Büchner. “Unprejudiced philosophy is compelled to reject the idea of an individual immortality and of a personal continuance after death. With the decay and dissolution of its material substratum, through which alone it has acquired a conscious existence and become a person, and upon which it was dependent, the spirit must cease to exist” (ibid.)
Reader. Beware of fallacies, doctor. You have not yet proved that the human soul needs a material substratum. Again, you merely assume that it is through the body [pg 406] that the soul has acquired a conscious existence, whilst the fact is that the soul through itself is conscious of its own existence in the body. Moreover, the soul does not become a person through the body it informs, but, on the contrary, confers on the body the privilege of being a part of the person. Lastly, the spirit is not dependent upon the body, except for the sensitive operations; and you cannot assume that the soul depends upon the body for its own being. Hence your conclusion is yet unproved.
Büchner. “All the knowledge which this spirit has acquired relates to earthly things; it has become conscious of itself in, with, and by these things; it has become a person by its being opposed against earthly, limited individualities. How can we imagine it to be possible that, torn away from these necessary conditions, this being should continue to exist with self-consciousness and as the same person? It is not reflection, but obstinacy, not science, but faith, which supports the idea of a personal continuance” (pp. 196, 197).
Reader. I am rather amused than embarrassed at your identifying reflection with science and obstinacy with faith, as I know that you are absolutely incapable of accounting for such a nonsensical ranting. It is not true that “all the knowledge acquired by our soul relates to earthly things.” We have already discussed this point, and shown that our knowledge of earthly things is only the alphabet of human knowledge. Nor is it true that our soul “has become conscious of itself by such things.” Consciousness is, even objectively, an immanent act, and the soul cannot be conscious of its own self, except by looking upon itself. No one can say I perceive without a knowledge of the I; and therefore the soul knows its own self independently of the perception of other earthly things. But, as there are philosophers who account for self-consciousness by the primitive accidental sensations experienced by the child, I will suppose with you that our soul becomes conscious of its own existence by means of such sensations. Does it follow from this that the union with the body is “a necessary condition” for the existence of the soul? Such a conclusion would be absurd. For it latently assumes that the soul must lose its consciousness of self by losing the instrument of its first sensation. Now, to assume this is at least as absurd as to assume that by losing any of your senses you lose all the knowledge already acquired through them, or that by going out of Germany you cease to know everything that is German.
But your greatest mistake regards the notion of personality. The spirit, you say, “has become a person by its being opposed against earthly, limited individualities.” What does this mean? First of all, the spirit does not become a person, but is itself the source of human personality. Secondly, to be a person, there is no need of other earthly, limited individualities, against which the spirit should be opposed. Any intelligent being, left to itself, with the free disposal of its own self, is a person. Persona, says Boethius, est rationalis naturæ individua substantia; and this celebrated definition, adopted by all the metaphysicians of the old school, is far from becoming obsolete. It would seem, then, that you speak of personality without knowing in what it consists. To prove that the soul cannot enjoy personal continuance in a state of separation, you should [pg 407] prove that the soul separated from the body is not an intelligent being having a free use of its faculties. Whatever else you may prove, if you do not prove this, will amount to nothing.
Büchner. “Physiology,” says Vogt, “decides definitely and categorically against individual immortality, as against any special existence of the soul” (p. 197).
Reader. Tell the physiologists to keep to their own business. The question of the immortality of the soul is not one of those which can be solved from the knowledge of our organs and their functions. All the physiologist can do is to show the existence in the organs of a principle which animates them, and which at death ceases to show its presence. What becomes of it the physiologist, as such, has no means of deciding. Hence your Vogt is supremely rash in affirming that “physiology decides definitely and categorically against individual immortality.”
Büchner. “Experience and daily observation teach us that the spirit perishes with its material substratum” (ibid.).
Reader. Indeed? Let us hear how experience and daily observation teach what you assert. It is extremely curious that mankind should be ignorant of a fact which falls under daily observation.
Büchner. “There never has been, and never will be, a real apparition which could make us believe or assume that the soul of a deceased individual continues to exist; it is dead, never to return” (p. 198).