A handbook of Freethought

by Unknown

THE DEVIL.

I have nothing new to offer on this old subject, and I therefore warn the reader not to expect any wonderful revelations. The Devil is not an object of recent discovery. He is as old as the hills. Everybody seems to know him, and he seems to know everybody. It would therefore be in vain for me to attempt to give any information respecting this old friend. However, as there are some thoughts which persist in bolting into my mind regarding old Nick, I have concluded to jot them down for those who have a taste for devilish reading.

It was always a question that greatly perplexed me, when a boy, why God should create the Devil. I never could see it in any other light than that of an egregious blunder. Why should an infinitely good being create an infinitely bad being? Why did not the Creator make all of his creatures perfect? Why did he not save them from being lost? Why did he form man to place him in the garden to be tempted and ruined when it was in the Creator’s power to prevent his fall? Why did he not create him so good and so strong that it would be impossible for him to do wrong? Why was the Serpent (the Devil) made so much stronger and wiser than man? If Adam had only been made a great deal stronger, and the Serpent less seductive, the human race might have had a glorious and brilliant career. But as it was a powerful serpent-devil on the one hand, and on the other, a weak-headed know-nothing man, is it not clear that better results could not have been expected?

Why did not the author of the red man (Adam) tell him that he was going to have a severe temptation?—that he was soon to meet his great adversary? It is highly probable that Adam could have made a better showing if he had only been advised of the situation in time. But as it was he did not have a fair chance. It would have been no more than justice to have told Adam and Eve all about the Serpent-devil which was hid away somewhere in the garden like a snake in the grass. It would have been only fair to have posted on all the fences and walls about the garden, this sign, “Adam and Eve, Beware of Snakes!” This would have given them a chance for their lives. Poor Adam and Eve! They were not a bad lot, but were transplanted too early, and were nipped in the bud by the great original Serpent, who was acting according to his nature and circumstances, and therefore we cannot find it in our hearts to be too severe on his Satanic Majesty. If Satan was great, it was not won by his own powers, he had greatness thrust upon him. Let us be just; let us give the Devil his due. I have no doubt but he has grievances, if there were any court where he could offer his complaints.

The Creator made both man and Serpent-devil, knowing just what would and must come to pass, and he did it all for his own glory. He also made hell for his own glory. Surely the Lord’s ways are not our ways. For no Modoc Indian would entertain such a design toward his children, no matter how bad they might be, or how vicious his own nature.

We cannot think of a creator without seeing that he as the author of all things, is responsible for good and evil, for right and wrong, for ignorance and knowledge, for truth and error. Man is therefore, no more responsible for his nature than a steam engine is responsible for its defects. The defects must be attributed to the maker in both cases.

Adam knew good and evil without eating of the tree of knowledge. He had a brain, and his thoughts were imperfect; sometimes they were relatively correct, and then again they were wholly wrong or in error. This was knowing good and evil, therefore he knew good and evil without eating of the prohibited fruit, just as surely as he had a brain. The tree of knowledge is a very childish story. Knowledge does not grow on trees, nor does much of it exist in heads which entertain such fables as a divine revelation.

Man was created with a brain to do his thinking and knowing, and by its very nature of knowing he must know good and evil, and yet he is cursed for knowing good and evil. As well might the Creator give the bird wings, toss it in the air and then damn it for flying. But even supposing the story to be true, namely, that the fruit of the tree made one to know good and evil, why should such desirable fruit be forbidden? What would the world be without the knowledge of good and evil? Man cannot know good without also knowing evil. They are inseparable. God himself knows good and evil, and if it is good for him to have such knowledge, then it surely must be good for you and me. The love of knowledge is the fountain of life. Man must have knowledge or his life is a mere cipher. All hail then to Mother Eve, who first tasted of the tree of knowledge, who first quenched her thirst at this fountain from which the whole race of thirsty souls have delighted to drink. Mythology abounds in stories about the gods; about their imperfections and weaknesses, but this account of the Serpent-devil and the tree of knowledge is the silliest fable of all, and has entailed indescribable misery upon the human race. The prohibition of knowledge has left an inherited twist in human nature. Even now in the afternoon of the nineteenth century mankind does not know much—and it is largely due to this first commandment not to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Has not the church always prohibited knowledge? Has she not stood in the way of every great reform? Knowledge is not important. Only believe. Believe in the Bible, but believe it only as the priest explains it.

It seems that the Serpent-devil knew more about the nature of man, and what would result from his eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge than God did. Jehovah told Adam in plain terms, that if he ate of the fruit of that tree he would die that very day. But the Serpent-devil told Eve (in French I suppose) that she and her “hubby” would do no such a thing, but on the contrary it would be a great blessing to them, and that they would become as gods (there were lots of gods in those days and many of them “no great shakes”), knowing good and evil. It turned out just as the Serpent-devil had told Mother Eve; they did not die. And when God saw what Adam and Eve had done he called a conclave of gods, and after due deliberation voted to drive them out of the garden penniless, to live upon the cold charities of an unfriendly world. And this is the same God who commands us to forgive and to love our enemies. That would not be god-like, and therefore I hold the commandment invalid.

In this august assemblage of the celestial hosts, one of their number assigns the reasons for expelling Adam and Eve from the garden in these words: “Behold the man (and woman) has become as one of us to know good and evil.” ([Gen. 3 : 22].) Here we see it is a surprise to the gods that man had become as one of them, knowing good and evil. Yet these gods are supposed to know all things from all eternity to all eternity. Do the gods forget things as we poor mortals do?

The Serpent had told Eve just what would happen, and God told Adam just that which did not happen. The Serpent said: “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. Ye shall not surely die.” ([Gen. 3 : 5, 4].) The Serpent gave it straight, and God made a mistake to say the least. In all this story about the fall of man, the Devil appears to be a better friend of man than his Creator.

