The Creation of God by Jacob Hartmann (color ebook reader TXT) 📖

matter? Spirit and soul, are they one and the same thing, or do they differ? If so, in what? What is substance soul and substance spirit? Is it self-acting and self-existing? Is the soul susceptible to training and education, and the reception of knowledge? Or is the soul already trained, educated, and possessed of all the knowledge that is now known or likely to be known? Does the will power reside in the soul? And is the nervous system subservient to the soul? Is the soul endowed with passions and emotions? Can the soul deteriorate, be injured or be afflicted? In what degree does the soul differ in the civilized and in uncivilized man?

The theological soul has its origin in the Bible, no doubt (from the word nephesh, breathing; the Greek psyche: Latin animas, chayu, breath of life).

This word gave the impulse to a vast amount of thought and reflection, both theological and psychological. Discussion and literature followed as extensive as there has ever been on any metaphysical topic.

It may be interesting to learn some of the attributes of the soul. Here is a partial list: “Will, passion, love, joy, grief, anger, mirth, sorrow, revenge, contempt, hatred, honor, pride, humility, jealousy, despair, pity, compassion, love of fame, of music, of the marvelous, of notoriety, avarice, guilt, curiosity, astonishment, respect, desire, cheerfulness, melancholy, sense of beauty, sense of the sublime, sense of friendship, feeling of delight, selfishness, generosity, etc.” The author of this concoction had not a very clear notion of what he was writing about, otherwise he would have known that animals have in common with man most of the emotions above recited. The soul is a display of nervous phenomena, exhibited under certain circumstances, differing only in intensity of expression, depending upon the kind and character of animal and man.

It is one of the common tricks of trade—when theologians argue upon the immortality of the soul, they bring and ring in any amount of biblical evidence to sustain them. They prove nothing. They cannot prove anything. It is the standing puzzle. They try to unravel a mysterious something that is not mysterious. Nor is there any need of mystery. What is essential for us to know is the truth, plain natural facts. There is nothing that we need be either ashamed or afraid of. If we have been deluded by errors made several thousand years ago, regarding the dual composition of man, or have been imposed upon and intentionally retarded in the onward progress, it is time to correct the error and remove the imposition. Let us have a clear, intelligent view of things and look at them as they are. This mystery, like other mysteries, can be cleared up by the light of science and modern investigation.

What is the difference between man and animal? Articulate speech and the susceptibility of the brain matter to a high degree of culture.

Mind is a term employed to designate the collective acquirements of a man’s brain. In proportion as the acquirements are greater or less, the mind is greater or smaller.

These acquirements may be simple, complex, or profound. They may be biased, general, or scientific; they may be deep, learned, or superficial. They may be only a slight advance above the general animal instinct; or may have assumed a superior intelligence and may have arisen to a higher plane of intellectual qualities.

The acquirement or evolution of mental power and intellectual capacity depends:

1. On the constitutionally inherited capacity and capability.

2. On the size and general conformation of the brain.

3. On the perfect condition of the organs of special sense.

4. On the quality of the nervous structure.

5. On the general physical constitution of the body.

6. On the evenly balanced equilibrium between the vital organs.

7. On the chemical elementary constituents that enter into the composition of the various tissues, especially the nervous tissue.

8. And lastly on the education, training, or culture.

9. I may add, suggestively, on the relative quantity and quality of the gray and white substance of the brain, etc., and perhaps on the depth of the sulci and the size of the convolutions and the general symmetry of the different lobes of the cerebrum, etc.

The brain of an idiot is not susceptible to culture or education. He has all the senses, but of an inferior and imperfect order; a brain insufficient in quantity and quality to be capable of acquiring anything. No mind can be formed. The idiot has not any intellect. Has he a soul?

Or supposing any portion of the brain is diseased and any one of the special senses ceases to act, as sight, hearing, or any part of the muscular tissue, and the intellect is impaired, either partially or wholly incapacitated, then has the soul suffered any damage, or does the soul remain intact?

Or supposing that a child is born blind, or that some one of the nerve centers controlling certain faculties of the brain is absent, and the education is necessarily limited to the remaining nerve centers, is the soul still complete and perfect?

Or in case of change of structure of the brain substance, as in softening of the brain; or in case of tumors, blood clots (thrombosis), or syphilitic disease, and paralysis either local or general resulting—depending on the seat of the disease—what has the soul to do with it? Or in disease of the meninges (coverings); or in case of insanity, whatever morbid cause might have produced that condition, where is the soul?

Or when, in consequence of morbid changes, the mental and physical expressions, the actions, change, often extravagantly, is the soul affected thereby?

When the body is afflicted with disease, does the soul suffer?

At what period of fetal development is it that the soul enters the body? Or does it enter at birth?

