CanÌƒon City record. [volume] (CanÌƒon City, Colo.) 1883-192?, 1906-05-24
out into the minutest particles.

neltner can million. Nothing multi
piled by million equals nothing. Mat
ter cannot think, yet we think. There
must be within us a thinking being
which is not matter
They tell us that thought is the re-
suit of chemical properties. Now all
chemical properties arise from motion,
position and degree of condensation
Is it not absurd that the shape of an
object, its density or its motion can
change dead matter into a thinking
being. Does shape give thought? Can
round object think better than a
square one2 Can dead matter moving
flying 430 miles an hour thing any
better than one lying in the cannon?
A thought without some power to
think is an absurdity Because the
brain is the seat of sensation, they
make it The thinking substance, but
we have shown that matter is not
capable ef thinking.
They tel! us that thinking is a
nervous sensation, that electricity act
ing upon the nerves will produce
thought. Were this true, by impart-
ing the proper quantity of electricity
TO an animal it would think like a
man; TO an idiot and he would be
come Shakespeare. Paradise Lost,
Hamlet Isaiah are not the product
of nervous excitement Every particle
of matter in the body changes every
seven years or less and yet we retain
our identity. We know that we are
the same person at sixty that We were
at six, but particles of matter In a
continual state of flux could not re
ceive and retain the consciousness of
personal sameness II the mind were
a part of the body it would lose in
power of recollection and personal
identity.
The strongest proof is that of CON
sciousness. We are conscious of a
presiding self in the body We CON
feel its imperial presence We
say. My. body. my mind It rules the
body. 1t wills and the body obeys 1t
drives the body out into the cold and
forces it through the storm. AT its
command the firemen enter the burn
ing building at the risk of life to save
the imperiiled child. At its command
the soldier, shrinking and fearful.
charges into the very jaws OF death
You might as well question the exist
ence of mind and body as of spirit
There are physical and mental facts
which prove the existence of ply
steal and mental world to which they
belong. To deny this would be to de
ny universal consciousness. but these
facts are not clearer than spiritual
facts. We talk of tender conscience
OF a moral sense. of a sense of ac-
TO God No arrangement
OF insensate atoms could give rise to
these feelings II there are spiritual
facts, there must be a spiritual nature.
We have hungering which nothing ma
terial or mental can satisfy There
are unmistakable proofs of a spiritual
nature.
Our argument is that this spirit
does not die with the body It with
draws from the body as the bird or the
butterfly from the chrysalis. We may
not understand how the spirit can eN-
list apart from the body because we
have not seen 1t The natives of the
tropics do not believe that water can
be frozen because they have never
seen ice, 1t is folly to deny the ex-
istence of that which we have not seen
because we cannot understand It. Be
cause the shell is necessary to the life
within is not proof that when the life
1t encloses is sufficiently developed
and the shell breaks the inmate must
die When the shell breaks the in
mate energies to fly away to the sweet
scented woods, thing of song and
sky,
"A material object consists of many
atoms. These may change form, but
nothing ceases to have existence.
When wood and coal are burned the
atoms are released from that particu-
lar combination but not one particle
ceases to be. They enter into new
Death is combustion
It produces the decay of the body
which is nothing less nor more than
the dissolution of that particular form
Of atoms that set at liberty they may
enter into other combin ations. From
the Greater until now not one atom
has ceased to exist Annihilation is
A myth in the natural world. The
spirit, the thinking, conscious part of
man is not composed of parts. 1t
knows itself to be unity. Were mans
spirit composed of parts like the body.
he would be made up of millions of
atoms, but the soul knows
itself to be indivisiblo. Each of us,is
himself and never can enter into an
other. Memory, experience and feel
ngs are not transferable, The spirit
either continues as it is or ceases to
exist II 1t cannot enter into another
it must either retain its
PERSONAL identity or be annihilated.