Mound-builder may not have been perfect; that of the wily Joliet may have been equally defective. But Joliet builded more wisely than he knew, for to this day, fraud, treachery and broken faith are the chief witnesses to our treaties with the aboriginal owners of the land.

Nine years after the business venture of Joliet, La Salle received letters extraordinary from the King of France, directing him to make additional explorations along the course of the great river. He organized an expedition, crossed the ocean, and made his way rapidly to the scene of his explorations. Preparing his canoes and launches, he followed the sinuous course of the river to Napoleon. His arrival was celebrated by another feast and post-prandial business agreement, and New France began its brief existence. Never in the history of the world had such an empire been founded--such another could not be formed until the domains of this had been widened from sea to sea, and the energy of Saxon, Teuton and Kelt mingled to build a greater.