OR,
THE ORIGIN OF LIFE AND MIND.
"Substance is that which is and abides;" "that which subsists of or by itself; that which lies under qualities; that which truly is—or essence." "It is opposed to accident." "In its logical and metaphysical sense it is that nature of a thing which may be conceived to remain when every other nature is removed or abstracted from it; the ultimate point in analyzing the complex idea of any object. Accident denotes all those ideas which the analysis excludes as not belonging to the mere being or nature of the object." It is said that our first idea of substance is, possibly, derived from the consciousness of self, the conviction that, while our sensations, thought and purposes are changing, we continue the same. "We see bodies also remaining the same as to quantity or extension, while their color and figure, their state of motion or rest may be changed." It has also been said that substances are either primary, that is singular, individual substances; or secondary, that is genera, and species of substance.
Substances have been divided into complete and incomplete, finite and infinite. But it is to be remembered that these are merely divisions of being. Substance is properly divided into matter and spirit, or that which is extended and that which thinks.
"The foundation principle of substance is that law of the human mind by which every quality or mode of being is referred to a substance," or the consciousness of a cause for every effect. "In everything which we perceive or can imagine as existing, we distinguish two parts, qualities variable and multiplied; and a being one and identical; and these two are so united in thought that we can not separate them in our intelligence, nor think of qualities without a substance." So it is a self-evident or first truth, that there is a subjective or inner man which thinks, reflects and reasons, for memory recalls to us the many modes of our mind; its many qualities and conditions. What variety of mental conditions have we not experienced? These are all so many evidences of an internal substance that we call spirit. That spirit is to be distinguished from thought as cause is from effect is evident; and also from matter lying in the accident or quality of body, is certain, from the fact of its being subject to such rapid and instantaneous changes of condition. Amidst all the different modes, qualities, or accidents of mind, we believe ourselves to be the same individual being; and this conviction is the result of that law of thought which always associates qualities with things.
In the world around us phenomena, qualities or accidents are continually changing, but we believe that these, all, are produced by causes which remain, as substances, the same. And as we know ourselves to be the causes of our own acts, and to be able to change, within a moment, the modes of our own mind, so we believe the changes of matter, which take place more slowly, to be produced by causes which belong to the substances of matter. And underlying all causes, whether of the qualities of matter or mind, we conceive of one absolute cause, one substance, in itself persistent and upholding all things in nature. This substance we are pleased to call spirit; and this spirit we call God. To deny this is to strike down a grand law of thought, the foundation principle of substance, and make the testimony of our own consciousness A LIE! The inorganic forces, about which "unbelievers" have so much to say are altogether operative in the realm of substance; that is to say, they belong to the invisible. Organic and inorganic are the same as visible and invisible. We know matter by its qualities, and we know mind by its qualities. These two, in qualities or attributes, contrast with each other like life and death. One is extenuated and the other extended; one is invisible the other is visible. Of the existence of these substances and their laws we have evidence in conscious knowledge, in that we know that we have no control over the involuntary or sympathetic nervous system, and have the most perfect control over the voluntary nerves. The forces controlling are as different as these qualities themselves. If man is simply a material organism, why this contrast? We are told that life itself is a group of co-ordinated functions. But what correllates that force?
It is very common for the advocates of the evolution hypothesis to measure the period between this and the origin of life by the phrase, "Millions and millions of years." The only object that such writers have in view in so doing is to bridge the gulf between the assumed origin of life and mind and the evidence necessary to its establishment as a fact in science. They tell us that "life is a property which certain elements of matter exhibit when united in a special form under special conditions." But when we ask them to give us those certain elements of matter, they immediately inform us that "matter has about sixty-three elements; that each element has special properties, and that these elements admit of an infinite variety of combinations, each combination having peculiar properties." This, as a fort, is a stand behind the dark, impenetrable curtain of an infinite variety of combinations. It is just as dark and as destitute of proof as any pope's assumed infallibility.
