The Three Edens.
Bloom'd the first Eden not with man alone,
But woman, equal woman, at his side.
And seemly was it when, together tried,
They fell together—for the two were one.
On Calvary stood the Mother by the Son:
New Eve with Second Adam crucified;
And as through Eve in Adam we had died,
Through Mary was our loss in Christ undone.
Then how should not the Paradise regained
Behold its Eve beside her Adam throned;
Both risen, both ascended—unprofaned
Each virginal body, by the grave disowned?
Else had our foe his conquest half maintained,
The primal ruin been but half atoned.
A Discussion With An Infidel.
XIV. The Seat Of The Soul.
Büchner. You will admit, I presume, that “the brain is not merely the organ of thought and of all the higher mental faculties, but also the sole and exclusive seat of the soul. Every thought is produced in the brain, every kind of feeling and sensation, exertion of the will, and voluntary motion, proceeds from it” (p. 141).
Reader. Not exactly “from it,” but from the soul, as I have already established; though certainly the brain is instrumental in all vital operations. As to the brain being “the sole and exclusive” seat of the soul I think that physiologists do not agree, and that philosophers have something to object.
Büchner. It is now a recognized truth. “It took a long time before it was recognized, and it is even to this day difficult for those who are not physicians to convince themselves of its correctness” (ibid.)
Reader. It must be difficult indeed; for although we have reason to believe that the brain is, so to say, the central telegraphic office where every intelligence from the other parts of the body is received, yet it is but natural to suppose that there cannot be a central office if there are no other offices destined to correspond with it. On the other hand, philosophers teach that the soul is the form of the body; which implies that there are other parts of our body, besides the brain, where the soul must be present.
Büchner. “These philosophers are a singular people. They talk of the creation of the world as if they had been present on the occasion; they define the Absolute as if they had sat at its table for years; they babble about the nothing and the something, the ego and non-ego, the per se and in se, universals and particulars, perishability and absolute existence, the unknown x, etc., etc., with a confidence as if a celestial codex had given them exact information about all these ideas and things, and they plaster up the simplest notions with such a confused mass of high-sounding and learned but incomprehensible words and phrases as to turn the head of a rational man. But, in spite of all this, upon their metaphysical eminence they are not unfrequently so far off from any positive knowledge that they commit the most amusing blunders, especially in those cases in which philosophy and science meet, and when the latter threatens to destroy the results of metaphysical speculation. Thus almost all philosophical psychologists have struggled with rare energy against the theory of the seat of the soul in the brain, and continue in their opposition without taking the least notice of the progress of experimental science” (pp. 142, 143).
Reader. I am surprised, doctor, at your declamation against philosophers. You have no right to denounce them either in general or in particular. I admit that rationalistic philosophers richly deserve all the contempt you can heap upon [pg 176] them, but it is not fair in you to attack them; for they are better than you. To lay your own faults on the shoulders of your opponents is an old trick. The burglar calls his victim a thief; designing Freemasons always prate about Jesuitical machinations; and writers whose philosophical baggage is as light as their pretensions are high inveigh against those by whom they dread to be exposed, refuted, and supplanted. Such is the case with you. While pretending to describe others, you have made the portrait of yourself. It is certainly difficult to find another man in the world who babbles with as much confidence as you do about, or rather against, creation, the Absolute, and the unknown x, etc., etc. Yet your opponents are not infallible, nor do they pretend to be; but if they “commit the most amusing blunders,” it is not owing to their “metaphysical eminence,” as you suppose, but rather to their metaphysical incapacity. Science, you say, sometimes “threatens to destroy the results of metaphysical speculation”; but you should have added that metaphysical speculation oftentimes saves science from shipwreck; for empiricism without philosophy is a ship without a rudder.
You denounce your adversaries as men who do not take “the least notice of the progress of experimental science.” This is a calumny. In fact, you yourself inform us that one of your adversaries is philosopher Fischer, a man who not only took notice of the progress of experimental science, but greatly contributed to such a progress by his own intelligent and indefatigable labors. You cannot therefore pretend that such a man lacked “positive knowledge.” Now, he says: “That the soul is immanent in the whole nervous system is proved, as it feels, perceives, and acts in every part thereof. I do not feel pain in a central part of the brain, but in a particular spot and place.”
Büchner. “And yet what Fischer denies is undoubtedly the fact. The nerves themselves do not perceive; they merely call forth sensations by conducting the impressions received to the brain. We do not feel pain in the place injured, but in the brain. If a nerve of sensation be divided in its course to the brain, all the parts which are supplied by it lose their sensibility, for no other reason than that the conducting of the impression to the brain is no longer possible. Every man who has no knowledge of physiological processes believes the feeling of hunger to be in the stomach. This is not so; the brain alone makes us conscious of the feeling. If the nerve uniting brain and stomach be divided, hunger is at an end, nor does it return. Neither does anger arise in the liver, or courage in the chest, but in the brain only” (pp. 143, 144). “Habit and external appearance have led to the false notion that we feel in places subjected to external irritation. Physiology calls this relation ‘the law of eccentric phenomena.’ According to it, we falsely attribute the feeling perceived in the brain to the place where the impression is made.... Persons who have lost their arms or legs by amputation often feel during their whole lives, in atmospheric changes, pains in limbs which they no longer possess. If all his limbs were removed, man would still feel them. From these facts it can scarcely be doubted that there must exist in the brain a topography by means of which the various sensations of the different parts of the body arise. [pg 177] Every part of the body which can be separately perceived must have a corresponding spot in the brain which in some degree represents it in the forum of consciousness” (pp. 144, 145).
