confoun your theory with the godless theory of Pantheism. But there are different schools of Pantheists, and all I meant to convey was that your theory tended in that direction. And in so far as you make the universe a part of God, this is true. Of course there is a wide difference between this and the grosser forms of Pantheism, or possibly what you might call Pantheism proper, although the term is now used with more extended application. To my mind the idea that an immaterial substance can be transformed into a ma Dear Sir: I am in receipt of your letter of the a degree of disappointment in reading this letter, as it fails to sustain the spirit of candor which I thought I saw so clearly evinced in your first let ter, particularly in view of your remark. "As an exponent of the gospel, I should like to receive your hypothesis of an incorporeal entity, but see some grave difficulties in the way." I tried to answer those difficulties, and called upon you to aid me in my attempt, since you wished the hypothesis to be sustained, if possible. Instead of doing this, you reply with other difficulties, many of them positively trivial, and some of them amounting to mere quibbles, and, I might add, misrepresen tations of my views, rather than valid objections. I regret to feel obliged to say this, but will try to convince you that it does not do injustice to the literal reading of your letter, when carefully examined. terial body, is as unscientific and irrational 25th ult., in reply to mine. I cannot help feeling as that something was created out of nothing. We have no scientific evidence of such transformation, and it is as inconceivable as the one you assail,-hence rests on a frailer foundation, as the so-called "false theology" has at least this plea, that the Hebrew word for create, expresses the idea of bringing something out of nothing. Your position that it was by a condensation of God's substance, logically implies that that substance is material; and further, the act of condensing implies a condenser, and that the condenser and the thing con lensed are one and the same, is inconceivable. Just as well might we say that the Creator and the thing created are identical. In the name of science I must protest againts such unscientific statements. If the universe is a part of God, it would be conceivable that in the formation of many works, God's substance would be condensed away, and God as God cease to be. Your statement that this was done (condensing worlds out of His own substance) "just as He condensed the flesh of Christ from the word of His power," is not to the point, as Christ was "born of a woman." The only difference between His birth and ours being, in the manner of generation. And when we remember "that throughout the whole series of living beings, we have agamo genesis, or not sexual generation," we need no such extraordinary theory to account for His birth. For example, you say: "We now come to what I conceive to be the position of your book, namely, that the soul is an incorporeal organism. Now, an organism is that which has organic structure. is not upon the existence of an incorporeal sub- Now, this apparently forcible criticism is a complete misapprehension of my views, and whatever that may finally turn out to be. You applies, to all intents, against your own position admit that the child has a soul, obtained from some source--that even "animals possess souls," and, "that the soul is an incorporeal substance.” I have written thus fully, because I be- You even go further. In your first letter you say: "I could accept the theory of an incorporeal lieve that your work is a valuable one, organism, if the existence of spirit is still almarking an era in the history of science, lowed." Yet, after I had fully allowed" of and because, having invited criticism, it spirit in my reply, all that you required, you proseems to me you have erred by attempting ceed to ridicule your own conditionally accepted to define what lies beyond the reach of theory of an "incorporeal organism," raising one's senses, beyond, therefore, the limits parents by taking away a part of their attenudifficulties in regard to its transmission from the of the conceivable. I think the idea of anated souls, till finally you suppose it to run out soul" is a hollow sham, then it is your bounden in the course of descent and become extinct, on my view, like Darwin's "gemmules" in his theory of "pangenesis," or his hypothesis of corporeal reversions, never thinking that it must run out on your own view just the same. And yet you do not reflect that there is no parallel between Darwin's physical theory of reversions and my theory of an incorporeal organism, the one based upon a purely physical substance, liable, as all science teaches, to constant mutation, displacement and substitution, while the other is based upon a purely "incorporeal substance," as you still admit the soul to be, constituting an interior or "incorporeal organism," as I claim, and which your first letter clearly conceded after I should allow of the "existence of spirit." Yet the opportunity seemed so favorable that you could not resist the temptation of positively making fun at the expense of your own accepted theory, all of which I will fully meet at the close of this letter, though I will remark here: Suppose I allow of the "existence of spirit," which I do, and suppose you "accept the theory of an incorporeal organism," which you say you could do "if the existence of spirit is still allowed," then pray tell me how you would, in such event, meet your own criticism about the father transmitting a part of his attenuated soul to the child, half of which would go to the grand-sible that a spirit should possess organs, such as child, and finally in a few generations run out, leaving children to be born without