The breath of life is Oxygen. Without that element one could not live. Without it the newly born babe is more helpless than a lower animal. Not a single special sense is fully developed. The brain substance is not fully developed. The babe has no power to will anything. It has no volition—except the act of nursing, and that is not a voluntary act. The organs over which will has no control are the first to act—an infant soils its linen involuntarily. It imbibes nourishment, as a mass of protoplasm imbibes moisture. It has neither will power nor desire. It cannot select. It has neither knowledge nor conscience. Since none of the special senses is able to act, it has no perception of any kind whatsoever. It experiences only two sensations, pain and hunger. Young birds and other young animals do the same.

Is there anything in this newly born babe of a supernatural character, such as a soul, spirit; the knowledge of God, or of good and evil? Does there exist in this mass of organized protoplasm anything that may be called divine? Is there aught innate? No! Certainly not!

There are what may be termed latent powers—not unlike latent heat—capable of being evolved. You may fashion anything out of it—in the religious line, brutal or uncivilized, etc. It will acquire any kind of speech, from the howling of a dog to the most refined language. It will contract any habit, from that of the lowest animal type to that of the most refined lady or gentleman. You may make either a cannibal out of it or the most fantastic gustatorian. It will either crawl, climb, or walk. It will live anywhere and anyhow. It will either parade nude, be painted, or wear a breechcloth, or wear a swell dress coat, or, if it be a female, a long trailing skirt with all sorts of gewgaws. In religion you may make anything out of this babe. You may make it believe the greatest nonsense. It will believe three gods in one or twenty-five gods in one. It will be a Jew, a Christian, a Mohammedan, or the lowest brute on the face of the earth.

This mass of vitalized matter is susceptible to training. The physical part, the muscular part, always develops and is readily trained. In a primitive state it requires but little discipline to acquire muscular strength. The muscular powers are the first to assert themselves. This master tissue, whenever and wherever it excels, receives honor and homage, and prevails among its companions. In barbaric ages this was the controlling force, the ruling spirit, the governing power.

The nervous tissues require teaching. The senses must be trained, educated, cultured, refined. The impressions received through the nerve-centers by the senses are stored up in the cerebrum. Though they are at first simple, crude, and incomprehensible, habit, use, or repetition enables them to familiarize us with the surrounding objects.

If the brain is fully formed, the infantile education begins. By constant repetition of the same acts, the sense of satisfaction from feeding, and the sense of comfort from cleanliness, are slowly established in the experience of the child.

Hunger, cold, heat, and moisture will cause it to manifest its dissatisfaction by crying. It sleeps twenty out of the twenty-four hours, and wakes only to indicate its wants of either hunger or discomfort. The more regularly it is fed, and the more cleanly it is kept, the more peacefully will it rest and the more soundly will it sleep.

When, however, an infant is born, though physically fully developed, with face fully formed, but acephalous, without brain—that is, when an arrest of development has taken place—the babe cannot live, it cannot breathe, because the principal part of the nervous system is wanting—the medulla oblongata, cerebrum and cerebellum, etc.—though the lungs, heart, and all other organs are perfectly developed. This arrest of development may take place at any time. It is thus that congenital malformations are produced. Idiots are thus formed, or any other inferior formation of brain may take place. In proportion as the parts are present or wanting—the brain, or rather the nervous system—latent (better, inherent) qualities for future capabilities exist or do not exist. Supposing the optic nerve is arrested in its development, or any organ with which it is immediately connected, the special sense of sight is wanting. Though the eye itself, the organ of sight, may be perfect, all the training and education will never give it capability or skill in arts and sciences. This can never be acquired by that organ. You cannot educate that organ which you have not. Whatever perfect brain formation exists may be trained, fashioned, educated, in any one of the thousands of directions one pleases. It may be given any bent or bias, good, bad, or indifferent—depending upon the influences that are brought to bear on the young brain while it is in the process of developing.

An infant has no mind, intellect, thought, idea, memory, or any other nerve quality that nerve structure is capable of developing.

Talk of soul or spirit is absurd. It does not exist either in infant or in man any more than it exists in a plant or an animal—unless the term is applied to the collective functions of the great central organs, and in that case it would certainly not be supernatural.

At the time when the books of Moses were written—we need not even go so far back as when the fable of creation was first related—they knew nothing of circulation or of respiration, or of the nervous system. It was not even thought of. I believe you may search the Bible from end to beginning and from beginning to end without finding such a thing. No such word as brain is mentioned. What is known of the nervous system is, comparatively speaking, of recent date.

“What seems most marvelous is, that we, in the nineteenth century, boasting of a high grade of civilization, and, I may say, with all the modern improvements, should accept and still hold fast to an idea that originated in the brain of some barbarian four thousand or more years