242 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of things which the ancient seers foresaw and aspired toward, when 

 " they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into 

 pruning-hooks : nation shall not lift up the sword against nation, 

 neither shall they learn war any more." 



But, while science is disclosing the methods of mind, and pre- 

 paring for it on earth a nobler and still more noble role, what are 

 its testimonies as to the duration of mind its immortality ? Some 

 of the most devoted adherents of scientific methods have reached 

 conclusions which are unfavorable to mind's immortality. But it 

 is not surprising, in view of the novelty and marvelousness of many 

 lately demonstrated scientific truths, that even men of calm tem- 

 per should be led to attach undue importance to them to claim for 

 them reaches and meanings which do not of right belong to them. 

 Close as may be the demonstrated union between mind and body, no 

 philosophy of organization and life satisfactorily accounts for the pres- 

 ence of mind. Mind is indeed unique, peculiar ; has its own laws, and 

 overleaps and undermines all mere material phenomena. The study 

 of mind is, therefore, incomplete unless subjectively pursued. The 

 mind must be questioned, must testify of itself, if we would arrive at 

 anything approaching just conclusions with reference to it. This is 

 indisputable from the fact that mind is that mysterious quality in us 

 by which we explore all material phenomena. It is only, therefore, by 

 due attention to mind's subjective contemplation that we gain the right 

 to reason upon the phenomena of material things. A surveyor who 

 should go around determining boundaries, directions, and areas, with- 

 out having first put to severe tests his compass and chains, would be 

 acting not a whit more absurdly than they who leave out of the study 

 of material and mental phenomena a subjective study of mind. But, 

 if only by questioning mind about itself we can rightly understand its 

 nature, dare we, in conducting the inquiry, ignore a whole host of its 

 most prominent intuitions ? Surely not. But mind's testimony of 

 itself is, that there are in it indefeasible principles of individuality, 

 responsibility, and immortality. It would be strange, indeed, if this 

 noble, this intensely royal, thing, which disdains to be classed with any 

 material forces, however sublimated they may be, should be remanded 

 to the companionship and fate of the phenomenal, the sensual, the 

 perishing ! 



Happily for the theory of evolution, not all nor even the majority 

 of its advocates have given assent to such conclusions. Mr. Darwin 

 has ever conjoined with his marvelous disclosures of the relations of 

 organic facts a spirit of religious reverence. Mr. Herbert Spencer 

 avows that there are unseen, eternal verities which justify religion. 

 Lessing, David Strauss, and Professor Helmholtz, could not reconcile 

 themselves to the thought of a final destruction of the living race, and, 

 with it, all the fruits of all past generations. Others among them, 

 however, assume that, since mind is only known to us as a phenomenon 



