6 
 
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 i. 3 
 
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 UCSB LIBRARY 
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 AT THE 
 
 ORDINATION OF MR. CHARLES LOWE, 
 
 AS ASSOCIATE PASTOR 
 
 * 
 
 OVEU THE 
 
 FIRST CONGREGATIONAL SOCIETY, 
 
 NEW BEDFORD, JULY 28, 1832. 
 
 BY JOHN WEISS. 
 
 Bcbforfr : 
 
 P R E S S OF BENJAMIN L I N D S E Y. 
 
 1852,
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 i. con. xv. 46. 
 
 SlOW BE IT THAT WAS yOT FIRST WHICH IS SPIRITUAL, BUT THAT WHICH 
 IS NATURAL; AXD AFTERWARD THAT WHICH IS SPIRITUAL. 
 
 FOR several years new facts from the domain of 
 science have been crowding upon us, much faster 
 than they can be either interpreted or classified. 
 From their uncomfortable tyranny some persons 
 take refuge in disbelief: for even to the best minds 
 nothing is so aggravating as a fact which does not 
 appear to connect itself with knowledge as hitherto 
 developed and explained. They cannot rest till they 
 either deny it or reduce it to a system. If they do 
 not love investigation enough to tarry for its linger- 
 ing results, they do the former : but if they are wil- 
 ling to wait till Nature shows them how she absorbs 
 and civilizes this strange fact, it is through much un- 
 happiness and trial of their faith. But the majority 
 <>f people are intoxicated by a physical discovery, 
 and reel unsteadily into an interpretation that is 
 more marvellous and repelling than the thing to be 
 explained. Especially if the new fact spring from
 
 the human organization, so that it falls into the hands' 
 of many persons of little culture and with no habits' 
 of investigation, we may expect to hear it used to 
 subvert not only established beliefs, but its own real 
 significance. The heat of the moment is unfavor- 
 able to a display of its legitimate tendency. Among 
 these strange and costly facts, people act like a mob 
 which has broken into a cathedral, carrying the broad 
 haste of revolution among things which should only 
 be touched by quiet and priestly fingers. Over 
 their soiled and dishevelled attire they haul the holy 
 vestments ; they toss about the symbols ; they drink 
 their coarse liquor out of consecrated cups; they 
 take revenge upon the sacred splendors for having 
 excited their surprise, and unconsciously stifle rev- 
 erence in sport. Their whole behavior is a misin- 
 terpretation of things which have definite and salu- 
 tary uses. 
 
 All these facts, connected with the human brain, 
 involving its past history, its present organization, 
 and its unexpected capacities, suffer under a twofold 
 misinterpretation. Some of them support a regu- 
 larly systematized materialism, others nourish a mis- 
 called spiritualism, which will sink into a most 
 hopeless materialism, when science strips from its 
 facts the supernatural mask, and reduces them to the 
 physical order ; indifference to the laws of spirit will 
 succeed to this imitation of spiritual agency. But 
 the general result of both of these misinterpretations 
 will be the same. The relation of man to nature 1
 
 and to God will be mystified, disturbed, degraded. 
 The reverence, the independent power, the sustained 
 existence of a human soul will be lost amid the rub- 
 bish of these theories. The faculties which open 
 toward the invisible world, and which gain their 
 nourishment by a genuine influx according to spir- 
 itual rules, will shrivel and sink away from their 
 proper light and air. And man will be left, an ani- 
 mal with the highest type of brain, which throbs or 
 ceases, according as the subtle element rises or falls 
 within its organs. The words of love and beauty 
 need be uttered no longer ; there is no independent 
 soul to rise and enjoy a brief ransom in the act of 
 prayer. These popular degrading tendencies demand 
 our close attention. We must contribute something 
 towards the construction of a final answer to this 
 widely spread materialism, and the spiirual laws 
 which connect the soul with an invisible sphere must 
 be proclaimed and proved. 
 
 It is obvious that the form of a sermon involves 
 great disadvantages when we proceed to state the 
 physical basis for the new kind of materialism. The 
 facts are not yet so generally accepted that people 
 will be content merely with an exposure of the false 
 interpretations that are forced upon them. There- 
 fore in attempting to discriminate so far as to receive 
 unusual facts, but to deny the system which they are 
 used to support, a sermon must appear to be guilty 
 of bold and unwarranted generalizations, or else 
 swell into a treatise, and defeat the religious object
 
 peculiar to its form. It seems to me that it is as 
 important to acknowledge the facts as it is to deny 
 the use that is made of them ; for they fill many a 
 ehasm in our scientific knowledge, and their legiti- 
 mate uses promise to increase our welfare. But my 
 present object is not chiefly to discuss their value. 
 At the risk of seeming to take for granted some 
 things that do not yet enter into courses of popular 
 instruction, and some that still divide the judgment 
 of scientific investigators, the sermon must brieily 
 state the physical arguments of the materialist, with- 
 out proofs or illustrations ; he, at least, accepts all 
 the facts, and more. It is easy to make a sweeping 
 denial of both his facts and his conclusions ; but more 
 fatal to him to accept, if possible, the stubborn facts. 
 We proceed, then, to indicate the grounds which 
 support the modern forms of materialism. 
 
