You say that “the development of the intellect keeps pace with that of the organs of sense.” What do you mean by development of the intellect? If you simply mean that the intellect is furnished with materials of thought in proportion as sensible objects are perceived, and that, by being so furnished, it can easily perform a number of intellectual operations, I admit your assertion; but if you mean that the soul itself is substantially developed in proportion as the organs are growing more perfect, then your assertion is both groundless and absurd. Now, it is evident, by your manner of reasoning, that this second meaning is the one you adopt. And therefore it is evident that your conclusion is wrong. “The impressions,” you say, “are so weak and imperfect that the intellect cannot be said to exist.” This is simply ludicrous. Would you allow us to say that at night the impressions of light are so weak and imperfect that the eye cannot be said to exist? Or that the impressions made on a piece of paper by a bad pencil are so weak and imperfect that the paper cannot be said to exist? It is obvious that the impressions do not cause the existence of their subject; and, therefore, if the intellect “cannot be said to exist” before the impressions, the time will never come when it can be said to exist.
And now, suppose that a newborn child dies without having acquired through its senses any knowledge of the exterior world. What shall we say of its soul? Will such a soul be entirely destitute of ideas, and unable to think? By no means. Such a soul, after its short permanence in the body, where it felt its own being, will henceforward understand its own being as actually present in its own individuality; it will perceive its own essence as well as its existence; it will be able to abstract from self, and to behold essence, existence, and being, secundum se—that is, according to their objective intelligibility; and, finally, it will be able to commune with other spiritual beings with the same facility with which, while in the body, it could communicate with the exterior world by means of its organic potencies. I know that you do not believe this; but your unbelief will not change things. The soul, when out of the body, is competent to perform intellectual operations about intellectual objects as freely and as perfectly as it performs the sensitive operations in its present condition. If you consult the works of our philosophers and theologians, you will find the proofs of my proposition. As to your opposite assumption, since you have no means of establishing it, we are free to dismiss it without further discussion.
Büchner. If the soul is a separate substance, how and when is it introduced into the body? “The scientific and logical impossibility of determining the time (of its introduction) proves the absurdity of the whole theory, which assumes that a higher power breathes the soul into the nostrils of the fœtus” (p. 160).
Reader. You are grossly mistaken, doctor. The impossibility of determining the time of the animation of the fœtus proves nothing but our ignorance. Do you deny that Paris was built by the Gauls on the plea that you do not know the date of its foundation? Again, since the animation of the fœtus [pg 186] is not an operation of the mind, how can you speak of logical impossibility? Evidently, you write at random, and know not what you say. As to the question itself, one thing is clear, viz., the child cannot be born alive, unless its body has been animated in the womb.
Büchner. “Moses and the Egyptians entertained a decided opinion that the child was not animated while in the womb” (p. 161).
Reader. False. Moses describes in the Book of Genesis the fighting of Jacob and Esau while in the womb of their mother. Could he assume that they would fight before being animated?
Büchner. “In some countries they know nothing of an animated fœtus” (ibid.)
Reader. False. Every mother will give you the lie.
Büchner. “The destruction of the fœtus and infanticide are, according to Williams, common occurrences in Madagascar. It is also common in China and the Society Islands” (ibid.)
Reader. This shows the immorality of those nations, not their ignorance of the fœtal life. But why should you appeal to the presumed ignorance of barbarians against the verdict of civilized nations? Are you an apostle of barbarity and brutality? Do you wish your reader to persuade himself that the destruction of the fœtus is no crime?