class="side">A Jewish Argument.

Kant's Reasoning.

Can Not Be Demonstrated.

The next clause in the creed, "The resurrection of the body," if it remains as a permanent article of faith, must rest on the declaration of Christ and on His resurrection. It is confessedly dependent, not on a natural, but a supernatural order. On this point it is again worth our while to note a concession by Huxley, as showing the consistency of one Christian truth with another. "If a genuine, and not merely subjective, immortality awaits us, I conceive that without some such change as that depicted in I Corinthians xv, immortality must be eternal misery."8 Surely, this is a great testimony to that famous chapter on the resurrection. No scientific proof or probability can be adduced for the resurrection of the body. The older theologians used to point out that the caterpillar entombed itself that it might emerge to the higher life of the butterfly. But we must not take from such a fact what suits our purpose, and leave a fatal weakness in our argument. The butterfly does, indeed, emerge from the coffin of the cocoon and the seemingly dead pupa. But it is only for a brief day of life. Then it lays its eggs and dies forever. It is born to no immortality, but to the most ephemeral life. The early Church; yea, the Jewish Church, found rational warrant for belief in immortality and the resurrection of the body, first in the thought that it was unjust for those who fought for and brought in the kingdom of God, to enjoy nothing of what they secured. So the doctrine of the first resurrection appears as a contribution of justice to holy life. Later on, similar reasoning demanded the resurrection of all. A judgment is necessary, not to acquaint God with the merits of men, but to acquaint men with the righteousness of God. This would be impossible without the resurrection of all. Very close to this is the reasoning of Kant, summarized as follows: "Every moral act must have as an end the highest good. This good consists of two elements, virtue and felicity, or happiness. The two are inseparable. But these can not be realized under the limitations of this existence. Immortality follows as a deduction. The moral law demands perfect virtue or holiness; but a moral being can not realize absolute moral perfection or a holy completeness of nature in this present life." It is wholly of faith that men are immortal. It of necessity can not be demonstrated. The mass of mankind have believed it, and do believe it, and it is one of the most difficult of beliefs to escape from, returning to some skeptical scientists almost as an intuition, conquering the logic of death and decay.

How Faith Grows.

It is also true that faith in immortality grows with the fullness and intelligence of the spiritual life. It becomes a complete persuasion to the pure in heart. Yet some scientific facts, as related to man, make the idea of his extinction improbable, and separate him from the "beast which perisheth."

Men and Brutes.

What Brutes Have.

It is true that much is common to men and brutes. They walk the same earth; breathe the same air; are nourished by the same food, which is digested by the same processes. Their life is transmitted by the same methods, and their embryonic life is strangely similar. It is also true that there are strong mental resemblances. Both love and hate; are jealous and indifferent; are courageous and cowardly; they perceive by similar organs; record by similar mnemonic ganglia; and are within certain limits impelled by the same motives. Nor can a measure of reason be denied to animals. While much of what appears to be mental life is automatic and unconscious response to an external stimulus reaching a nerve-center, yet within limits they deliberate; they exercise choice; and determine routes and methods.

Man Above Brutes.

Habits of Animals.

Limits of Brute Intelligence.

Limits Continued.

But when all this is said, man rises almost infinitely beyond the highest brute. Man can stand outside of himself; contemplate the movements of his own mind; watch the play of motive upon energy and will, and know himself as no brute can ever be trained to do. Nor have brutes the ganglia, lobes, or convolutions which house and direct such powers; and no tribe of mankind has been found without them, however undeveloped. Very limited, indeed, is the use of natural forces or of supplied materials in the life of a brute. The birds pick up feathers, hair, twigs; but no bird provides such things by deliberate prevision and co-operation with nature. What animal sows that he may reap? The so-called agricultural ants gather what they have not sown, and reap what they have not planted. Man sows that he may gather; breeds that he may use; and accomplishes civilization by an ever-increasing mastery and adaptation of natural forces. An insect may float with the current on a chip; but what one ever put a chip into the water? A beaver may build a dam; but what beaver ever turned the heightened water on a wheel? The dog may lie in a sunny spot; but what dog ever created artificial heat or condensed by a lens the sun's heat on a particular point? The hen may lay and incubate an egg; but what hen ever invented an incubator to save her long sitting in one pose or place, or studied the development of life in and from the egg she produced? The ox may select the richest pasture; but never dreamed of creating a rich pasture by the culture and fertilization of which he is the chief source. The tiger chooses and slays his prey; but does not know how to propagate, develop, and safely mature the animals on which he feeds. All animal life below man must locate where its food abounds, or follow that food in its migrations or seasonal changes. Man alone stores and transports his food, creating commerce by his mastery of climate.

Man Parts Company.

Man and Brute Compared.

How Man Can Live.

How Man Can Decay.

Incidental as to Body.

The brute obeys law unwittingly in the sustenance and transmission of life. Man alone perceives and deduces law from a thousand facts, and concludes a lawgiver from the law, and one Lord and Giver of Life "from the unity and universality of force." The brute turns its eye skyward to detect danger; but never measures or counts the stars, discerns the movements of the planets, nor extends vision and hearing by telescope, microscope, and megaphone, nor proves by the spectroscope the sameness of stellar elements with those of our own world. The brute neither makes history nor records it. He remembers, but does not recollect. His affections are evanescent as to his kind, and only approach permanence as they are fastened upon us. The brute cognizes external things, but does not perceive their being. Thus man can live in an intellectual or spiritual world as to his aims, motives, and occupations. He need touch matter only so far as it is necessary to support the bodily strength on which his spiritual and intellectual movement must depend for basis and manifestation. On the other hand he may reduce the intellectual and spiritual life to the lowest limit by giving the mastery to his physical appetites. We feel instinctively that to do this last is unworthy of manhood and destructive of the higher nature and intent. But who expects a brute to do anything else but minister to his appetites? If he delays a single second in doing it, it is only through fear of man or of some stronger animal. His intellectual movements have this as an end in complete reversal of the case with man. With the brute the intellect seems incidental to the body. With man the body is incidental to the intellect. One feels for this reason that man