Memoirs of Orange Jacobs

by Orange Jacobs

Thirdly—Is the power to think, to reflect and to judge of the moral quality of actions and thoughts a property of animal organization? If it be, clams and oysters as animal organizations think; possess the power to reflect and to judge of the moral quality of thoughts and actions, but we have no evidence that they possess any of these powers, and consequently we ought not to believe it.

Fourthly—Are the powers we have been considering essential to the existence of soul-life, possessed by the higher animal organizations, such as lions and tigers and domestic animals?

Here an important distinction must be noted. There is a thing, universally recognized as existing, called instinct. All of the actions of animals and many of the actions of human beings spring from instinct. Instinct was given for self-preservation and defense. It is a sort of semi-intellect, and sometimes in the perfection of its action is equal to the highest development of soul-power; for instance, the action of a bee, purely the result of instinct, in the economy of space in the fitness of all its contrivances in making the comb, is wonderful; no improvement can be made upon it by the highest development of inventive genius. How does instinct act as contra distinguished from actions based upon the exercise of soul-power? Instinct acts in a straight or direct line with its object. As an illustration,—a tiger is hungry, a man is hungry; the tiger sees a lamb—the man sees a loaf of bread in the baker's window; both, left to the impulse of instinct, would go directly to the object desired by each; the man, although cruelly hungry, as he approaches the object of his desires, says to himself, "This bread does not belong to me; it is the property of another, and I have no right to take it without his consent." Here we see, in the case of the man, a soul-power acting at right angles with the impulse of instinct and controlling and governing the action of the man. It is only when men are controlled by soul-power, as against instinct, that they really are men in the higher sense of the term.

With this principle thus briefly stated, and carefully separating the actions of men as well as animals springing from instinct from the actions of men springing from the soul-power, we are prepared to make the declaration that the tiger is incapable of acting on the considerations that influenced the action of the man; the rightfulness or wrongfulness of his act in seizing the lamb did not, nor could it enter at all into his action; he was affected by no consideration of right or wrong, and indeed could not be; hence we are prepared for the conclusion that the power to think, to reflect and to judge of the moral quality of acts and thoughts, is not possessed by the higher animal organization, or, in other words, that they have no soul such as we have defined it. Having thus briefly shown by a process of elimination that man alone possesses the power that we have described as soul-power, we have established the first part of our argument.

Man alone being possessed of soul qualities, the question arises, what are the duration of these qualities? We argue that, being an emanation from God, they must of necessity partake of the nature of God, and are therefore indestructible, and eternal. But it is objected that when the body dies we see no more manifestation of soul-life. Concede it, for the sake of argument. Does it follow that the soul is extinct? The body was the instrument through which the soul manifested itself, just as the piano is the instrument through, or by which, a certain class or kind of music is manifested. Is the impairment or destruction of the particular piano, a destruction or extinction of that music? Who would thus reason? The music manifested through that piano had an existence in the mind, or soul of some person anterior to the existence of the signs made on paper by the use of which the music on the piano was produced, or manifested; and it is evident that the impairment or destruction of the piano did not destroy the music. What force, then, is there in the claim that, simply because the instrument through which the soul manifested itself is dead, the soul itself is dead, or extinct? There are many illustrations of this thought in actual life. The wonderful, almost inspired, conception of beauty, passion and anguish transferred by the artist's brush to canvas, as enduring monuments of the immortality of genius, existed in the mind of the artist before a single line of the grand conception was transferred to canvas. If there be any defect in the picture it is usually a defect of execution, not of conception. The canvas is but the means by which these conceptions of beauty, passion or anguish are manifested to the souls of others. Who will argue that the destruction of the frail canvas is the destruction of these conceptions? They existed before they were transferred to canvas; its destruction does not extinguish them.

It is said again, that soul-attributes are the results of that mysterious power called life, operating in connection with animal organization. But a tiger has life and animal organization, yet it is clear that he possesses no soul-qualities. Besides, if soul-qualities are the result of such life and organization, the manifestation of soul-power would be in exact proportion to the strength of the forces operating to produce this resultant; hence the elephant, in which these forces exist in the larger degree, would give us the grander manifestation of intellectual and moral qualities. I have stated the objection and given a brief answer, but full enough to show the logical absurdity of the objection.

But it is said that soul-qualities are the active manifestations of gray matter in the human brain. We have already seen that the power to think, to reflect, and to judge of the moral quality of thoughts and acts, is not a property of matter. None of it, by itself or in combination, possesses this power. Wonderful have been the combinations and resultants of the operations of chemists, but life even in its simplest form is beyond their power. How much further beyond their power must be the production of the soul-power mentioned above! Besides, this gray matter has been analyzed and its constituent elements ascertained; none of these elements in its simplest form show any trace of this power. How is it possible, then, by combination to produce that of which no trace even existed in the elements? Then too, if this power is resultant, it is a law of chemistry that all resultants may be reduced back to its constituent elements. It would indeed be a wonderful achievement to reduce the power to think as a resultant, back to its constituent gases. Again, take the case of a strong and healthy man suddenly killed by a bullet penetrating both ventricles of the heart; this gray matter exists intact in the brain immediately after the extinction of life. Decay does not immediately affect its power. Does the man think, reflect and judge of the moral qualities of thoughts and acts after the extinction of life? If so, then this soul-power exists after death, and the argument answers itself.

This argument has proceeded far enough to show its line of thought. Much might be added by way of illustration, details and further supporting propositions, but it is not deemed necessary.

I conclude, then, that the soul is not only a unit with the power ascribed to it, but that it is also an invisible, immaterial and eternal entity or being. This is but the enumeration of the attributes of a spirit or spirit-existence. I will not attempt to repeat the reasons found in every text-book of mental philosophy and moral science to show its unity. We have seen that it is not matter; yea, more, that it is not a property of matter; therefore that it is immaterial. If immaterial and possessing the power to think and reflect, and endowed with moral sensations and perceptions—the highest and best evidences of life—it is a spirit-existence. As such, what evidence have we that a spirit-existence was ever destroyed? That it exists in manifest. Existing with no evidence of its destruction or of its destructibility, we ought to believe in its immortality; hence, I conclude, if a man die, he will live again.

I have had a controversy on religious subjects but once in my life. I have always desired to avoid such controversies. Fixed religious opinions in the minds of others, especially of the old, I regard as sacred. To create a doubt, is to loosen them from their moral and religious moorings and to set them hopelessly adrift.