ar roving, disembodied ghosts, perpetually increasing in number. The whole idea is so grotesque and so gratuitous, that respect for the wise and able Bishop seems to compel a belief, that in the present state of knowledge he never would hav broached such a theory.

SECTION VII.

IS THE GREEK AXIOM QUESTIONABLE?

PLATO wanted a past eternity for souls in order to evade the Axiom, "Whatever has had a beginning, will hav 66 an end." This, if admitted, refutes Bishop Butler, when he dispenses with past eternity. Can we disown the Axiom?

In my "Theism" I hav attempted to deny its universality, by an argument from received Astronomy: namely, "The Planetary System had a beginning: It (as "it were) sprang out of nebular chaos, and was at length "consolidated into chronic stability, such as presents no "ground for imagining that it will come to an end from 66 any inward cause." Since I wrote that piece, Sir William Thomson has published his theory that the Sun is always losing heat. If this become an accepted fact, my argument against the Greek Axiom fails. But an eminent Cambridge Professor has propounded to me an opposit belief, that the Sun is perpetually receiving heat back by innumerable missiles impinging on its surface with velocity unimaginable; so that, for aught we yet know, as much heat is daily received back, as is daily given out.

While I still hesitate to accept the Greek Axiom as universally true, I cannot deny that it has vast weight. What is here further important,--Spiritualists lay immense stress on the indivisible nature of each soul. But

this at once bars my astronomical argument. For in it, the chronic stability arises from the balancing of diverse parts by forces variously directed; but if a disembodied soul be argumentativly allowed, and indivisibility be attributed to it, no analogy of such a soul (without body or parts) to our planetary system exists. The Greek Axiom is overwhelmingly powerful against the idea, that any soul can hav natural and inherent immortality, except the great unparalleled Soul of the Universe.

SECTION VIII.

CONCLUSION FROM PHYSICS.

I HAV always taken for granted that the Spiritualist argument does not contradict the Physical argument; but only tries to supplement it. Physical Science

discovers no reason for a breach of continuity between Man and Brute: therefor general ANALOGY suggests that if the soul of the brute perishes in death, so also does the soul of man. Analogy is not demonstration, it is simply suggestiv; yet undeniably in all comparativ physiology, Analogy is very weighty and in many directions is abundantly confirmed. If the Spiritualist adduce moral reasons why the soul of man should survive death, though the soul of brutes does not, he is not thereby in collision with one whose Science pretends to no cognizance of moral reasons at all. Nevertheless the Analogy holds, and must prevail, until very solidly disproved. The moral argument which introduces a new element to transmute finite life into infinitude, ought to be intelligible to all moral reasoners,--ought to be popular, not transcendental, nor overlearned, nor fanciful :-ought to be consistent in tending to a single result, clear in

meaning, unambiguous as well as weighty; if it is to inspire confidence and afford a basis for Hope or Fear, Comfort or Warning to the mass of mankind, in face of the powerful Analogy on the Physical side. What weight of moral argument will be adequate, no words could state intelligibly indeed different minds ar sure to form different estimates. Moreover the physical reasoner insists, that a disembodied soul is a Chimæra, and his argument deserves to be answered, not skipped over, of which I certainly was guilty, though quite unaware.

SECTION IX.

IS IT A CHIMÆRA?

In reply to Moral Reasons for a future life it is objected that a disembodied soul is a form of existence of which we hav no specimen and no proof: therefor we cannot with any sound logic introduce it into a hypothesis for the satisfaction of our moral aspirations.

The Divine Spirit cannot be adduced as relieving this objection. He is wholely unique, having nothing (as a Latin poet says) either like or second to himself.

Cui veget nihil simile aut secundum

He may not unjustly be entitled "the Soul which "animates all Matter," but He is no specimen to us of a disembodied soul to which we may expect parallels.

I see not how to reprove one who argues that if the soul of a dead dog has no existence, the fact is a vehement præjudicium against human survival. The discriminating love and other strongly marked mental qualities of the dog admit of precisely the same line of argument which the advocates of immortality employ in proof that the human soul is "a spiritual entity, capable

"of existing independently of the material organization in "which it began its existence." That it no longer has activ power, is as clear in the man as in the dog: that it is capable of separate existence, is no clearer in the case of the man. If the soul were supposed to be material, it must go somewhither, when animal life ceases; and Chemistry might try to track it. But precisely because it is not material, we ar without any reason for supposing it to exist, when the organ with which it was cöeval is broken up. If we admit that in the case of all other animals, the soul perishes, when the vital fluid ceases to circulate, we seem to attain a general law of Nature that the animal soul exists only in, with, and by the animal life: then to assume concerning the human soul exception co-extensiv with the human race, involves us in a greater difficulty than that of ordinary miracles.

Religious Miracles ar in general presented as isolated facts, which can be believed as exceptional, without any reconstruction of physical science. But here we seem required to renounce our trust in Comparativ Anatomy, Comparativ Physiology and Psychology as Sciences. In my memory an esteemed clergyman maintained that Fossil Shells and Bones were created as we find them; he did not see that the Creator must then hav aimed at deceiving mankind. So here, the wonderful harmonies discerned between the human and the bestial,--whether you study the bones, the vital processes or the mind,seem to serve no purpose but that of misleading us, if the Analogy is false which argues from the Brute to the Man in a matter so cardinal as the cessation of Life when the vital fluid stagnates. We seem to need a Physiology founded on the Axiom that the human soul was from the beginning constituted in essence and quality fundamentally diverse from that of other animals, being physically independent of flesh, blood and gristle. Yet

surely all the facts point the opposit way, and the visible harmony on all sides seems aimed to deceive us, if it ought not to be trusted. If when a horse or dog dies, his soul vanishes, and is nothing, is nowhere; but when a man dies, his soul remains something, somewhere; the contrast must be strictly original.

Apparently to attain standing ground in this argument, a belief in Ghosts has been clung to, by certain eminent persons, of whom John Wesley may be named as a type. For a like reason, many who hav lost confidence in the Christian Scriptures eagerly embrace a revived NECROMANCY, which professes material and scientific proof that Disembodied Souls not only exist, possessing memory of human events, but ar able to impart thoughts and knowledge to us, and to act upon material objects, as in rapping, table-turning, marking a photograph, guiding the hand of a writer. Nay, I heard with my own ears a lady preach powerfully in a deep masculine voice, which those present explained as the utterances of the deceased George Dawson's soul, speaking by her organs. (Her doctrin differed notably from George Dawson's.) The belief in Ghosts, universal with the ancients, relieved them from some embarrassments which Science has brought on us.

To criticize the arguments of modern Necromancers would be quite out of place here; yet it seems right to state two counter-arguments which wholely forbid me to take refuge under their sheltering roof from the missiles of objectors.

First, the power over Matter ascribed by them to secret roving spirits would vitiate our material Sciences fundamentally. Every Experiment which is made, as in Mechanics, Chemistry, &c., assumes as a Postulate that Matter is not tampered with by secret and arbitrary Will. If in weighing gold against lead, (to mention a very