The Smithsonian Institution at Washington was founded for the increase
and diffusion of knowledge. Guided by the contracted notions prevalent
among scientists, it has not accomplished much for either object. The
theory of Lester F. Ward of this institution was paraphrased as
follows in the last JOURNAL:
As for immortal life I must confess,
Science has never, never answered "yes."
Indeed all psycho-physiological sciences show,
If we'd be loyal, we must answer "no!"
Man cannot recollect before being born,
And hence his future life must be "in a horn."
There must be a _parte ante_ if there's a _parte post_,
And logic thus demolishes every future ghost.
Upon this subject the voice of science
Has ne'er been aught but stern defiance.
Mythology and magic belong to "_limbus fatuorum_;"
If fools believe them, we scientists deplore 'em.
But, nevertheless, the immortal can't be lost,
For every atom has its bright, eternal ghost!
Mr. Ward appears to enjoy greatly this theory of his own final
extinction, and he exclaims with infinite self-satisfaction, "this
pure and ennobling sense of truth he would scorn to barter for the
selfish and illusory hope of an eternity of personal existence." This
is quite a jolly funeral indeed!
It is true Mr. Ward's very profound theories contradict an immense
number of facts observed by wiser men than himself, but so much the
worse for the facts,--they must not embarrass a Smithsonian
philosopher when he solves to his own satisfaction the vast problem of
the universe. This Mr. Ward thinks he has done. It is quite an
ingenious and laboriously constructed hypothesis, but like all other
attempts to construct a grand philosophy without a basis of fact, it
is hard to manufacture the theory and hard to comprehend it. Mr. Ward
says himself in the _Open Court_ that even to comprehend his doctrine
would require the "careful reading of nearly 200 pages," while "to see
the matter in precisely the same light as I see it would require the
reading of the entire work of some 1400 pages!" Really, Mr. Ward, the
writer who cannot sufficiently befuddle himself and his readers in
fifty pages is not very skilful.
Nevertheless the Ward theory is one of the best that has ever been
gotten up by the champions of nescience, and is worthy of a statement
in the Journal as quite an improvement on the common expression of
materialistic stolidity. He claims that he does not deny immortality,
but he recognizes no immortality of man--no human soul. He recognizes
only the immortality of the world, such as it is, which nobody denies.
The future life of man he considers nothing but an illusion, though
there is an immortality of intelligence _here_ in successive forms.
The doctrine, is that spirit, intelligence, or consciousness is a part
of matter--that every atom has its own little share, which practically
amounts to nothing in its infinite subdivision, but when matter comes
into organized forms the spiritual powers thus aggregated and
organized become an efficient spiritual energy; and the higher the
organism the grander the power that is developed, man being the most
perfect organization evolves the grandest spiritual power, as a
superior violin evolves finer music than a tambourine. But the
intelligence and will of man are only phenomena, like the music, and
have no existence beyond that of the organism that produces them. This
is substantially the theory of materialists generally, and of the old
school medical colleges which consider human life a mere product of
human tissues in combination--a doctrine conclusively refuted in
"Therapeutic Sarcognomy."
The special merit of the Ward theory lies in the supposition that mind
and matter are elements everywhere inseparably united, and that human
intelligence is developed by the aggregation and organization of the
mind powers that reside in the atoms of matter,--an explanation which
does not often occur to the exponents of materialism,--and has the
merit of ingenuity. The theory would do very well if it were not
demonstrable that life exists only from influx, and that human life
and personality survive the body, and become known to every highly
organized sensitive, who knows how to investigate such matters.
The Ward theory demolishes the Deity with the greatest ease, and
places man, fleeting or evanescent as he is, at the summit of the
universe! As he expresses it, "The only intelligence in the universe
worthy of the name is the intelligence of the organized beings which
have been evolved; and the highest manifestations of the psychic power
known to the occupants of this planet is that which emanates from the
human brain. Thus does science invert the pantheistic pyramid."
Such is the fog that emanates from the institution that should help
the advance and diffusion of knowledge. No God! no soul! not even the
awful power that Spencer blindly acknowledges--nothing but matter
bubbling up and organizing itself into temporary forms that decay and
are gone forever. We may well reciprocate his suggestion, and say that
such doctrines belong to the _limbus fatuorum_, and, if enjoyed as Mr.
Ward enjoys them, they may well be called the "fool's paradise." I
think Hegel has some similar notion--that God becomes conscious only
in man, unconscious everywhere else! And even so brilliant a writer as
M. Renan says, "For myself I think that there is not in the universe
any intelligence superior to that of man." In reading such expressions
we are strongly reminded of the poem on the "rationalistic chicken,"
which would not admit that it ever came out of an egg. When the wisdom
shown in the universe is so immensely beyond the comprehension of man,
how can he assume his own to be the highest wisdom?
To such dreary absurdities as this the _Open Court_ newspaper at
Chicago is devoted, and it has a bevy of well-educated friends and
supporters--well-educated as the world goes,--and graced with literary
capacity and culture, but educated into blindness and ignorance of the
scientific phenomena of psychic science,--unwilling to investigate or
incapable of candid investigation. The coterie sustaining such a
newspaper are precisely in the position of the contemporaries of
Galileo, who refused to look through his telescope or study his
demonstrations.
It is not from any scientific spirit or scientific acumen that this
materialistic coterie avoid psychometric and spiritual facts. The
newspapers which ignore or sneer at such knowledge are easily gulled
in matters of science. A writer in the _Open Court_ upon the
possibilities of the future, which he presents as being confined
"strictly to legitimate deductions from present knowledge," exhibits
an amount and variety of ignorant credulity which ought not to have
gained admission to an intelligent journal. He speaks of an unlimited
freedom of submarine navigation and navigation of the air which would
not have appeared possible to any but the most superficial sciolist.
He also speaks of an electroscope that will telegraph rays of light
(!) and enable us thereby to see our most distant friends, and of
stowing in a small compass electricity enough to exterminate an army.
This imaginative ignoramus adds, "Give to our present biped
acquaintance the ability to exterminate armies with a lightning flash,
added to the power of sailing at will through the air or of passing at
will and in safety beneath the ocean waves, and he would depopulate
the earth." The writer gives much more of this Munchausen stuff which
is not worthy of notice except as an illustration of the feeble
scientific intelligence with which many newspapers are edited. The
editor of a really scientific journal referred to this article in the
_Open Court_ "as a proof of the danger of a little knowledge."[1]
[1] The air is certainly yet to be navigated when a
sufficient amount of power can be concentrated in the
machine, but at present we can do little more than float
with the wind. It is probable that an engine sufficiently
strong, built of the best steel, and propelled by the
explosive power of gun cotton, or some similar explosive,
would overcome the difficulty. If I were to construct such
an engine I would substitute for the lifting power of a
balloon that of a sail acting as a kite.