Reader. This answer, doctor, is not altogether satisfactory. “The nerves,” of course, “do not perceive.” This I willingly admit; but neither does the brain perceive; for it is the soul that perceives. The nerves “merely call forth sensations by conducting the impressions received to the brain.” This cannot be denied; but it does not prove the non-existence of the soul in the nervous system. Suppose that a pin or a thorn presses the finger; before the impression can be transmitted from the finger to the brain, its reception in the finger must give rise to a change of relation between the soul and the finger itself; which would be impossible, if the soul were not in the finger. For, if the soul is not in the finger, the impression made by the thorn will consist of a merely mechanical movement; and when this movement is communicated to the brain, what sensation can be called forth? A sensation of pain? No; for mere mechanical movement cannot produce a sense of pain, unless it is felt to disagree with the living organism. Now, the pricking is not felt to disagree with the brain, but with the finger. It is therefore in the finger and not in the brain that we feel the pain; which shows that the soul really is in the finger, and in every other part of the body in which we may experience any sensation.
Your reason for pretending that “we do not feel pain in the place injured, but in the brain,” is quite unsatisfactory. It is true that if a nerve of sensation be divided in its course to the brain, all the parts which are supplied by it lose their sensibility; but what of that? Those parts lose their sensibility because they lose their sensitiveness; that is, because the cutting of the nerve, by impairing the body, causes the soul to abandon the organic parts supplied by that nerve. You argue that, if the soul is not present in a given part of the body, when the nerve has been injured, the soul was not present in that same part before the nerve was injured. This inference is evidently wrong. The soul informs the organism, and any part of it, as long as the organs are suitably disposed for the vital operations, and abandons the organism, or any part of it, as soon as the organs have become unfit for the vital operations. Hence, as you cannot infer the non-existence of the soul in the brain of a living man from the non-existence of the same in the brain of a corpse, so you cannot infer its non-existence in a part of the body before the cutting of the nerve from its non-existence in the same part after the nerve has been cut.
The feeling of hunger, you say, is not in the stomach, because “if the nerve uniting brain and stomach be divided, hunger is at an end.” Is not this very curious? Men need none of your theories to know where they feel hungry; and they not only believe, as you say, but also experience, that their feeling of hunger is in the stomach. How can this be reconciled with your theory? You try to discredit the common belief by observing that we “have no knowledge of physiological processes.” This, however, is not true; for although we may not possess your speculative knowledge of those processes, yet we have an experimental knowledge of them, [pg 178] which beats all your speculations. The simplest common sense teaches that a theory contradicted by facts is worth nothing. Now, the fact is that we experience the sensation of hunger in the stomach, and not in the brain; and therefore no physiological theory that contradicts such a fact can be of any value.
You pretend that “habit and external appearance have led to the false notion that we feel in places subjected to external irritation.” This assertion cannot be justified. Habits are acquired by repeated acts; and to assume that habit leads us to a false notion is to assume that we are cheated by our actual sensations; which is inadmissible. As to “external appearances,” it is evident that they have nothing to do with the question, as sensations are not external appearances, but internal realities. Hence when we say that “we feel in places subjected to external irritation,” we express a real fact of which we have experimental evidence, and in regard to which no habit or external appearance can make us err.
The fact that “persons who have lost their arms or legs by amputation often feel during their whole life, in atmospheric changes, pains in limbs which they no longer possess,” does not tend to prove that the brain is the exclusive seat of the soul. Hence I dismiss it altogether. With regard to your conclusion that “every part of the body which can be separately perceived must have a corresponding spot in the brain which in some degree represents it in the forum of consciousness,” I have not the least objection against it; I merely add that no part of the body in which the soul is not actually present can be represented in the forum of consciousness. For if the soul is not in the finger when the thorn pricks it, the soul cannot say, I feel the pain; it could only say, I know that a material organ, with which I have nothing to do, is being injured. The soul would, in fact, but receive a telegram announcing what happens in some distant quarter. If a telegram comes to you from Siberia, announcing twenty degrees of cold, do you feel the sensation of cold?
Büchner. Yet “the theory that the brain is the seat of the soul is so incontrovertible that it has long been adopted in the rules of law in regard to monstrosities. A monstrosity with one body and two heads counts for two persons; one with two bodies and one head, only for one person. Monstrosities without brain, so-called acephali, possess no personality” (pp. 147, 148).
Reader. This is true; and therefore the soul certainly informs the brain. But it does not follow that other parts of the body are not informed. Hence your remark has no bearing on the question; and it remains true that the soul, as the form of the body, is directly connected with every part of the organism in which vital acts are performed.
XV. Spiritism.
Reader. May I ask, doctor, what you think of spiritism?
Büchner. I think it to be a fraud.
Reader. Of course, when a man denies the existence of spiritual substances, he cannot but deny their manifestation. Yet the phenomena of spiritism are so well known that we can scarcely be of your opinion.
Büchner. “Some of these phenomena, clairvoyance especially, have been laid hold of to prove the existence of supernatural and supersensual [pg 179] phenomena. They were considered as the link of connection between the spiritual and the material world; and it was surmised that these phenomena opened a gate through which man might pass, and succeed in obtaining some immediate clue regarding transcendental existence, personal continuance, and the laws of the spirit. All these things are now, by science and an investigation of the facts, considered as idle fancies which human nature is so much inclined to indulge in to satisfy its longing after what appears miraculous and supersensual” (p. 149).
