The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-09-14

veloped when the flame on that new altar of
later life, of which you are the sacred priestess.
| brings to reproduction such miraculous
| epitomes' She would not. and could not under
stand, of course; yet all this is matter of common
observation, the well-esta blished fact of hered
| ity by pangenesis, certain though Incompetent
sible. What, therefore, is there to be pro-
/ bounced impossible because of our blindness, In
/ regard to endless continuity and succession ln
| individuality, when out of the holy ignorance of
such maidenly simplicity there can be thus
subtly and steadfastly prepared the lndescrlo-
able beginnings of motherhood If one result or
| each human life should be to produce, more or
less completely a substantial, though at present
| invisible environment for the next higher stage
| while handing on, by collateral lives the lamp
| of humanity to new hands-that would not be
much more strange than the condensation of the
| oak tree in the acorn. or the natural sorcery of
| the contact of the milt and the spawn. Mir
| acles' are cheap enough!
| Another consideration having some force is
| that should find ourselves specializing about
| this matter at all All the other aspirations of
| infancy, youth and manhood turn out more
less to bs prophecies. Instincts explain and
Justify themselves, each by each. The body
Ioresees and provides for its growth by appetite;
the mind expands toward knowledge by childish
curiosity the young heart predicts, by the flushed
cheek and quckening pulse, the gentle master
| passion which it does not yet understand. There
| is significance, like the breath of a perpetual
whisper from nature in the way in which the
theme of his own immortality leases and haunts
man. Note also that he discusses it least and
decides about it most dogmatically in those
diviner moments when the breath of a high inn
pulse sweeps away worka-day doubts and
selhshness. What blow to the
philosophy of negation is the sailor
! leaping from the taffrai Of his ship into
| an angry sea to save his comrade to perish
with him! He has never read either Plato
| OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES not even that heavenly
verse, Whose loseth his life for my sake, the
same shall save it" But arguments which are
as far beyond philosophy as the unconscious life
is deeper than the conscious, sufficiently pur-
| suade him to plunge "Love that stronger is
than death" bids him dare for her imperous
| sake, the weltering abyss; and any such deed of
| sacrifice and heroic contempt of peril of itself
lleveS himself to know about his own immor-
| tallty. Every miner working for life and chill
dren in a fiery" pit; every soldier standing cool
and firm in those desertzarebas of Stewart and
| Graham, offers a similar Endorsement of the
| indignant sentence, eff rats and maggots end
us, then alarum! for we are betrayed"
| Well, it will be said. but we may be be-
trayedV The bottom of the sea, as the dredg-
relics of countless elaborate lives seemingly
| wasted The great pyramid is mountain of
| by gone nummutes. The statesman's marble
| statue is compacted from the shells and casts of
| tiny creatures which had as good right to i'm
| mortality from their own point of view as he.
| Moreover, it may be urged, the suicide, who
| only seeks peace and escape from trouble con-
| fronts death with just as clear decisveness as
| the brave sailor dutiful soldier. Most sui
| cides however in their last written words,
seem to expect change for the better, rather
| than extinction; and it is curious proof of the
| propriety and selfrespect of the very desperate,
| that forlorn women, jumping from Waterloo
bridge, almost always fold their shawls quite
| neatly, lay them on the parapet, and place
their bonnets carefully atop, as if the fatal bal
| ustrade We're but boudOir for the disrobing
| soul. In regard to the argument of equal rights
| of continuous existence for all things which live,
| 1t must be admitted. If the bathybia-nay,
| even if the trees and the mosses-are not, as to
| that which makes them individual, undying. man
will never be. If life be not as inestingulshable
| In every egg of the herring, and in every bird
and beast, as in the poet and the sage. it is ex-
| tngushable in angels and archangels. What
| then is that varying existence which sur
vlve and take new shapes, when the small dying
Sea-creature drops its flake of pearl to the ooze,
when the dog fish swallows a thousand trivial
herring fry, and when the poet and sage lie
| silent and cold?
The reason why nobody has ever answered is
| that each stage of existence can only be appre-
hended and defined by the powers appertaning to
it. Herein turks the fallacy which has bred such
contempt for trancendental specuations, be-
| cause people try to talk of what abides beyond,
| in terms Of their present experience 1t is true
they must do this OF else remain silent; but the
| inherent disability of terrestrial speech and
| thought ought to be kept more constantly in
view. How absurd it is, for example, to hear
astronomers arguing against existence in the
moon or In the sun, because there seems to be
no atmosphere in one and the other is envel-
oped in blazing hydrogen! Beings are at least
| conceivable well fitted to iphale incandescent
gas. or not to breathe any gases at all; to live
upon the diluted oxygen of our own air. EN-
bodied life is, in all cases, the physiological
equation of its envroning conditions. Water
and gills lungs and atmosphere, coexist by
correlation; and stars. suns and planets may
very we'll be peopled with proper inhabitants as
natural as nut bushes, though entirely beyond
the wit of man to imagine Even here, in
own low degrees of life, how could the oyster
| comprehend the flashing cruises of the sword
fish; or he conceive the flight and nesting of
| bird! Yet these are neghbors and fellow
| dodgers upon the same globe. Of that globe we
build our bodies; we speak by agitating its air;
| we know no light save those few lines of its
explored solar spectrum to which our optic
nerve responds We have to think in
terms of earth experience, as we have to
/ live by breathing the earth envelope. We
ought to be treasured. therefore, rather than
disconnected. by the fact that nobody pre-
tend to understand and depict the future life for
| it would prove sorely inadequate if it We're at
present ineligible. To know that cannot
now know is ar immense promise of coming
enlightenment. We only mediate safely when
we realize that space, time and the phenomena
of sense the provisional forms of thought.
| Mathematicans have made US familiar with at
| least the idea of space Of four and more dimeri-
| slons AS for time it is AN appearance due to
the motion of heavenly bodies, and by going close
to the north pole and walking eastward, man
might. automatically wind back again
| the lost days of his life upon a re-
versed calendar. Such simple considerations
rebuke materialists who think they have
found enough in finding Claw" which is really
but temporary memorandum of observed
order, leaving quite unknown the origin of it
and the originator. Even to speak, therefore, of
! future life in the terms of the present is IRA
tional, and this inadequacy of our faculties
should guard us from illusions of disbelief as
we'll as of belief Nature, like many a tender
mother, deceives and puts off her children habit
ually. We learned from Calico, not from her,
that the earth went round the sun; from Har-
vey, not from her, how the heart worked; from
| Simpson. not from her, how the measureess