The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1902-08-21
4 MELANGE OF LIVE TOPICS
Penned for journal Readers
by q Local Scribe.
NOT IMPROBABLE.

COul HhcllIluB upon the SOOO
qualities of Clio, the elephant,
and her recent death at the Grant
Park loo a writer ia recent num-
Der of the Atlanta Journal ex-
presses the belief that this amiable
animal has not returned to insen-
safe clay, but has gone to a higher
state Of existepce sharing with
man the attribute of Immortality.
The writer has always believed
that with many members of the
brute creation death does not end
all. Many animals are by nature
endowed with such noble charac-
teristics that it would be q great
waste of moral power to allow
them to relapse into nothingness
upon the dissolution of the body.
To say nothing of moral forces ma
ture does not work in this manner
in her physical manifestations.
Not all atom is lost notwithstand-
ing all the changes body may
undergo. Wood may be reduced
to ashes by fire thus changing its
form but every single particle of
the original billet is still at hand.
This has been proven experiment
tally by weighing the billet before
burning it and then collecting the
ashes, gas and smoke and weigh
ing them after the burning. The
weight in both cases was exactly
the same. Consequently analo-
gies teach us that high moral and
intellectual forces ought also to
be immortal and Independent of
the body. The body requires that
it's wants shall De gratifed and
when this is done there should be,
provided there is no spiritual side.
entire adaptability to it's environ
meLts. Thus field of cotton is
carefully tended by it's owner and
1T thrlyes and produces him &
good crop but it has no gratitude
and affection for him for the
pains he has taken on its account.
This want of affection for it's own
er because of attention shown it
IS true of the hog and other lower
animals.
But when the element of affec-
tion is found in the animal which
seems to be independent of the
bodily functions since there are a
great humber of cases on record
where the higher animals (dogs,
horses, etc. have violated the in
stincts of the body by sacrificing
their lives to preserve those of the
objects of their affections, does
an entirely new element enter the
equation which demands a differ
ent solution from that of the first
case? If matter Is immortal why
should not affection and intelli-
gence, whose manifestations are
far higher than those of matter,
be immortal also? 1t is an axiom
that nature makes no mistakes.
Every organism is endowed with
an instinct to sustain and pre- serve
it's body. If nature gave many
animals attributes which caused
them to do violence to their in
stincts by sacrificing their bodies,
without compensating them there
for in another forp of existence
she made huge and unjust mis-
take sssss..ss..-..
If Clio is the animal that she
is represented to have been the
writer believes that it is not at all
impossible that she had an I'M
mortal spirit which is now in
heaven. The writer further be-
lieves that many animals endow-
ed with higher moral nature than
are preserved by many human
beings, especially of numerous
savage tribes to whom gratitude,
honor and sympathy are unknown
terms, and that many of these
higher animals will GO to heaven
at death and that vast numbers of
the lower type Of man will not go
there.