Its Composite and Dissoluble Nature. i8i 



terrestrial life, and at present, alas, almost as evanescent 

 as a flower. What the scientific world has most need to 

 apprehend is the principle hy which Nature works to form 

 a soul. 



The theological penchant for conceiving of the soul as 

 an irrefrangible unit or entity, leads constantly to errone- 

 ous conclusions concerning it and concerning its fate 

 after the death of the organism. Even introspection 

 shows us that self-consciousness is but a play of the 

 primary sentience of matter over an organized fabric 

 of brain ; that we are ^intelligent as far as the ex- 

 perience of life has impressed itself on that brain fabric 

 and no farther; that obliterate this recorded experience 

 of life, ancestral and personally acquired, and naught 

 remains to us of personality; naught save impersonal 

 feeling. Individuality, personality, soul, comes only after 

 an axis of self-consciousness has been set up in living 

 matter ; it grows up about such a life-axis by virtue of 

 organization of the living substance. Under certain 

 favorable conditions the low-sentient property of un- 

 organized matter appears able to inaugurate unicellular 

 life. 



The conception of an unorganized " spirit " personality 

 afloat in space,- coming and going, formed and unformed 

 from time to time, is an anomally which presents itself 

 with growing absurdity as one's knowledge of Nature 

 increases. 