souls? If you accept an "incorporeal organism," which you positively have done, as above, then how do you account, according to your own objection, for the expansion of this organism in the infant to keep pace with the growing man? This is no child's play. You are as much bound to explain these difficulties as I am on your own conditionally accepted "theory of an incorporeal organism." But if you are sincere in raising your objections, you cannot of course be expected to answer them. It will, therefore, devolve upon me, which I will try fully to do in this letter. You say. "It is against the theory of the soul as an organism, not as a substantial entity, that my objections are urged." But in your first letter you say that this "entity" is the very thing you would like to accept but for the "grave difficulties in the way." Now, there seem to be no "difficulties in the way" of this "entity." It is only the "incorporeal organism" against which your " objections are urged," while in your first letter you were perfectly willing to accept this organism" if I would still allow of "the exist. ence of spirit." Let me now try to analyze your latest position in regard to this impossible incorporeal organism" against which your " objections are urged," though you fully admit it since I have allowed of the existence of spirit. In the first place, as the soul is to be immortal, and is to exist after death in a conscious condition, but not as an "organism," then pray tell me how such a "substantial entity" can be conscious, think. love, feel, see, hear, sing, etc., in that disembodied condition, without possessing either brain, heart, nerves, senses, eyes, ears, tongue, mouth, etc? As you admit the soul, when separate from the body, to be a substantial and conscious "entity,' and must admit it unless the "immortality of the eyes, ears, brain, nerves, tongue, heart, etc., because these organs, as well as the body of a soulentity, are incorporeal and consequently intangible and invisible to the physical senses. I should be very sorry and even sad to entertain your conception of the human soul, which, as soon as it starts on its journey to heaven, becomes deaf, dumb, blind, and idiotic, since it is not an organism," and therefore lacks the very organs or parts by which, reasoning from analogy," it is possible for it to hear, speak, see. or think. When a human soul arrives in heaven, my theory teaches that this "entity" can clasp hands with the angels, can play upon a harp, can shout hosannas, can hear the welcome of the Saviour, and "see Him as He is." Your ideal soul can do none of these things, because, not being an organism, it possesses none of the parts necessary for such celestial employment. To speak the candid truth, I should prefer the impersonal immortality of the positivist to an existence in such a crude soul as your ideal involves, which can neither see, hear, feel nor think. Such an "entity" I can compare to nothing so much as to Haeckel's spontaneously generated moneronan organism without organs as he calls it; yet even this "simple lump of pure albumen vastly surpasses your model human soul, for it can and does feel, and therefore must possess sense-nerves, though they are invisible under the most powerful microscope. There is one other point touching this inquiry I must refer to before turning to other matters. As a soul has no organs, does it possess a body? If so, of what shape is this body of the human soul? Or has it no form? It surely has neither legs, arms, nor head, as that would constitute it an organism, but it ought to have some form nevertheless. Did you ever try to imagine this characteristic of your organless "entity?" Is it round, long, flat, oblong, square or three-cor nered? You ought to answer something, if it is only a guess. Possibly you will try to be consistent and say it has no shape at all, as shape is a property of matter which cannot, as you have told us, be predicated of an "incorporeal entity." So far you are safe. But let us pursue the inquiry a little further. If the soul is without form, is it also without size? According to your vague notions of this organless "entity,” and in your of venturing to touch upon anything "beyond the reach of one's senses," you dare not, of course, even venture a provisional hypothesis as to whether your ideal soul, after it leaves the body, will be as large as an ox or as small as a mouse, -as tiny as a monad or big as Mount Chimborazo. Consistency again comes to your aid. Size is a property of matter, and therefore a human soul is of no size at allneither big nor little. Now it is my turn to protest" that a pretended candidate for immortality which is destitute of either body, organs, or senses, and, consequently, which can neither see, hear, feel, nor think, and which is without form or size, is about as poor an excuse for a "substantial entity," that is to retain its personal identity and unity of consciousness, as we can well imagine. 