Thoughts on man

Front matter

library: OF CONGRESS.

SLiiO

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

CHAPTER I.— Evolution

The wonderous germ. Excitement about the subject of the life and destiny of man. The difficulties of science and theology. The necessity of a higher power than matter. Falsity of the theory of evolution from one germ by environment. The lack of energy in matter simply. Animal matter a medium through which life moves. Rapid development of the lowest Indian, and their difference from the ape. Strong desire of evolutionists to make their point. The missing link. The necessity of different germs of life. The result of the human ovum passing through all the lower orders of life. The " survival of the fittest."

CHAPTER II.— Evolution

The inability to trace the life of one order into one higher. Matter a servant of force. Necessity of different vital forces to make vegetable and animal fibre. Darwin and Hackel disagree. Falsity of spontaneous generation.

Table Of Contents

The project of multiplying species by art. The lost branch of the trunk. Age of the race of man and monkey. Soul creation and its manner. Necessity of a mind to direct. Higher development of man. No desire to worship in the ape. Connection of human with divine. Mind modified by the condition of matter. The specimen of the cave dwellers of the Bad Lands of Dakota.

CHAPTER JIWTtiE Influence of Mind.

Science and theology advancing. What are miracles? No necessity for them now. Division of the mind into its three principal parts. Table of division. Emotionits functions and power on the body and other minds- Its subdivision into hope, fear, expectation, faith, etc. Mesmeric power. Difference between faith cures and miracles. Mind cannot restore physical deformities. Mind on mind.

CHAPTER IV.— The Forces of Mind

Different ideas of force. Evidence of life and power. Different forces and laws. Tendency for all organic substances to return to their original state. A combination of forces in the human system, and their functions. Function of the soul. Death of the soul. Trinity of man. Difference between minds of man and of animals. Emotion and its effects. Man's accountability for will. His power of choice. Motives in choice. Purpose of action inherent.

CHAPTER V.— The Beginning of Man

The parallel existence of evil and good. The creation of man. His liberties. His fall and its transmission to the race. Creation of life and vitality, and its transmission. Witnessing of science and the Divine Word. Science in

TABLE OF CONTENTS. 7

the fog. Geological transformations as understood. They cannot account for man. Man's first physical condition. The wonders of Christ's birth. Christ compared with Adam. Man's growth and decline. Theory of the unity of Christ's humanity and divinity. Dispersion of the human family and populating the earth. Drummond on biogenesis of man.

CHAPTER VI — Death of Man and the Resurrection

Nature of Matter and its relations to power. How mirid is ' matter, and matter possessed. The Egyptian belief. Death struggles and their cause. Nature of death. Its physical changes. The separation of the trinity of man. Where is man after his body returns to dust. The impossibility of the resurrection of the natural body. No difference where man dies. How are the dead raised ? The two bodies and their nature. The difference between Christ's resurrection and ours. Shall we know our friends there ? Their form and condition.

CHAPTER VII.— The Future State of Man

Closing of the cycle of time. Science and theology agree in the end of the world. How it is to be destroyed. The fire-mist. The new heaven and new earth. The sea of glass. Man waiting for the new body. How it shall be governed, its faculties. Condition of the new earth. The New Jerusalem, its description.

^INTRODUCTIONS

§N writing this little volume, it is with the hope that I may throw a ray of light across the dark @Ag) waters, where minds are drifting without chart L or compass, subject to the veering of the current of public mind, and yet, at the mercy of the elements of darkness. We have three principal classes of people at the present time.

The larger class are those who have framed no definite idea of themselves in their different states of existence, — of mind and matter, or the force of Nature, that enter into the formation and control of all things. Many have a small idea of natural philosophy, and some none at all, their minds being occupied with other avocations of life, which are absolutely necessary for their comfort and immediate happiness, and such are made the prey of the false theories which are everywhere flooding the country in cheap literature and

IO INTRODUCTION.

lectures, and lessening their belief in the true nature of their being, and in the power of an Almighty God.

Another class is composed of those who, for some reason (God himself only knows, for they themselves cannot tell), teach a theory of infidelity — materialism — evolution — resulting finally in socialism and so-called free-thinkers, which mean more than the word alone. They do not pretend any special good is to arise from their doctrine to the human race, or relieve any anxious mind that is hoping for a future state, but try to kill and destroy all hope of a hereafter, which the human race has clung to from its earliest existence. Their only object seems to be to promulgate a doctrine that will best correspond with the natural result of their lives and justify that which they do. No doubt a dispersion or annihilation would be preferable to the fate of an unbeliever, and therefore I am not surprised that they try to argue away the principles of immortality.

