236 Immortality the direct gift of God. CHAP. 



ascend to a knowledge of the Divine; and against 

 Gnosticism, I maintain that there is no special 

 power, and no need for any, whereby to read the 

 indications of the Divine in Nature and Eevelation ; 

 but that such knowledge is to be attained by the 

 right use of the powers naturally conferred on Man 

 by the Creator, assisted by revelation, and by the 

 guidance of the Holy Spirit of God. 



It may be said that the view of the nature of 

 Mind set forth in the present chapter is materialistic, 

 and inconsistent with any belief in immortality. In 

 reply to this, I agree with Herbert Spencer that 

 Materialism and Spiritualism are not two mutually 

 opposed systems of doctrine, but two opposite sides 

 of the same reality. Like Oersted, the discoverer of 

 electro-magnetism, "I am at once a materialist and 

 a spiritualist." And as to the idea that such a view 

 of the nature of Mind is inconsistent with belief in 

 immortality, I reply defining Mind, as I do, to be 

 the sum -total of the conscious functions of the 

 organism that the two questions do not so much 

 as touch each other. The "natural immortality 

 of the soul " is no doctrine of either Reason or 

 Eevelation ; Eeason neither asserts nor denies 

 immortality, but Eevelation teaches that God confers 

 immortality, and doth raise the dead. 1 " That was not 

 first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; 

 and afterward, that which is spiritual." 2 From our 

 1 Acts xxvi. 8. 2 1 Cor. xv. 46. 



