THE WONDERS OF LIFE 



higher stage of personality, which law has for a long 

 time taken under its protection and made morally re- 

 sponsible to society by education. This shows how er- 

 roneous and untenable, from the physiological point of 

 view, are the ideas still embodied in our code as to the 

 psychic life and the mind of the embryo and the new- 

 bom infant. They came mostly from the canon law of 

 the Catholic Church. 



The dualistic ideas of the soul of the human embryo 

 which were taught by the Church in the Middle Ages are 

 particularly interesting from the psychological point of 

 view ; and at the same time they are of great practical 

 importance even in our own day, since many of their 

 moral consequences form an important element in canon 

 law, and have passed from this into civil law. This 

 influential canon law was formed vmder ecclesiastical 

 authority from the decisions of Church councils and the 

 decretals of the popes. It is, like most of the dogmas 

 and decrees which civilization owes to this powerful 

 hierarchy, a curious tissue of old traditions and new 

 fictions, political dogmas, and crass superstition. It is 

 directed to the despotic ruling of the uneducated masses 

 and the exclusive dominion of the Church — a Church 

 that calls itself Christian while thus acting as the very 

 reverse of pure Christianity. The canon law takes its 

 name from the dogmatic rules (or canons) of the Church. 

 They involuntarily suggest the metal tubes which are so 

 often the ultima ratio regis in the wars of Christian 

 nations. The canonical regulations of the Church, as 

 implements of a crude spiritual despotism, have no more 

 to do with the ethical laws of pure reason than the can- 

 nons of secular authorities have as naked organs of 

 physical force. We might write the motto, Ultima ratio 

 ecclesicB (the last argument of the Church), over the 

 sacred Corpus Juris Canonici. A collection of later 

 papal decretals which forms an appendix to the books 



324 