Reader. I apprehend, doctor, that science has no means of showing that “all these things are idle fancies.” Materialism, of course, assumes, though it cannot show, that spirits do not exist; but materialism is no science at all; and if the “investigation of the facts” has been conducted by materialists, we may well be sure that their verdict was not unbiassed. On the other hand, men of science, who are not materialists, a great number of physicians, philosophers, and theologians, are convinced that the phenomena of spiritism are neither inventions nor delusions. And, though human nature feels a certain propensity to believe what is wonderful, we cannot assume that learned and prudent men yield to this propensity without good reasons.
Büchner. “This propensity has given rise to the most curious errors of the human mind. Though it sometimes appears that the progress of science arrests its development in some place, it suddenly breaks forth with greater force at some other place where it was less expected. The events of the last few years afford a striking example. What the belief in sorcery, witchcraft, demoniac possession, vampirism, etc., was in former centuries, reappears now under the agreeable forms of table-moving, spirit-rapping, psychography, somnambulism, etc.” (p. 150).
Reader. You are right. Spiritism is only a new form of old superstitions and diabolic manifestations. But you are mistaken, if you believe that science can show such manifestations to have been fables. Your scientific argument against spiritual manifestations is, you must own it, inconsistent with your scientific process. Your process requires a basis of facts; for it is from facts that science draws its generalizations. You should, therefore, first ascertain that sorcery, witchcraft, etc., never existed in the world, and that not one of the thousand facts narrated in profane, sacred, or ecclesiastical history has ever happened; and then you might conclude that all mankind have been very stupid to believe such absurdities. But you follow quite a different course. You argue à priori, and say: Spiritual manifestations are an impossibility; therefore all the pretended facts of spiritism are impositions. This manner of arguing is not scientific; for evidently it is not based on facts, and the assumption that spiritual manifestations are impossible cannot be granted; for it cannot be proved. Hence not only the ignorant classes, but also educated persons, as you complain, believe in spiritual manifestations, in spite of your pretended science; for, when they see the facts, they will only smile at your denial of their possibility.
Büchner. But the facts themselves are incredible. “Magnetic sleep, induced either by continued passes [pg 180] on the body, or spontaneously without external means, as in idiosomnambulism, is stated to be frequently attended by an intellectual ecstasy, which in certain privileged persons, chiefly females, rises to what is called clairvoyance. In this state those persons are said to exhibit mental faculties not natural to them, to speak fluently foreign languages, and to discuss things perfectly unknown to them in the waking state.... The person perceives things beyond the sphere of his senses, he reads sealed letters, guesses the thoughts of other persons, reveals the past, etc. Finally, such individuals sometimes give us information about the arrangements in heaven and hell, our state after death, and so forth; but we cannot help mentioning that these revelations are ever in remarkable harmony with the religious views of the church, or of the priest under whose influence the patient may be for the time” (p. 151).
Reader. Poor Doctor Büchner! You are most unlucky in your allusion to the church. Spiritism is not a priestly invention, nor is it practised under the influence of the priest. The whole world knows that the practice of spiritism is utterly forbidden by the church; and you cannot be ignorant that your insinuation of the contrary is a slander. Perhaps your Masonic conscience allows you to tell lies; but is it wise to do so when the lie is so patent that no one can believe it?
Büchner. “There can be no doubt that all pretended cases of clairvoyance rest upon fraud or illusion. Clairvoyance—that is, a perception of external objects without the use of the senses—is an impossibility. It is a law of nature which cannot be gainsaid that we require our eyes to see, our ears to hear, and that these senses are limited in their action by space. No one can read an opaque sealed letter, extend his vision to America, see with closed eyes what passes around him, look into the future, or guess the thoughts of others. These truths rest upon natural laws which are irrefutable, and admit, like other natural laws, of no exception. All that we know we know by the medium of our senses. There exist no supersensual and supernatural things and capacities, and they never can exist, as the eternal conformity of the laws of nature would thereby be suspended. As little as a stone can ever fall in any other direction than towards the centre of the earth, so little can a man see without using his eyes” (p. 152).
Reader. Your reasoning is not sound, doctor. The stone can fall in any direction, if it receives an impetus in that direction; it is only when it is left to itself that it must fall directly towards the centre of the earth. So also a man, when left to himself and his natural powers, cannot see without using his eyes; but if acted on by a preternatural agency, he may be made acquainted with what his eyes cannot see. Your mention of natural laws is uncalled for. You will certainly not pretend that the natural laws, which hold in regard to this visible world, can be assumed to rule the world of the spirits. Moreover, when you say that “there exist no supersensual and supernatural things,” because “the eternal conformity of the laws of nature would thereby be suspended,” you merely make a gratuitous assertion. For as you can raise a weight without suspending the law of gravitation, so can other agents do other things conflicting with the uniform execution [pg 181] of natural laws without the natural laws becoming suspended. Thus your assertion that “there exist no supersensual and supernatural things” is wholly gratuitous, and therefore cannot be the basis of a sound argument against the facts of spiritism. “There is no fighting against facts; it is like kicking against the pricks,” as you say in one of your prefaces (p. xviii.)
Büchner. “Ghosts and spirits have hitherto only been seen by children, or ignorant and superstitious individuals” (p. 152).
Reader. Did not Saul see the ghost of Samuel?
Büchner. “All that has been narrated of the visits of departed spirits is sheer nonsense; never has a dead man returned to this world. There are neither table-spirits nor any other spirits” (p. 153).
Reader. How can you account for such a singular assertion?
Büchner. “The naturalist entertains, from observation and experience, no doubt as to these truths; a constant intercourse with nature and its laws has convinced him that they admit of no exception” (p. 153).