The Serpent was in reality not the enemy, but the friend of man. He spoke words of truth and encouragement to Adam at a time when he needed good counsel. It is not to be forgotten that he spoke the truth. The poisonous tongue of malice has called him the father of lies, but this saying is a lie itself—and a bald-headed lie of sufficient antiquity to be itself most appropriately called the father of lies. The Devil, Lucifer, is the light-bearer, the truth revealer; but the world at large has an impression that there is a screw loose somewhere, and have unwittingly ascribed the evil to the Devil, when a very slight study of his character and deeds will show that “the Devil is not half as black as he is painted.”

The next account we have of him is in the book of Job (not a Hebrew writing), where he appears under the title of Satan. It is to be borne in mind that he has many names. In the book of Genesis we left him a serpent with a curse pronounced upon him: “Because thou hast done this thou art cursed above all cattle [what kind of cattle is a snake?] and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly thou shalt go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.” ([Gen. 3 : 14].) Prior to the great fall of Adam and Eve, when they fell upward and became as the gods, it seems the Serpent had always hopped along erect, on the tip end of his tail, but because he had divulged some court secrets, he was condemned to crawl upon his belly the rest of his natural life (which is, I should remark, uncommonly long); but in the book of Job he says of himself that he has been “walking up and down in the earth.” Who told him to get up? Was he not cursed to go on his belly for all time to come? How could he walk? A snake has no legs. When, where, how, and by whom was this transformation of a hideous serpent into a prince-like man, accomplished? I don’t know. Perhaps it is a sort of Santa Claus story, coming down to us from the childhood of the race. All peoples have similar traditions which spring from early myths. Our Devil story will have to get in line and march in the procession of fables. There are many people, and people of the very best kind, who do not have any Devil. He has left them and gone on a permanent vacation. On the other hand, there are folks who could not feel happy if they thought there were no Devil. To all such, who may read this, I would ask a few questions which if they will intelligently answer, I shall be greatly obliged.

Did the Serpent talk? How could he speak without having the vocal organs necessary to human speech? Who taught him the use of language? What language did he speak? Was it French? I merely suggest the French, as Adam and Eve took French leave of the garden. Did the Serpent reason like a man? How could he with such a small head and not even a spoonful of brains, know so much more than Adam and Eve? Yea, he even knew more than God himself—for God did not know, or else he fibbed, that man would not die if he ate the forbidden fruit. He did not seem to know that man would become as the gods by partaking of this tree, but the Serpent knew all this and possibly much more; but how could so much superior knowledge be crowded into so small a head? Some of our congressmen with domes of unusual dimensions do not know as much as this inexperienced Serpent did. How are we to account for this? Let some devilishly wise man explain to a benighted world why Satan has been so wickedly traduced.

In the book of Job we have a second account of the Devil: “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them. And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil? Then Satan answered the Lord and said, Doth Job fear God for naught? Hast not thou made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast blest the work of his hands and his substance is increased in the land. But put forth thine hand now and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thy hand. So Satan went from the presence of the Lord.” ([Job 1 : 6–12].) Then follows an account of the destruction of the cattle and children of Job, and yet he would not curse God. Satan then suggested that to afflict him in person would bring out his weakness and deeply hidden wickedness. Job was tormented with boils, and three gratuitous advisors, and did not curse God, but came very nearly giving his counselors a cuss word or two. They exasperated him beyond measure.

Now while it must be admitted that the Devil does not show up to as great advantage in this fable as he does in that relating to the tree of knowledge, yet we should not jump to our conclusions. Let us review this Job story.

We are surprised at the dignified manners of Satan. He walks in with lordly airs among the sons of God. No one present said to him, “Get out of here.” He struts around in the gay company as one of them. We hardly know how to understand such familiarity possible between the sons of God and Satan. If, however, the sons of God in those days were no better than the sons of God are in these, it is not in the least surprising that Satan should conduct himself as well as the best of them. But why did God permit him to do these cruel things to Job? In a certain book by God, we are told to “resist the Devil and he will flee from thee.” This would have been splendid medicine for the doctors who prescribed it. Satan did not come there so far as we see to work any temptation. It was God who set up the temptation before Satan. He began by asking Satan what he thought of Job. What mattered it what his opinion of Job might be? Why should his opinion be asked? Was it not showing respect to him? God should have said, “Get behind me Satan.”

Satan had seen many men who could not stand in the hour of trial, and not knowing Job he took him for a man of that kind; God, however, knew Job to be a “perfect” man and ought to have protected him from all evil. Yet he did nothing of the kind, but on the contrary, clothed Satan with power of destroying his cattle and children, and afflicting him with tormenting boils. We see then that it is not Satan who is responsible for the sufferings of the patient man, but God himself, who first shows respect to Satan’s presence and his opinions, then gives him power by which he does a monstrous wrong to a good man and his family. But if Satan’s part is bad God’s is worse. He is the author of all of Job’s miseries. If God had been just, he would not have led off to his Satanic Majesty with such a temptation as to ask him his opinion of Job. It was immaterial what his opinion was; but it was all important that if there were a God in Israel that he should protect and honor the “perfect” man, Job.