 The human brain can be traced from its first rudi- 
 ments, among the earliest animals, gaining new 
 organs at each step, and becoming more complicated, 
 as fresh and complex circumstances surrounded it. :i: 
 
 * Some materialists accept the theory of the spontaneous development of 
 the successive forms of life from an impulse which resided in the original 
 germ, which, they suppose, was left to complete its history without any subse- 
 quent interference of the creative power. Others accept the authentic doctrine 
 of science, that every new form of life was due to a special creative act, while 
 the great idea, so far from being dislocated, earned its unity through these 
 gradual improvements : so that the past appears as a single project of the 
 Creator maintained by successive epochs, and binding together all the animal 
 types, not by leaving the last to evolve the next, but by stringing each separ- 
 ately upon the logic of one unchanging thought. Thes differing views, how- 
 ever, do not affect the discussion : since the facts of animal development, upon
 
 It seems clear that the human brain is a chronicle of the 
 successive development of animal life. Its organs, 
 from the lowest upward, mark the stages which ani- 
 mate existence has occupied its passage by gradual 
 improvement up to the climax of man. Each new 
 organ has been added out of deference to a new 
 circumstance. Through the countless ages which 
 pioneered the earth to its present state, there existed 
 a nice conformity between physical conditions and 
 nervous or cerebral development. As the species of 
 animals succeeded each other, each one was a faithful 
 representation of the kind of earth and climate 
 which surrounded it : for inanimate and animate na- 
 ture moved in two parallel lines, all of whose points 
 exactly corresponded. The additions made by Na- 
 ture to the brain which she seemed to be engaged 
 in constructing, neither exceeded nor fell short of 
 her own circumstances. The nervous c*brd, and 
 afterwards the brain, under its different animal names, 
 always found itself at home : and as nature pro- 
 ceeded, she promoted the brain to a new organ to 
 preserve the harmony. This progress was so defi- 
 nite that it still can be traced, and the various orders 
 of animals which now live confirm this gradual and 
 tentative process of nature in her construction of 
 the human brain. Each species has its organs each. 
 
 the false interpretation of which all materialists unite, are sufficiently counte- 
 nanced by the real theory to serve their purpose. Therefore it is sufficient if 
 we accept them upon their proper grounds, though we propose to reject the 
 material result which thcv are forced to favor.
 
 8 
 
 organ belongs to an animal state each addition cor- 
 responds to an improvement: and all of this past 
 history is taken up by the human brain, and rehearsed 
 from base to forehead, with just so much of a sup- 
 plement as man would need to harmonize with the 
 latest conditions of nature. Such, divested of its 
 appropriate demonstration, is the brain's history ; and 
 it furnishes the materialist with the first principle of 
 his argument. If, he says, the present complex state 
 of the brain has resulted from a gradual accumula- 
 tion of its organs, each of which has been added ac- 
 cording as natural circumstances called for a fresh 
 faculty, at what point in the line can you introduce 
 an independent human soul ? Provident nature has 
 added to the animal kingdom new faculties, one after 
 another : and these faculties are repeated by man. 
 If the animals can exercise the organs which devel- 
 ope these faculties, without an independent spiritual 
 essence, why is it necessary to presume such in man, 
 for the same organs ? And if such be the case up 
 to the point where human life commences, why in- 
 troduce at that point the superfluity of a soul to 
 animate the few additional organs bestowed on man ? 
 The life of God, dispersed through the channels of 
 nature, has been sufficient to produce these wonder- 
 ful refinements of animal life, till at last the human 
 organization has raised these natural faculties to their 
 highest power. The same life of God in nature is 
 j ust as competent to take the last step, as to take any 
 or all of the preceeding steps, without the expi"
 
 9 
 
 of creating individual souls. At no point in the se- 
 ries have the facts of the case demanded such an 
 interpolation. Such is the basis of modern material- 
 ism. We substantially admit its facts, and for many 
 reasons are rejoiced to possess them ; but we have 
 cause for objecting to the interpretation which they 
 receive. 
 
 Upon this basis the materialist takes up his second 
 position, and proceeds to ask what difference, except 
 in degree, there is between man and the animals which 
 rank next to him in intelligence and varied capacity. 
 And his argument becomes more subtle and bewil- 
 dering at every step. Lately, researches in the animal 
 kingdom have been rewarded by facts whose tenden- 
 cy is to diminish the traditionary difference presumed 
 by man between his own powers and those which 
 animals exercise. It is perceived that animals have 
 the ability to adapt themselves to circumstances. 
 Facts come to us, quite as well authenticated as any 
 scientific facts which we are in the habit of re- 
 ceiving, to show that many animals are not limited 
 to certain inexorable channels of instinct, binding 
 them, like machines, to definite acts and products, 
 but that they share man's independent capacity for 
 accommodating himself to new conditions. They seem 
 to be able to meet emergencies ; they seem to have 
 something which ekes out their instinct, and this is 
 so marvellously like human reflection, that no man 
 has yet been able to define the difference. This en- 
 croachment of the animal has been progressive ; at
 
 10 
 
 different times men have assumed different powers 
 as the ones peculiar to themselves, but the observer 
 of animal life has claimed them, one by one, and 
 men have found their limits circumscribed. At first 
 men supposed that animals were like children's 
 playthings, regulated to a set performance, or like 
 trees and flowers, partaking the unconscious life of 
 nature. They expected a doll to show a tendency 
 to accommodate itself to a child's caprices, as soon 
 as an animal to bring any help to its regular instincts. 
 But volumes are now filled with cases of clear ex- 
 periment and combination among animals ; in similar 
 circumstances it would be said that man reflected : 
 he would use the same organs which the brain of 
 the animal possesses also, and the quality of the re- 
 sult in both cases would be the same. So man was 
 compelled to fall back upon his more interior attri- 
 butes. Animals possessed a capacity for experiment 
 and adaptation, a power of using the organs of their 
 brain in combination, a forethought that reached be- 
 yond their ordinary instincts; in short, they have 
 been found in various emergencies acting so appro- 
 priately, that the quality of reflection upon external 
 things could not be denied to them. But they have 
 no memory said man. Memory depends upon the 
 subtle power of association, which is not limited by 
 time and space. The perceptions of the brute are 
 like the fragrance of flowers, exhaled daily and never 
 recollected. Man is impressible, and the universal 
 relation between all ideas can recal his impressions.
 
