Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-06-07
THE SOULS REALITY
Rv Il Addingtnn Bruce

THERE still are people who deem 1t
mark of superior Intelligence of disbe-
lieve in the reality of the soul. They
point to the assumptions and findings of mod
ern materialistic science and approvngly
quote such dicta as Littre'S:
To-day there is no longer any doubt that in
| tellectual and moral phenomena are phenomena
of the nervous tissue, that humanity is only a
link in chain that stretches down to the
| lowest of the animals"
| Or Taine's;
1.-THE BRAIN secretes thought as the liver Sc
creteS bile"
And, in confirmation of their skepticism con-
corning the SOUL these devoteeS of materiasm
call attention to the undeniable correlation
that exists between brain integrity and mental
activity.
Even comparatively slight blow on the
head, insufficient to produce more than mo-
nentary Inconsistencies, may efface the men,
cries of lifetime. Let disease destroy any
part of the brain and some degree of mental
enfeeblement follows
But does this actually prove the identity of
the brain with the mind and the soul? Is it
not possible that it proves merely that brain
injury impairS the ability of the soul to express
itself in the communication of its thoughts to
other people?
AS a matter of fact there is proof positive
that, despite brain injury, something" con-
tnues to think and to remember. Again and
again it has been found that in sleep, in hyp-
noSis, or under the influence of great excite
ment, victims of "amnesia"-forg etfulneSS-rnay
give expression to ideas and memories that had
seemed lost forever.
Which suggests that those scientists are in
the right who proclaim, with BergSon, that the
brain is only the chief physical organ of the
soul Damage the organ, and necessarily its
posseSsor is handicapped in greater or less de-
gree. That is all. The poSSeSsor-the SOUL
remains intact.
But, indeed, the reality of the soul may be
maintained on the round of sheer common
sense. In Camille Flammarion's recently pub
lished "Death and Its Mystery" | find certain
passages which would urge on the considera-
ton of all obsessed by the material dogma:
"Thought in man is itself the perpetual dem
onstration of the existence of the soul. When
we reflect, when we say simply 4 think or 4
will, when we exercise our power of abstrac-
ton and generalization, we affirm the existence
of the soul"
And:
"Fronl what comes the moral conscience?
"Man has had for ancestors the animal OF the
tertiary secondary, and primary geological Pc
RODS, which had gradually evolved from rep
tiles ito smians 1t is not their brains that
have created moral conscience, especially the
sense of Justice which is innate in children.
awe can pretend that it came first from an
cestors, then from education. But whence comes
this education? 1t belongs to the world of the
spirit"
Hence:
sit is not merely matter, not merely an as
semblage of molecules, that is able to think
1t is just as childish, just as ridiculous to as
sert hiatt the brain feels and thinks as to attri-
butte the thought expressed in telegram to
the galvanic batteries that create the electricity
used in the telegraph"
This in small part, Flammarlon, World-tamouS
man of science AS an antdote to the miscon-
ceptions of materialism cannot too strongly
recommend the reading of his new book in its
entirety.
And whether you read it or not, be not de-
ceived. The soul is the Surest of all realities
downright 1924, by The Associated News
paperS)