WISLIZENUS — THOUGHTS ON MATTER AND FORCE. 307 



That physical forces cannot create a human soul, is self- 

 evident ; but how is it with vital force, that creates organic 

 beings from the lowest to the highest, under the control of 

 which physical man himself is introduced into the world ? 

 Should we not consider man's soul the last and highest man- 

 ifestation of vital force, attached to the organ of human 

 brain ? A thing created cannot be greater than its creator. 

 Let us compare now, what vital force can do and what rea- 

 soning force can accomplish. Vital force can, within certain 

 time and space, develop the germ of a seed to its normal 

 physical existence. Organic life, for physical purposes, is its 

 beginning and end ; and even the feeble traces of mental 

 faculties, developed in animals, are but calculated for the 

 benefit of their physical life. Higher animals, it is true, are 

 endowed with some of the lower faculties of mind; they are 

 capable of drawing single and simple conclusions by means 

 of their memory for pleasant or unpleasant sensations ; but 

 there is no consciousness in them, no real reasoning, no fol- 

 lowing up conclusion after conclusion, no abstract thought, 

 no free moral will, no desire for higher development and 

 future life ; in one word, they are not rational beings. Their 

 glimpse of mental force seems but to foreshadow the kingdom 

 above them. There lies a wide and deep gap between them 

 and man's soul, an impassable chasm that neither the "Ves- 

 tiges of Creation," nor "Darwin's Theory," will fill or bridge. 

 On the one side grazes the animal, his eyes fixed on the 

 ground, intent only upon physical existence and upon sensual 

 gratifications ; on the other side stands man, conscious, intel- 

 ligent, moral, self-controlling man, whose thought is not 

 confined within the narrow limits of physical and vital forces, 

 but unbounded in time and space, rushing quicker than light 

 and lightning from world to world, abstracting from sensual 

 impressions an endless chain of conclusions, and creating 

 thus a new world above the physical, the world of ideas, 

 penetrating into the laws of the whole universe, overawing 

 and controlling all the forces below him, connecting his des- 

 tiny with the forces above him, and forming the first step in 

 the ascending scale of rational beings from man up to that 

 highest intellectual and moral power called Deity ! Such a 

 force, following different laws and pursuing higher objects, 

 is of course superior to vital force, the sole object of which 

 is physical organization. 



After all these intrinsic evidences, showing the superiority 

 of reasoning force over vital force, I will mention but one 

 more, that has always struck me as most conclusive of the 

 wide difference between the two forces. I refer to the pro- 

 gressive perfectibility of the human soul. Animals are born 

 with instincts, (involuntary mental actions,) that develop 

 themselves without instruction, remain stationary throughout 