 11 
 
 Whereupon brutes indicated to their friendly observ- 
 ers that it was possible for them to remember ; man 
 might call association a subtle power, if so, then the 
 brute so far was subtle, for he could bridge gulfs 
 of time with these fine agerial impressions, and rest 
 them, with every occasion, upon piers of memory- 
 And bewildered man recollected then that his sense 
 of continuous existence resulted only from the power 
 of memory; if so, a thread of continuity runs also 
 through the lives of brutes. Of course, for the asso- 
 ciation of ideas displays itself through the association 
 of the groups of organs in the brain ; and these con- 
 volutions bear the same relation to each other in the 
 higher animals as in man. The animal vindicated 
 his claim to the qualities of reflection, memory, and 
 continuity of existence. Then man, to establish his 
 superiority to the animal, committed the satire of 
 denying that it had passions: Whereupon arose a 
 prompt vindication of revenge, jealousy, even envy, 
 curiosity and ambition, and of late there seem to be 
 reliable instances of the sense of shame among ani- 
 mals. Never before was it suspected that the brute 
 had a consciousness of self. Those who make the 
 latest claim that personal identity is the distinguish- 
 ing faculty of man, are on the point of leaving this 
 outpost for a less accessible position.* 
 
 * It is possible that observers have sometimes translated the actions of 
 brutes into the language of their own fancy, and sometimes have projected 
 what they wish to find upon what they really see. Animals are our elder 
 Scripture : their obscure texts possibly suffer from the superfluous ingenuity
 
 But the materialist has more than enough for the 
 argument which he meditates. It is sufficient if he 
 can show that some intelligent results of the animal 
 brain are the same in quality as some intelligent re- 
 sults of the human brain. Observation may push 
 the parallel farther, and bring other results into the 
 same harmony. But the materialist deems that he 
 is already sufficiently authorized to ask his question : 
 if no independent mind is necessary to produce these 
 qualities among animals, why is it necessary among 
 men ? Man has the perfected brain, and its results 
 may vastly exceed in degree the results of the brains 
 of animals, which occupy various positions on this 
 road to the climax of man. But if the quality of the 
 action is the same in both, why suppose that in one 
 case it results merely from a brain, but in the other 
 case from an independent soul ? Either all brains 
 which perform similar things are the instruments of 
 independent minds, or none arc. And the materialist 
 permits us this alternative. We accept substantially 
 
 of commentators. When the poet marks the " quick jerboa," planted above 
 his hole like a note of admiration, scanning with immense surprise the in- 
 truders upon his solitude, he exclaims, " none such as he for a wonder !" From 
 this fanciful burlesque there is but one step to the assertion of some enthusi- 
 astic observer that the capacity of marvellousness is anticipated by the jerboa 
 nature's rough draught of himself and his whole class of credulous seekers. 
 Animal typ?s may be isolated human inclinations : their higher forms may 
 prophecy faculties which we exercise in greater freedom only because we hold 
 them in ampler combinations. But we are intoxicated by a bold comparison 
 if we maintain that brutes and men are the reverse and obverse of the same 
 medal. It is quite likely that more strict and iinbiassed observations will 
 diminish the extent of the parallel which it is now the fashion to construct, 
 and pronounce counterfeit many supposed instances of animal humanity.
 
 13 
 
 the curious facts which make hi* argument appear so 
 strong : we rejoice to have them, because they are 
 valuable in another direction. Even if it be discov- 
 ered that many of them are the projections of lively 
 human fancy upon the sphere of animal life, stiU 
 enough remain, scientifically attested, to show an 
 identity of quality between the operations of the 
 animal and human brains. But the answer to the 
 materialist is not affected by that admission. 
 
 He now T proceeds to take up his third position with 
 certain phenomena which belong to the mesmeric 
 state. We refer to the excitement of the brain's 
 organs at the will of the mesmerizer, and with no 
 consciousness on the part of the subject. And he 
 argues thus : if the human brain can be played upon 
 as if its organs were like the keys of a piano if 
 two or more organs can be excited at once to pro- 
 duce a balance or combination of powers and if, by 
 excitirrg antagonistic organs, a struggle becomes ap- 
 parent in which the larger organs win the field, it 
 follows that all mental manifestation depends upon 
 the excitement of these organs in the natural or the 
 mesmeric state, and that the relation of the organs 
 creates and developes character, without Abolition and 
 independent spirit. He proceeds to strengthen this 
 argument by another class of facts, those, namely, 
 in which the operator impresses the mind of the sub- 
 ject contrary to the reality of things, making sweet 
 appear to be bitter, a friend to be a stranger, an 
 imaginary peril to be real, in short, giving the will
 