66 ' You say it is not constituted of atoms, and even ridicule this idea. Hence, it must be all one atom, or else it is nothing. If it consist of one atom, then such an entitative atom ought to be limited in size, or otherwise its extension must be unlimited, and if unlimited it is omnipresent, and therefore equal to God in one of His grandest attributes. But again, you are safe. Extension is a property of matter, and incorporeal substance is so essentially unlike matter that it can possess none of its prop erties. But God is omnipresent, or, as Pope expresses it, "extends through all extent,"-and, as you admit, is "substantial." Hence, another tangle. Though God is a person," of which Christ is "the express image," though "His eyes are over the righteous and His cars are open to their prayers," yet God, according to your view, has no organs, and can therefore neither hear, see, fel, nor think, because an incorporeal entity cannot be an "organism." But a word in regard to my view of the degrees of density in life-substance, by which to account for the expansion of the incorporeal “organism," which you so severely criticise. You reject the idea that the soul, though a substance, is constituted of atoms, and therefore insist that it cannot decrease in density by expansion, since the only way a body expands is by its atoms separating more widely apart. This, perhaps, involves one of the most serious and profound problems in the whole range of science, and contains wrapped up within this single question of "ultimate molecules" and the "molecular theory" one of the most mischievous errors of modern times, and I am surprised that you have failen into it. But as much of your trouble seems to grow out of this molecular theory of expansion, and as no writer has ever yet attempted to explain observed phenomena on any other principle, I submit the following for your careful consideration. In the first place, it is inconceivable that any substance can exist without being constituted of atoms or particles, whether cor poreal or incorporeal. As all the substances that come within the reach of our analytical powers are thus constituted, it is illogical, “reasoning from analogy," to assume that other substances "beyond the reach of our senses" have no constituent elements or particles. A scientific mind is therefore compelled to reject your view of nonatomic incorporeal substance as paralleled only by that of something being made out of nothing. In the deny in I molecular or atomic theory, in regard to the expansion of bodies by the separation of their atoms more widely apart, as unscientific and absurb, and I challenge any physicist to answer my objections to it. If a body expands, as in a compressed piece of rubber when released, by the separation of its molecules more widely apart, then they do not touch each other, and consequently, by every principle of philosophy and reason, the connection between the particles of such a substance must be destroyed, and with it the cohesion of the body itself, and the mass should fall to pieces like a rope of sand. This alone destroys the molecular theory, which teaches that the molecules of all bodies are nominally separated by absolute spaces of many times the diameters of the molecules themselves, that these spaces are filled with "luminiferous ether," so that these "ultimate atoms" have plenty of room to circulate, and that they are in continual motion to and fro, bombarding each other and keeping up a rattling fusilade in all directions against the surface of the body or against the wall of the vessel containing any confined substance, such as air for example. If such motion or bombard ment of the molecules really takes place in a body not confined, such as a stone or piece of metal, why do not these atoms escape beyond the surface? What is to hinder their flying away, when they come to this jumping-off place, and the mass thus dissipating itself and disappearing in space by the continual loss of its molecules. The theory is a weak attempt to solve that which needs no solution whatever. In regard to this question of expansion, we have only to assume in the atoms of a body the very thing which we see taking place in the body itself. The mass expands by swelling, does it not? But what causes it to swell? You say the separation of its atoms more widely apart. I deny this and answer that the atoms, constituting it, swell. you ask how can these constituent atoms swell, I answer, again, by the swelling of their atoms, or smaller constituent parts, and so on, as far as any physicist dare follow me. If you say this is unreasonable, and that we must stop somewhere at the "ultimate atoms" of a body, I answer by denying most emphatically the existence of any such things as the "ultimate atoms" of a body, and maintain, instead, the infinite divisibility of matter or substance of any kind, as the only rational solution of these phenomena of compression and expansion and their resultant heat and cold. Take what histologists now regard as one of the "ultimate atoms" of a body. Suppose a microscope could be invented as far exceeding in magnifying power our best present instruments as they exceed the power of the naked eye, such "ultimate atoms" would then seem to be as large as cannon balls, and would be distinctly composed If of clusters of still smaller " ultimate atoms. of the molecules of bioplasm from the mother's These again magnified by still more powerful circalation, and by which the physical cells are lenses, would present the same appearance; and fed and caused to subdivide and multiply, till so on with each increase of magnifying power, not only the embryo is complete, but the organwith no term capable of expressing the concept ism, of whatever animal species, has attained save that of the infinite divisibility of matter. mature growth. Such a solution is consistent This view, simple and beautiful as it is, renders with reason, as a basis for physiological research; the molecular theory wholly unnecessary, and while it scientifically explains the phenomena of though such a solution may be finally incompre- growth, healing of wounds, reproduction of lost hensible, it is no more so than the "ultimate parts, the transmission of characters by inherilimits of space, of which it is the opposite in-tance, etc., etc., which are wholly inexplicable finity. Thus by answering and, as I believe, set- on any other supposition. ting aside the atomic or molecular theory, and rationally solving this problem of the expansion or rarefaction of a body without its atoms separating more widely apart, your principal diffi. culty "in the way of an 'incorporeal organis:n" has been met. " Your