This much we know, and should not forget or confuse it. We know it, as we know that “twice two are four”; that fire will burn, or that bodies, unsupported, fall to the ground. We know it from the fact of our own self-conscious identity. Radically or suddenly to change that essentially is to annihilate us.
The preacher says, “Study the Bible.” He might say, “Study yourself!” The preacher says, “Look to Jesus.” He might say, “Look within!” The preacher says, “Repent and pray.” I would say, “After an inventory of your inner possessions, clean up the house and go to work to improve it in every way.”
When “cleaning day” is well under way, if the “sure-enough” preacher drops in, and you show him the house and what you are trying your best to do, he will just start “Old Hundred,” and will be too happy for anything else.
I am not criticising the preacher, nor opposing religion, but getting ready for it, laying the foundation of Morals and the building of character. “Religion” cannot do this. You and I have to do it, or it is never done.
Without this work of ours, religion is little more, or else, than passing emotion or lasting superstition, “lip service,” cant, hypocrisy, and then cold heartless dogmatism, a measure and jingling of words that never touch the heart, but leave the individual ready to throw stones and light brands of torture: a case-hardening of the affections and the aspirations, that wraps the soul like the bandages of the mummied Pharaohs, a mere petrifaction.
We know, or may know, as much actually and scientifically of the growth of the soul as of the growth of the body. The average individual knows more of the soul than of the body, but his knowledge is in confusion. It is a matter of hourly, daily, life-long, and changing experience. He knows little of physiology, except feelings, sensations, desires, and results. How and why the mechanism of the body works he knows not.
Body and soul are organically identified, intimately associated and interwoven, and act and react on each other. They are functionally synchronous in all movements. The analogies between them are numberless and easily traced.
The physician and physiologist does not stop to inquire, “What is Life” and refuse to move till someone gives a satisfactory answer; yet he is dealing with Life in its numberless manifestations in the human, organism continually.
But this same physician is likely to debate and deny the existence of the Soul, demanding that you define and demonstrate it.
The term “Individual Intelligence” is as definite, specific, and demonstrable in Psychology as the term “Life” in Physiology.