 14 
 
 no opportunity to rectify impressions which subvert 
 all our regular perceptions. Could these results take 
 place if an independent spirit stood behind the brain 
 to endorse or reject the impressions which it trans- 
 mitted ? * 
 
 Such are the positions of modern materialism. 
 The interpretation which the facts have received de- 
 
 * It is more convenient to anticipate in a note the discussion of this point. 
 All these phenomena depend upon a state in which the person cannot will to 
 exercise the judging power : in other words, the mesmeric state holds the per- 
 son subject to the influence of strong impressions, because it keeps the will 
 neutral and unsuspicious. The person has no reason to suppose that he must 
 adjust and test the impressions which the brain transmits. He believes and 
 acts as men would if the power of trying their perceptions by an experienced 
 judgment did not naturally belong to them. Even in the natural state people 
 submit to impressions which are strong enough to suspend the judgment, until 
 the spell lifts, and they resume their usual discriminations. The mesmeric 
 state overcomes the whole mind with this submissiveness. The operator 
 makes a mistake when he says that his subject " has no will,'' or that he affects 
 the will at pleasure. Even when the senses are entirely suspended, his effect 
 is produced merely through the usual organs of perception and reflection, while 
 the bubject is in a state that exaggerates his personal impressiveness. And it 
 is noticeable that he cannot affect those whose total weight of experience and 
 judgment is continually preponderating during his attempt. Such persons 
 naturally escape the tyranny of all powerful impressions. The doctrine of a 
 spirit distinct from the organization remains unimpeached by all these phe- 
 nomena. Let their domain be extended, and their special usefulness estab- 
 lished. It is just as likely that the mind, under mesmeric conditions, may be 
 influenced through certain organs to use those organs, as under natural condi- 
 tion. In the natural state, the presentation of an object to a sense excites the 
 mind to continue the use of that sense, with attention turned towards the sensu- 
 ous impressions : mental impressions occupy the attention in the same man- 
 ner. In the mesmeric state, mental impressions arc transmitted according to 
 the same laws, and their corresponding organs excited to a continuance. Sen- 
 sor and motor nerves pass to and from each limb of the body : each cerebral 
 organ also has its sensor and motor system. It would be as absurd to say 
 that the finger, when affected, originates the brain, as that the brain originates 
 tlie mind merely because its organs can transmit impressions in the mesmeric 
 us well as natural state.
 
 15 
 
 stroys the spiritual life of man : the brain limits his 
 tenure of existence, its organs create his character 
 and forestall his moral responsibility. The doctrine 
 of the second birth becomes the lucky accident of a 
 few men whose moral organs predominate : the pur- 
 pose of life is simply to develope the resources of 
 this planet, and men are the poor coral insects whose 
 innumerable deaths uprear some final cause of God. 
 Are these scientific facts, then, mere objects of our 
 curiosity, and harmless diversions for the million ? 
 On the contrary, they subserve a terrible ocular de- 
 ception, and the million lose their hope and resign 
 their dignity as they perceive the imbecility of the 
 old arguments amid these subtle novelties. If there 
 be an object in preaching, and if the Christian Church 
 perceive its lofty mission to develope the harmonies 
 of God within the souls of men, and to educate them 
 for God's ulterior purpose, the religious man must 
 become an investigator, and furnish the dangerous 
 half-knowledge of the age with its sublime interpre- 
 tation. His own faith will not suffice, his own senti- 
 ments are not an answer : the invisible things of the 
 spirit will not be accepted on the strength of his per- 
 sonal enthusiasm. The fine operations of his own 
 brain will be cited to testify against the words of his 
 mouth as he speaks of regeneration and the inde- 
 pendent soul. The traditions of the Church may be 
 grateful to those who are already convinced, or whom 
 no facts disturb, but they do not rest in that line of 
 argument which is essential to meet the present
 
 emergency, to keep down these heady and tumultu- 
 ous facts, and chain them to their oars. The religious 
 
 ' O 
 
 man must become a student of the laws of God, if he 
 would declare His whole counsel, and subordinate 
 the freedom of these fervid times to the order and 
 the great thoughts of the Creator. How vast this 
 field lies before us : the importance of our present 
 subject tempts us to coast its margin : perchance 
 tokens of immortality scattered here to refute this 
 domineering materialism mav reward our search. 
 
 O / 
 
 It need not trouble us at all that animals manifest 
 the same mental quality with man. Let the fact bo 
 accepted. The fault is, we have not been ready to 
 say that a brain has certain powers and tendencies 
 of itself, without an individual spirit. We have been 
 afraid lest in saying that we should prove too much 
 bv including the brains of men. We wish to include 
 
 tt 
 
 them to a limited extent, while beyond a certain line 
 we could not venture if we would. All the phenom- 
 ena of animal life, including ever}' case of adaptation 
 and experiment, result from the finite animal brain, 
 and wherever they coincide with the quality of 
 human action, they indicate that the human brain, 
 BO far, might operate as a finite brain, without an 
 independent soul. This position is objectionable only 
 in case that we have nothing else to say. But we 
 need not fear to give a wide range to animal action : 
 for to this finite capacity human nature annexes the 
 invisible world of God. Look at the facts in every 
 sphere of nature. You will find adaptation and ex-
 
