, 1877-09-16

/ DOCTRINES OF PRE-EXIsTENcE.
We have printed on successive Sunday
| articles from the London Spectator on In,
mortality, and answers thereto Of ". II
GREG and others. 4 cognate subject, pos
| sessed of an interest almost rs fascinating
Is the doctrine Of Pre-existence propoundet
BY the ancients and entertained, with Ger
! tain secretiveness perhaps, BY vast number
| of modeTns. 4 writer who ought to be g1ad
to give his name to the world: but does not,
treats the subject exhaustlvely in the last
number of tho Penn AonAtIy, reviewing the
field from the early days of Buddhism and
Brahmnnism to the modern period Of Ed
! WARD BEEcHER. The doctrine travelled, it is
| well known, from India to Greece, where it
| was entertained ty PrTHAeonAs and PLATO,
ant, afterwards by PLo71Sus and Paoc1Us
Thence it passed over to Judaism through
PH1lo of Alexandria, The Pharisces, and the
Doctors of the kabbalah, and to Christian
Theology through the Alexandrian Gnostics
and OE1GES and his school
The reviewer observes, in predatory
way, that the docrine Of Pre-existenca
is intimately associated with the doctrine
of Immortality. Both imply certain
quality of prominence in spiritual essence
:: Where is our human dignity if we are
but the upstarts of yesterday? May not
that which so recently was not, with equal
right as soon lapse out Of being into oblivion?
It was this argument which Ind special
weight with the old Greek philosophers
They asserted the eternity of the soul in
order to vindicate its Immortality The
Christian conception Of Creation does, it is
true, deprive this argument Of Its literal force,
aud Jet our instructive belief in immortality
implies half-conscious acceptance Of some
such view Of the matter.
The intellectual feebleness of infants is
thought by some to contradict tho theory Of
4 previous existence, in which, it may be
supposed, q state Of advancement WAS reach
ed. In reply to this, it may be said that the
infunt, marked as is its feebleness in CON-
parison with the full growth Of manhood,
may yet be proficient in human learning as
compared with a lower order of beings, of
whose surroundings we neither know nor can
the conception of the infant as the produc:
Of 3 divine institution lower than our own is
at once hattering to the pride and soothing
to the fancy. The opinion TINT infants do |
not think merely because their thoughts do
not run in the same channels as those of !
their elders is premature ana audacious. As
DR.. UPPER or DR.. HOLLAND 50 e1qu;sitely |
remarks:
Who can tell what the baby thinks.
Who can follow the gossamcr links
By which the rnaniktn feels his way
Out from the shores Of the Great Unknown
Blind, and ssai1inr, and alone
Into the light OF day:
So much for the sentiment of the discus
;ion. Tue author we are following, how
,ver, does not indulge in sentiment He con-
radicts> the alleged results Of the study of
nfant psychology by holding ~ that the
aotu-o and extent Of the mental furniture
possessed by children obliges q resort to the
heory of prc~existence [2) that the pres-
mes Of radical eyil in the hearts of children
eeds many men of acute observation to be-
ieve that the human spirit had made choice
# the evil before its birth into this life; and
- that in the case Of second childhood we
ee that the spirit of man is capa-
lie Of being divested for time
the Il accumulated experience of long life.
nd of returning to Just such condition as
nat Of tile childwho is but newly gifted with :
ne powers of speech and motion stThe
rent and good prelate, FREDERICK CHRISTIAN
On oEr1SGER, of Wnrtemburg {1702-l7s2), !
ecaIne IN his old age devout and innocent !!
hid, after long life Of usefulness, partly
'ent in the composition OF works profound
speculative as we'll as thoroughly cdifyinr. c
he change began with q gratlual loss of J
'eech, so that for three years he was dumb. | I
.avlng his study aud his library, whose .
'oks were now sealed to him, lie would 90 y
the streets and sit down on the ground to
III tbs children in their plays, and by his
engerness in their games, and his w
ar1ng their rapturous delight in field, in IL
>od, in flowers, lie showed himself as much :, u
child rs any of his p1aymates. The waters -
StyI- which the ancients represented as .,
unk to produce forgetfuiness in souls who So
re about to re-enter upon this earthly life, B.
IL not altogether fabulous" dc
In this connection occurs consideration III
the common experience, in accordance ~
LII which nearly every person is placed in =" ~
ituation which he iudistluctly recalls as ~ ~
ring known before. Perhaps not much n
'crdence is to be placed on this expe- N,
nee. We are, indeed, such stuff MS bu
ANS ARC tnn<le OF, and our little life ia pu
nded with II sleep. Our author takes tho TIC
en'ous position with reference to uhesa NC
isslnct recolIectious that they result from. W W
'eEtal process akin to the muscular action
ch produces b,nocular vision. His u.s. s
'ptlon il perhaps triue fantastic; for mo
te is Just as little evidence of duality in t'a'
faculties us there is of immortality, and LII
Que assumption does not prove nor dis Is. ~:
We tue other. Duality in the bruin aud NJ,
The nervous organization is, indeed, a con
-sstabllshed fact, but It does not extend | On
roducts Of the forces excited by the Or Fra
sms-at least, there is no evidence that it Th1
). me
he history of the belief in pra-e1istence as1 1oa
scarcely be traced within tho limits Of A ,,a
spaper article. Metempsychosis was a the
nr4ie1a tina c-ool ~e |