simply affirm that the Original Power (if spiritual) and all spiritual substance is personal.

ence.

66

A STATEMENT. All existence, all re-ality, is either under the law of necessity, or it is not. The only existence which is not completely under the law of necessity is volitive existThere is no volitive existence outside of persons. All matter is under the law of necessity. The characteristic of spirit is freedom or will. Matter and spirit, then, are separated, in all rational thought and theory, by a perfectly definite and immutable line. Matter exists, or seems to exist, in atoms; and these "atoms" may be agglomerated into masses," or organized into "bodies." Spirit, on the other hand, exists in "persons." These persons may be combined into "societies" and "communities," and these are the only "masses" or " organizations" of spiritual substance. In other words, the person is to spirit, what the atom is, or seems to be, to matter-the simple and primal form, in the absence of which "spirit" is non-existent. Out of atoms, the material universe is (or is supposed to be) built. Out of individuals, the world of spirits is combined. The former are organized according to laws of necessity, such as gravitation, chemical affinity, etc. The latter are organized according to the law of divine love, a certain free or voluntary energy (in contradistinction from pathological or emotive), which is the sole bond of reasonable beings, and the central principle of the great world of intelligences, as indeed of each separate soul, and through whose might (and inner harmonies) the moral universe is beautiful and strong.

The foregoing distinctions hardly admit of discussion at all. For, that matter is under the law of necessity, all men agree; and that persons are free, all are conscious. Every spiritual being is a person. Every person is spiritually endowed. The two terms are identical in essential idea.

The phrase "spiritual substance," then, has no meaning, if intended to shut out personality. The only intelligible idea which it can convey, as the name of anything either real or conceivable, is-the substance which exists as " and not as "thing."

person"

Since, then, there can be no such thought, there is certainly no such reality as a spiritual "mass," a vapor, a fog, an ether, out of which individual souls could be supposed to be condensed, or constructed; and so there remains only the two methods mentioned above (c. and d.), according to which, upon the supposition of a spiritual Original, derivative existences could have been eternally involved therein.

More briefly, again, we may state the matter thus: The objector affirms a spiritual "mass" as the original of all particular spiritual existences. This "mass" is either under the law of necessity, or it is volitive. If under the law of necessity, then it is material, not spiritual. If volitive, then it is a person.1

Having settled, therefore, with regard to the modes in which derivative existence may have been eternally involved in the Original, and having shown that there is only one possible hypothesis, upon the supposition that the Original is a merely natural force, while there are two others admissible upon the supposition that it is spiritual, we must proceed to determine the FACT, and to inquire whether it really be spiritual or material.

ARGUMENT.

I. It is obvious that the universe contains finite natural powers, forces, i. e. which are strictly subject to the law of necessity.

It is possible (for aught our argument has, at present, to

1 The words "will," "volitive," and the like, are used throughout this Essay in their highest and most absolute sense; in that in which they are applicable to none but free moral agents. This, indeed, is their only strict and proper meaning. The volitions, so called, of animals, can only be viewed as the resultants of natural forces working in an organism; whereas those "choices" of free moral agents, in which they rise superior to such "causes"- the forces of mere nature and assert their personality, breaking away from all lower dominion, and treading the world beneath their feet, are acts in view of eternal and absolute good. Every being, who is truly "free," is so by virtue of his ability to recognize this good, and to choose it, the solicitations of nature to the contrary notwithstanding. No being can be deemed free who is incapable of discerning between right and wrong; and none surely ought in strictness to be spoken of as "volitive," or possessed of "will," unless strictly "free."

say to the contrary) that these may have been wrapped up, in the Original Power, in either of the three modes (b. c. d.) mentioned above (p. 407). They may have been parts of the sure tendency, and of the necessary working out of a merely natural force; or parts of the eternal action; or parts of the eternal purpose, and long-withholden action, of an infinite spiritual Power.

Here is a diamond. It is built up (we will grant) of atoms. Take one of those simple, primal particles. This is not com-posed at all. It does not con-sist. It Is. Here we have a material unit. The question is, Whence came it? How comes it to be? To reply that it has always existed, is no answer, surely, but simply an affirmation of the impossibility of an answer. It is no answer, for it meets not the demand of the intellect; but instead, refuses to listen to that demand, and calls the intellect fool, for making it. It is no answer, for it is an absurdity; affirming the eternity and consequent independence and self-sufficiency of things that are partial and limited. It is no answer for us, certainly; for we are seeking to account for the universe, and are endeavoring to comprehend the multiplicity of its whole, in our philosophy. But this reply mocks at philosophy.