 17 
 
 periment from the fern to the oak; you will see 
 instinct reinforced by a power of accommodation 
 from the polypus to the elephant. It makes no 
 difference whether you say that God personally 
 dwells in all these forms of life, or whether you say 
 that God sustains the laws which secure their action. 
 The point is this, that every thing is able to go a 
 little beyond its inevitable and natural routine, if 
 circumstances make it necessary. As the animal 
 brain developes through the lower into the higher 
 forms, this power of adaptation increases, till it reaches 
 the qualities of reflection and memory. There is no 
 point in the whole line where you find it necessary 
 to introduce a soul ; the brain itself, like the oak and 
 the plant, is adequate to meet its surrounding condi- 
 tions. What matter is able to effect by means of 
 the elements of nature under divine, law, is repre- 
 sented by the animal brain, which is the most subtle 
 material instrument. An animal's brain seeks food, 
 and if necessary, it lays a plan to procure it : the 
 same brain defends itself, and if needful, it uses cau- 
 tion, secrecy and artifice : it remembers where it 
 procured water ; in the process of migration it ac- 
 commodates itself to unexpected states of the earth 
 and air : in the vicinity of man it developes more 
 cunning than its wild life requires; it imitates many 
 human actions : the traits of the dog and the sagac- 
 ity of the elephant show what a brain can do without 
 a soul. Let these traits multiply and this sagacity 
 become more striking, still the brain as the highest 
 2
 
 18 
 
 form of nervous organization, would account for all. 
 It belongs to this planet and has a conformity with 
 it, as much as the shooting crystal and the growing 
 tree. And it even has a consciousness of its own op- 
 erations. To be conscious of what it is doing, the 
 nerve of the polypus does not need a soul any more 
 than the brain of the elephant : for consciousness is 
 nothing but a state of action. Then let the animal 
 do his best, and let us apply the words reflection, 
 memory, consciousness, sagacity, to what he does, he 
 still does nothing that a brain cannot do without a 
 personal soul. The words w T e apply do not represent 
 the peculiar characteristics of a soul ; even the word 
 reflection, though it enjoys an exaggerated value, is 
 not inappropriate to express the cogitations of some 
 observing animals. The human brain repeats these 
 animal powers because it repeats the corresponding 
 organs. Take away from man his additional organs 
 and take away his soul, and the rest of his brain 
 would perform its conscious functions as successfully 
 as the highest animal's, since such is the .brain's pre- 
 destined quality. Now add the other organs to man's 
 brain ; have we not involved ourselves to the extent 
 of admitting that they also could operate, in common 
 with the rest of the brain, without a soul ? No ; 
 because their action does not depend upon circum- 
 stances and external impressions. The whole power 
 of the animal brain is consumed in an accommoda- 
 tion to earthly circumstances, relating to nature or 
 to man. Furnish an elephant's brain with the organ
 
 19 
 
 of ideality 5 he would trumpet no lyric without the 
 ideals of the soul,, for the circumstances of earth do 
 not suggest them either to man or brute. Earth 
 provides only the coloring and form. Plant causality 
 in the forehead of the ape : he has imitation and the 
 power of making experiments, for earth demands 
 them. But the earth does not suggest the laws of 
 logic either to man or brute; they are anterior 
 forms of the human soul, and through causality they 
 arrange the corresponding harmonies -of creation. 
 Causality uses the material furnished by the other 
 organs, but it brings to them the primitive idea of 
 unity, which the world does not begin to suggest till 
 the soul has fettered its diversities, and made its 
 changes repeat the name of the unchangeable. 
 Find the men who stand next above the brute, and 
 you find the primitive idea of God, which indeed is 
 forced to use the poor material of the other organs 
 to frame their conception of a God. The beast 
 shudders at the presageful thunder, and cowers 
 through the mysterious minutes of an eclipse ; 
 but an invisible idea is needed to bring the dignity 
 of an invisible agency to human fear. And there is 
 no man so low who does not cherish the idea of the 
 continuity of his existence, though he is obliged to 
 build his future state out of the scenery of earth : a 
 sufficient proof in itself that earth has nothing to 
 suggest the idea.* If the earth cannot furnish these 
 
 * The materialist declares that people imagine an ideal, antl take the want 
 for a proof that this ideal corresponds to some reality and deserves fulfilment.
 
 20 
 
 conceptions, the addition of organs to the humafi 
 brain cannot discover them, for the natural brain is 
 conversant with things in the natural sphere. But 
 suppose a soul, containing these ideas as part of its 
 individual life and harmony, and you account for the 
 addition of the organs and the stimulus with which 
 they work. Behind the organs which man inherits 
 from the animal, and which domesticate him on earth, 
 there exist the immutable forms in which man 
 classifies his "knowledge and reduces to order his per- 
 ceptions : also the laws of logic, which are pure forms 
 of thought, and the idea of unity, and of causality. 
 There exists too the consciousness of right and wrong, 
 which cannot be the mere result of a proportion 
 among the organs of the brain, because it is constantly 
 referring to an invisible source of legislation. Besides, 
 were right only a proportion and harmony of the 
 brain, and wrong only a defect in certain organs, 
 there would be a corresponding consciousness of pro- 
 
 But in his history of the braiii he has already shoirn HS that every organ cor- 
 responds to definite conditions, and that not one is created except to serve a 
 practical necessity. Now accept for a moment his own scheme which makes 
 mind and life to be the result of organization. Two organs of the brain, hope 
 and ideality must concur for the composition of an idea of some fatnre condi- 
 tion. But according to his assertion that the want of an ideal is mistaken for 
 proof of a corresponding reality, thc.se two organs are futile and superfluous. 
 Why should the brain possess organs whose action is a deception, and whose 
 promise never conducts to a reality 1 What is to be done with this abortive 
 tendency, except finally to stifle it in the dust of the body's decay ? As well 
 might the organs which regulate the desire and choice of food be cheated of 
 their corresponding nutriment. Therefore the crudeness of human ideals, 
 and their continual doom of disappointment, so far from destroying belief in 
 conceptions that are independent of the brain's untutored organs, corroborate? 
 their pre-existcncc.
 