Some have become so entangled by the web of science that whichever way they look it is all material, and they have so strained their imaginations, that even mind to them furnishes only matter for investigation ; all to them is chance — a throwing together of all primitive elements, and a selection and environment without any direction or intention, but naturally resulted in something which was not known or planned until its final completion, then the thing knew itself.

INTRODUCTION. II

They theorize material and spread it out over so large a surface that it becomes so thin and transparent that it does not cover the nakedness of their false teaching.

Then there is another class which guards vigilantly its theological field and declines even to look through scientific laws at all for fear of being stranded upon some scientific rock, or drifted away from the theological clime where they have lived and enjoyed it in seclusion from childhood.

Some truth can be gathered from all things with care, and be so properly applied that it strengthens a good work.

I believe science is the Bible, only in different language and form, when properly applied, and if we do not see harmony, it is because it is not read correctly, and no one should be more eager to read the book of nature to-day than he who reads the Written Word.

It is with the hope that minds of these different classes may be stimulated to act and reach out for deeper thought, that induces me to put in print these fragments of principles upon which our minds are so tossed and drifted by teachers of an infidel world to-day.

Infidelity is easier taught than truth. Weeds need no cultivation, they grow spontaneously, but things of worth need continual care.

1 2 INTRODUCTION.

Sinful thoughts and desires are the natural out-growth of fallen man, and for right is where the struggle comes.

So with he who floats down the running stream; gravitation carries him on and down ; but let him try to land above, or elevate his plane of life; it takes many hard and strong pulls against the natural desires.

And in this little work I hope a seed of thought may fix upon your mind, and if it does not bear a type of that which is sown, may it be of greater worth and move on the work of investigation and research.

My object is to harmonize the discords of the crashing sounds eminating from mighty brain and experienced pen ; but both cannot be all right, therefore each may be partly right and partly wrong, and so may I ; and yet, if we hold our peace no progress will ever be made. Yet, let God live if man be made a liar.

It is well to survey our enemy's ground, as by so doing we are better able to know their strength and meet them at their weaker points, and often we are able to even turn their own batteries upon their theory, and with their own weapons batter their seeming strongholds to the ground.

Theologians one day could confine their studies alone to Bible thought, but now the times demand

INTRODUCTION. I 3

an answer to knotty questions, which have arisen through opposition and inquisitive minds, and must be met. This requires a knowledge of other things, and some idea of the unseen force of natural law.

These questions should be answered by the friends of the Scripture, and not have to submit to the interpretation of the enemies of the Word.

We should be ready to give a reason for the hope that is within us, and be not slow to maintain the the principles of right wherever the lines may fall. There is a rapid progression being made in all matters of interest, and it will not pay those who contend for right to stand idle and fail to use the means at their disposal to obtain knowledge.

As fast as the enemy of right and God forge guns of infidelity, whether under the pretense of science or otherwise, to batter down our defense of the identity, and life, and immortality of the human soul, let us raise ini proportion our line of defense, and make strong the points of attack, and hurl them back into their own made grave they dug for us.

As fast as science unveils truth we have an equal right to its use, and when properly applied it will give us stronger faith and greater knowledge of the works of God. We have as strong scientific men and philosophers as live to-day — thorough christian men — and may their ranks ever be kept full. But let infidelity do its best, it only sharpens faith and

14 INTRODUCTION.

roots and grounds our principles more firmly in the one almighty truth — that there is a God on which all nature stands, and moves through its mighty cycles of endless time. Science furnishes only another witness as testimony to the rock of eternal truth.

DEVOLUTIONS

Chapter I

What mean those microscopic germs upon the earthy Are they to multiply, grow and bring forth Vegetable, animate and inanimate forms : Develop into all the kingdoms and then return V Or does there more of hidden form exist, Composed of microscopic man, of life and soul consist Or is our life one long, unbroken chain, From moneron up the ascending scale to man? And is there naught beyond this mortal state For man to hope or conscious man to wait ? Or does this end all when man returns to dust- To lifeless clay, as science says he must ? May we not hope that life exists beyond, And a place unseen for conscious spirits found ? Where we can sweep with telescopic y^s unknown, The univsrsal worlds around our home?

§N discussing the principles of evolution, I only speak of a few of the principal points wherein qKg) we may differ from the teachers of that theory, X for my object is to give the reader land marks here and there, that he may from these points think for himself, and be fully convinced of the principles which are herein contained.

