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{{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued|Theosophic Teachings.|14-121}} | {{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued|Theosophic Teachings.|14-121}} | ||
{| | <div>{{Style P-Align center|1=Light.<br>December 16, 1882.}}</div> | ||
{{Style P-No indent|when he seeks to prove annihilation of the unspiritual by this instance of the disintegrating corpse. The elements, are not individuals. No monad, no self-centred subjectivity, though it may deteriorate, can disintegrate. The elements restrained from following their affinities, were not nobler then when permitted to do so. The two antagonistic processes together make life, which implies function, quite as much as nutrition. But if the absence of full spiritual life leads to annihilation, how explain the actual existence of a long-lived elephant, or indeed, of any ordinary human being? A large-brained, self-willed Napoleon has nothing about him that looks like disintegration.}} | {{Style P-No indent|when he seeks to prove annihilation of the unspiritual by this instance of the disintegrating corpse. The elements, are not individuals. No monad, no self-centred subjectivity, though it may deteriorate, can disintegrate. The elements restrained from following their affinities, were not nobler then when permitted to do so. The two antagonistic processes together make life, which implies function, quite as much as nutrition. But if the absence of full spiritual life leads to annihilation, how explain the actual existence of a long-lived elephant, or indeed, of any ordinary human being? A large-brained, self-willed Napoleon has nothing about him that looks like disintegration.}} | ||
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P.S.—“C. C. M.” rightly argues that an idealist may reason about physical phenomena in the language of physical science, tacitly, ''but not expressly,'' postulating his own principles. But if he maintains not only that there are bodies, but bodies with a consciousness out of relation to thinkers, consciousness without the integrating conscious unit, then he not only violates the first principles of idealism, but also those of reason itself. Bodies are phenomena in us, or in other minds, external to us. He who believes that can discuss their properties with the materialist, and use the same language. But he cannot say that these phenomena themselves (bodies) ''think, and think out of relation to synthetic thinking units, or Egos.'' For if he does, he virtually denies their merely phenomenal character, and also asserts that an integer may still exist when you have taken away one of the factors essential to the very idea of it. This is both materialism and fatuity, as absolutely inconsistent with any idealism I ever heard of, or can imagine, as with common sense itself. Again, physiological psychologists absurdly assert that our one self-identical consciousness is made up of the sum of sensations belonging to the unity of our organism. (See Bain, for instance.) “C. C. M.” sees the absurdity of this. But does he reflect that no one of these units can have, or represent, one of our sensations, even if the adding them up could make our indivisible selves? Even a ''single'' sensation, ''as we feel'' it, implies our own proper selves to discriminate it in feeling. A sensation, as a cell feels it, we cannot at all represent to ourselves. And there is no reason why ethereal units in ''Akasa'' should be more capable of performing self-contradictory acts than protoplasmic cells are. They are alike isolated pulses of consciousness unimaginable by us, ''till transformed in and by us.'' But if they cannot feel like us, how much less can they remember our deeds, thoughts, and feelings! | P.S.—“C. C. M.” rightly argues that an idealist may reason about physical phenomena in the language of physical science, tacitly, ''but not expressly,'' postulating his own principles. But if he maintains not only that there are bodies, but bodies with a consciousness out of relation to thinkers, consciousness without the integrating conscious unit, then he not only violates the first principles of idealism, but also those of reason itself. Bodies are phenomena in us, or in other minds, external to us. He who believes that can discuss their properties with the materialist, and use the same language. But he cannot say that these phenomena themselves (bodies) ''think, and think out of relation to synthetic thinking units, or Egos.'' For if he does, he virtually denies their merely phenomenal character, and also asserts that an integer may still exist when you have taken away one of the factors essential to the very idea of it. This is both materialism and fatuity, as absolutely inconsistent with any idealism I ever heard of, or can imagine, as with common sense itself. Again, physiological psychologists absurdly assert that our one self-identical consciousness is made up of the sum of sensations belonging to the unity of our organism. (See Bain, for instance.) “C. C. M.” sees the absurdity of this. But does he reflect that no one of these units can have, or represent, one of our sensations, even if the adding them up could make our indivisible selves? Even a ''single'' sensation, ''as we feel'' it, implies our own proper selves to discriminate it in feeling. A sensation, as a cell feels it, we cannot at all represent to ourselves. And there is no reason why ethereal units in ''Akasa'' should be more capable of performing self-contradictory acts than protoplasmic cells are. They are alike isolated pulses of consciousness unimaginable by us, ''till transformed in and by us.'' But if they cannot feel like us, how much less can they remember our deeds, thoughts, and feelings! | ||
{{Style P-Align center|1=''(To be continued.)''}} | |||
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{{Style P-Title|MR. EPES SARGENT, MR. RODEN NOEL, AND<br>THE “SPIRITUAL BODY.”}} | {{Style P-Title|MR. EPES SARGENT, MR. RODEN NOEL, AND<br>THE “SPIRITUAL BODY.”}} | ||
In his “Philosophy of Immortality,” Mr. Roden Noel includes Mr. Epes Sargent among those who seem to confound the Spiritual body with the Spirit. I rather doubted the justice of this censure when I was reviewing Mr. Noel’s book for “Light” some time ago, because of all writers on modern Spiritualism, with, perhaps, the single exception of Mr. Noel himself, Sargent was the best read in philosophy, and the most familiar with its distinctions. Mr. Noel refers to the “Proof Palpable,” but I will vindicate the distinguished American author by citing the following from his latest work, “The Scientific Basis of Spiritualism.” | In his “Philosophy of Immortality,” Mr. Roden Noel includes Mr. Epes Sargent among those who seem to confound the Spiritual body with the Spirit. I rather doubted the justice of this censure when I was reviewing Mr. Noel’s book for “Light” some time ago, because of all writers on modern Spiritualism, with, perhaps, the single exception of Mr. Noel himself, Sargent was the best read in philosophy, and the most familiar with its distinctions. Mr. Noel refers to the “Proof Palpable,” but I will vindicate the distinguished American author by citing the following from his latest work, “The Scientific Basis of Spiritualism.”*<ref name="editor-122-restored-footnote">The newspaper’s footnote is missing from the pasted clipping. Restored from Light, No. 102, December 16, 1882, PDF page 7 (printed page 567).</ref> Speaking of the “trichotomy of physical body, spirit-body (or soul), and spirit,—a trinity of principles, physical, psycho-physiological and Spiritual, all proceeding from the Infinite Force, but the last, like God Himself, inscrutable,” he quotes from Lord Bacon, and refers to early Christian belief. He then proceeds: “Such is not only the early Christian belief, but such, so far as relates to the spirit-body, is the so-called ''animism'' of the barbarous tribes. It is consistent also with the views of both Plato and Aristotle. In the progress of philosophical speculation this simple idea, explaining so many of the phenomena which have puzzled metaphysicians as to how an immaterial, unextended principle can act upon a physical body, was superseded by a doctrine which identified spirit-body and spirit in substance, and distinguished them only in function. Aquinas, and after him Calvin, pronounced in favour of this dualistic rendering; but it was chiefly through the influence of Descartes that the belief in a psychical organism or spirit-body, distinct from the physical, was ruled out of philosophy, literature, and religion. Then began to arise the clamour, still kept up, against the ‘gross materialism’ of the Pauline doctrine of{{Style S-HPB SB. Continues on|14-123}} | ||
{{Footnotes start}} | {{Footnotes start}} | ||