But aside from the barbarities of this myth, look at its childish absurdities. How could the omniscient, whose eyes are in every place, beholding the evil and the good, need to ask Satan where he came from! Was not God, the omnipresent, everywhere on earth? If Satan had been going up and down the country would he not of necessity have met God again and again? Obviously these great opponents must have often met. Again, it was useless for God to ask Satan what his opinion of Job was, or would be after he tested him, as he knows all things past, present, and to come, in heaven, earth and hell (I mean hades). It is evident that Satan’s opinion is not needed or cared for, because after all the trials Job suffered were ended, there is not one word given as to what Satan’s opinion of Job was, and yet in the beginning of the story this seems to be its sole object. After Job suffers a long time from bodily sores and “miserable comforters” Satan vanishes from the scene in a very obscure way, and God blesses Job with twice as much as he had before. He had more sheep, more camels, more oxen, and more asses. He became father of seven sons and three daughters, the same number of sons and daughters that were slain by Satan, instigated by God. Why were these ten innocent persons murdered? Had they no rights that a just God was bound to respect? Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Certainly he ought to. But in this case the judge pleads guilty of this crime. In reply to Satan God says: “Although thou movedst me against him to destroy him without cause.” ([Job 2 : 3].) Here is an unqualified confession of wronging Job and his children without a show of justice; and even the cattle, I imagine, would protest against the outrageous slaughter perpetrated on them. If these asses were like Balaam’s, I am sure they would enter suit for damages.

“So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning, for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses. He had also seven sons and three daughters.” ([Job 42 : 12, 13].) It is clear that the Lord had nothing to do whatever with these blessings. Job had had sheep, camels, oxen, asses, and children before, without any assistance from the Lord; and if he secured a similar stock of cattle and a family of children it was by his own management and husbandry.

But supposing them a gift from God as damages sustained by Job at the hand of Satan through the instigation of God, yet they could not assuage his grief for the loved ones ruthlessly torn from his embrace. It is easy to see that this story is nothing more than an oriental tale—a myth. It is wanting not only in fact, but it teaches very bad morals. There is nothing ennobling in it. 1. God had no moral right to permit Satan to come unrebuked into the company of the sons of God. An earthly father teaches his children to avoid “evil communications,” but on this occasion the heavenly father did not scorn the company of Satan, but treated him respectfully. 2. Again, the infinite being would not need to ask the Devil what his opinion of Job was, for he would know beforehand. 3. The infinitely good being would not want the Devil’s opinion—nor would he value it a straw, if it were given before it was asked. 4. The infinitely just ruler of the universe would not give the great adversary of man and God such diabolical power over that “perfect and upright man” Job. Nor would he have permitted the three “miserable comforters,” reeling mentally under the blind staggers of a blind theology, to have added more torment to that imposed by his Satanic Majesty. Nor would he have permitted him to murder the seven sons and three daughters, as a mere matter of experiment in testing Job’s staying powers. All this is so horrible that the afterthought of more camels and asses, as a compensation is an insufficient patch to cover the unqualified wrongs done to the man of Uz. Even Job does not shine as conspicuously in all this as he should. Job ought to have protested with all his might and main against both God and Devil, that his individual rights were invaded. He should have taken a change of venue, to have a hearing before some other god, where there was a slight hope of securing more justice. But he didn’t and the consequence is we are all advised, when suffering the outrageous wrongs of despotism, to “be patient like Job.” It has been a great evil to the human family that Job was no “kicker;” it has opened wide the flood gates of tyranny, and transfused the cowardly blood of sheep into the veins of men. Oh, that Job had kicked and taken an appeal, what an inspiration it would be to the fold of God now, to resist the shears of the fleecers! to rebel against the rule of robbers!

Some questions to be answered by the man who pounds the Bible and claims to understand the Greek scriptures:

1. Who were the sons of God?

2. How many were there present, and were there still more of them elsewhere?

3. Where did they come from?

4. Were they any relation to the people of Nod?

5. Who were their mothers?

6. What were their occupations?

7. Where are they now?

8. Where did the Devil come from?

9. Did God create him or did he make himself?

10. If God made him then is he not responsible for all that old Nick does?

11. If he is as terribly demoniacal as orthodox theology describes him, “why in ’l don’t God kill the Devil?”

12. If he cannot kill him does it not prove that the Devil is his match; and if he can, but will not, does it not prove that he sustains him and approves of his work?

13. In the light of modern theology is not the Devil almost always successful? Does he not have a larger kingdom, a larger following than God?

14. Why did the Creator inflict such a hellish punishment upon Adam and Eve, and let the Serpent off so lightly?

15. Has the punishment inflicted upon the Devil lessened his power?

16. Have the curses which God has pronounced on the world made it better?

17. Is there any place in the record, accounts of the Devil’s stealing, robbing, and murdering?

18. Are there not numerous stories in the Bible recounting the robberies and murders perpetrated in the name and by the sanction of God? Some times the people of God destroyed five thousand, ten thousand, twenty thousand, fifty thousand, seventy thousand, and in one instance six hundred and seventy thousand, as in the case of Pharaoh and his hosts in the Red sea. Did Satan ever try to do anything as hellish as this?

19. Is the Devil the father of lies? When did he tell a deliberate falsehood? To Eve? Oh no, it was the other party who did that business.

20. Did he lie when he took Jesus up into an exceeding high mountain, etc., and saith unto him, “All these will I give thee,” etc.? ([Mat. 4 : 8].) It is claimed that old Beelzebub lied on this occasion. It would hit the bull’s eye in the center if we were to say that the writer of this story about Jesus being carried off bodily into an exceeding high mountain, was the boy responsible for this lie. But without resting the case there let us see how it opens out. It is urged that “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof;” but it may be urged that the Devil is called “the prince of this world,” implying that he has just claims both by conquest and possession; and therefore he could have given at least a quitclaim deed.