Reader. This is not true. Naturalists, with their observation and experience of natural things, do not and cannot reject facts of a higher order, though they have not observed them. Their non-observation is no argument, especially when we have other witnesses of the facts, and when we know that the naturalists of your school are pledged to materialism, and therefore shut their eyes to the facts which oppose their theory. The majority of educated persons admit the facts; not indeed all the facts narrated, but many of them which no critical rule allows us to reject.
Büchner. Where are those facts? “The scientific impossibility of clairvoyance has been confirmed by an examination of the facts by sober and unprejudiced observers, and were proved to be deceptions and illusions” (p. 153).
Reader. Of course there are juggleries and impositions; but what of that? Would you maintain that there can be no doctors because there are quacks? I appeal to your logic.
Büchner. “The faculty of medicine of Paris many years ago took the trouble of submitting a number of such cases to a scientific examination; they were all proved to be deceptions, nor could a single case be established of a perception without the use of the senses. In 1837 the same academy offered a prize of 3,000 francs to any one who could read through a board. No one gained the prize” (ibid.)
Reader. You forget, doctor, that in 1837 spiritism was as yet most imperfectly known. It was only about ten years later that it developed throughout America and Europe. Let the medical faculty of Paris again offer a prize to any one who can read through a board; and no one doubts there would be no lack of competitors. When we see that physicians and others, owing to their own experience of spiritual manifestations, were compelled to repudiate their previous materialistic opinions; when we know that infidels by the same manifestations were brought to believe the immortality of the soul; when the learned and the ignorant, the rich and the poor, the layman and the churchman, the diplomatist, the philosopher, and the theologian, bear witness to the reality of the spiritual phenomena, and are ready to bring forward innumerable facts [pg 182] in support of their affirmation, we do not care what the faculty of medicine of Paris may have pronounced many years ago. You say that the faculty “submitted a number of such cases to a scientific examination,” and that “they were all proved to be deceptions”; but you would be very much embarrassed to say in what that “scientific examination” consisted. On the other hand, the proofs of the deception have never appeared; and the simple truth is that the spiritual phenomena were à priori rejected, as clashing with the materialistic theory of the faculty. You pretend that “whenever the proper means were employed to prevent deception, clairvoyance was at an end” (p. 153). Such an assertion proves that you are completely ignorant of what is going on in the world, or that you are determined obstinately to ignore whatever could compel you to acknowledge the existence of spiritual substances.
Büchner. “I have had the opportunity of examining a clairvoyant, of whom remarkable things were told, under circumstances when a deception on the part of the magnetizer was out of the question. The lady failed in all her indications; they were either absolutely false or so expressed that nothing could be made of them. She, moreover, made the most ridiculous excuses for her shortcomings. As she failed in her clairvoyance, she preferred to fall into a state of heavenly ecstasy, in which she discoursed with her ange or tutelar genius, and recited religious verses. In reciting a poem of this kind she once stopped short, and recommenced the verse to assist her memory. She manifested, withal, in this ecstasy, no superior mental capacities; her language was common, and her manner awkward. I left with the conviction that the lady was an impostor who deceived her patron. Still, several gentlemen present were by no means convinced of the deception practised on them” (p. 154).
Reader. If these gentlemen could by no means be convinced of the deception, must we not presume that there was no deception, and that your peculiar construction of the case was brought about by a strong desire of not being disturbed in your fixed idea that there is nothing but matter? If “the lady failed in all her indications,” if “she made the most ridiculous excuses for her shortcomings,” if “she manifested no superior capacities,” it should have been evident to those “several gentlemen” that she was a fraud. Their inability to be convinced of the deception would therefore show that the lady did not fail in all her indications, but manifested superior capacities. Be this as it may, the truth and reality of spiritual manifestations cannot be disproved by particular attempts at imposition. Spiritualists admit that many impositions have been practised under the name of spiritual manifestations, but they aver that in most instances cheats could not have been palmed off, even if designed; and that in other cases there could be no possible motive for deception, as the investigations were carried on in private families where the mediums were their own sons and daughters.[50] Spirit-rapping is a fact. Table-turning is a fact. Clairvoyance is a fact. Thousands of all conditions, sects, and nations have witnessed, watched, and examined all such facts with a degree of attention, suspicion, and [pg 183] incredulity proportionate to their novelty, strangeness, and unnaturalness. What has been the result? A verdict acknowledging the reality of the facts and the impossibility of accounting for them without intelligent preternatural agencies. This verdict disposes of your materialism. To deny the facts in order to save materialism is so much time lost. Facts speak for themselves.
XVI. Innate Ideas
Reader. And now I should like to know, doctor, why you thought proper to fill twenty-seven pages of your Force and Matter with a discussion about innate ideas.
Büchner. For two reasons, sir. First, because “the question whether there be innate ideas is a very old one, and, in our opinion, one of the most important in relation to the contemplation of nature. It decides to some extent whether man, considered as the product of a higher world, has received a form of existence as something foreign and external to his essence, with the tendency to shake off this earthly covering, and to return to his spiritual home; or whether, both in his spiritual and bodily capacity, man stands to the earth which has produced him in a necessary, inseparable connection, and whether he has received his essential nature from this world; so that he cannot be torn from the earth, like the plant which cannot exist without its maternal soil. The question is, at the same time, one which does not dissolve itself in a philosophical mist, but which, so to speak, has flesh and blood, and, resting upon empirical facts, can be discussed and decided without high-sounding phrases” (p. 157). The second reason is, that “if it be correct that there are no innate intuitions, then must the assertion of those be incorrect who assume that the idea of a God, or the conception of a supreme personal being, who created, who governs and preserves the world, is innate in the human mind, and therefore incontrovertible by any mode of reasoning” (p. 184).