Mr. Hæckel says: "As a matter of course, to the infinite varieties presented by the organic forms and vital phenomena in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, correspond an equally infinite variety of chemical composition in the protoplasm. The most minute homogeneous constituents of this life substance, the protoplasm molecules, must in their chemical composition present an infinite number of extremely delicate gradations and variations. According to the plastic theory recently advanced (?) the great variety of vital phenomena is the consequence of the infinitely delicate chemical difference in the composition of protoplasm, the sole active life substance." What a multitude of infinities. But then, an infinite number, and an infinite variety of infinitely delicate gradations and variations, with millions and millions of years, do not remove further from sight life in its origin than does the materialistic philosophy of one substance. They constitute the web and filling of the blanket of oblivion used by materialistic doctors to cover up their ignorance of life and its origin. A half dozen "INFINITIES," and "MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF YEARS!" What! should I care if my ancestors were "tadpoles," when they are HID AWAY IN THE CENTER OF INFINITIES, and laid away back yonder, so far off as "MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF YEARS?"
When we ask our friends for the proof necessary to establish this speculation as a fact among facts, they find it very convenient to betake themselves to infinities, and millions and millions of years.
But we Christians do not ask them to give us an infinite variety, etc., but to give us the "certain elements" of which "life is a property," and the "special form in which these certain elements were united," and the "special conditions" that existed when life first made its appearance by spontaneous generation. When we do this we are immediately carried away into the infinities. The result is that the solution of the problem of the origin of life by spontaneous generation, as a property of "certain elements of matter, united in a special form, under special conditions," is buried forever out of sight. This same definition of life is found on page 69 of a work entitled, "The System of Nature," published by D. Holbach, a French Atheist, in 1774, in these words: "Experience proves to us that the matter which we regard as inert and dead assumes action, intelligence and life when it is combined in a certain way."
Voltaire answered: "This is precisely the difficulty. How does a germ come to life? Is not this definition very easy—very common? Is not life organization with feeling? But," says Voltaire, "that you have these two properties from the motion of matter alone: it is impossible to give any proof, and if it can not be proved why affirm it? Why say aloud, 'I know,' while you say to yourself, 'I know not?'"
Our Atheistic friends say: "The forms of life vary because of the difference in their molecular construction, resulting from different physical conditions to which the various forms have been subjected."
Wonderful discovery! Does it explain the evidence of design which is presented in pairing off male and female in the same form of life?
Dr. Parvin is often referred to as "frankly admitting that the doctrine of the evolution of species is accepted by three-fourths of the scientific men," and that this doctrine has, in their minds, "rendered nugatory the hypothesis of a vital immaterial principle as a causal factor in the phenomena of life and mind." Allowing this statement its full force, it is still true that none but Atheists can possibly be included in the "three-fourths." So much the worse for them. But it is an Atheistic trick to try to succeed by a misrepresentation of facts. One of their number recently said, "It is now almost universally believed by those who have investigated the subject that life originated from natural agencies without the aid of a creative intelligence. Then those who have investigated the subject are almost universally Atheists?"
