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Show PROBLEMS OF LITE Matter and Spirit Rationalists Deny Spiritual Spir-itual Substance Reason Establishes the Immateriality of the Soul, Does Not Oppose Its Spirituality Souls of. Criminals Crim-inals Immortality of the Soul Denied by Rationalists, but Unable to Prove What They Assert Was Always Believed Be-lieved and Must Be a Dictate of Universal Univer-sal Reason Burden of Proof on the Rationalist (Continuode from last week.) (Written for The Intermountain Catholic.) lli 'veil ing to the subjects of matter and spirit, which have puzzled the most profound and learned philosophers, we learn as much from the Irishman's Irish-man's facetious answer to the questions. "What is matter?" which was, "Never mind." "But what is mind?" "Xo matter," as we do from that of Professor Huxley, who acknowledges that "no one could define or tell what the nature and essence of matter and spirit were." We learn from heathen hea-then mvthologies that they had no conception of ihe relation of matter and spirit, which, according accord-ing to their philosophy, were not distinct existences. exist-ences. Spirit they held to be the universal principle princi-ple of life and action, and that of -man was an emanation from t ho universal spirit, which, after death, was immersed or reabsorbed in the universal principle of life from which it emanated. Their pods had bodies, but these were impassable. Unlike modern spiritualists, the ghosts conjured up by the heathen superstition were not the spirit returned to this world, nor the one that entered Hades, whieh included both Tartarus and the Flysian Fields. These were lands of shadow where their j phosN. if worthy of Elysian Fields, danced on the flowery hanks of rivers or frolicked in bowers of j unsurpassed beauty. Their hope of future happiness happi-ness was far below that of our American Indians, j who look forward to the happy hunting-grounds destined for ihe brave good Indian when he departs this life. Like modern unlx-lief, which assumes the intelligence of the age. the only distinction I iK'tween matter and spirit with them was the dis- 1 . linction between the divine substance, or intelli gence. Mid matter, which was eternal. In this respect our would-be progressive thinkers, who deny creation and revelation, are progressing backwards back-wards to the point reached by the ancient heathen after their separation from the synagogue. Groping Grop-ing in the dark, and assuming to know all about the problem of life, death, and fhe unknowable, they simply land at zero, ami this. too. in the name of sham, or protended science. Man is denned to be a creature composed of a body and soul, and made to the image and likeness of (iod. So believed ihe Patriarchs, such was the teaching of the Synagogue, and is still continued by the Catholic church. The likeness is in the soul. The body must be something more than the , aggregation of 1 he particles of matter which com pose what may be termed ihe sensible body. Otherwise, Other-wise, when the body, by secretion and accretion, has entirely lost the original particles of matter. would be a new body, which is not the case. Be- "1 sides the sensible body, there is what St. Augustine terms the intelligible body, which the intellect perceives, per-ceives, and which preserves its identity from the cradle to the grave. There is no change in this intelligible, or; as he sometimes termed it, spiritual, body. The sensible body, to be something, must contain essence and substance, but what these are neither science nor philosophy can tell. Between matter and fpirit the great distinction to be made is that the former has sensible properties or qualities qual-ities which the latter has not, but these sensible properties are not its essence and substance, yet liny serve to distinguish it from spirit which is non-sensible, and prove that there is an immaterial as well as a material substance. Keason. according accord-ing to Catholic teaching, can prove that the soul is immaterial, but not its spirituality. How. then, d- we know that the soul is a spiritual substance? From divine revelations upon which Catholic faith has rested since time began. Seience cannot produce a single fact to disprove dis-prove this. Keason can establish the fact that the soul is not. in substance and essence, material, in the sense that matter has for its manifestation sensible properties whieh. however, do not constitute con-stitute its essence or substance, but serve as its sion. Materialists allege that there is no soul in man separate and distinct from the body, and they still further hold that the mental phenomena, which Christian faith adduces as an argument for the immateriality of the soul, are simply the products, or effects, of material organization. What proofs do they adduce to establish this? None. If anything any-thing is plain and evident to reason, it is that the sou! is not material, i. e.. it is an immaterial substance? sub-stance? Why? Because it has no sensible sign of matter. None of the senses can detect its existence. exist-ence. Even the arguments of the materialists, instead of proving it is material, prove the contrary, con-trary, because the soul has not the qualities or properties which matter has, according to their own definition of matter, and at the same time has certain qualities and properties which matter has not. Matter, we freely admit, is an active force, because it exists, and all existences are essentially active, but not active in the sense that it has in-' in-' lelligcncc. a heart and soul. Continued on Page 4. PROBLEM OF LIFE. Continued from Page 1. Here unbelief, hoping t- score a vb-i..,y. sorts that from the distinction ' : in b.