admonition, touching my "attempting to define what lies beyond the reach of one's senses,' and beyond, therefore, "the limits of the conceivable," is clearly in harmony with the noncommittal policy of your letters, in objecting to my views, but not defining your own; yet it is hardly in keeping with this age of advanced scientific research. A man who seeks to conceive of, or define, nothing "beyond the reach of one's senses," in the realms of science and philosophy, or even of religion, is better adapted to a cloister than to the modern duties of a progressive "exponent of the gospel.' As you have thus abandoned every thing lying "beyond the reach of one's senses," as equivalent to lying beyond the limits of the conceivable," of course you have abandoned the existence of the soul, the existence of God, and of a future life, since evidently they all lie "beyond the reach of one's senses,' and of which, therefore, you can form no conception! The result is, in attempting to oppose my beautiful view of an incorporeal organism, you carry yourself right into atheistic materialism, by a strict application of your own words. I would rather, however, a hundred-fold, venture even a questionable hypothesis, in explanation of the recondite phenomena of science,—one which might tend to aid in their ultimate solution, than to fold my hands like a scientific coward, and say nothing lest I might render myself amenable to criticism. A man who rejects everything that lies "beyond the reach of one's senses," should scarcely teach that something can be made out of nothing, unless he has had personal experience and observation to that effect! But you seem to scout the idea that the child gets its soul from its parents. Then you must believe that it receives it at some period of embryonic development, or at some later period, as a special or miraculous gift from God, since you now adinit the soul to be a substantial entity." Please name the probable date of this miraculous event in the development of the child, the puppy or the chicken; and as it is not communicated by the parents at the time of fecundation, please give some solution of the fact, that the child partakes of the vital and mental qualities of the father and mother? I ask you, as a favor, to stop raising objections long enough to solve some of these knotty problems yourself, which your own view involves equally with mine, and in some respects more so. Whatever difficulties may be involved in my hypothesis of a vital and mental organism, and I acknowledge, as remarked in my reply to your first letter, that no hypothesis in biological research is free from difficulties, yet it seems to me to be the only conceivable explanation of observed physiological and psychological phenomena, as so fully shown in the eighth and ninth chapters of the Problem of Human Life. It at least has the merit of being a frank and outspoken hypothesis, which is surely preferable to no hypothesis at all, so conspicuously illustrated by your two letters, with the bare exception of agamo genesis" to explain the birth of Christ. And as there seems to be no likelihood that you will venture a physiological solution of the difficulties you suggest about how an infant gets its soul, I see no way but for you either to adopt Haeckel's view, that the soul and life are nothing but a mode of motion of the molecules of the brain and nerves placed together in a complex and "most varied manner," or else come back to the beautiful hypothesis which you condition-making anything, we are especially informed, in ally accepted in your first letter, and thus take the only rational and scientific position within reach, namely, that the incorporeal life-germ of the child is conveyed to the ovule by the father and mother jointly at the time of fecundation,-ing, but out of something having a previous exthat this vital and mental organism thus formed, is perfect at the start and expands with the growth of the child by the expansion of its atoms, and that, though invisible and intangible, yet it contains within it the perfect life-form of the species represented even at the commencement of organic life, and thus furnishes a substantial pattern or outline of structure for the deposition The statement in your letter, "that the Hebrew word rendered create expresses the idea of bringing something out of nothing," is clearly erroneous, as any Hebrew scholar is aware, since the same word is frequently used in the Scriptures to record, or to refer to, the making of things out of known pre-existing materials, as in the case of Adan's body. As if to define God's mode of the literal reading of the word, that Adam was made of the dust, and Eve of a rib. This ought therefore, to stand as a Bible definition of God's manner of creating anything,-not out of noth istence. As God made Adam's body of dust which already existed, it is but rational and logical to infer that, when He breathed into him the breath of life, and he became a "living soul," that He simply transferred to Adam a drop of pre-existing life; and as God is life itself and the only primordial life of the universe, it becomes clear that Adam's life consisted of an atom structure. to " of God's own living substance, moulded into a vital organism corresponding to his physical You admit Adam's "living soul' be a "substantial entity." Which, then, I ask you, is the more rational view to take, that God's figurative breath communicated to Adam a drop of His own vitality, or that He 'breathed' into him for no purpose whatever, and then made Adam's soul or substantial entity," as you call it, out of nothing, by an independent effort of His power? In other words, did God make one-half of Adam (his body) out of something, and the other half (his soul) out of nothing? It is inconceivable that all things should have been