Nothing seems to excite the mind of man to criticism, distrust and unbelief as much as a subject which has in view the eternal welfare and happiness of man, and nothing is called to stand the siege of the batteries of unscrupulous minds and evil hearts as the origin, life and destiny of man. Why persons should try to work their minds into a belief simply to oppose that which seems the most plausible, and would give us the greatest prospect of good and the only hope of eternal happiness, is more than I can tell, but such seems to be the state of things at the present day. I do not say they do not believe what they write, or that they do not see some phenomenal development in the likeness of the various animal organisms which suggests to them that they may have developed from the one parent, for I must confess, if one's mind were turned that way and any prejudice should exert its influence, we might easily construe all we beheld to read to our imaginations only evolution. But while there are some things which may suggest this, there are many things which are of vast importance and weight which cannot be reconciled by such a theory.

It seems to be the case with many, that when a man commences to build up a theory, and is continually looking from one standpoint, he is apt to see everything as colored by that medium, and that alone through which they look, let it be philosophy or the-

OF, LANDMARKS OF TRUTH. I 7

ology; and all other theories, be they ever so plausible to an unprejudiced mind, cannot be tolerated as having even a shade of truth.

Many times science has had to retreat, re-survey its field and fight again its battles, for time had proved its theories false. So, also, theology has had to surrender some of her beloved ideas, cherished so long by our forefathers. Not because of the untruth of the Word, but because of misinterpretation ; and science failed because of the determination of its votaries to fight it out on scientific principles, and those alone, as well as from their inability to read Nature's laws and interpret them as they really exist, therefore neither is infallible. If I had laid before me two offers or propositions, the one giving substantial results as gain and the other nothing — if I were obliged to choose from the two — although I might have some doubts equally in both, I surely should chose the one that would give me prospects of good returns in the end.

So it seems to me that those who hold out the theory of materialism and no future happiness, when they see, as they do, their inability to establish it firmly by their philosophy to ease their anxious minds and restless spirits, would flee to that which offers hope, rather than cling to that which offers none; but such are the peculiarities of mankind.

If matter was the only existing substance, and power and all force was evolved from this material, and that tangible matter did not result from a power higher than matter, then we might believe in the power of matter to advance in grade of existence and evolve mind ; but it seems as inconsistant as was the act of the foolish boy who stepped into a basket and taking hold of the handles gave a vigorous lift to elevate himself to a higher plane.

But if the higher order of existence and power were first, then we would believe that matter and organized bodies were formed because of force, or a higher power, whatever its nature may be ; and if we can reason thus, then we have a solution to the great problem of life ; otherwise you may rake over the countless volumes of Nature's laws for ceaseless ages and you will fail to find the philosopher's stone that will solve this problem of vital force and human life

Then the geologist and naturalist, and embryolo gist would teach us that all embryonic life is the same, that there is no material difference between the ovum of the lower order of animals and man, that they are all composed of albumen, observe the same order of development, and as they progress in that order of growth, pass through the likeness of all the lower species, at last arriving at the plane intended; that they are governed in their development and their future plane of being by the environment or influence of external nature and impressions. And they have so magnified the matter by their own imaginations that they verily believe the folds in the neck of the human embryo are the veritable gills of a fish, and that the elongation of the spine, caused by a lack of development of the gluteaus muscles, is the veritable tail of its ancester, the monkey. If these things be true, and we have no further safeguard to our being, the ingenuity of scientific men and inquisitive mind of man will yet find some means of stopping the further development at the different stages of existence, and populate the earth with all the varied forms and curiosities of living beings that mind can imagine. And it is being talked at the present day, by a set of so-called scientists, that species of human life will be propagated without the aid of sex. According to their vague, and worse than false theories, if the ovum or egg of all are the same, they would only have to bring them under the same influence and environment and any or all could become human. It would seem no philosophic mind could help but believe that there was an entity — a life — a force within the parent cell, which, when unfolded, as is destined to be, will develop the form of man and nothing else, or into the same species or kingdom as that from which the vital force was taken.

Was it the environment that formed the shell of the clam? Was it the continual working of the bivalve that formed the hinge of the shell, that it might be protected by the closing of the door of its house?

Was it the instinct of the duck that led it to the water, and then, when there, by a constant effort to swim, causing a working of the feet and toes, resulting in the development of web feet ? Was it not the same power which gave it the instinct that fitted it at the same time to occupy this watery home; or gave wings to the eagle to soar in the azure blue, and beak and talons to tear its prey?

Was it the struggles of the fishes to glide through the mighty deep, sport in the sunbeams along the shoals, and gather their food from the washings of the shores, that brought forth fins ?

W T as it the struggles of the reptile wriggling among the rocks and plains that brought forth feet and caused it to assume an upright form and walk; or efforts to soar through the heavenly spheres that caused the mighty wings to grow and make the wonderful flying-dragon that geologists give as relics of days and ages gone ?

