Origin of Spirit.—If there is an immortal spirit, whether its duration be eternal or measured by time, as we can not go beyond the realm of law—by which we mean the fixed order of causation—it must date its beginning with that of the body. The history of the development of the germ is a correspondence of that of the spirit. If the parents have immortal spirits as well as mortal bodies, then while their physical bodies support the corporeal being, their spiritual natures must in an equal measure support the spirit of the fetus, and the growth of its dual nature be similar, both receiving nourishment from the mother. The two forms mature together; one pervading and being the exact copy of the other.
Objections.—As the processes of life and that lower order of intelligence known as instinct, are manifested in animals, identically the same as they are in man, and by the wonderful interrelationship existing between all the members of the animal world, from protozoa to man, what is true of one must be true of all, it follows that if it is necessary to evoke the aid of the spirit for the explanation of the phenomena connected with man, it is equally necessary in the case of animals. Granting this, the next step is to show the absurdity of the idea that all the infinitude of beings, from microbes to leviathans, have a life beyond the evening of their brief day. The issue is fairly stated, but the claim regarded as absurd is not made. All may have spirits, from the lowest to the highest, holding the same relations to the body in which it is gestated as the spirit of man holds to his physical form. That such should be the case is a necessity of the position taken by this work. It is not, however, held, nor is it necessary that it should be, that the spirit of animals is immortal, or exist after the death of the body. They have not attained the requisite development, which has been likened to an arch which requires the finish, by putting in place of the keystone before the staging on which it rests can be removed, leaving the arch permanent. If this staging is removed before the keystone is put in place, the entire structure falls in ruins. In man, the arch is completed. Yet, as the animal merges into man through intermediate forms—and the infant knows less than the perfect animal—the line of demarkation is drawn with difficulty. It is like the boundary between the hill and its valley: both meet somewhere; but no one can say where the valley begins and the hill ends. A certain degree of development is essential, below which spirit cannot exist independently of the physical body, and above which this is possible. Any theory which of necessity advocates the immortal life of animals as well as of man, fails by maintaining that which may readily be proved an absurdity. For if the intelligent dog or elephant have existence in the future, so may the fish, the mollusk, the monad, and even the speck of protoplasm, which loses itself in unorganic matter. This was put forth as an unanswerable objection to the immortality of the human spirit, for it was said one or the other horn of the dilemma must be taken; for as there is no break in the chain of beings, between man and animals, even to the monad, if a future life belongs to him, equally is it an inheritance of theirs; and if it be denied them, so must it be lost to him. In mental and spiritual attainment there is a gulf between man and the animal world, vastly broader and more profound than is required to give him the inheritance of immortality which is also theirs.
In time this gulf is as wide as from the present to several millions of years previous to the glacial period. Prof. Wallace is so astonished at the difference between the brain of the most savage man and the highest animal, that he declares the theory of evolution, which he was first to promulgate, while it accounts for all the forms of life, here fails, and that man stands alone, the creature of another creation. While he says that man “May even have lived in the miocene or eocene period, when not a single mammal was identical in form with any existing species,” yet he does not place the origin of man at a sufficiently remote era in those receding æons of time.
In the primitive human being, thought began its conquest of the world, and the man of to-day represents the accumulation of all experiences since his ancestors fought with cunning craft the huge megatherium, and disputed for supremacy of the tertiary forests with palæotherium, and other monsters of that age.
In time, the gulf between him and the animal world is thus widened, and in size of brain, which measures as a psychic metre, the growth of the superior life, he is equally distant. It has been remarked that the brain of the savage was so much larger than the exigencies of his life demanded, that it was comparable to giving the wing of an eagle to a hedge sparrow, or the arm of a tiger to a mouse. Rightly read, this proves the vast duration of time during the differentiation of man from the animals below him. Psychic growth is marked by enlargement of brain, and as long ago as the earliest preserved geological traces of humanity are found, that organ had attained a size and form about equal to that of the present. Its attainments have become so great that it is difficult at present to compare its intelligent manifestations with the instinctive desires of animals. The brains of all the lower types in certain essentials of organic life are alike, but in the great lobes which, superimposed, mark the degrees of psychic life, the human being stand alone, and is human because of the mental qualities these lobes indicate.
A Spirit Not Necessarily Immortal.—It has been said by a writer whose sensitive mind had received supernatural light: “Supposing the laws governing our spiritual natures operate similarly to those governing our physical, we must naturally infer that the spiritual forms of all parts of life, may be by those laws interpreted. If the spirit of an animal has not intelligence to obey, and the spirit of man wilfully disobeys, will not the law eventually destroy such spirits? The sentient notion that all ignorant and vile spirits, without aspirations for anything that is good, who glory in wickedness and persist in the violation of law, will become perfected I regard as false, for such must go on in a career which ends in annihilation.” This writer errs in the cause he assigns for the continuous individuality of spiritual beings. He places it on moral grounds, making it dependent on moral aspirations, character and desires. Rather is it dependent on development as an entirety. The human being, after a certain stage of mental growth, receives a charter to eternal life which it can not annul, bearing with it all its infinite consequences and responsibilities.
In the “Arcana,” Vol. II., 1864, this subject is thus treated:
“A spirit is not necessarily immortal, but can become gradually extinguished, like a lamp burning for an indefinite time and then going out. Such is the condition of the lowest races of mankind. They exist after death; but with them there is no progress, no desire for the immortal state, and slowly, atom by atom, they are absorbed into the bosom of the universal spirit-essence as the spirit of the animal is immediately after death.”
If it be asked at what age the spirit of man retains its identity, it may be said in reply, that no certain date can be given, for that varies with the development of the parents. Is the idiot immortal? The answer depends on the circumstances, the degree and cause of the idiocy. If the idiot is destitute of a ray of intelligence; if it is only a voiceless, thoughtless being, the inference is not cheering, and the possibilities are largely in favor of its absorption into the bosom of the universal spirit-substance.
A sensitive gave his testimony on this subject as it came under his observation while in a trance. Its value depends on the credence we give to the revelations received from that state. He said that while in the unconscious trance, or clairvoyant state, the dying animal and dying human being were both presented to him, and he saw the same processes go forward in both. The spirit of the animal floated above the dying body like a thin cloud; and while he was expecting it to take form and identity, it dissolved and disappeared, just as a cloud would do in a summer sky. The spirit of a human being arose like a cloud in the same manner, took form and identity, and became a counterpart of the body it had left. This is not a speculative belief, but demonstrative by the revelations of trance.