Reader. Do you mean, that, by refuting the theory of innate ideas, you will cut the ground from under the feet of the theist and the spiritualist?
Büchner. Yes, sir. Such is the drift of my argumentation.
Reader. Then your labor is all in vain. For you must know that we do not base our demonstration of the substantiality and immortality of the soul on the doctrine of innate ideas, nor do we assume that the notion of a God is an “innate intuition.” Had you been even superficially acquainted with the works of our scholastic philosophers, you would have known that innate ideas are totally foreign to their psychological and theological doctrines. You would have known that the axiom, Nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu—that is, “There is nothing in our intellect which has not entered by the gate of the senses”—is not a discovery of your Moleschott, to whom you attribute it, but is an old dictum familiar to all the schoolmen of past centuries, and approved by the most orthodox philosophers of our own time. Now, these philosophers, while denying that we have any innate idea, admit at the same time that our soul is a special substance and is immortal, and show that the human intellect can easily form a concept of God as a supreme cause, and ascertain his [pg 184] existence without need of innate intuitions. This might convince you that your chapter on innate ideas has no bearing on the questions concerning the nature of the soul and the notion of a God. Your assumption that if man has innate ideas, he will have a tendency “to shake off this earthly covering, and to return to his spiritual home,” is incorrect. For the human body has no spiritual home, as is evident; and the human soul, as having no previous existence in a separate state, has no home but in the body, and the presence of innate ideas would not create in it a tendency to shake off its earthly covering. On the other hand, your other assumption, that, if man has no innate ideas, he is “a production of the earth alone, and cannot be torn from the earth, with which he is inseparably connected both in his spiritual and bodily capacity,” is even more incorrect. For the absence of innate ideas does not mean, and does not entail, the absence of an intellectual principle; and such a principle, as evidently immaterial, is not a production of the earth, and has no need of earthly things to continue its existence.
Büchner. How can a soul exist without ideas? And, if all ideas come through our senses, how can a soul exist without being united to the organs? “Daily experience teaches us that man begins his intellectual life only with the gradual development of his senses, and in proportion as he enters into a definite relation to the external world; and that the development of his intellect keeps pace with that of his organs of sense and his organ of thought, and also with the number and importance of the impressions received. ‘Every unprejudiced observer,’ says Virchow, ‘has arrived at the conviction that thought is only gradually developed in man.’ The new-born child thinks as little, and has as little a soul, as the unborn child; it is, in our view, living in the body, but intellectually dead.... The embryo neither thinks nor feels, and is not conscious of its existence. Man recollects nothing of this state, nor of the first period of his existence in which the senses were dormant; and this perfect unconsciousness proves his spiritual non-existence at that period. The reason can only be that, during the fœtal state, there are no impressions whatever received from without, and so weak and imperfect are they in the first few weeks that the intellect cannot be said to exist” (p. 159).
Reader. It is plain that the new-born child cannot form an idea of exterior objects without the use of his senses. But is it true that the new-born child is not conscious of its own existence? Certainly not; for, without a previous knowledge of its own existence, it would never be able to attribute to itself the feelings awakened in it by exterior objects. The mind cannot say, I feel, if it is not already acquainted with the I. Nor does it matter that “man recollects nothing of the first period of his existence.” Recollection is impossible so long as the brain has not acquired a certain consistency; and therefore whatever happens with us in the first period of our existence leaves no durable trace in our organs, and is entirely forgotten. Hence your assertions “that the senses of the new-born child are dormant, and that its perfect unconsciousness proves its spiritual non-existence,” are both false. The child feels its being, its senses are quite ready to [pg 185] receive impressions, and its soul is quite alive to such impressions.
You say that “the development of the intellect keeps pace with that of the organs of sense.” What do you mean by development of the intellect? If you simply mean that the intellect is furnished with materials of thought in proportion as sensible objects are perceived, and that, by being so furnished, it can easily perform a number of intellectual operations, I admit your assertion; but if you mean that the soul itself is substantially developed in proportion as the organs are growing more perfect, then your assertion is both groundless and absurd. Now, it is evident, by your manner of reasoning, that this second meaning is the one you adopt. And therefore it is evident that your conclusion is wrong. “The impressions,” you say, “are so weak and imperfect that the intellect cannot be said to exist.” This is simply ludicrous. Would you allow us to say that at night the impressions of light are so weak and imperfect that the eye cannot be said to exist? Or that the impressions made on a piece of paper by a bad pencil are so weak and imperfect that the paper cannot be said to exist? It is obvious that the impressions do not cause the existence of their subject; and, therefore, if the intellect “cannot be said to exist” before the impressions, the time will never come when it can be said to exist.
And now, suppose that a newborn child dies without having acquired through its senses any knowledge of the exterior world. What shall we say of its soul? Will such a soul be entirely destitute of ideas, and unable to think? By no means. Such a soul, after its short permanence in the body, where it felt its own being, will henceforward understand its own being as actually present in its own individuality; it will perceive its own essence as well as its existence; it will be able to abstract from self, and to behold essence, existence, and being, secundum se—that is, according to their objective intelligibility; and, finally, it will be able to commune with other spiritual beings with the same facility with which, while in the body, it could communicate with the exterior world by means of its organic potencies. I know that you do not believe this; but your unbelief will not change things. The soul, when out of the body, is competent to perform intellectual operations about intellectual objects as freely and as perfectly as it performs the sensitive operations in its present condition. If you consult the works of our philosophers and theologians, you will find the proofs of my proposition. As to your opposite assumption, since you have no means of establishing it, we are free to dismiss it without further discussion.