made of nothing, a thing so contrary to reason and all the possibilities of science, and that not once, in the Bible, should it have been so intimated by the inspired writers, especially in view of the fact that the word "nothing" is such a common word in the Scriptures. To conclude that these writers, while familiar with this word and constantly using it, should not have thought to employ so expressive a term in a connection, of all others the most necessary, while trying to record the very fact that God made the world out of nothing, is absurd in the highest degree, provided that such really was their aim. No; it seems to have remained for the framers of a certain molera Confession of Faith to correet this mistake of the Bible, and to remind the inspired writers of their unaccountable obtuseness or absent-mindedness, in neglecting the employment of this familiar word which so appositely might have expressed the idea they were trying to communicate. In view of this argument, how corroborative, and to the point, is the unvarnished statement in the first chapter of John, that " The word was God" and The word was made flesh, and dwelt anong us!" This asseveration of the inspired evangelist, without note or comment, outweighs a whole library of such questionable exigesis as your letter contains on the peculiar manner of Christ's incarnation by agamo genesis," thus tacitly denying the miraculous conception of the Saviour by quoting the words of Huxley. As His birth was not miraculous, possibly you might aid Huxley in disposing of His life, resurrection, and ascension in the same way. 66 In maintaining my position that the universe was made of God's all-pervading substance, it does not seem to me unscientific or irrational to assert that even a substance so highly attenuated might be condensed into a solid body, like this earth, since the great scientific investigator, Dr. Lockyer, has given reasons for believing that all tangible substances, from platinum up to the most tenuous gases, are resolvable into one single elemental substance, vastly more attenuated than that of hydrogen gas. Would it not, therefore, beautifully complete the scientific chain of contianity to assume this sub-element of which all worlds are constituted, as the first condensation of a fraction of the substance of God's exterior nature, and as His initial act in the process of framing the corporeal universe? If all material substances are absolutely traceable to a single element, far beyond the reach of our senses, may we not assume that all substances, whether ma terial or immaterial, might be rationally traced one step further and resolved into the one primordial substance of the Deity Himself, from an atom of which, in the first place, this sub. element was condensed, and then out of which all other substances and forms were made. Though I verbally aistinguish between material and immateri l, between corporeal and ircorporeal substances, one being generally applied to tangible, and the other to intangible things, yet that does not preclude the idea that the cor poreal may have been condensed from the incorporeal substances of Nature. The marvelous discoveries of modern science, under the investigations of such physicists as Lockyer, Crookes, Fairfield, and others, are clearly pointing to results as wonderful as this, while they all tend to confirm the bread position first announced in my treatise on Sound, that even sonorous pulses may consist of absolute substance, in opposition to the universally accepted theory of the undulating motion of air-waves. In view of the discovery of this single sub-element announced by Leckyer, out of which all the grosser physical elements and substances have been evolved, does not such a grasp of the almost intangible render the hypothesis probable, aside from proof, that Electricity, Magnetism, Light, Heat, Gravitation, and even Sound are but other forms of the same primordial substance out of which this sub-element was probably condensed? The bold position assumed recently by Count Du Moncel, before the French Academy, that the generation of sound, as well as the observed action in the telephone, is clearly molecular, in opposition to the vibratory or wave. theory, is a step in the same general direction, and must culminate in the corpuscular hypothesis as the solution of all the so-called modes of mo tion and forces of Nature. While it may, therefore, be rationally as sumed that an incorporeal substance might le condensed into a material form, by the application of Almighty power, yet to assert that something can be made out of nothing, even by God Himself, is irrational and unscientific, not to use a stronger adjective. You unintentionally admit as much in your letter before me. I quote your words: To my mind the idea that an immaterial substance can be transformed into a material body, is as unscientific and irrational as that something can be created out of nothing!" 66 Since air has been condensed by the skill and power of puny man, into a permanent liquid of the gravity of water, and through the limited appliances within his reach, does it seem "irrational" to believe that an infinite God might also condense an incorporeal substance, such as electricity, for instance, into granite rock, or something equally dense? And if this be not irrational nor insupposable, does it exceed the bounds of reason and probability that the same infinite Artificer might condense a mere atom of His own omnipresent but exterior substance into a world like this, and if into one world, might He not thus have created the universe? You seem really to have wrought yourself up to a pitch of alarm on the supposition that my pantheistical theory might, if true, possibly in. volve the ultimate extinction of God! It wond be conceivable," you say, "in the formation |