The Devil is an expensive luxury of the church. It costs about $1,000,000,000 annually for preaching against the Devil. Even if there is less said derogatory to his Satanic Majesty now-adays, yet it costs just as much, and more too, for drawing it mild, than it did formerly, for describing the split hoof, horns, and spear-headed tail, hell, etc. Notwithstanding the fact that the people want less Devil and more bread and beef, yet they must have some Devil. Hence the church clings to its Devil-idol with which to scare the people. To give up the Devil is to break up house-keeping all around. If there be no Devil then there is no hell; and if no hell, there is no salvation; and if no salvation there is no need of preaching; and “no preach no pay.” How could a fat minister with a fat salary, look such a ghost as that in the face? Yes, it would be impossible for the church to survive without the Devil. The clergy have to fall back upon him in times of revival to stir up the fears of uninformed people.

The Devil has had many hard names heaped upon him, for example: The Tempter; the Adversary or Satan; Beelzebub; the Prince of Devils; the Strong One; the Enemy, or the Hostile One; the Serpent; Lying Spirit; Lucifer; Son of the Morning; Prince of Darkness; Prince of the Power of the Air; the Accuser; Angel of the Bottomless Pit; Angel of Light; Mammon; Belial; Legion; the Foul Spirit; the Unclean Spirit; the God of this World; the Great Red Dragon; Abaddon; Apollyon, the Destroyer, etc. Besides these sacred titles, he is equally well known by certain house-hold names, as, Old Nick; Old Splitfoot; the Old Scratch; Old Harry; Old Horny; the Old Boy; the Deuce; the Dickens; auld Clouty; Nickie; Ben; his Satanic Majesty, etc. It must be confessed that these names do not carry much sanctity with them, nor do they leave us in love with the character they represent. But before we proceed further, it is only simple justice (that is giving the Devil his due), to call attention to the various names by which God has been known.

The early Hebrew literature speaks of gods, not God. We find the following names ascribed to them: El; Elohim; El Shaddai; Shaddai; Elvoh; Yahve, or Jah. The following is a personal photograph as nearly as we can draw it, of the Jewish Jehovah as described in the Bible: “There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.” ([Ps. 18 : 8].) “Round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.” ([Ps. 18 : 11].) “His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire.” ([Rev. 1 : 14].) “And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace.” ([Rev. 1 : 15].) “He had horns coming out of his hand.” ([Hab. 3 : 4].) “And burning coals went forth at his feet.” ([Hab. 3 : 5].) “In the midst of the seven candle-sticks one like unto the son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.” ([Rev. 1 : 13].) “And he had in his right hand seven stars; and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword.” ([Rev. 1 : 16].)

This God has violated all the moral laws he ever gave to man. He approved of lying, robbing, adultery, murder, war, and all the great crimes known to man.

Is it any wonder that Theodore Parker should say to the Calvinist who was trying to convert him, “The difference between us is simple,—your God is my Devil.”

The reader has his choice—or he may say “good Lord good Devil,” and float with the current. There is, however, no disguising the fact that between God and the Devil, as described in the Bible, the Devil sustains the better moral character of the two. He is not spotless and clean, it is true, but he has infinitely less bloodshed to answer for than Jehovah.

Where the Devil did he come from? I am reminded of this form of expression by a little incident related of a Scotch preacher, who took for his text, on one occasion, the following passage: “The Devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour.” ([1 Peter 5 : 8].) It must be borne in mind, in order to better understand the full force and beauty of the preacher’s division of the text into three heads, that it was common in earlier times to repeat the pronoun in a sentence, for example, John Smith, his book, Mary she has come home, etc. In charming accord with this old style, the minister divided his text into three parts. He said, “My brethren, we will first inquire where the Devil he was walking to? and secondly, who the Devil he wanted to devour? and thirdly, what the Devil he was roaring about?”

Having gratuitously thrown in this gem, we proceed to answer the question, “Where the Devil, did he come from?”

It is evident that the earlier Hebrew literature is almost wholly free from any traces of a personal Devil, and that later writings of the same people show strong outline of such a personality of evil.

While it is true that Satan is a Hebrew word, it is equally true that the word does not denote a being at all, but means anything adverse or opposing. We may cite in illustration a few passages. Second Samuel 19 : 22: “David said, What have we to do with you, ye sons of Jeremiah, that ye should this day be adversaries unto me?” First Kings 11 : 14: “And Jehovah stirred up an adversary unto Solomon, Hadad the Adomite.” First Kings 11 : 23: “And God stirred up another adversary, Rezon, the son of Eliadah.”

In these instances, the word rendered adversary or adversaries, is Satan, and means nothing more than an opponent.

When the Jews were carried captives to Babylon, they came into immediate contact with a people, the Persians, who believed in a good being and a bad one. Ormazd was their good God, and Ahriman their Devil. The latter was as clearly defined in the duality of Zoroastrian theology, as the former. During their seventy years’ captivity it could not be otherwise, than that the enslaved people should imbibe some of the customs and beliefs of their masters. If they went so far as to change the characters of their language from the original Hebrew letters to those of the Chaldas, it is easy to see that they would of course, adopt this notion of an evil principle and personality, so prevalent at that time in Chaldea. After the Babylonian exile the doctrine of a Devil became a part of the Jewish belief, and the evil spirit was termed Satan, as he was the foe or adversary of God. In First Chronicles 21 : 1, there is a circumstance related in which Satan or the Devil is the principal agent. The words are: “And Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number Israel.” Now the book of Chronicles being written after the captivity, it was quite natural that the writer should consider and designate the enemy of God, the Devil or Satan. But the same event is mentioned in another of the Jewish books, written before the captivity, and the temptation of David is referred to entirely another being. Here the words are:

“And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and moved David against them, to say, ‘Go number Israel and Judah,’ Thus in the earlier books, the affair is attributed to the Lord, but in the books written after the Jewish connection with the Chaldeans and Persians, Satan is blamed for the same act. This, beyond doubt proves the source of the Christian superstition respecting the Devil.” (“The Devil,” by John Watts.)