-hah' :' ' faith, it would also follow that all aaiawk li i souls. Xo one. in defense of Christian prima pi, will deny that they have souls, but not rational ana! immortal souls. The arguments given leave p.. room for doubting that they have immaterial, ballot ba-llot spiritual.' souls. Christian faith, whan analyzed, anal-yzed, will be found much broader in k- eon.-.- sions than the materialists ever dra:uned of. k even concedes an immaterial soul not only io'dus- imals. but to every cereal and shrub that grows in , the field, but not an intelligent or sensible -.ml. The materialists, whos. avowed mission i- to d.. I away with the ancient, faith of the human race. r can give no proof that any living organism, be it . vegetable, animal or human, is a simple material : effect flowing from what they term nature's law-. Huxley, in his tlnory of protoplasm, which meant L the formation of nuttier in some unknown way by F the combination of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen and :' liitrogen. labored hard to prove that such was rk i - basis of life for the plant that grows and through t" the plant, it reached the animal. Then he con- . f eluded that all life, thought, feeling and even n-a- ; son hail their origin in the peculiar combination of the particles of matter derived from inorgank matter. According to the professor, it was tlr combination of different molocules of the protoplasm proto-plasm that gave rise t the difference in the ph. nr. animal and human lives. His theory, which date-back date-back to the days of 'Homer and Ileroditu-. ha-been ha-been exploded by the most eminent -physiob.ckf-,, -. who. by b ug and patient experiments have estab- lished the fact that it is 'impossible, by any com- s bination of material atoms, however arranged, to originate life in inorganic matter. I lent e it uui-t flow from God. and must necessarily be the effect of creation coming from pre-existing male and female. This conforms vith the account of the crcat i -n as given in Gem -is, and applies to plant', animal-, and num. that ware to yield fruit after its kind . . . untie 'and female created he them." To ihe admission iha- aiiimais and plants have souls the "onlv objection ihaf can be raised by Christians is rhaf it detracts from tin-dignity tin-dignity of the human soul. But this prejudice k overcome if we n ib et on the fact that there may be different order.-, of ouK as there are different species- of living organi-ms. We know God k spirit. So are ang l-. yet angels' are not (bid. We learn from -the' inspired word that in the resurrection res-urrection men are like angels only because they f neither marry nor are given in marriage: yet be- j fore th! throne of (Sod the spirits of the just, wh ; have attained perfection,-are not angels. ; But. the materialist, pressing his objection. j may still maintain that the proofs as to the imma- i teriality of the sou! do not prove -its' immortality. ' But as the materialist denies that the soul is immaterial, imma-terial, . he has no standing in court and cannot shift his objection from the immaterial to the . immortal soul. ; Whether it is a question that' reason is com- , potent to dispose of or not by logical arguments is of little consequence, if it can be shown that reason is not opposed to it. and it certainly is n'. Then, as the doctrine' of immortality of the soul has always been believed by the human race hack to its root, both savage and civilized, ignorant and erudite, and -denied only by-exceptional individuals in the long stream of humanity that takes us back to the beginning of time, we reasonably conclude that this belief is a dictate of universal reason, or I was revealed by God in the beginning. In either case, the reason f-or believing the doctrine of immortality im-mortality of the sou! is sufficient. If we rest with revelation, we can trace the belief back to our first parents, and see it perpetuated through the patriarchs, the synagogue and the church down to the present, whilst Ave ind the original belief travestied trav-estied by the heathens after their separation from the synagogue. Has science brought forth any facts that disprove this belief; It certainly has not. Then, a priors-, we conclude that what is claimed for science is not science at all. because science cannot contradict divine truths, as both have their origin in God. who is the Creator of all things and the -..urea and origin of all truth. On th" materialist, or pretended scientist, rests the laboring oar f nrove that the soul is mortal. It is something-distinct mid separate from the . bidv, and instead of receiving its life from the bidy. it is the soul that imparts life to the body. What proofs do the materialists give that it dies: . Xot one single proof. Yet. according to all tin rub-s of debate, it is on those who assume the affirmative af-firmative 'sid" tha burden of proof rests. "Tie-soul "Tie-soul is mortal" is a - positive assertion. "The soul is not mortal" is a negative assertion, because k denies mortality. Life presumes continuance of life, and may be reasonably presumed in the case of the soul where there are no proofs to establish that it dies after its dissolution with the bod v. F. D. t Bp urn ifiniiiiiji.3m.-n. rn...ifc mi...m, f .pi...mni .wmn |