BOOK THE SECOND. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. A: SOME REASONS IN DISPROOF OF THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. INTRODUCTION: Aristotle says it takes all kinds of men to make a world. It is a common saying if the fools were all dead, the wise would lose their means of living; but it seems no less true: that if the wise were dead, all the fools would grow fat. But since neither the wise nor the fools are all dead nor likely to be, it becomes us to act accordingly. If it is true that the foolish do not recognise or will not admit their foolishness, it is no less true that across the brightest intellect darkening clouds do, and will forever, roll. The best and greatest are last to claim infallibility. Even in science shades of opinion must prevail; much more in religious thought is there room for divergencies of views. not all understand alike; constitutional differences make it impossible. One thing, and one thing only, may we all have in common,— a burning desire to know, and be governed by, the truth. The questions which trouble the thinking world to-day, are not those over which ecclesiastics in the past have been accustomed to wrangle and tear one another as We can wolves, and through which the world has been shook to its foundations, and the blood of countless numbers poured out. Little do thinking men trouble themselves to-day about the doctrines of election, atonement, vicarious suffering, personality and nature of Christ, eternal damnation, perseverance of the saints, resurrection of the body, ecclesiastical polity, priestly vestments, etc.; to-day the question in the world of thought is, "shall I retain my individuality after death? am I immortal?" Such a question cannot be misunderstood; it goes to the root of the matter. Upon the answer to this question, does not a little of so-called religious activity depend. You asked me to discuss this question; I consented to oblige you. It was not a little undertaking. The question is most profound; my responsibility equally great. In our discussion of this subject, the Bible will not be referred to as having any special authority. For us in such a question to refer to the Bible as authority, would be like to the ordering a man to sail a vessel, when it was not known if there was a sea to sail on; or to the advising a man to get his seed ready, when it was not known if the man possessed any land to sow on. What the finger is to the ring, what the body is to the garment, what the house is to its decoration,-all this is the immortality of the soul to any and every book purporting to be a divine revelation. Loving nothing except that which is true, seeking the truth at all hazards, conscious that only by its possession can we ever hope for salvation, what ever may be our faith or belief,-I shall fearlessly tell you all I know for and against a: FACTS IN DISPROOF OF THE SOUL'S IMMOR- (a): DEATH: The living are The fact of death none will dispute few, the dead are many. In almost every household are there memories of the dead. In tattered garments, homeless, friendless, hopeless, with a stone for a pillow and frozen snow for a coverlet, the poor wanderer, an outcast from society, lives again his childhood days. Voices of old fall upon his ears, friendly forms stand in his presence, eyes beaming with love evoke respondent joy; but oh! how he shudders when he awakes to find that these are but the ghosts of the dead. In vain he calls, in vain he grasps. These forms are but phantoms, phantoms of the dead. That death is in the world every child of man has conclusive proof; and death we hold to be an awful fact in disproof of the immortality of the soul. "He that goeth down to the grave," says Job, "shall come up no more." "The grave," says Isaiah, "cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down into the pit, cannot hope for thy truth." "In death," says the Psalmist, "there is no remembrance of thee; in the grave who shall give thee thanks; the dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence." "The dead know not anything," says Ecclesiastes; "neither have they any more a reward; he that goeth to the grave, shall come up no more; a living dog is better than a dead lion; there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou saying: "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” In proof of a future life for the dead, many alleged occurrences are adduced, resurrections, appearances of spirits, spirit-rappings, etc. (Ι): RESURRECTION:- σε Αλλ' ου μεντοι σοι, ην δ εγω, Αλκινου γε απολογον ερω, αλλ' άλκιμου μεν ανδρος, Ηρος, του Αρμενίου, το γενος Παμφυλου: ὁς ποτε εν πολέμῳ τελευτησας αναιρεθέντων δεκαταίων των νεκρων ηδη διεφθαρμένων ὑγιής μεν ανηρέθη, κομισθείς δε οίκαδε μελλων θαπο τεσθαι δωδεκαταίος επι τη πυρα κειμενος ανεβιω, αναβιους δ' ελεγεν & εχει ιδοι, εφη δε, επειδη δν εκβηναι την ψυχην, πορεύεσθαι μετα πολλων, και αφικνείσθαι σφας εις τόπον τινα δαιμονιον, εν ᾧ της τε γης δυο ειναι χασματα εχομενω αλληλοιν και του ουρανου αυ εν των άνω αλλα καταντικρύ. δικαστας δε μεταξυ τουτων καθησθαι, δυς επειδη διαδικασειαν, τους μεν δικαίους κελεύειν πορευεσθαι την εις δεξιαν τε και ανω δια του ουρανου, σημια περιαψαντας των δεδικασμενων εν τῳ προσθεν, τους δε αδικους την εις αριστεραν τε και κατω, έχοντας και τούτους εν τῳ οπισθεν σημεια παντων ὧν επραξαν. ἑαυτου δε προσελθοντοσ ειπειν ότι δεοι αυτόν αγγελον ανθρωποις γενεσθαι των εκει και διακελευοιντο δι ακούειν τε και θεασθαι παντα τα εν τω τόπῳ Let me not relate a fabulous story; rather will I tell you what happened to a most virtuous man, Er, son of Arminius, of the family of Pamphilus, who was slain in war. Ten days after his death, when the bodies of the slain were in a state of decomposition, the body of Er was found unaffected by death, taken up, and carried home for the purpose of was lying upon the funeral pile, Er arose from the dead, and, arising, told the people what he had seen in the other world. Said he whenever a soul departs this life, it proceeds in company with many others until it arrives at a certain divine place where there exists two chasms in the earth, contiguous to each other, entering to the regions below; and just as many in the heavens, entering to the regions above. Between these places, he says, sit judges who pass sentence upon all. The just are ordered to the right-hand whence they ascend to the regions above, bearing the marks of their works on their breasts; the unjust are ordered to the lefthand, whence they descend to the regions below, bearing the marks of their works on their backs. Er, having seen these things, was sent back as a messenger to man of those who ordered him to hear and observe everything which took place. (Plato: Republic, X, 614). Here we have an account of a resurrection from the dead. It is stated and apparently believed by one incomparably superior as a witness to any one of the twelve apostles of Christ. Why, I ask, do we not believe this account? The answer is that however capable Plato was, the account is so at variance with experience, and with what are known as the laws of nature, that as every force manifests itself along the lines of least resistance, so the force of intellect in such cases as this, unable to overcome the conviction of the invariability of the laws of nature, adopts the belief that Plato was deceived, as were all those who may have believed the account of the resurrection of Er from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus Christ has been believed by the |