Was it the instinct of the ape that caused it to seek a more upright position, refuse to use it 3 fore feet for locomotion, change its form and refused to use its tail as a useful member until it dropped from his body for want of something to do, and so gradually worked its way up to man ? Who supervised all this progress of development of the ontogeny of man ? If these were facts, would it not be as great an effort for Divine mind — aye, and even more, than to make them and endow them with the power of propagation of their own species, and that alone?

They speak of species caused by the freaks of nature and monstrosities, but history shows that monstrosities do not lead out in the population of our world, but soon fade from view, leaving only a slight tendency to the return of the same deformity much less than to a perfect form, and then the)* lose their power of propagation, and only for new departures would fade away, for all such influences tend to a degeneration of kind.

Scientists have raked over the fields of the present and past ages, and have solved, as they believe, a great mystery*, viz : that all flesh is composed of the same substance, and therefore they must be descendents of the same great ancestry* ; that the change of form and function is caused by the external influence and environment, as if form and figure were all.

We might as well say the same of iron and other existing matter which surround us on all sides.

We have viewed the locomotive standing upon the track, or moving along the rails like a thing of life; we see it composed of wood, iron, brass and steel ; we then pass along a deserted road, and standing by the open field, we observe a machine with wheels composed of iron and wood and steel ; we observe it has been fashioned by some power similar to that with which the locomotive had been framed ; a man comes along and says that it is a riding plow ; no, says the philosopher, it is the father of the iron horse, because it is composed of steel, iron, wood and brass, not taking in connection the fact that their use is not the same, and although they came into existence by the action of the forces of the mind of man, mechanical force and chemical force, yet the object of their creation was different, and their sphere of action is different. One is a machine which is to be drawn, and so secondly become a benefit and a useful thing ; the other is a condenser of force, and acts as a tractor or mover of thousands of tons weight ; not that it had to be first a riding plow and then a locomotive, but that matter was subject to the same power of mind, and that this power, knowing the sphere of usefulness that each should occupy, constructed each from similar matter, to be subservient to the different forces which should move them. So with man ; he is composed of a substance similar to the lower animal — bone, flesh and blood — fashioned and framed to meet the plane of usefulness which was in view in his creation ; composed of the inorganic matter which is gathered from the recesses of the organic and inorganic world, and which has migrated, moved and changed from one element to another, perhaps through the chain of vegetable or animal life — lime, soda and potassa, iron, phosphates and carbonates — all taken by this life force and molded, shaped and prepared by organic and animal life for the building of a structure far superior to all others existing upon our earth — the king of creation — MAN !

No other life or force could take the material and fashion and build this structure but the organic and vital life of man.

It is the life and vital force which has gathered and appropriated the elements to the building of this temple, and they are not new elements, for they have existed from the old Eozoic period, through countless ages to now, only waiting for the hand of the Great Master Workman to place them in the great structure of the human body. Fashioned by the one great mind of divine law, to occupy a different plane of life, and subserve the different forces of the higher creation. Not that man must first be a monkey to be a man, and thus be possessor of flesh, but the same mind that fashioned the first germ of life, by the same power could take the same matter, and with an activity of the same mind construct different machines of life to go forth and fulfill the mission of the world. So, also, steel is not only the agent for the action of steam, but is a medium for the force of magnetism and the conductor of the force of electricity. It enters into the formation of massive structures. It forms the ax that cleaves the mighty forest, and the hammer that crushes the hardest rock.

So animal life, and flesh and blood, are the foundation of the plane of the living world ; but the divine mind has given to each a plane of life and usefulness, and endowed man, especially, with a power which does not exist in any other created being, and that is the power of progression, invention and moral conception. The monkey will imitate, while man originates. T. H. Huxley says: the apes in the forests of Africa assemble around the dying fires of the traveler and enjoy the warmth of the few remaining coals, but never replenish the dying embers. They have no power to advance in their mode of life and knowledge, except as each is taught by man, and then it is performed as a mechanical act, but with no ideational thought.

I have seen a native of the lowest tribe of the American Indian — one of the Root Diggers of the plains — taken when a small child and, brought up under the influence of civilization, develop into a man of talent and usefulness. His physique showed the blood of his ancesters, and his features were peculiar to his race. Profanity was not heard in him ; he was apt in the customs of the whites ; advanced rapidly in cla'ssical education, and stood foremost in his class ; served in the late war — a good and faithful soldier — and afterward preached the gospel to his people, and now is professor of a school for the education of his people, well advanced in the profession. If he had remained where he was, to-day he would have been wandering" the plains, enjoying his wild, uncultivated state of savage life.

