Idealism and materialism have hitherto stood as two absolutely incompatible contrasts and the fierce battle that continuously rages, even in our days, between the two world-conceptions can, according to common notions, only be brought to an end through the complete defeat of one of the parties. We have endeavored to show that both these philosophies have common deficiencies, but that each of them possesses an essential part of truth. We cannot deny idealism the merit of having looked far deeper into the nature of things and phenomena. While admitting this we cannot be blind to the fact that this philosophy has left at least one fact of nearly overwhelming importance totally unexplained. If it be true that the soul is the essential part of man and is that to which alone immortality is granted, how then shall we account for the fact that the soul’s evolution, properly the one principal object of man, must stand aside for the body to such an extent that the body utilizes, if not all yet at least the largest part of man’s time and energy? To materialism this reply is given, but then again this philosophy has been unable to answer all those questions which idealism alone could satisfactorily explain.
Now at last we understand the reason for these contradictions. The two world-conceptions suffer the same essential deficiency of having overlooked the fact that the body contains a spiritual organism, of the same importance to man’s future life as to his present. In the theory here proposed materialism in a purified form melts into idealism, which latter thus receives the supplement it hitherto has lacked as a universal, satisfactory world-explanation. We have barely outlined this new, organic idealism and have treated it somewhat more extensively only with reference to death and resurrection. But also on this point our work, as all human effort, is only piecemeal labor. As soon as we have advanced one step, other entirely new questions arise. We already discern boundless expanses of problems in the same direction and shall here point out one example. The organic changes, characterizing old age and preceding the so-called natural death, are comparatively well studied and known. But in spite of this, natural science is unable to tell us the underlying cause in the inner nature of the organism, and it is even admitted that we know no reason why the process should not follow an entirely opposite course. From our point of view man has an individual content larger than that included in the successive moments of time, and death should normally enter with the translation of the last cell-generation. It is true that as civilization advances man’s lifetime is constantly increasing, so that we may look forward to a time when most men will die a natural death. But if we meet a premature death, as is now generally the case, can this, and other disturbing interruptions in the natural process, afterwards be repaired? Let us hope that this is possible, but a decisive answer we cannot give. Our conviction is that God does not interfere to help man either in the transition itself or in a future life in any other way than he does here in time. Certainly the clerical orthodoxy has rightly understood the divine guidance in its teaching of God’s general providence, comprising the whole creation, His special providence in regard to mankind, and His most particular providence, limited to the faithful; that is, to those that let themselves be governed by the divine will. Critical experience has never discovered any exterior, occasional interference, which moreover is utterly impossible. God is present and active in the eternal and unchangeable laws of nature and spirit. Sin and punishment, virtue and reward, are connected with each other as reason and conclusion, cause and effect. Man is himself the cause of his acts and they bring their inevitable consequences. The man therefore who consciously and purposely distorts his own natural evolution or that of others stands before himself and before his fellow men burdened with a terrible responsibility.
FOOTNOTES
[1] The latest researches in regard to the newly discovered corpuscles show that these “bodies” have a mass proportional to the square of their velocity, thus forcing us to conclude that they at rest have no mass. Perhaps, therefore, the ancient dualistic world of matter and force is merging into a larger unity where life directs force to serve its specific purposes.—Translator’s note.
[2] Chemists understand that the so-called native iron, found, for instance, in Greenland, forms no real exception more than the chemical reactions that absorb heat form exceptions to the general law that chemical processes set heat free, because if the necessary simultaneous reactions are taken into account, all the reactions as a whole show a surplus of heat.—Translator’s note.
[3] Björklund might here properly have referred to his previous demonstration of the fact that life has no roots in time, consequently is independent of this principle—i. e., immortal.—Translator’s note.