The writer in the Sun answers the preceding objection in the following manner:
“In answer to this it is usually alleged that, though the body of a man dies and decays, his soul survives, and either, as Dr. Nisbet maintains, continues its existence in a purer or more ethereal world, or, as the Christian Church believes, retaining its potentiality of life, will clothe itself again, at some future time, with a bodily form and enter upon a new career.”
Let the writer take notice that, according to the doctrine of the Christian Church, the soul, when separated from the body, retains not a mere “potentiality of life,” but actual life and the exercise thereof. The life of the soul does not depend on the organism of the body; its spiritual operation has no need of organs; for reason and will are not organic faculties, though in the present life they are associated with the sensitive faculties which work through the organs. The potentiality of life, in the language of philosophy, means the capability of receiving life; and it is the organism, not the soul, that has such a potentiality.
The writer continues:
“This idea of the distinction between soul and body is as old as the history of the world. The ancient Greeks illustrated it by the example of the butterfly emerging from the hard chrysalis and winging its flight through the air. Like the butterfly, the soul of man, they said, when it casts off its material envelope, soars aloft in the enjoyment of a purer atmosphere. The symbol, and the argument drawn from it, have been adopted by moderns, and they represent the common opinion on the subject. The assertion is that the soul exists within the body as a separate entity, and that when the body dies the soul is merely set free.”
We wonder if any “argument” has ever been drawn from the example of the butterfly to prove that the soul survives the collapse of the body. Similitudes are simple illustrations of things, and they serve to help the imagination, not to convince the intellect. Yet the author seems to believe that the common opinion which holds the soul to be a substance distinct from the body owes its demonstration partially to an “argument” drawn from the butterfly; and he undertakes to show that such an “argument” has no weight. He says:
“But those who maintain this view fail to note that the butterfly, like the worm, is visible to the eye and subject to the laws of matter; and, moreover, that the butterfly, when it has fulfilled its function in the economy of creation, perishes and is never seen or heard of more. If the soul is enveloped in the body as the butterfly is in the worm, it should appear to sight when its covering is removed. This notoriously does not happen, and therefore the argument is unsatisfactory.”
Of course the “argument” would be unsatisfactory; and therefore it is that philosophers do not use it. But the critic should not condemn the similitude as wrong on the ground that “the butterfly is visible to the eye and subject to the laws of matter,” whilst such is not the case with the soul. Similitudes are used for illustrating something different from them; hence they cannot agree in all points with the things illustrated. When the visible is used as a symbol of the invisible, it is by no means pretended that we can see the one as we see the other, or that there is in the one every property of the other. A genius may be compared to an eagle; but the eagle has feathers, a beak, and a tail, which the genius has not. So the butterfly is visible to the eye, subject to the laws of matter, and perishable; and in all this it differs vastly from the human soul. But it is not on these points that the comparison is based. Hence it is idle to argue from these points against the use of the comparison.
The writer concludes the preceding in these words:
“The argument from analogy, therefore, does but little towards supporting a belief in the future existence of the soul either separately or in connection with a restored body.”