It is said that "vital activity, whether of body or mind, is a mode of motion, the correllate of antecedent motion." But what correllated the force? According to this logic life came from the antecedent motion; that is, from the motion of dead atoms. But motion itself is the manifestation of energy, and there must of necessity be something behind it to which it belongs as an attribute. Do you say it was dead atoms, or matter without life? Then dead atoms set dead atoms into motion and produced life! Can you believe this? If you can, you need find no trouble in believing in the most orthodox hell. Can you get more out of a thing than there is in it? We don't think so. But we do think that there is credulity enough, even blind credulity, in the advocates of spontaneous generation to enable them to believe anything they may happen to wish true. We are told that "life in its higher forms is not an immaterial entity, nor the result of a special form of force termed vital, but, that it is a group of co-ordinated functions." Then what correllated the force? If it was not vitality what was it? But this is just equivalent to saying that life does not proceed from life. So, in the realm of inertia or death, without a God and without life, some kind of a mechanical operation among dead atoms took place which produced "a certain chemico-physical constitution of amorphous matter—on that albuminous substance called sarcode or protoplasm," which evolved more than was involved, or brought organic life out of dead inorganic matter. But life is simply a "mode," or "degree of motion?" But we are curious to know just here whether the advocates of this system of things do not believe that there always was a degree of motion. Perchance they do, but then they certainly can't believe that this particular degree or mode of motion which they called life was eternal. So, then, a degree of motion is life, and a degree of motion is not life. This thing of confounding life with motion I'm thinking leads to difficulty. I can see how motion may be the result of life, but just how it is life itself I can't see quite so well. Is cause and effect the same?
We have a most remarkable, and yet a natural, concession made in the way in which men who feel the weakness of their cause generally make concessions. It is a statement said to be made by Baron Liebig; it is this: "Geological investigations have established the fact of a beginning of life (?) upon the earth, which leaves no doubt that it can only have arisen naturally and from inorganic forces, and it is perfectly indifferent whether or not we observe such a process now." This statement is untrue as respects geological facts. But the concession is, that spontaneous generation is not to be an observed fact. "Perfectly indifferent whether or not we observe such a process now?" Well, it never was observed. Mr. Liebig's statement doubtless proceeds from the conviction that the system is never to be established by observation. It is simple imagination. Virchow says: "We can only imagine that at certain periods of the development of the earth unusual conditions existed, under which the elements entering into new combinations acquired in statu nascente vital motions, so that the usual mechanical conditions were transformed into vital conditions." In this statement it is well for us to remember that it is not only simple imagination, but also that vital motions were the cause, bringing about vital conditions, that is to say, life, before life was, transformed mechanical conditions into vital conditions. So, in this very singular imaginary hypothesis touching the origin of life we have the usual circle suicide of the system. "Vital motions transform mechanical conditions into vital conditions," and vital conditions fill the world with "vital motions," and life itself is only a degree "or mode of motion." Such is their travel around the circle.
Can you believe that vital motion transformed mechanical conditions into vital conditions, without life being the cause of those vital motions?
DIFFICULTY WITH FIRE.
La Place, in his solution of how our planet was made, supposed that the cooling, and consequently contracting rings of the fire cloud planet, earth, did not break up into pieces, but retained their continuity; but, in opposition to all experience and reason, he supposed that the cooling rings kept contracting and widening out at the same time. According to the nebular hypothesis—or guess—the fire mist was cooling and shrinking up, while the rings of the same heat and material were cooling faster and widening out from it: a piece of disorder equal to a miracle, for it can not be duplicated among solids or fluids in heaven or earth, or under the earth; for everything narrows down upon cooling—contracts!
The Infidel's Offset.—An unbeliever once said to a man who advocated the doctrine of total depravity: "The ground for my rejection of all responsibility for belief is the acknowledged necessitated nature of belief. Show me," said he, "that it is not necessitated, and I am answered. When you show me that it is controlled by a will, equally necessitated, I am not answered. If a necessitated faculty or operation can not be responsible, then neither will nor volition can be responsible. You," said the infidel, "go through the whole circle of mental faculties, and find necessity everywhere and responsibility nowhere."
Through the kindness of Brother J. M. Mathes we are in possession of a copy of the life of Brother Elijah Goodwin. It has the merit of being mainly Brother Goodwin's own production. His many friends will regard it as a grand "keepsake." It is neatly bound in cloth, contains 314 pages, and is in beautiful type. Send $1.50 by postoffice order to Elder J. M. Mathes, Bedford, Lawrence county, Indiana, and receive a copy in return.
Transcriber’s Note
The punctuation and spelling from the original text have been faithfully preserved. Only obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
A table of contents has been generated for the HTML edition.