286 OPINIONS RESPECTING THE SOUL. 



it follows from that, either that the mind did not pre-exist, or that the 

 death of the body implies its annihilation. 



If it fell within the compass of our plan, we might proceed to consider 

 how far, since the mind can act upon external nature through 



Opinions re- f 



specting the the intervention of the bodily mechanism, the converse is 

 soui^ntertain- P 088 ^ 6 ; how, since the face of things around us can be 

 ed by different changed by our voluntary exertions, the intellectual faculties 

 may be changed by the action of external nature through the 

 bodily mechanism. And since we have established the existence of the 

 intellectual principle as external to the body, we might proceed, for now 

 we are entitled so to do, to reason respecting its nature from the phenom- 

 ena it displays. I do not, however, propose to enter on those considera- 

 tions now, and shall close these remarks with a reference to some doc- 

 trines proposed by the most highly-advanced and intellectual portions of 

 the human family. 



It is said that the spirit of man is created in the image of God, an ob- 

 servation strikingly illustrated by the fact that, as regards both, two es- 

 sentially different doctrines have been held the pantheistic, by some of 

 the most highly advanced of the Asiatics, and the anthropomorphic, by 

 the Europeans. The pantheistic supposes the human soul to be a part 

 of the Deity, and therefore devoid of form ; the anthropomorphic as hav- 

 ing the likeness of the body. The Asiatics, then, regarding the Deity as 

 a principle diffused in and throughout nature, consider the spirit of man 

 as a part or portion thereof, and often use such illustrative allusions as 

 those of a drop of water in the ocean, a spark of a universal and vital 

 flame ; or, if they do not accept this view of a oneness in 'the nature of 

 spirit and Deity, they regard the former as arising in some manner from 

 the latter, just as waves may exist upon the sea, or sounds may arise in 

 the air. They believe that at death there is, as it were, a reunion of the 

 part with the whole, as every drop of water sooner or later finds its way 

 back to the sea, or waves become quiet and disappear, or sounds die away 

 in the air. 



But with European nations there has been, from their very infancy, a 

 tendency to the anthropomorphic conception. The barbarians before the 

 Roman empire, in their legendary fables, accepted the idea of disembod- 

 ied spirits under the shape of men, and through the intervening ages up 

 to our own times, such notions, under various forms, have been held. 

 The rural populations entertain an undoubted faith in fairies and ghosts, 

 so that it might be asserted that this manner of viewing the thing is 

 almost natural to us. We instinctively represent to ourselves in this 

 way the immaterial principle, and in the case of each individual expect a 

 correspondence between it and his bodily form. Whatever may be our 

 authority for arriving at such a conclusion, there can be no doubt that it 