Büchner. If the soul is a separate substance, how and when is it introduced into the body? “The scientific and logical impossibility of determining the time (of its introduction) proves the absurdity of the whole theory, which assumes that a higher power breathes the soul into the nostrils of the fœtus” (p. 160).
Reader. You are grossly mistaken, doctor. The impossibility of determining the time of the animation of the fœtus proves nothing but our ignorance. Do you deny that Paris was built by the Gauls on the plea that you do not know the date of its foundation? Again, since the animation of the fœtus [pg 186] is not an operation of the mind, how can you speak of logical impossibility? Evidently, you write at random, and know not what you say. As to the question itself, one thing is clear, viz., the child cannot be born alive, unless its body has been animated in the womb.
Büchner. “Moses and the Egyptians entertained a decided opinion that the child was not animated while in the womb” (p. 161).
Reader. False. Moses describes in the Book of Genesis the fighting of Jacob and Esau while in the womb of their mother. Could he assume that they would fight before being animated?
Büchner. “In some countries they know nothing of an animated fœtus” (ibid.)
Reader. False. Every mother will give you the lie.
Büchner. “The destruction of the fœtus and infanticide are, according to Williams, common occurrences in Madagascar. It is also common in China and the Society Islands” (ibid.)
Reader. This shows the immorality of those nations, not their ignorance of the fœtal life. But why should you appeal to the presumed ignorance of barbarians against the verdict of civilized nations? Are you an apostle of barbarity and brutality? Do you wish your reader to persuade himself that the destruction of the fœtus is no crime?
Büchner. “The Roman lawyers did not look upon the fœtus as an individual being, but as a part of the mother. The destruction of the fœtus was therefore permitted to the women of Rome, and we find that Plato and Aristotle had already adopted the same view” (p. 160).
Reader. Do not calumniate Aristotle. This great philosopher and naturalist is decidedly not of your opinion. He teaches that the fœtus is animated in the womb. And, pray, are the legal fictions of the Roman lawyers of any weight against the facts averred by modern medicine? Do you again appeal to ignorance against science?
Büchner. Physicians have not yet decided the question. “Even at birth, when the child is separated from the mother, it is impossible to assume that a ready-made soul, lying in wait, should suddenly rush in and take possession of its new habitation. The soul, on the contrary, is only gradually developed in proportion to the relations which, by the awakening senses, are now established between the individual and the external world” (p. 161).
Reader. No, sir. If this last assertion were true, it would follow that every child would be lifeless at its birth; for without a soul no animal life can be conceived. What is “gradually developed” is not the substance of the soul, but the exercise of its faculties. This is a point already settled. As to your other assertion, that the question has not yet been decided by the physicians, I need only say that, although there are different opinions regarding the time of the animation of the embryo, yet no physician (unless he is a materialist) denies that the embryo is animated long before its nativity. Hence your notion of a ready-made soul lying in wait, and suddenly rushing in when the child is born, is only a dream of your fancy or an unworthy attempt at ridiculing the proceedings of nature.
What you add about the development of the child's mind by means of the senses, education, and example does not prove the subjective, but only the objective, growth of the [pg 187] mind, as you yourself seem to concede (p. 162). And as the objective growth means an accidental acquisition of knowledge without any substantial change of the soul, hence nothing that you may say in refutation of innate ideas can have the least weight or afford the least ground against the doctrine of the immortality and substantiality of the soul.
XVII. The Idea Of A God.
Reader. From the non-existence of innate ideas you infer, doctor, that “the idea of a God, or the conception of a supreme personal being, who created, who governs and preserves the world, is not innate in the human mind, and therefore is not incontrovertible” (p. 184). On the other hand, you say with Luther that “God is a blank sheet, upon which nothing is found but what you have yourself written” (ibid.) Do you mean that our notion of God is merely subjective—that is, a creation of our fancy without any objective foundation?
Büchner. Yes, sir. “We can have neither any knowledge nor any conception of the absolute—of that which transcends the surrounding sensual world. However much metaphysicians may vainly attempt to define the absolute, however much religion may endeavor to excite faith in the absolute by the assumption of a revelation, nothing can conceal the defect of the definition. All our knowledge is relative, and results from the comparison of surrounding sensible objects. We could have no notion of darkness without light, no conception of high without low, of heat without coldness, etc.; absolute ideas we have none. We are not able to form any conception of ‘everlasting’ or ‘infinite,’ as our understanding, limited by time and space, finds an impassable barrier for that conception. From being in the sensual world accustomed to find a cause for every effect, we have falsely concluded that there exists a primary cause of all things, although such a cause is perfectly inaccessible to our ideas, and is contradicted by scientific experience” (p. 179).
Reader. How do you show that we have neither any knowledge nor any conception of the absolute? or that our understanding is limited by time and space? or that, from being accustomed to find a cause for every effect, we have falsely concluded that there exists a primary cause of all things? or that its existence is contradicted by scientific experience? Of course you cannot expect that a rational man will swallow such paradoxes on your puny authority.
Büchner. We know neither absolute truth, nor absolute good, nor absolute beauty. This I have shown by proving that all our notions of truth, of good, and of beauty are the fruit of experience, observation, and comparison, and that such notions vary according to the character of the nations in which they are to be found. It is only after this demonstration that I concluded “that we can have neither any knowledge nor any conception of the absolute.”
