5. Or, again: As in passing up the organic scale, we find all grades of completeness of organic individuality, an increasing individuation of bodily form which completes itself as a perfect organic individual only in the higher animals, so, also, in passing up the dynamic scale, force or energy is individuated more and more until the process reaches completeness as a spirit-individual or dynamic individual—a person only in man. Organic individuality completes itself in animals. Psychic individuality only in man.
6. One more illustration and the last. The animal body may be likened to an exquisitely adjusted instrument of communication between two worlds—the material world without and the spiritual world within. The key-boards of this marvelous instrument are the nerve-terminals of the sense-organs in contact with the material world, and the brain-cells in touch with the spirit-world. External Nature plays on the one by sensation and determines changes in spirit. Spirit plays on the other by will and muscular contraction, and determines changes in external Nature. Now, in animals spirit is fast asleep or at most dreaming, or even perhaps somnambulistic, but at least unconscious of self, and acts only by stimulus—only responds in some sense automatically as sleepers do. In man spirit is wide awake and may respond automatically like animals, or may choose not to respond at all. Moreover, it acts freely in its own domain—the world of ideas—without external stimulus; or of its own free-will may initiate changes in the external world. With God all phenomena commence at the spirit-end. In animals all commence at the matter-end, and by automatic response terminate in the same. Man alone lives in both worlds, partakes of both natures, and acts according to either method.
The more we reflect on this subject, the more we shall be convinced that completed spirit individuality explains, as nothing else can, all that is characteristic of man. It is this which constitutes person, or the self-acting ego. It is this which constitutes self-consciousness, free-will, and moral responsibility. And out of these, again, grows, the recognition of relations to other moral beings and to God, and therefore ethics and religion. Out of these, also, grows the capacity of indefinite voluntary progress. This also means separate life, spirit-viability, or immortality. Self-consciousness especially seems to me the simplest sign of separate entity or spirit-individuality, and its appearance among psychical phenomena the very act of spirit-birth. We may imagine man to have emerged ever so gradually from animals: in this gradual development the moment he became conscious of self, the moment he turned his thoughts inward in wonder upon himself and on the mystery of his existence as separate from Nature, that moment marks the birth of humanity out of animality. All else characteristic of man followed as a necessary consequence. I am quite sure that, if any animal, say a dog or a monkey, could be educated up to the point of self-consciousness (which, however, I am sure is impossible), that moment he (no longer it) would become a moral responsible being, and all else characteristic of moral beings would follow. At that moment would come personality, immortality, capacity of voluntary progress; and science, philosophy, religion, would quickly follow.
We have emphasized self-consciousness as the most fundamental sign of spirit-individuality; but a difference of exactly the same kind is found running through the whole gamut of human faculties as compared with corresponding faculties in animals. As animal consciousness is related to human self-consciousness, so exactly is animal will to human free-will, animal intelligence to human reason, animal sign-language to rational grammatical speech of man, constructive art of animals to true rational progressive art of man. In every one of these the resemblance is great, but the difference is immense, and not only in degree but also in kind. In every case it is like shadow and substance, promise and fulfillment, or, still better, it is like embryo and child. The change from one to the other is like to a birth into a higher sphere, the beginning of another cycle of evolution. We would like to follow this idea out in detail, but it would lead us beyond the scope of this work. Those who desire to do so we would refer to an article by the author on the “Psychical Relation of Man to Animals.”[44]
But it will be objected that there are other births of energy from lower to higher condition; but such births do not insure continued existence in the higher condition. In the gradual evolution of energy described on [page 316], when a portion rises from physical to chemical, from chemical to vital, or from vital to sentient, it does not remain ever after in the higher condition—there is no immortality on the higher plane. On the contrary, all these lower forms of energy are continually ascending and descending; transformation is downward as well as upward. Why should there be an exception in this last birth? In these successive upward metamorphoses of energy why should the last only be permanent? I answer: Because it reaches at last its final goal, viz., complete individuation, as free, self-acting spirit; it reaches again the spiritual plane from which it sprang, and becomes thereby a partaker of the Divine nature; because it comes at last into moral relations with the absolute—the Divine—and therefore above the plane of shifting changes. If the scale of energy be likened to a ladder with many rounds, reaching from the plane of matter to the plane of spirit, then so long as energy is on the ladder it ascends and descends; but, once it reaches the plane of free spirit, it is in a wholly new world in which eternal ascent is the law.
Perhaps I can best bring out the reasonableness of my view by comparing it with other possible alternative views.
There are three possible views as to the nature, the origin, and the destiny of the human spirit: (1.) That it pre-existed always—uncreated, underived, eternal, both ways—backward as well as forward. Therefore, as it never began, so it will never end. It is immortal of its own right. This is substantially the view of Plato, of Leibnitz, and perhaps some other philosophers. (2.) That it is derived from God directly—created at once without natural process; that at the moment of creation of the first man Adam, and at some unknown time and in some inscrutable way in the history of each individual, it was injected into the body from the outside, and at the same time endowed with immortality. This, I take it, is the orthodox view. (3.) That it was indeed derived from God, but not directly; created indeed, but only by natural process of evolution; that it indeed pre-existed, but only as embryo in the womb of Nature, slowly developing through all geological times, and finally coming to birth as living soul in man. Thus it attains immortality at a certain stage of development, viz., at spirit-birth. This is the view I have striven to enforce.
I hold up these three views: Which is the more rational? The view of Plato—that of self-existent, uncreated, eternal spirit—I think few will entertain at this time of the world’s day. The usual orthodox view I have shown is surrounded with insuperable difficulties; is wholly unscientific and irrational. What is there left but the view presented above? Plato is right in asserting pre-existence, but wrong in denying creation. The usual view is right in asserting creation, but wrong in denying natural process. The view I have presented asserts pre-existence in embryo and creation by natural process. It therefore combines and reconciles the two extreme views, and is more rational than either.
Some General Conclusions.—There are still two or three thoughts so closely connected with what we have already said that we can not pass them over:
1. We have seen that every mental state corresponds with a particular brain state, and every mental change with a brain change. We have, therefore, here, two series, physical and psychical, corresponding with each other, term for term. For every change in the one there is a corresponding change in the other, both in kind and amount. Now, is not this the test of the relation of cause and effect? It certainly is. Yes, there must be a causal relation here, even though we are not able to understand the nature of the causal nexus. But which is cause and which effect? If the view above presented be correct, then in animals brain changes are in all cases the cause of psychical phenomena. In man alone, and only in his higher activities, psychic changes precede and determines brain changes. In man alone brain changes are determined not only by external but by internal impressions. Man alone perceives not only objects—material things—but also relations and properties abstracted from the objects, i. e., ideal things; and, moreover, not only relations between objects, but also relations between relations or ideas. In man alone there is an inner world—microcosm—the things of which are thoughts, ideas, etc. This self-acting power of spirit on the things of itself, instead of merely reacting as played upon by external nature, is characteristic of man, and is a necessary result and a sign of severance, partial at least, of physical bond with Nature.