[ View Larger Image Here.]

B = Bat (Rhinolophus) G = Gibbon (Hylobates) M = Man (Homo)

CHAPTER III

THE CONTROVERSY OVER THE SOUL

THE IDEAS OF IMMORTALITY AND GOD

Though it was my original intention to deliver only two lectures, I have been moved by several reasons to add a supplementary one. In the first place, I notice with regret that I have been compelled by pressure of time to leave untouched in my earlier lectures, or to treat very inadequately, several important points in my theme; there is, in particular, the very important question of the nature of the soul. In the second place, I have been convinced by the many contradictory press-notices during the last few days that many of my incomplete observations have been misunderstood or misinterpreted. And, thirdly, it seemed advisable to give a brief and clear summary of the whole subject in this farewell lecture, to take a short survey of the past, present, and future of the theory of evolution, and especially its relation to the three great questions of personal immortality, the freedom of the will, and the personality of God.

I must claim the reader's patience and indulgence even to a greater extent than in the previous chapters, as the subject is one of the most difficult and obscure that the human mind approaches. I have dealt at length in my recent works, The Riddle of the Universe and The Wonders of Life, with the controversial questions of biology that I treat cursorily here. But I would like to put before you now, in a general survey, the powerful arguments that modern science employs against the prevailing superstition in regard to evolution, and to show that the Monistic system throws a clear light on the great questions of God and the world, the soul and life.