20 KEV. A. E. WHATELY, D.D._, ON IMMORTALITY. 



personal relation to the Eternal, and therefore our eternal 

 personality. In that communion, death is already left 

 behind. 



And as our relation to God excludes all fear of mere 

 absorption in nature or humanity, so our membership of the 

 redeemed society, and our relationships with its other members, 

 bar out all idea of absorption in God. Between God and the 

 Church stands the individual, secured on both sides in the 

 unalienable possession of his personal identity. 



I had wished to take up the question of the relation of soul 

 and body, but all that can be done now is to indicate the line 

 that would be taken. If we are right in rejecting the idea of 

 a mere soul-substance, separable from its manifestations, we 

 certainly cannot build upon any extreme form of Interactionism, 

 the sharp antithesis of soul and body. That the soul is largely 

 independent of the body as we know it through ordinary science — 

 the body that dies — seems to be proved by Dr. McDougall in 

 his important and interesting book, "Body and Soul." But, 

 after all, it is in accordance with sound psychology — here James 

 has taught us w^ell — to include the body in the idea of person- 

 ality. But in what sense ? Not, assuredly, the mere matter of 

 which it is composed, which changes constantly, but the form 

 and functions of the organism. Now it has been well pointed 

 out that the more we explain the spiritual part of us in terms 

 of its material vehicle, the more spiritual does that vehicle 

 become, the more distinguished from common material objects. 

 After all, what do we know of the body ? Need we be so hasty 

 in brushing aside the conclusions reached by occult investigation, 

 whatever we may think of the philosophies associated with 

 them ? Why should we assume that the narrow range of 

 vibrations that convey to us the sights and sounds of earth, 

 embraces all physical reality ?* Surely the presumption is all 

 the other way. If the soul always requires some sort of physical 

 vehicle, and yet proves itself too vast for the body as we know 

 it, have we not the right to argue from the higher to lower ? 



To put it another way, the more exclusively narrow and 

 mechanical the categories employed in the study of the body, 

 the more surely do we block ah initio all pathways to broader 

 and deeper understanding even of the body itself. The more it is 

 cut off from the personality, the more intrusive and unmeaning 



* See also article, " Mrs. Piper and the Subliminal Consciousness," by 

 E. Bozzano : Annals of Psychical Science^ September, 1906. 



