system, any evidence of design in the structure of the material universe, or any evidence of the immortality of the soul. But in the phenomena of mind we find all the evidence necessary to demonstrate all three propositions. It is only necessary, however, to find evidence of design in order to establish the first two, for it is axiomatic that design presupposes a designer. What stronger evidence of design can be imagined than the fact that all the operations of Nature tend toward the accomplishment of one single specific object? As I have before remarked, all the facts of organic evolution show that the creation of man was the goal toward which all Nature has tended from the beginning. No evolutionist, materialist though he may be, will deny that proposition. This, in itself, is evidence — of a secondary value, however of design, because in it we find a specific goal. But the materialist will reply that it is inadequate and inconclusive because there is still no evidence of intelligent design, since man, in common with all organic Nature, is destined to die, and in his seventy years of allotted time there is not an adequate motive for bringing him into existence. Cui bono? is his ever-ready question ; and it is pertinent and unanswerable from his standpoint. If, therefore, there were no further evidence of design than that afforded by man's physical existence, it must be conceded that the argument fails from inherent weakness. But, as I have already pointed out, there was a foundation laid at the earliest possible period in the history of organic evolution for the development of an immortal soul. The dual mind found in each and every animate creature evolved from each individual monad, furnishes this foundation. It is found in all animate Nature, from the lowest to the highest, and on every line both of divergence from man and of convergence toward him; so that, upon whatever line of development the goal might be reached, the embryo of an immortal soul would be present. It is true that there are creatures destitute of anything like a brain, and therefore without an objective mind; but there is nothing in all animate Nature that is destitute of a subjective mind, rudimentary though it be. In fact, the subjective mind antedates the objective, the latter being the result of organic evolution. It may be asked why it is necessary to assume that the subjective mind in animals is the embryo of an immortal soul in man, since both minds have functions to perform in physical life. To this the self-evident reply is that Nature never produces an unnecessarily complex or complicated organism; and unless we assume that God was incapable of endowing the subjective mind with the capacity to develop the power of reason sufficiently for the purposes of this life, we must assume that it has functions to perform in some other life. We know that it is susceptible to a far higher intellectual development than is the objective mind. The facts, therefore, that the latter was created with functions pertaining exclusively to this life, and that the former wast created with faculties that perform no function in this life, constitute demonstrative evidence that the subjective mind was created, ab initio, with special reference to a future life. Design, therefore, is as self-evident in the order and process of the evolution of the lower animals up to man as it is in the structure of a watch. It may be asked why God does not exhibit some tangible, observable, moral attribute toward his creatures, some benevolent aspect that can bear an interpretation other than that involved in a blind adherence to primordial law. Why is pain and agony, and death and destruction, through the law of the survival of the fittest, necessary for the development of man? The obvious answer is, that it is only through the death of the unfit that room can be made for the survival of the fit. In a word, it is only through death and destruction that evolution is possible. Without death as a universal factor in the physical world, progress would be impossible. And this applies to man as forcibly as it does to the lower animals. If at any moment death should be abolished as to mankind, progress would come to a practical standstill, and the earth would soon be overpopulated. This is one of the facts demonstrative that physical life is not the final goal of man or of his evolution ; and since it is demonstrable that there can be no higher species developed than man, if he has any future, it must be in another form of existence. To recur to the first question, Why does not God exhibit some tangible moral attribute toward his creatures?—it is answered that he does exhibit a positive, tangible quality of pure benevolence towards all animate Nature in a phenomenon that is of such common experience that the world appears to have overlooked it entirely. That phenomenon consists in the absolute immunity from physical or mental suffering in the hour of inevitable death.1 This immunity is universal in all animate Nature. Moreover, there is every evidence to show that death is a pleasurable process to all who experience it, from the lowest to the highest organism in Nature. Moreover, there is indubitable evidence demonstrative that God is ever kind to the victim of the inevitable. This is true whether the inevitable event assumes the form of death or of a surgical operation; for in the subjective state which spontaneously ensues upon the approach of either event, there is provided a universal anaesthetic, which deprives death of its sting and its terrors; and if the surgeon knows the laws pertaining to the subject, it eases the patient of all pain and suffering. Could further or more tangible evidence be required to 1 For a full discussion of this subject, see "The Law of Psychic Phenomena." 2 See "Hypnotism, a Universal Anæsthetic in Surgery," N. Y. Medical Journal for Dec. 22, 1894. demonstrate the quality of mercy and benevolence in God towards his creatures? It must be remembered that this immunity from suffering during the process of dissolution cannot be tortured into the domain of attributes resulting from the laws of heredity, or of natural selection, or of the survival of the fittest. It is obvious that when this phenomenon is exhibited, the subject is far beyond the reach of those laws. Nor is there any law or fact in the domain of evolution that can be invoked to explain it. It is a broad, ultimate fact, standing apart, tangible, monumental, demonstrative of the intelligence, the love, the mercy, the benevolence of the Great First Cause. Is there no evidence of intelligent design in the phenomena of Nature? Let the facts the observable, tangible, demonstrable facts- answer the question. Thus is man rehabilitated and re-enthroned as the grand central figure of creation, the ultimate object of creative energy. The Copernican system of astronomy shocked the Christian world, and moved it to deeds of violence by removing the habitation of man from the centre of the universe, and sending it whirling through space, a unit in the Titanic procession around the central sun, - the source of light and warmth and energy. Another shock was sent through Christendom when it was first shown that the facts of evolution proved that God created man, not by miracle, but through the operations of natural law. But Christendom has survived both shocks, and has lived to recognize the fact that science robs not God of his glory nor man of his dignity. On the contrary, Copernican astronomy removed man from the centre of the physical universe only to show him that the central sun, with all its stores of physical energy, is but his domestic servant, charged with the duty of rendering his home habitable and beautiful. Evolutionary science removed his origin from the domain |