 21 
 
 portion or of defect, but not a consciousness of per- 
 sonal degradation, nor a sense of having violated 
 something which should be served by better educated 
 organs : something that mourns even when subjected 
 to the brain's hereditary necessities. It is here that 
 the personal soul displays its special independence of 
 the organs which it uses : it cannot transcend their 
 limits, nor entirely repair their deficiencies, but it con- 
 tinues to have a distinct consciousness of ideal good- 
 ness worthy to have better proportioned and more 
 obedient organs. The brain may limit the responsi- 
 bility, but cannot reduce the absolute principles of a 
 human souL If the principles did not exceed the 
 responsibility, man's conscience would be rent by no 
 regrets. 
 
 It is plain that this argument, based upon the 
 ideas which are not the results of external im- 
 pressions, might be wrought much further. Even 
 if you can discern no physical difference between 
 the brain of man and that of the highest ani- 
 mal, so that their convolutions, side by side, shall 
 seem precisely to correspond, you have still the 
 greater task to show that the primitive ideas, which 
 make use of man's best organs, belong to the sphere 
 of earth and are suggested by external perceptions. 
 It is difficult to see how an empirical philosophy, 
 which develop es everything out of the inductive 
 method, could answer modern materialism. To say 
 . that we are indebted to external hints from visible 
 objects for the first knowledge which we have of the
 
 22 
 
 law of unity, of cause and effect, and of the pro- 
 gressive method of creation, is the same as sa}dng 
 that the universe suggested to the Creator the laws 
 which should regulate its construction. In other 
 words, it is impossible for a created thing to discover 
 the system of which it is a part, unless the central 
 ideas and method of that system be confided to it in 
 the shape of intuitions, which gradually discover how 
 nature corresponds to them. The machine might as 
 soon explain to other machines the intelligent com- 
 binations of the mechanic who created it. It cer- 
 tainly must be an axiom, to be accepted as the basis 
 of this discussion, that creation cannot suggest to any 
 parts of creation the previous laws of the Creator. 
 If man establishes his science upon such laws, it is a 
 proof that he is not only a part of creation, in the 
 natural order, but also the member of a spiritual 
 order, by virtue of which he has conceptions of the 
 laws which made him. Otherwise we could find no 
 more difference between an elephant and a Hotten- 
 tot than between a Hottentot and a Newton : and 
 we should either have to deny that modern science 
 does follow the lines of God's laws, or else expect to 
 overhear two acorns or two apes grow scientific about 
 each other. But when we see daily how all created 
 things hasten to fall in with the logic of the best 
 thinkers and to crystalize along the lines which they 
 draw, we know that such lines are drawn parallel 
 with God's idea, and that science is made in the 
 image of the Creator.
 
 23 
 
 If now the materialist repeats to you his history 
 of the human brain, and the coincidences of animal 
 sagacity, and asks you at what point along the whole 
 line an independent soul can be interpolated, you can 
 show him it is precisely at the point where the brain 
 uses organs in correspondence with super-terrestrial 
 ideas. Excepting those organs thus directed, the 
 human brain itself is an animal brain, and endowed with 
 no continuous existence : it carries the animal sagac- 
 ities to their highest point, but the horizon of the planet 
 cuts them off, and they find their beginning and their 
 ending here. It might be shown how the presence 
 of the super-terrestrial ideas affect and modify merely 
 animal and perceptive organs. They raise the ani- 
 mal p'art of the human brain to a higher power, but 
 without altering its instinctive character : and when 
 they oppose its instinctive character, they speak in 
 the language of the tempted apostle, to furnish 
 another clear distinction that separates us from the 
 brute. But this point would carry us too far. The 
 hour of death divides the human soul from its ani- 
 mal inheritance, and it enters upon a new state with 
 nothing in its essence that corresponds to the brain's 
 temporalities ; the rudiments of the spiritual body 
 flow from the highest attributes which give to man 
 his present distinction ; animals are left behind man, 
 as a sagacious, experimenting, perceptive, combining- 
 animal, yields up his organs to the common clay : 
 and the new body takes form around the indepen- 
 dent intuitions, the laws of thought, the principles
 
 of harmony and law. At death men lose all acciden- 
 tal relations, and meet each other on the ground of gen- 
 uine affinities ; and these affinities, as well as the dis- 
 tinctions of wit, the analogies of humor, and the 
 creative combinations of ideality, have their foot 
 in the very structure and essence of the soul. 
 What man leaves behind, however valuable and 
 brilliant it may now seem, will be precisely that 
 which the second state- will find superfluous. As 
 well import into that state the earth itself, as the 
 faculties corresponding to the brain which earth con- 
 structed. There is a natural brain, and there will be 
 a spiritual brain ; the former shares the mortality of 
 the body which it uses, and its gifts cannot pass into 
 a state which has nothing to evolve then* action. 
 
