A MODERF "SYMPOSIUM." 



509 



thing, or collection of tilings, but of a state of 

 things. 



But the word " organism " is generally taken 

 to indicate a thing organized. And the choice of 

 that word would seem to indicate that he ascribed 

 the spiritual acts (so to call them) which consti- 

 tute life to the aggregate bulk of the atoms or- 

 ganized, or the appropriate part of them. But 

 this he elsewhere seems to disclaim. " The phi- 

 losophy which treats man as man simply affirms 

 that man loves, thinks, acts, not that ganglia, or 

 the sinews, or any organ of man loves, and thinks, 

 and acts." Yes, but we recur to the question, 

 " What is man ? " If the ganglia do not think, 

 what is it that does ? Mr. Harrison, as I under- 

 stand, answers that it is a consensus of faculties, 

 an harmonious system of parts, and he denounces 

 an attempt to introduce into this collocation of 

 parts or faculties an underlying entity or being 

 which shall possess those faculties or employ 

 those parts. It is then not after all to a being or 

 aggregate of beings, but to a relation or condition 

 of beings, that will and thought and love belong. 

 If this is Mr. Harrison's meaning, I certainly 

 agree with him that it is indeed impossible to 

 compose a difference between two disputants of 

 whom one holds, and the other denies, that a 

 condition can think. If my opponent does not 

 admit this to be an absurdity, I do not pretend 

 to drive him any further. 



With regard to immortality, I have nothing 

 material to add to what has been said by those 

 who have preceded me. I agree with Prof. Hux- 

 ley that the natural world supplies nothing which 

 can be called evidence of a future life. Believing 

 in God, I see in the constitution of the world 

 which he has made, and in the yearnings and 

 aspirations of that spiritual nature which he has 

 given to man, much that commends to my belief 

 the revelation of a future life which I believe him 

 to have made. But it is in virtue of his clear 

 promise, not in virtue of these doubtful intima- 

 tions, that I rely on the prospect of a future life. 

 Believing that he is the author of that moral in- 

 sight which in its ruder forms controls the multi- 

 tude, and in its higher inspires the saint, I revere 

 those great men who were able to forecast this 

 great announcement, but I cannot and do not 

 care to reduce that forecast to any logical pro- 

 cess, or base it on any conclusive reasoning. 

 Rather I admire their power of divination the 

 more on account of the narrowness of their logi- 

 cal data. For myself, I believe because I am 

 told. 



But whether the doctrine of immortality be 



true or false, I protest, with Mr. Hutton, against 

 the attempt to substitute for what, at any rate, is 

 a substantial idea, something which cau hardly 

 be called even a shadow or echo of it. 



The Christian conception of the world is this : 

 It is a world of moral as of physical waste. 

 Much seed is sown which will not ripen, but 

 some is sown that will. This planet is a seat, 

 among other things, of present goodness and 

 happiness. And this our goodness and happiness, 

 like our crime and misery, propagate or fail to 

 propagate themselves during our lives and after 

 our deaths. But, apart from these earthly conse- 

 quences, which are much to us and all to the 

 positivist, the little fragment of the universe on 

 which we appear and disappear is, we believe, a 

 nursery for something greater. The capacities 

 for love and knowledge, which in some of us at- 

 tain a certain development here, we must all feel 

 to be capable, with greater opportunities, of an 

 infinitely greater development ; and Christians 

 believe that such a development is in fact re- 

 served for those who, in this short time of ap- 

 prenticeship, take the proper steps for approach- 

 ing it. 



This conception of a glorious and increasing 

 company, into which the best of men are con- 

 tinually to be gathered to be associated with each 

 other (to say no more) in all that can make exist- 

 ence happy and noble, may be a dream, and Mr. 

 Harrison may be right in calling it so. In de- 

 riding it he cannot be right. " The eternity of 

 the tabor " he calls it ! Has he never felt, or, at 

 any rate, is he not able to conceive, a thrill of 

 pleasure at a sympathetic interchange of look, or 

 word, or touch, with a fellow-creature kind and 

 noble and brilliant, and engaged in the exhibition 

 of those qualities of heart and intellect which 

 make him what he is ? Multiply and sustain 

 this — suppose yourself surrounded by beings 

 with whom this interchange of sympathy is warm 

 and perpetual. Intensify it. Increase indefinite- 

 ly the excellence of one of those beings, the won- 

 derful and attractive character of his operations, 

 our own capacities of affection and intellect, the 

 vividness of our conception, the breadth and 

 firmness of our mental grasp, the sharp vigor of 

 our admiration ; and, to exclude satiety, imagine 

 if you like that the operations which we contem- 

 plate and our relations to our companions are 

 infinitely varied — a supposition for which the 

 size of the known and unknown universe affords 

 indefinite scope — or otherwise suppose that same- 

 ness ceases to tire, as the old Greek pHlosopher 

 thought it mijdit do if we we were better than we 



