Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1899-02-02
OBJECTION TO IMMORTALITY.
Prof. James Considers and Refutes
One of the Arguments Advanced
by Modern InfdeIity.

The formula, thought is function
Of the BRAIN" involves one of the most
influential arguments against the be-
lief in immortality. The inference is
easy that when the brain is destroyed
by death human personality vanishes.
Prof. William James, of Harvard uni
versity, in his little volume, Human
Immortality" has made valuable con-
tribution TO religious thought by an
alyZing the relation of this inference to
the formula, and by showing that the
conclusion is by no means inevitable.
We hope that many of our readers will
procure and master Prof. James dis
cussion, but we may be rendering them
a service indicating the course of rea-
soning by which he shows that we are
not shut up to a conclusion which de-
MES immortality on the basis of this
postulate Of the Psychologist.
Prof. James thesis is this: THAT
when we think of the law that thought
is a function of the brain, we are not re-
quired TO think of productive function
only; we are entitled also TO consider
permissive or missive function"
For example, TO use his illustrations
the trigger of cross bow has a releas-
ing function; it removes the obstacle
that holds the string and lets the bow
fly back to its natural place. In a col
ored glass or prism we have a transmits
siye function. The energy of light is
not produced by the glass, but it is
sifted or limited in color or by a lens
is determined TO a certain path or
shape.
When the Psychologist tells us that
thought is function of the brain, and
proceeds to draw his materialistic con-
clusion that when the brain perishes
the soul dies, he is thinking of thought
as made in the brain. but may it not be
that the brain is the organ for the
transmission Of thought, just as the
lens transmits the light which il does
not produce? 1t seems to US that this is
n fair reply and a fair escape from the
denial of immortality to which so many
of our Psychologists think they are shut
up. Il is not unreasonable to suppose
that there is a spiritual world behind.
above and beyond this material world,
and that. TO quote Prof James: Our
brains are thin and half transparent
places in the veil In those
places CLEANS. however finite and I'M
satisfying, of the absolute life of the
universe are, from time to time. vouch
safed CLOVIS of feeling. glimpses of
insight, and streams of knowledge and
perception float into our finite world"
To the objection that this is simply
imagination, and that science knows
nothing of the process of transmission
of thought by the brain, it is quite in
order TO reply that neither does science
know anything about the processes OF
the production of thought, or of states
of consciousness by the brain. On all
hands it is admitted that the genesis
of consciousness is the world enigma"
1t is not our purpose TO seek TO adj
just this theory to any particular phi
losophy. We simply wish to point out
that the conclusion that the soul dies
when the brain perishes, is not neces-
sarily logical inference from the
scientific formula that thought is n
function of the brain. 1t no more fol-
lows that the soul dies when the body
dies than it follows that light ceases
when the colored glass or prism
through which it streamed is broken
into 1 900 pieces. Shelley had more than
a furtive intimation of this concep-
ton when he wrote:
The One remains. the many change and
pass;
Heavens light forever shines, earth's
shadows fly;
Life, like a dome OF many-colored glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until death tramples It to fragments.
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