216 THE CASE AGAINST EVOLUTION 



mulated thus: Every agent exists after the same manner that 

 it operates. But in rational cognition and volition the soul 

 acts without the co-agency of the material organism. There- 

 fore the human soul can exist without the co-existence of the 

 material organism. But this is tantamount to saying that it 

 is a spiritual reality irreducible to matter and incapable of 

 derivation from matter. For we define that as spiritual, which 

 exists, or is, at least, capable of existing, without matter. Con- 

 sequently, the human soul is a supermaterial and immortal 

 principle, which does not need the body to maintain itself in 

 existence, and can, on that account, survive the death and dis- 

 solution of its material complement, the organism. Such a 

 reality, as we have seen, cannot be a product of evolution, but 

 can only come into existence by way of creation. 



The axiom, that activity is the expression or manifestation 

 of the entity which underlies it, needs but little elucidation. 

 In the genesis of human knowledge, the dynamic is prior to 

 both -the static and the entitive. We deduce the nature of the 

 cause from the changes or effects that it produces. Action, 

 in short, is the primary datum upon which our knowledge 

 of being rests. It is the spectrum of solar light emitted by 

 them, which enables us to determine the nature of the chemical 

 elements present in the distant Sun. It is the reaction of an 

 unknown compound with a test reagent that furnishes the 

 chemist with a clue to its composition and structure. It is the 

 special type of tissue degeneration caused by the specific toxin 

 engendered by an invisible disease germ that enables the 

 pathologists to identify the latter, etc., etc. So much for the 

 axiom. Regarding the psychological facts, a more lengthy ex- 

 position is required. To begin with, there is prima facie evi- 

 dence against the contention that the higher psychic functions 

 in man are independent of the organism. Injury and degenera- 

 tion of the cerebral cortex result (very often, at least) in 

 insanity and idiocy. Reason, therefore, is in some way de- 

 pendent upon the organism. Babies, too, are incapable of 

 rational thought until such a time as the nervous system is 