You say it was cultivation ; so it was, but we had that which to cultivate and expand. He had a brain capable of expansion — capable of multiplying thought ; he had the machinery wherein was the pre-requisite for the expansion of forces, therefore, the forming of ideas and logical conclusions in the mind.

Christian influences will develop such beings as these; civilization will in turn feel the influence of their minds and respond to their thoughts.

But how is it with the ape? What is the experience of those who have raised them and kept them in the midst of civilization? Are they not where they stood one thousand years ago — no ideas, no progression ?

Have they, with all their training, developed into the most meagre form of mental energy ? They neither inherit nor acquire the faculties of the mind of man. It is all imitation and no progression with them.

The reason of this is plain ; the machinery necessary for this great function in the structure of the brain was left out ; there was no necessity for such a thing, for the sphere of life it was to occupy was be low this scale of being. And why left out ? Simply because there were no forces intended in the great plan of Almighty Mind to endow it with this power, as it was reserved for a higher and nobler being than they — Man.

Man is graded according to his privileges and christian cultivation, and advances in that ratio.

But the ape — show me one that has advanced to the line of lowest man ; or one that has been seen to manifest a desire to worship a being supposed to possess or even represent a creative power. Show me one that, by its own powers of mind, has advanced one step in its mode of living from what it was thousands of years ago, or made an invention by its imaginative thought and mental conception.

Where is the difficulty? You see all the parts of the brain developed as in man, but in a lesser degree, it is true. Take the brain of the ape and subject it to analysis, and you find it containing the same chemical properties ; if material, only, was necessary to formation of mind, you should find it there ; perhaps not so intense, but in all of the forms of ideas, expectation and imagination. Chemical analysis reveals no substance called mind, or answering to its nature. It must be an intangible substance — an imponderable agent — something which only responds to the test of mind and forces of soul. Then why are we not justified in saying that matter of the brain is only a medium through which the forces of the mind pass — a possessor of an incorporeal entity, differing not in matter, but in spiritual entity — a different power in the ape than in man — taking up its abode in animal matter — the same chemically, yet differing in mechanism, to subserve the purpose of life which was marked out for it to follow down the ages of time.

Show me the being that stands, as it must, according to science, with one hand of its ancestry grasping the hand of the lowest specimen of the human race, and the other dipping down into the animal kingdom and grasping the paw of the ape, uniting this great vacancy in development which Darwin calls "The Missing Link."

If the ape lives to-day, and has lived for 30,033 years, where, Oh where, is the developed race that has brought us up out of this wilderness of monkeydom, and stands in the mediatorial state to show us of our parental life ? . Here the principal as advanced by Darwin, of " Survival of the Fittest," would fall to the ground, for it implies a survival of the higher order and extinction of the lower order; but here we have it reversed. The question, then, in the creation of species seems to be, whether there is not the working out of a design originating in a Supreme Being, by gathering and utilizing the different laws in existence to frame the different forms which occupy the various spheres of life; or whether the instinct or intuitive force given the creature causes it to put forth efforts to use the rudimentary organs, as Darwin and others claim, causing them to grow and develop into full and useful members. Even if we should concede the latter proposition, we would have to account for the origin and direction of this intuitive force and instinct, for the accomplishment of a purpose; for there could not exist within the creature an inherent intelligence to cause it to exert a power for that end even after it had been created, as they would claim, by evolution. It would be more reasonable and easier for us to conceive of the idea of an arrangement of the laws and forces, or instruments in the hands of the Great Architect to meet the wants of a creative power. All plans revert back to this point and stand as proof of an object in the various forms and multiplication of species in animal life. Evolutionists have tried to establish the theory of man evolving from the ape by the selection of monstrosities and abnormalities of the human specie. Some being exhumed from the midst of the plains, some from caves or mountain cliffs. While writing there is being exhibited a specimen of the wonders oi the age advertised to be ths petrified body of a Cave or Cliff Dweller of the prehistoric race. It was found in a cave in the Bad Lands of Dakota, U.S., July 20, 1885. Its heighth is about three and a half feet; arms reached below the knees; feet and hands ordinary size, and similar in shape to those of a small woman. The arms were strong, and the vessels filled with blood, petrified, stand out in full lines, as does, also the cords of the hands, feet and wrists ; the thighs and legs small and shrunken, were short in proportion to the arms ; the pelvis was narrow ; body tapering and long in proportion to the legs, but compared well in length with the arms ; shoulders large and broad ; the neck had receded between the shoulders, probably after death, and during the changing thereto.