94 IJic American Geologist. August, ifoo 
should never know the law of the creation of man, of the nature of 
life, mind, etc., yet these things are to-day measurably cleared up. So 
with the life out of the brain (or body, as people say). If I thought I 
could in obedience to sound reason deny a future state, I think I 
would be willing to do so; but as it is, I think denial of it is without 
sufficient basis of evidence (it only claims the negative kind) and is 
not a proposition that would be accepted by the scientific world as 
proven. 
Analogy is all the other way. The force which pushed the lower 
forms of life forward in their developmental progress, was not disap- 
pointed of its results. Many fell by the way, i. e. the unfit, and many 
have remained to occupy subordinate places in the last (existing) 
economy of nature. But one of the lines realized the highest power, i. 
e. brain power, bj' which the species (man) which possesses it, rules 
the creation with the fewest advantages of bodily strength and mate- 
rial weapons. While all other lines maintained themselves by the per- 
fection of their instruments of ofifence, defence, and physical grati- 
fication, the one which led to man, the quadrumanous, was cultivating 
the higher faculties of intelligence. 
I cannot but believe that the same will be the result in the depart- 
ment of mind. Each of the faculties might be regarded as a mental 
species. Some are unfit, and will be extinguished by the workings 
of the social systems; others are fit and will be persistent. The high- 
est of these is exact justice to others, or the "love to the neigh- 
bor." * * * 
'T strongly suspect that a material docrine of the future state will 
be more or less understood at some future time. Mental phj'siology 
even renders it probable. It is evident that there is not only a de- 
velopment of force (by conversion) in the production of the highest 
kind of mental function; but of the arrangement of atoms of matter 
also, and why this matter might not persist in other relations than 
those it finds in the human brain I cannot see. The vegetable makes 
protoplasm out of inorganic substance, and the animal makes the vari- 
eties of protoplasm which converts force into many others, as heat, 
motion, and the various kinds of thought. Why a third change of 
matter should not occur, a kind being produced to which the boun- 
daries of the body should not be necessary, I cannot perceive; such 
matter would, of course, have its own peculiarities as a force con- 
verter, like any other substance. This is far in the region of spec- 
ulation, and many would regard it as wild, but hypothesis is always 
the first step towards knowledge. So I dare not deny a future life, and 
as we all probably wish it, in case it should be happy, we may seek 
for phenomena which indicate the existence of such a state of happi- 
ness in the human mind in this world. * * * jf ^^ believe in a de- 
velopment into a future life, we must believe that as many have gone 
before us, that future state must be well populated. If this be true 
I see no difficulty in supporting that communication, and hence 
prayer is a reasonable thing." * * * 