But whence came this atom? "Out of the eternal Element," says the materialist, a form or vortex of the original Power, a form not eternal, but that has now come, in the course of the necessary workings of eternal energies. It is the same with all the atoms that, together, make up the universe. (The inadequacy of this theory will be shown hereafter; but we pass on.)

But whence came it? we ask again; and the spiritualist replies: From God; and this in one of two ways: either it has been eternally generated by his volition, or, at some point of time in the past, it was once created, and has being still, an embodiment of a part of his infinite force. Thus it is with all the atoms of the material universe.'

We will not stop here, to criticise either of these replies, but remark:

II. The universe contains finite spiritual powers.

There are atoms, and there are also persons, masses and communities, bodies of particles, and bodies of individuals. There are things, and there are souls. The one is characterized by such attributes as impenetrability, inertia, gravitation, affinity, polarity. The other is distinguished by intelligence, love, will.

There is a greater and more specific difference between the two classes of attributes, than between any two attributes of the same class; a wider, and more definite, and more complete distinction between "things" and "persons," than between any two things or any two persons whatsoever.

It would certainly be illogical, therefore, to confound forces. so particularly and so widely distinguished. We may not let it be assumed that gravitation and volition are, or can be, the same. Whether either may be the result, or product, of the other, it is not yet time to inquire; but, in themselves, they are distinct. We must affirm, then, in positive terms:

a.

That these finite spiritual powers, are not material. Still further that which is material not only is not personal, but

b. It cannot become personal. A pound weight can raise a pound, so much and no more, but it cannot feel or know. A two-pound weight has twice the force of the other, in its kind, but it does not begin to approximate any nearer to perception or understanding. Take any other material energy, it can act in its own way and produce effects of its own kind, but that is all. They cannot become another kind. Here is a force; it matters not what it is, but a force under the strict law of necessity. How is that force, of itself and by its own energy, to pass from under that law, and to make itself intelligent and free? How is it to abdicate that which is the essential mode (law) of its being, and crown itself with a different and a higher mode? Here are forty forces, of forty kinds, combined and organized; each one, by itself, and the whole in their united action held in the strict rule of "causation." How are they to cease from that condition, and to rid themselves of this their nature, and be of another nature? Here is a universe of one infinite

material element, the whole bound by necessity, and exercising, of course, only natural forces.. Now, how is this matter, held, as it is, eternally under the "law of necessity," how is it to become "free?" If it be not spiritual now, what can ever make it so? Nothing! for there is nothing outside of it, to act upon it, or influence it in any way. But how, then, can it make itself spiritual? It cannot: for no conceivable multiplication, or division, or interaction of material forces can constitute a spiritual force. They cannot even advance one step toward that point. Matter cannot begin to transmute itself into mind. Gravitation is no element in will. Chemical affinity is not the remotest incipiency of that love which resides in moral beings and is intelligent and voluntary. No act of matter ever approximates the specific character of a personal act. But if so, then no matter ever approximates personality. The line of distinction ever remains sharply drawn, and the lower can never cross it and become the higher; material force cannot produce spiritual powers. Hence

c. The original power, of which we have been speaking, cannot have been purely physical and natural, but must have been at least partly spiritual and personal. That is, a part, at least, of its unity is a person.

The reality of this part can no more be denied than that of the other. The existence of spiritual beings is, in fact, not only as evident and as indubitable as the existence of material things, but the denial of it necessitates the denial of everything. Since, if we contradict and reject our own consciousness, we reject all that it brings. If we cannot believe in ourselves, we surely cannot in an external world revealed to ourselves. Unless, therefore, we are prepared to deny all things, we are compelled to grant that the original power was, from eternity, at least in part personal—a person. [See sequel.] Just here, an objection may be thrust forward; viz. If you deny the possibility of a spiritual "mass," out of which individuals may spring, and if you affirm only one eternal person, then there can never be more than one.