Reader. Yes; this is the only point which you have tried to establish, and you have failed, as I am ready to show. But that our understanding is limited by time and space you merely assert. That we falsely conclude that there is a primary cause you boldly assume. That God's existence is contradicted by scientific experience you impudently [pg 188] affirm, well knowing that it is a lie.
And now, with regard to the knowledge of the absolute, you are much mistaken if you believe that we know no absolute truth, no absolute good, and no absolute beauty. We know absolute being; and therefore we know absolute truth, absolute good, and absolute beauty.
Büchner. We know of no absolute being, sir.
Reader. Be modest, doctor; for you know of how many blunders you stand already convicted. Absolute being is not necessarily “that which transcends the surrounding sensual world.” The sun, the moon, the planets have their absolute being, and yet do not transcend matter. Now, can we not form a notion of the absolute being of these bodies? You say that “all our knowledge is relative, and results from the comparison of surrounding sensible objects”; but you should reflect that all relative knowledge implies the knowledge of the absolute terms from the comparison of which the relation is to be detected. Hence you cannot admit the knowledge of the relative without assuming the knowledge of the absolute. Accordingly, it is false that “all our knowledge is relative,” at least in the sense of your argumentation. Nor is it true that all our knowledge “results from the comparison of surrounding sensible objects.” There is a kind of knowledge which results from the comparison of intellectual principles, as the knowledge of the logical rules; and there is also a knowledge which results, not from the comparison, but from the intellectual analysis, of things, as the knowledge of the constituent principles of being. If I ask you what is distance, you will soon point out any two sensible objects, by the comparison of which distance may become known; but if I ask you what is syllogism, or what is judgment, or what is philosophy, I defy you to point out any “surrounding sensible objects,” by the comparison of which such notions may be understood.
I need not discuss your assertion that “we could have no notion of darkness without light, no conception of high without low, of heat without coldness, etc.” I may concede the assertion as irrelevant for, whenever we designate things by relative terms, it is clear that each relative carries within itself the connotation of its correlative. But it does not follow that all our knowledge is relative. How can we know, for instance, the relation of brotherhood intervening between James and John, if we know neither the one nor the other? Can we conceive the brother without the man? Or is it necessary, when we know the man, that in such a man we should see his peculiar relation to another man?
You pretend that we are not able to form any conception of “ever-lasting” or “infinite”; and, to prove this, you affirm that “our understanding, being limited by time and space, finds an impassable barrier for that conception.” Very well; but what did you mean when you contended that matter is “eternal” and “infinite”? Had you then any conception of “eternal” and “infinite”? If you had not such conceptions, you made a fool of yourself by using terms which you did not understand; while, if you had such conceptions, then it is false that we are not able to form them. In the same manner, have you any conception of the “absolute”? If you have it, then it is ridiculous to pretend that we cannot conceive [pg 189] the absolute; while, if you have it not, you know not about what you are speaking. Alas! poor doctor. What can you answer? It is the common fate of the enemies of truth to be inconsistent with themselves, and to demolish with one hand what they build with the other.
But is it true that our intellect “is limited by time and space”? No, it is not true. Imagination is indeed limited by time and space, as all our philosophers concede; but intellect understands things independently of either space or time. This is evident. For in what space do we place the universals? To what time do we confine mathematical truths? Two and two are known to make four in all places and in all times—that is, without restriction or limit in space and time; and the same is true of all intellectual principles. Hence it is obvious that our understanding transcends both space and time, and can reach the infinite and the eternal. It is through abstraction, of course, and not by comprehension or by intuition, that we form such notions; for our intellect, though not limited by time and space, is limited in its own entity, and therefore it cannot conceive the unlimited, except by the help of the abstractive process—that is, by removing the limits by which the objective reality of the finite is circumscribed. That we can do this I need not prove to you; for you admit that space is infinite, and pretend that matter itself is infinite, as I have just remarked; and consequently you cannot deny that we have the notion of infinity.
What shall I say of your next assertion, that, from being accustomed to find a cause for every effect, “we have falsely concluded that there exists a primary cause of all things”? Do you think that the principle of causality has no other ground than experience? or that, when we do not “find” the cause of a certain effect, we are to conclude that the effect has had no cause? I hope you will not deny that the notions of cause and effect are so essentially connected that there is no need of experiment to compel the admission of a cause for every effect. Hence we are certain, not only that all the effects for which we have found a cause proceed from a cause, but also that all the effects for which we cannot find a cause likewise proceed from a cause. This amounts to saying that the principle of causality is analytical, not empirical, as you seem to hold. Now, if all effects must have a cause, on what ground do you assert that “we have falsely concluded that there exists a primary cause of all things”? Our conclusion cannot be false, unless it be false that the world has been created; for if it was created, we must admit a Creator—that is, a primary cause. But the fact of creation is, even philosophically, undeniable, since the contingent nature of the world is manifestly established by its liability to continuous change. And therefore it is manifestly established that our admission of a primary cause is not a false conclusion. I might say more on this point; but what need is there of refuting assertions which have not even a shadow of plausibility? The primary cause, you say, “is perfectly inaccessible to our ideas.” I answer that, if the word “idea” means “concept,” your statement is perfectly wrong. You add that the existence of a primary cause “is contradicted by scientific experience.” I answer by challenging you to bring forward a single fact of experimental science which supports your blasphemous assertion.