“With this dualistic system the Jews came in contact during their captivity at Babylon, and are supposed to have retained permanent traces of it in their subsequent theology. The conception of the Devil and of a lower kingdom of demons or devils is the evident illustration of this. (Ency. Brit. V. Devil.)

“The reason why there was no Devil in the early books was because none was needed then. The gods considered themselves as being quite equal to any emergency that might arise in the way of wickedness.”—M. D. Conway.

In other words, the Devil is a myth coming out of the terrible darkness of remote ages. Every fear that the primitive man and men of barbarous races have had, painted devils before their minds of every description. The master mind has said:

“’Tis the eye of child-hood

That fears a painted Devil.”

The thought that millions of people commonly well informed on general matters, still believe in this barbarous myth, must shock and oppress like an incubus every sensitive and well-informed mind. Such people can smile pleasantly over the homely myth of Santa Claus, but the Devil is altogether a different personage. An old lady was once told that the Devil was dead. She sat silent for a moment, and then replied, “Well, you may think so, but we hope for better things.”

As the horrid doctrine of witchcraft under the light of advancing knowledge has had to retire into the background of oblivion; as the Puritan doctrine of infant damnation has been relegated to the limbo of forgetfulness; as hell’s fire has burned to ashes and the ashes become cold, so too, is the doctrine of a personal Devil retreating from the minds of all sensible people.

SOUL FARRAGO.

What is, and Where is the Soul?

Until the Greek philosophy taught the world how to use and abuse abstract notions, immaterialism was not an attainable phase of thought. (Prof. Bain, “Mind and Body,” p. 143.)

Thought necessarily supposes conditions. To think is to condition, and conditional limitation is the fundamental law of the possibility of thought. For, as the greyhound cannot outstrip his shadow, nor (by a more appropriate simile) the eagle out-soar the atmosphere in which he floats, and by which alone he may be supported; so the mind cannot transcend the sphere of limitation, within and through which exclusively the possibility of thought is realized. (Sir William Hamilton, “Philosophy” p. 456.)

In this paper an attempt is made to answer two very important questions, namely: What is, and where is the soul? in such fashion that everybody will be satisfied that he has a soul, and the exact spot it occupies in his mundane tabernacle. Here are a number of opinions on this subject, by the most learned men the world has ever produced. In a multitude of counsel there is wisdom. The first witness I shall put upon the stand is:

Pythagoras: (6th c. B. C.) The soul is number and a harmony. Taught the doctrine of metempsychosis. His disciples held the soul to be an aggregate of particles of great subtilty pervading the air in constant agitation.

Heraclitus: (6th c. B. C.) The soul is a spark of the stellar essence: “Scintilla stellaris essentia.”

Pherecides: (6th c. B. C.) Souls existed from all eternity.

Anaximenes: (Ionic philosopher, 5th c. B. C.) God is air, air is a life-giving principle to man. The soul is air.

Diogenes of Appollonia: (Greek natural philosopher, 5th c. B. C.) The soul of the world and the soul of man is air.

Anaxagoras: (5th c. B. C.) The soul is an immortal, aerial spirit.

Socrates: (4th c. B. C.) The soul is corporeal and eternal.

Epicurus: (4th c. B. C.) The soul is a bodily substance, composed of subtile particles, disseminated through the whole frame, and having a great resemblance to spirit or breath.

Empedocles: (Sicilian philosopher and poet, 5th c. B. C.) Declared himself to have been “a boy, a girl, a bush, a bird, a fish;” that the soul inhabits every form of animal and plant.

Aristotle: (4th c. B. C.) Plants have souls without consciousness. Animals have souls, but inseparable from body. The human body is inseparable from mind, but the human mind is divided into active and passive intellect. The active intellect is pure form, detached from matter, and immortal.

Josephus: (1st c.) There were three sects among the Jews—the Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Essenes. The Pharisees believed in metempsychosis; the Sadducees believed that the soul perished with the body; the Essenes held that the soul was immortal. The soul descended in an aerial form into the body, from the highest region of the air, whither they were carried back again by a violent attraction, and after death those which had belonged to the good dwelled beyond the ocean in a country where there was neither heat nor cold, nor wind nor rain.

Pliny: (2d c.) The body and the soul have, from the moment of death, as little sensation as before birth.

Justin Martyr: (2d c.) It is heresy to say that the soul is taken up into heaven, men rise with the same bodies.

Tatian: (2d c.) There are two spirits conjoined in the human body. A material and an immaterial spirit.

Athenagoras: (2d c.) The soul is spiritual, but with a spirituality subject to material tendencies.

Origen: (3d c.) The soul is neither spirit nor matter.

Augustine: (4th c.) The soul has neither length, breadth, nor thickness. It acts on the body through the corporeal substances of light and air, which substances are mingled through the denser parts of the body. The commands of the soul are first communicated to this subtile matter, and by it immediately conveyed to the heavier elements.

Tertullian: (Latin father, about 160.) The soul has the human form, the same as its body, only it is delicate, clear, and ethereal. Unless it were corporeal, how could it be effected by the body, be able to suffer, or be nourished within the body?

St. Ambrose: (4th c.) We know nothing but what is material, excepting only the ever venerable Trinity.

St. Hilary: (5th c.) There is nothing created which is not corporeal, neither in heaven nor in earth, neither visible nor invisible; all is formed of elements; and souls, whether they inhabit a body, or are without a body, have always a corporeal substance.

Gregory Nazianzen: (4th c.) Soul, or spirit, is composed of two properties—motion and diffusion.

