Article October 8, 1910 Issue

LIFE IN MATTER

CARL E. HERRING

Long ago Dean Swift wrote concerning "a creature pretending to reason that should value itself upon the knowledge of other people's conjectures and in things where that knowledge, if it were certain, could be of no use," with the ironical comment, "What destruction such doctrine would make in the libraries of Europe!" Philosophical writings are easily divisible into two classes. One starts with some great fundamental truth and constantly reverts to it, enlarging and building up only to make the emphasis of this truth the greater. The other starts with truth and constantly departs from it in an ever widening circle. Needless to say that our libraries are groaning under the latter and that the former can be carried in a satchel.

The philanthropist who believes in the diffusion of knowledge by much placing of many books in the hands of the people, has a most worthy motive, but diffusion is a most perfect synonym for dispersion. We would have no patience with volumes written on the science of mathematics which constantly indulged in departure from fixed rules, in conjecture as to their origin, or in copious illustrations of false reasoning; and yet, upon a subject of vastly more importance, the Science of Life, we have not only welcomed man-made theories, but they have permeated the thought of the masses and warped the understanding of the sweetest souls of all ages. If we hark back to Egypt, typical of darkness and of error, and the Egyptians, we find that their concept of life in matter led them to embalm the body, in the vain hope that it might be preserved, but primarily that the heart, which was believed to be the seat of life, might not be destroyed. To kill the body was a crime, but to ravish the soul by destroying the heart was an unpardonable offense which not even the judgment of the court of the dead could atone. This belief in the potency of matter we lightly dismiss with a smile of pity,—it was held so long ago and by a people just emerging from darkness.

But let us draw the lines a little closer. Matthew Arnold, the apostle of "sweetness and light," was so overshadowed with the universal belief of life in matter that he despairingly conceded its claims and then with soul unsatisfied, he posited outside of this mortal delusion "the eternal, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness." Like the Athenians he erected an altar to the "unknown God," not knowing that this altar is the heart of the real man and that the man of matter whom he had ignorantly conceded to be the man of God, is but a false concept. The centuries do progress, but it is rather in the way of preparation to receive the truth than in contribution to truth. There is no middle ground for Christian Scientists. Better far that the inquirer should remain in the outer fold than that he should be lulled to rest by departure from fundamental truth. The slight variation in the point of departure may seem unimportant, but when that point of departure is the foundation stone which shall redeem the world, we must not trifle with the completed structure. The mariner who journeys on the tremor of the compass will never reach his destination.

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