 It is proper to notice here a difficulty which is 
 made by supposing that God has been engaged in 
 creating upon earth forms that correspond to spirit- 
 ual forms, and that exist necessarily because their 
 ideas existed first. The Swedenborgian view, with 
 its doctrine of things in heaven corresponding to 
 things on earth, has strengthened this mystical idea 
 of creation; so that now we frequently hear that 
 animals exist because their types pre-exist in the di- 
 vine mind ; from this to a belief in the immortality 
 of animals there is but a single step. But it does 
 not seem to me that this idea of creation harmon- 
 izes with science. Creation has been gradual, and 
 every step of it has been occupied with an imperfect 
 form: it cannot be true that these forms have cor-
 
 25 
 
 responded to spiritual ideas or forms. Is it not more 
 just to represent the Creator as seeking to embody 
 in the universe His ideal of spiritual existence, and 
 that here He has given a human soul in its first state, 
 with an appropriate environment? What then are 
 all the forms which crowded previous ages, and whose 
 fossils we sometimes see, but fragmentary models 
 made and broken; what were they but the tenta- 
 tive efforts of the Creative Power on its road to the 
 consummation of its ideal? Not necessary forms 
 with spiritual correspondencies, but experimental 
 forms faintly prophecying future excellencies, and 
 with no corresponding realities in the mind of God 
 to give them permanence, any more than the clumsy 
 models have in the mind of the sculptor who makes 
 and breaks them up, one after another, on the road 
 to his first perfected group. Those monstrous crea- 
 tures of the geological epochs were the first tossings 
 up of the plastic material. What permanence could 
 God confer, by His 'essential thought or by spiritual 
 types, upon the natures of those extinct Saurians, 
 violations of beauty and eternal fitness: heaven 
 never shuddered at their correspondencies, and the 
 improving earth has huddled them into her recesses ! 
 And at what point, either in the life of past or 
 present species, can these extempore devices, no lon- 
 ger subordinate to a chief conception, begin them- 
 selves to represent divine decrees? So far from 
 believing that the dog and the elephant are reduced 
 from essential forms which must forever pre-exist in
 
 26 
 
 the Creator's mind, we might more safely imagine, 
 with Genesis, that He says, " it repenteth me that I 
 have made them." Compared with His ideal pur- 
 pose they are abortive fragments, rough-casted, 
 broken, recast, again rejected, refined upon, and 
 slowly humanized .in His great inspiration of the 
 universe. As well concede continuous existence to 
 the megatherium as to the faithful dog whom some 
 half surmise will bear them company. As well ex- 
 pect to find in heaven correspondencies of the one as 
 of the other. They were rough draughts of nature ; 
 they served God's uses in His gradual civilization of 
 chaos ; but as well expect to find in God the neces- 
 sary type of chaos as of these chaotic fragments. 
 Let them all crumble to the dust let the bright 
 animals enjoy their brief hour of prophecy, and let 
 the earth resume so much of ourselves as earth ex- 
 cited. Continuous life and spiritual forms belong 
 only to immutable ideas in which God sees His im- 
 age. The states which yet lie before us undiscovered, 
 and in which our higher functions already feel that 
 they will have a ministry, will vindicate the patience 
 of God's creative power, till at last we shall see all 
 at once the true correspondence to these travailing 
 epochs of creation, when we see the glorious mani- 
 festation of the Sons of God. Follow the steps of 
 God's thought; permit His unfinished forms to sleep. 
 Do not turn the second state into a museum of earth's 
 monstrosities, or expect to travel thitherward with 
 your menagerie. Let the dead past bury its dead
 
 27 
 
 in its successive strata ; and yield all the organs of 
 the temporal man to the same unregretful oblivion. 
 "They shall perish; but Thou remainest, and they 
 all shall wax old as doth a garment : and as a vesture 
 shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed." 
 But the heirs of the Spirit sigh for perfected forms. 
 The materialist calls upon man to lay aside his 
 selfish hope of a continuous existence, and to be 
 content to subserve' the purposes of God as a finite 
 instrument, preparing some new epoch, which shall 
 be enacted upon a subdued and elaborated planet. 
 Man, says he, is the perishable agent for this devel- 
 opement and civilization of nature: and if, in this 
 process, he also harmonizes the human faculties, so 
 as to secure at last a preponderance to his moralities 
 and decencies, he will live in sumptuous tranquillity, 
 and add the furtherance of his goodness to the final 
 cause of creation. Even though man is finite, he has 
 every motive to obey his better impulses, till all the or- 
 gans of the human brain sound a perfect chord, prelud- 
 ing the descent of some predestined New Jerusalem. 
 Let man devote himself to God's future intention, 
 though the dust of his brain drink up all his trem- 
 bling emotions, and the costly shower sink into the 
 still equilibrium of the grave. It is noble in man td 
 ignore his personality, and like the dead limpet leave 
 his habitation for the future uses of God. So speaks 
 the materialist. We recognize that man reaches his 
 true dignity when he consents to be the minister of 
 God, but the facts of man and of nature forbid us to
 