Bishop Nemesius: (5th c.) The soul is an immaterial substance. It is involved, as Plato taught, in eternal, self-produced motion, from which the motion of the body is derived. The pre-existence of the soul proves its supra-sensible character, and its immortality.

Faustus: (Bishop of Regium, in Gaul, A. D. 470.) All created things are matter; the soul being composed of air, God alone is incorporeal.

Mamertus: (In reply to the bishop.) Man was made in the image of God. Now, as there can be no likeness to God in matter, therefore it must be found in the soul, therefore the soul is immaterial. The soul is present in every part of the body as well as in the whole, just as God is present in the whole universe, otherwise a part of it would be lost when any portion of the body is cut off. The soul is not contained in the body, but in reality contains it. Hence, it must be immaterial, for no material substance can at once contain the body and be within it as its animating principle.

Thomas Aquinas: (13th c.) The soul is the Actuality of body, as heat, which is the source whence bodies are made hot, is not body, but a sort of actuality of body. The soul of man is an independent substance.

Duns Scotus: (13th c. British philosopher.) The soul is a created something, the basis of all finite existence, including corporeal matter itself.

Albert Magnus: (13th c.) Held that the active intellect is a part of the soul, and is immortal by virtue of its community with God.

Gassendi: (French philosopher, 17th c.) There is no evidence of the spirituality of the soul.

Malebranche: (Priest and philosopher, 17th c.) We see all in God, who is in fact our soul.

Locke: (17th c.) Matter may think, and God may communicate thought to matter.

Paracelsus: (15th c.) Taught there were four souls—vegetal, sensitive, rational, and spiritual. Campanella demonstrates this last by the fact that carcasses bleed at the sight of the murderer.

Mansel: (“Philosophy of Consciousness,” p. 327.) We are not authorized to say that we know the soul to be simple, and that, therefore, it is indestructible; but only that we do not know the soul to be compound, and, therefore, that we cannot infer its mortality from the analogy of bodily dissolution.

“Buck’s Theo. Dic.” defines soul: That vital, immaterial, active substance, or principle in man, whereby he perceives, remembers, reasons, and wills. It is rather to be described as to its operations than to be defined as to its essence. Various, indeed, have been the opinions of philosophers concerning its substance.

Parkhurst: (A distinguished Hebrew lexicographer.) As a noun, nephesh hath been supposed to signify the spiritual part of man, or what we commonly call the soul. I must, for myself, confess that I can find no passage where it hath undoubtedly this meaning.

Hobbes: Spirit is synonymous with ghost—a mere phantom of the imagination.

Locke: (“Understanding,” p. 419.) We can no more know that there are finite spirits really existing, by the idea we have of such things in our minds, than by the ideas any one has of fairies, or centaurs; he can come to know that things answering those ideas do really exist.

Voltaire: The Greeks distinguish three sorts of souls—Psyche, signifying the sensitive soul—the soul of the senses; hence it was that Love, the son of Aphrodite, had so much passion for Psyche, and that she loved him so tenderly. Pneuma, the breath which gave life and motion to the whole machine, and which we have rendered by spiritus—spirit—a vague term which has received a thousand different acceptations. And lastly, Nous, intelligence. Thus we possess three souls, without having the slightest notion of any of them.... What are we to think of a child with two heads, which is otherwise well formed? Some say that it has two souls, because it is furnished with two pineal glands, with two callous substances, with two sensoria communia. Others answer, that there cannot be two souls with but one breast and one navel.... The word soul is one of those which everyone pronounces without understanding it. We understand those things of which we have an idea, but we have no idea of soul—spirit; therefore, we do not understand it.

John Calvin: The soul is an immortal essence, the nobler part of man. It is a creation out of nothing, not an emanation; it is essence without motion, not motion without essence. It is not properly bounded by space, still it occupies the body as a habitation, animating its parts and endowing its organs for their several functions.

Dugald Stewart: Although we have the strongest evidence that there is a thinking and sentient principle within us, essentially distinct from matter, yet we have no direct evidence of the possibility of this principle exercising its various powers in a separate state from the body. On the contrary, the union of the two, while it subsists, is evidently of the most intimate nature.

Joseph Priestly: It being a rigid canon of the Newtonian logic not to multiply causes without necessity, we should adhere to a single substance until it be shown, which cannot be, that the properties of mind are incompatible with the properties of matter. He was opposed to protecting and perpetuating absurdity by dodging behind mystery. That there is no difference between spiritual substance and nothing at all. That the doctrine of a separate soul embarrasses the whole system of Christianity.

McBeth: The times have been that when the brains were out the man would die, and there an end.

Buchner: Experience and daily occupation teach us that the spirit perishes with the material substratum—that man dies. (“Matter and Force.”)

Burmeister: That the soul of a deceased person does not re-appear after death, is not contested by rational people. Spirits and ghosts are only seen by diseased or superstitious individuals.

Vogt: Physiology decides definitely and categorically against individual immortality, as against any special existence of the soul. The soul does not enter the fœtus like the evil spirit into persons possessed, but is a product of the development of the brain, just as muscular activity is a product of muscular development. So soon as the substances composing the brain are aggregated in a similar form, will they exhibit the same functions. We have seen that we can destroy mental activity by injuring the brain. By observing the development of the child we also arrive at the conviction that the activity of the soul progresses in proportion as the brain is gradually developed. The fœtus manifests no mental activity, which only shows itself after birth when the brain acquires the necessary material condition. Mental activity changes with the period of life, and ceases altogether at death.