You must agree, doctor, that a man who in a few phrases commits so many unconceivable blunders has no right to censure the metaphysicians or to attack revelation. It is rash, therefore, on your part, to declare that “however much metaphysicians may vainly attempt to define the absolute, however much religion may endeavor to excite faith in the absolute by the assumption of a revelation, nothing can conceal the defect of the definition.” Of what definition do you speak? Your own definition of the absolute, as “that which transcends the surrounding sensual world,” is certainly most deficient; but religion and metaphysics are not to be made responsible for it. Why did you not, before censuring the metaphysicians and the theologians, ascertain their definitions? We call absolute a being whose existence does not depend on the existence of another being; and in this sense God alone is absolute. He is the absolute antonomastically. And we call absolute analogically any being also whose existence does not depend on any created being, although it depends on the creative and conservative action of God; and in this sense every created substance is absolute. And we call absolute logically whatever is conceived through its own intrinsic constituents without reference to any other distinct entity; and in this sense we speak of absolute movement, absolute weight, absolute volume, etc. Without enumerating other less important meanings of the term, I simply observe that the absolute may be defined as that which is independent of extraneous conditions; and that the greater its independence, the more absolute and the more perfect is the being. Have you anything to say against this definition?
We must, then, conclude that all your argumentation is nothing but a shocking display of false assertions, and, I may add, of “intellectual jugglery.”
Büchner. I will accept your conclusion, if you can show that our conception of a God is not a childish delusion of our fancy. “An exact knowledge and unprejudiced observation of individuals and nations in an uncivilized state prove the contrary to be the fact. Only a prejudiced mind can, in the worship of animals practised by ancient and existing nations, find something analogous to a real belief in a God. It by no means corresponds to the idea of a God when we see man worshipping such animals as he from experience knows may injure or be useful to him.... A stone, a tree, a river, an alligator, a parcel of rags, a snake, form the idols of the negro of Guinea. Such a worship does not express the idea of an almighty being, governing the world and ruling nature and man, but merely a blind fear of natural forces, which frighten uncivilized man, or appear supernatural, as he is not able to trace the natural connection of things.... A god in the shape of an animal is no God, but a caricature” (pp. 184, 185).
Reader. True. But individuals and nations existing “in an uncivilized state” are scarcely to be appealed to for a decision of the question. The notion of worship implies the notion of a supreme being; but rude and brutal men, thinking of nothing but of the development of their animal nature and the pursuit of degrading pleasure, though they know that there [pg 191] is some superior being, are not the men we ought to consult about the nature and attributes of divinity. It seems, doctor, as if you had a great predilection for uncivilized and barbarous nations. You have already tried to countenance abortion and fœticide, on the ground that barbarians admitted the horrible practice; and now you would have us believe that our conception of a God is a childish delusion, on the ground that barbarians worship the snake, the alligator, or any other caricature of a god. This will not do.
Büchner. But civilized men are not much in advance of barbarians with regard to the notion of divinity. “No one has better expounded the purely human origin of the idea of God than Ludwig Feuerbach. He calls all conceptions of God and divinity anthropomorphisms—i.e., products of human fancies and perceptions, formed after the model of human individuality. Feuerbach finds this anthropomorphism in the feeling of dependence inherent in the human nature. ‘An extraneous and superhuman God,’ says Feuerbach, ‘is nothing but an extraneous and supernatural self, a subjective being placed, by transgressing its limits, above the objective nature of man.’ The history of all religions is indeed a continuous argument for this assertion; and how could it be otherwise? Without any knowledge or any notion of the absolute, without any immediate revelation, the existence of which is indeed asserted by all, but not proved by any religious sect, all ideas of God, no matter of what religion, can only be human; and as man knows in animated nature no being intellectually superior to himself, it follows that his conception of a supreme being can only be abstracted from his own self, and must represent a self-idealization” (p. 190). Hence it is plain that our idea of a God is a mere delusion.
Reader. It is by no means plain, doctor. Feuerbach's authority, you know, is worth very little. Your German philosophers, as you own, “have pretty much lost their authority, and are now but little attended to” (p. 158). On the other hand, “nothing,” says Herschel, “is so improbable but a German will find a theory for it” (p. 155). Therefore let Feuerbach alone.
As for the reasons which you adduce in support of the assumption, we need not go into deep reasonings to lay open their true value. Is “the history of all religions a continuous argument for Feuerbach's assertion”? No. For the history of the Mosaic and of the Christian religion is a continuous refutation of such a slander. Are men “without any knowledge or any notion of the absolute”? No. This I have already shown to be entirely false. Men, however, are “without any immediate revelation.” This is true, but it has nothing to do with the question; first, because philosophy and reason are competent without supernatural revelation to ascertain the existence of a primary cause infinitely superior to all the natural beings; secondly, because, although we have no immediate revelations, we have the old revelation transmitted to us by written and oral tradition, and by the teaching of the living church. That this revelation “is asserted by all, but not proved by any religious sect,” is one of those lies which it is quite unnecessary to refute, as there are whole libraries of Scriptural treatises, in which the truth of revelation is superabundantly [pg 192] vindicated. I would therefore conclude, without any further discussion, that it is to yourself, and not to your opponents, that you should apply that low criticism with which you close the twenty-sixth chapter of your work. For it is you that “delight in hashing up cold meat with new phrases, and dishing them up as the last invention of the materialistic kitchen” (p. 194).
To sum up: Do you admit that man is a finite being?
Büchner. Of course.
Reader. Do you admit that man had a beginning? That man is ignorant, weak, wicked, and subject to death?
Büchner. Who can doubt that?
Reader. Then man by self-idealization cannot form an anthropomorphic notion of a supreme being without involving limitation, ignorance, impotence, malice, an origin, and an end of existence. Such, and no other, would be the result of self-idealization. Now, our notion of God is that of a being eternal, infinite, omniscient, omnipotent, holy, immense. Is this anthropomorphism?
To Be Continued.