 28 
 
 enhance the dignity of his sacrifice by supposing his 
 personal annihilation. We accept the statement of 
 the materialist : man is the agent for the civilization 
 of the earth and of himself. Out of that comes the 
 moral argument to prove that man is not a finite 
 instrument. For, let me ask, where can there be any 
 improvement that will harmonize with the report 
 which the soul makes of the moral nature of God, 
 except the improvement of individual souls ? The 
 future reduction of Nature's elements to scientific 
 use and play, though it fulfil all the earth's possible 
 conditions and energies, will only furnish the land- 
 scape to the soul's first state. Zones of the earth 
 subdued and fertilized will be her embossed girdles 
 put on for the ovations of the human soul. The cun- 
 ning artificer is merely adorned and accommodated 
 with his work : the brightest moments of earth will 
 only be her choice vintages yielded to his future 
 festival of triumph. The soul will taste the elabora- 
 ted drops, but its higher powers, refusing to be cor- 
 rupted by the luxury, will find in their own improve- 
 ment only a purpose worthy of the Creator. The 
 whole creation groaneth and travaileth, waiting for 
 the manifestation of the life of God in individual 
 souls. What other species of improvement is worth 
 the name ? If human souls cease to exist, the whole 
 object of successive generations is lost> unless we 
 suppose that God, like an impassive artist, is amusing 
 himself with the fine coloring of human sentiments 
 and the world's granite of principles. To what end
 
 do generations of men develope and improve- 
 merely that God may compose His epic of a universe, 
 by cantos of planets, enriching it with the culture 
 of earth and the manifold hopes of man ? That 
 would not be an epic, but a heartless travesty of the 
 sublime idea of individual improvement. It would 
 be a great Egypt, dead, buried in sand, choked with the 
 mummy-dust of its own developing Egyptians. In 
 planet-scenery and animal life we perceive the play 
 of infinite energies'; but in the refinement of prin- 
 ciples in individual souls we perceive the seriousness 
 of God. Annihilate those souls, and creation be- 
 comes a miserable comedy: because spiritual im- 
 provement without spiritual permanence is an 
 incongruity. The final purpose of God must be 
 mixed up with the fortune of individual men, be- 
 cause they contain the permanence of heavenly prin- 
 ciples : as soon sever the threads of universal gravita- 
 tion, as destroy these moral immutabilities which roll 
 around the centre of a God. 
 
 Notice too, what a surplus of activity is bestowed 
 upon man. The higher organs manifest an exuber- 
 ance which earth does not exhaust. The animal and 
 perceptive organs are fairly matched with temporal 
 conditions, and they have no ambition to exceed the 
 exigencies of any given moment. But the powers 
 which express the laws of thought, the divine har- 
 monies, and the intuitive principles, spurn the earth 
 in fierce energy, chafing at its limits, always outrun* 
 hing the task for the day. Among them, there is
 
 30 
 
 more outlay than is needed for the earth's improve* 
 ment, or for their own adjustment with terrestrial 
 conditions. What does the surplus mean ? Animals 
 have it not : they simply and precisely conform to 
 their conditions : their reflections can only correspond 
 to the stress of the moment. Call them out by for- 
 cible impressions, and they can attempt to rise to the 
 level of your teachings: alter their conditions, or 
 interfere with that average behavior which is called 
 their instincts, and they can experiment to accom- 
 modate themselves to the emergency. But they 
 never rise above it, nor anticipate a state of wider 
 activities by an exuberance which overflows the 
 present. Man, besides conforming to external im- 
 pressions, comes furnished with primitive tendencies, 
 like that, for instance, which inspires an artist with a 
 plan but disgusts him with its fulfilment. The sur- 
 plus of idea above his production demands satisfac- 
 tion, but the human brain reports that earth has not 
 colors tender enough, or marbles plastic enough to fix 
 his thought. Fortunate, disappointed artist if the 
 sounds or colors of earth could contain his ideal, 
 earth would be greater than himself, and the forms 
 of his thought would be his grave. Weary with 
 systematic failure, and fretted with the constant beat 
 of this illimitable tide upon his brain,.at last he turns 
 his back upon the baffling material, and seeks new 
 quarries of a more celestial flush. Earth never dis- 
 appoints the brain of the animal : her care for the 
 animal part of the human brain is motherly and
 
 31 
 
 genial ; but when her foster-child lets loose the riot 
 of heaven amid the moderate economies of her 
 mansion, and turns them into properties for his im- 
 possible dramas, her unsympathetic tolerance dismisses 
 him to seek an ampler providence. It is as if the 
 repulses of earth were intentioned to send the spirit 
 out of her attraction, that it may be caught in the 
 drift beyond. 
 
 It is obvious that many points, lying naturally in 
 the direction of this argument, remain unnoticed ; 
 but they must defer to the services of this occasion. 
 Such services are prompted by the expectation of 
 our higher powers, that another state will call them 
 to appropriate ministries and consume the excess for 
 which earth has no employment. Nobler circumstan- 
 ces will interest faculties which the friendly but re- 
 stricted, earth cannot tempt to a hearty expression. 
 The ordination consecrates invisible powers to the 
 service of the thoughts of God. Its prayers have 
 the voices of heralds: they seem to summon us to 
 meet upon the boundary of earth, to contemplate 
 the untried journey and commence the preparation 
 of our powers. It is as if we stood for a moment at 
 the point where death one day will leave us, to see 
 for ourselves what faculties must be collected to 
 make that little step across the line of the shadow, 
 Our prayers anticipate, with faint resemblance, 
 death's kindly office : they lift us a little, and we see
 
 JICSB LIBRARY: 
 
 32 
 
 with satisfaction another horizon enclosing fields that 
 swarm with wonderful activities. My friend, let us 
 think and speak to prepare and send forth more la- 
 borers unto that harvest. When all of us shall be 
 gathered in those fields, whose limits are thoughts, 
 and whose ripening air is love, may we find the in* 
 visible emotions of this day justified against all 
 earth's deceptions and degrading courses.
 
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