Lecky: (“Rat. in Europe,” p. 341, v. I.) Not one of the early fathers entertained the same opinion as the majority of Christians do of the present day, that the soul is perfectly simple, and entirely destitute of all body, figure, form, and extension. On the contrary, they all acknowledged it to contain something corporeal, although of a different kind and nature from the bodies of this mortal sphere.... Tertullian mentions a woman who had seen a soul, which she described as “a transparent and lucid figure, in the perfect form of a man.” St. Anthony saw the soul of Ammon carried up to heaven. The soul of a Libyan hermit named Marc was borne to heaven in a napkin. Angels also were not unfrequently seen, and were universally believed to have cohabited with the daughters of the antediluvians.... Sometimes the soul was portrayed as a sexless child, rising out of the mouth of the corpse.

John Meslier: (“Testimony of a Dying Priest.”) The barbarians, like all ignorant men, attribute to spirits all the effects of which their inexperience prevents them from discovering the true causes. Ask a barbarian what causes your watch to move, he will answer, “A spirit.” Ask our philosophers what moves the universe, they will tell you, “It is a spirit.” Ask a theologian what he means by a spirit. He will answer that it is an unknown substance, which is perfectly simple, which has nothing tangible, nothing in common with matter. In good faith, is there any mortal who can form the least idea of such a substance.

James F. Ferrier: (Institutes of Metaphysics.) In vain does the Spiritualist found an argument for the existence of a separate immaterial substance on the alleged incompatibility of the intellectual and physical phenomena to co-inhere in the same sub-stratum. Materiality may very well stand the brunt of that unshotted broadside. This mild artifice can scarcely expect to be treated as a serious observation. Such a hypothesis cannot be meant to be in earnest. Who is to dictate to nature what phenomena, or what qualities inhere in what substances; what effects may result from what causes? Matter is already in the field as an acknowledged entity—this both parties admit. Mind, considered as an independent entity, is not so unmistakably in the field. Therefore as entities are not to be multiplied without necessity, we are not entitled to postulate a new cause, so long as it is possible to account for the phenomena by a cause already in existence; which possibility has never yet been disproved.

Draper: (John William.) Chemistry furnishes us with a striking example of the doctrine of Diogenes of Apollonia, that the air is actually a spiritual being; for, on the discovery of several of the gases by the early experimenters, they were not only regarded as of a spiritual nature, but actually received the name under which they pass to this day, gheist or gas, from a belief that they were ghosts. (“Int. Dev.,” p. 103, v. 1.)

W. R. Grove: (“Correlation and Conservation of Forces,” p. 103.) The ancients when they witnessed natural phenomenon, removed from ordinary analogies, and unexplained by any mechanical action known to them, referred it to a soul, a spiritual or preternatural power: thus amber and the magnet were supposed by Thales to have a soul; the functions of digestion, assimilation, etc., were supposed by Paracelsus to be effected by a spirit (the Archæus). Air and gases were also at first deemed spiritual, but subsequently became invested with a more material character, and the word gas, from geist, a ghost or spirit, affords us an instance of the gradual transmission of a spiritual into a physical conception.

Buchner: Now, in the same manner as the steam engine produces motion, so does the organic complication of force-endowed materials produce in the animal body a sum of effects, so interwoven as to become a unit, and is then by us called spirit, soul, thought.

Taylor: Mr. Darwin saw two Malay women in Keeling Island, who had a wooden spoon dressed in clothes like a doll. This spoon had been carried to the grave of a dead man, and becoming inspired at full moon, in fact lunatic, it danced about convulsively like a table or a hat at a modern spirit-seance. (“Early History of Mankind,” p. 139, v. 2.) Savages believe that their pots, kettles, pans, etc., have souls. His knives, tobacco-pipes, the winds, water, fire, storm, etc., have souls.

Samuel Johnson: (“Oriental Religions,” p. 543.) Various North-American tribes believe that the soul of a dying person may be drawn into the bosom of a sterile woman, or blown by the breath into that of the nearest relative, and so come again to birth in the way that the receiver desires.

Theodore Parker, John Wesley, Jeremy Taylor, Coleridge, Lamartine, Agassiz, and hosts of other men well known to fame, taught that animals as well as men, had immortal souls.

Brodie: (President of the Royal Society, 1858.) The mind of animals is essentially the same as that of man. Every one familiar with the dog will admit that that creature knows right from wrong, and is conscious when he has committed a fault.

Du Bois-Reymond: With awe and wonder must the student of nature regard that microscopic molecule of nervous substance which is the seat of the laborious, constructive, orderly, loyal, dauntless soul of the ant. It has developed itself to its present state through a countless series of generations.

John Fiske: But the propriety of identifying soul and breath, which really quits the body at its decease, has furnished the chief name for the soul, not only to the Hebrew, the Sanskrit, and the classic tongues; not only to German and English, where geist, and ghost, according to Max Muller, have the meaning of “breath,” and are akin to such words as gas, gust, and geyser; but also to numerous barbaric languages. (“Myths and Myth-Makers,” p. 225.) The belief in wraiths has survived into modern times, and now and then appears in that remnant of primeval philosophy known as “Spiritualism,” as for example, in the case of the lady who “thought she saw her own father look in at the church window at the moment he was dying at his own house.” (Ib., p. 229.) The Kamtchadales expressly declare that all animals, even flies and bugs, will live after death,—a belief, which, in our day, has been indorsed on philosophical grounds by an eminent living naturalist. (Ib., 230.) [Mr. Fiske refers to Agassiz.]

M. Figuier: Human souls are for the most part the surviving souls of deceased animals; in general, the souls of precocious children like Mozart come from nightingales, while the souls of great architects have passed into them from beavers, and etc., etc. (“The To-morrow of Death,” p. 247.)

W. Lauder Lindsay: By no kind of scientific evidence can it be proved that soul exists, whether in man or other animals.... Nor should it be forgotten that, according to many writers, the word or term “soul” is regarded as synonymous with “mind,” in which case there can be no question as to its possession by the higher animals. While the term “soul” has also been applied—in figurative senses no doubt—even to plants. (“Mind in the Lower Animals,” v. 1, p. 101.) It obviously lies with those who assert dogmatically that all men have immortal souls, while no animals possess them, to reconcile with such a conviction the provable fact that many animals are superior to many men, not only in general intelligence, but also as regards moral sense and religious feeling. (Ib.) Ideas of justice or right, feelings of decency or shame, that combination or essence of moral qualities known as conscience, are as certainly present in some animals as they appear to be absent in countless numbers of men. (Ib., p. 103.)

Ernst Haeckel: The final result of this comparison is this: That between the most highly developed animal souls, and the lowest developed human souls there exists only a small quantitative, but no qualitative difference, and this difference is much less than the difference between the lowest and the highest human souls, or than the difference between the lowest and the highest animal souls. (“Hist. of Creation,” v. 2, p. 362.) Some of the wildest tribes, of men, in Southern Asia and Eastern Africa have no trace whatever of the first foundations of all human civilization of family life, and marriage. They live together, in herds, like apes, generally climbing on trees and eating fruits; they do not know of fire, and use stones and clubs as weapons, just like the higher apes. (Ib., p. 363.)

Descartes: (17 c.) Matter, whose essence is extension, is known by the senses; mind, whose essence is thinking, can be known only by self-consciousness. The thinking principle is immaterial.

Origen: The nature of the soul is such as to make her capable of existing eternally, backward as well as forward, because her spiritual essence, as such, makes it impossible that she should, either through age or violence, be dissolved.

Rev. Joseph Baylee, D. D.: (Principal of St. Aidan’s College, Birkenhead, England.) Man is eternal. He was in existence before he was born; sinned before he was born, and if he had never been born would have suffered eternal damnation for that sin. (Dis. on God and the Bible between Dr. Baylee and Mr. Bradlaugh.)

Draper: (“Conflict,” p. 127.) Moreover, to many devout persons there is something very revolting in the suggestion that the Almighty is a servitor to the caprices and lusts of men, and that at a certain term after its origin, it is necessary for him to create for the embryo a soul.

Vedic Theology: The soul is a particle of that all-pervading principle, the Universal Intellect, or Soul of the World, detached for a while from its primitive source; and placed in connection with the bodily frame, but destined, by an inevitably as rivers run back to be lost in the ocean from whence they arose.

The Bible: As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. ([Job 7 : 9].) They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise; therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish. ([Isa. 26 : 14].) For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest. ([Eccl. 9 : 5, 10].) For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts, even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast; for all is vanity. All go unto one place, all are of the dust and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward; and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth? ([Eccl. 3 : 19–22].) There (the grave) the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest. (Vide [Job 3 : 11–22].)

Having thus successfully responded to the interrogatory, What is the soul? that is to say, the constituent thereof, let us now very briefly settle the locus in quo:

Plato: The soul is located in the brain.

Aristotle: The soul is located in the heart.

Heraclitus: The soul is located in the blood.

Epicurus: The soul is located in the chest.

Critios: The soul is located in the blood.

Sommering: The soul is located in the ventricles.

Kant: The soul is located in the water contained in the ventricles.

Plotinus: The body is located in the soul, and not the soul in the body.

Ennemoser: The whole body is the seat of the soul.

Fischer: The soul is located in the nervous system.

Ficinus: The soul is located in the heart.

Descartes: The soul is located in the pineal gland.

Bontekoe: The soul is located in the corpus callosum.

Willis: The soul is located in the corpora striata.

Vieussens: The soul is located in the centrum ovale.

Boerhaave: The soul is located on the boundary line of the gray and white substance.

Mayer: The soul is located in the medulla oblongata.

Camper: The soul is located in the pineal gland, nates and testes.

Dohoney: Scientifically speaking, man is a threefold being: body, soul, and spirit. The home of the spirit is the cerebrum, while the seat of the soul is the cerebellum. (“Man,” p. 118.)

La Pieronie: The dwelling place of the soul is in the callous body.

Buchner: Some authors imagine that the soul, under certain circumstances, leaves the brain for a short time and occupies another part of the nervous system. The solar plexus, a concatenation of sympathetic nerves, situated in the abdomen, was especially pointed out as the favored spot. (“Force and Matter,” p. 195.)

Prochaska: Assumed that the cerebrum and the cerebellum were the seat of “soul sensations,” and the sensorium commune the seat of “body sensations.”

Whytt: As the schoolmen supposed the Deity to exist in every ubi but not in any place, which is to say in Latin that he exists everywhere, but in English nowhere, so they imagined the soul of man not to occupy space, but to exist in an indivisible point.

Prof. Erdmann: The theory that the soul has its seat in the brain, must lead to the result that when the body is separated from the head, the soul should continue to exist.

Fortlage: There are certain errors in the human mind. The error of the seat of the soul in the brain is one of them.

McCulloch says, in his able work on the “Credibility of the Scriptures”: There is no word in the Hebrew language that signifies either soul or spirit, in the technical sense in which we use the terms, as implying something distinct from the body. (“Credibility of Scriptures,” p. 491, v. 2.)

Kitto, in his “Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature,” renders [Genesis 2 : 7], as follows: “And Jehovah God formed the man [Heb. the Adam] of dust from the ground, and blew into his nostrils the breath of life: and the man became a living animal.

Bishop Tilotson says: The immortality of the soul is rather supposed, or taken for granted, than expressly revealed in the Bible.

The Egyptian doctrine of the soul is one of the most important, as it is the most ancient, for this nation seems to have been the first to declare that the soul was immortal. (Chambers’ Encyclopedia.)

R. Peterson.