The argument for the existence of an intelligent spirit independent of the body, and not subjected to the variations of its physical functions, must, from the necessity of the case, be carried on by the reasoning powers, with perhaps some reliance upon physio logical facts as means of explanation; but the most important part of the argument, leaving out the question of a revelation, rests upon the evidences of design. If it is adrnitted that the works of nature furnish such evidence, then there is a Being whose attributes must be such as to make it probable that the mind of man has not been endowed with intellectual powers and aspirations which are destined to end in nothing ness. To maintaiu that inorganic matter could have arranged itself in the various living forms with all the adaptations of means to ends, both as regards use and beauty, because the Creator does not manifest himself in person, because we are not permitted to per ceive him with our senses, is, as Paley has logically said, quite as inconsistent as to deny that a watch is the product of mechanical design merely because the process of its construction had not been the subject of personal observation. The processes of nature do, indeed, take place in ways that are perfectly mysterious and unknown to us. Certain invariable effects are called laws, but the secret springs by which those laws are executed are entirely beyond our ken. We call a certain force the attraction of gravita tion, but what, in reality, that attraction is, is no more known to us than if we had not learned to measure or to trace the paths of the planets. We cannot cast aside the evidence furnished by inexorable logic, and that logic tells us that if circumstantial evidence is of value, all matter is moved by supernatural power. Leibnitz and others thought they had discovered that power as residing- in the matter itself, but others, and among them per haps the most acute and broadly observing experimental philosopher the world has ever known, Faraday, have placed it in points and lines of force, for the purpose of giving a scientific expression to certain facts, at the same time acknowledging their utter inability to come any nearer a solution. Faraday, in a lecture on mental education, in 185-1, used the following words: " High as man is placed above the creatures around him, there is it higher and far more exalted position within his view; and the ways are infinite in which he occupies his thoughts about the fears, or hopes, or expectations of a future life. I believe that the truth of the future cannot be brought to his knowledge by any exertion of his mental 'powers, hoWevia exalted they may be; that it is made known to him by *other teaching than his own, and is received through simple belief of the testimony given. " Here is the testimony of one of the most rigid of scientific investigators that the hightst evidence of spiritual existence is internal; and why, we may ask, may not such evidence, coming as it does front hundreds of thousands of all classes of persons, the most highly cultured as well as others, be received as well as speculations about the properties of protoplasm or of monads? If unanimity of testimony is of value, certainly there is more of it among the thousands who believe than among the disputants iu the scientific arena. But we dismiss all these points with the remark that although, as Faraday says, in a sub sequent sentence to the above, that man by reasoning cannot find out God, he is com pelled to use his reasoning powers in the study of nature in such a way as to lead him to adopt the best methods of forming a belief as 'to his relations to time, as well as his present surroundings. The world is full of what to the human understanding are inex plicable facts. Certain persons perform the most irrational acts, not only those which :appear to the ordinary tuiderstanding to be irrational, but which, according to all the laws of mental philosophy, are known to be irrational; and yet we can give no satisfac tory explanation of them. To say that the organism is deranged proves nothing for either side of the question, for the mind, it may be said by one, requires an instrument not deranged to manifest itself, while the other contends that rational thought can only be produced by an organism which retains to a certain degree the harmony of its parts, or, IR other words, which possesses certain physical relations. In either case, whether the brain is the instrument or the producer of thought, it requires to be in order, and it will bo seen that an attempt to demonstrate either the presence or the absence of spiritual power will fall short of actual proof, and that the best we can do is to form a well-founded belief. The great fact that design is stamped upon all the works of nature, must always be borne in mind. We can conceive of no designing power independent of Him whom we call Providence or God, and when we acknowledge his existence we are forced to admit tbat his crea'ures must have been the subject of his care, and that he has not left them to grope in blindness throughout all the ages of their past existence without a light more than that which can be furnished by physico-scientific investigations. What, then, it may be asked, is the value of physical research? Its proper fruits or objects, if we reason from analogy and observe the beneficent provisions of surrounding nature, are intellectual enjoyment and the cultivation of a faith, that hig,hest attainment of the understanding, which rests with confidence upon the eternal justice of the unseen gov ernment of the universe, and which shall finally show to mankind that their highest aspirations are not idle dreams produced by selfish or morbid longings which have no foundation in the constituted order of nature.
We see in nature the most perfect adaptation of means to ends. The mechanism of the human body perhaps offers the most perfect examples of this. The mechanism of the human hand has furnished a subject for one of the most profound and elegant of the Bridg,ewater treatises, by sir Charles Bell, and the contrivances found in the structure of the eye are still more illustrative of design. The evidence, however, offered in some of the lower forms of animals, are, as being simpler, more conclusive to the non scientific observer. We walk along the sea-beach and pick up a mollusk which has recently been washed ashore or dug out of the sand. We remove the shell front the animal, and perceive that its hinge is cased over and interlaced with an elas tic, gluey substance, which not only serves to assist in holding the shells in place, but by their elasticity to open them. In some cases the materialist, or the evolutionist might suppose that the living molecules in a certain part of the mollusk might, in accordance with certain physico-vital properties, arrange themselves for the purpose of accomplishing what might be termed an impending function, or a function becoming immediately necessary for the purposes of evolution or further development; but we open another species of bivalve mollusk, and instead of the mere addition or coating of a little elastic glue, we lind at the hing,e in either shell a chamber, hollowed cut as by a mechanical instrument, and occupying the space so formed by the two little -cups, an independent and detached elastic pad whose action is that of a spring in oppos ition to the muscles which close the shells. Nobody can make the examination without being almost startled at what, without irreverence, might be called the legible autograph .of the Creator's hand. It is impossible to conceive how any process of gradual evolu tion, or of abrupt self formation, if such a phenomenon can be imagined, could bring about such a result. Now, it is not within the possibilities of science to demonstrate whether this mechanism has been brought about by the voluntary act of the Creator or by evolution. We are, therefore, left to adopt the most reasonable, the most probable, conclusion; and it is here, perhaps, that people will always differ. Some will contend that evolution is the only natural process of creation, while the mass of mankind will probably always think that the wonderful works of nature are too vast, too mighty, to be the production of anything less than omnipotent design.
Philosophers have been censured by believers in Bible revelation for sometimes call ing the hiunan body a human machine; but if the soul is independent and superior to the body, then the body must be a machine. Looking upon the subject in this light we can explain the influence of education, and also why the mind cannot manifest itself till its Instruments, the parts of the nervous mechanism, are properly prepared. A perfectly intellig,ent soul might inhabit the body and yet not be able to manifest itself. Further than this it has so far been, and will probably always continue to be, unavailing te• attempt to reason upon this subject with the expectation of producing any positive evidence of the existence of a spintual nature. This is the point at which belief or dis belief is adopted, and upon the foundation of either of these conclusions man's reasou may continue to build systems, which, indeed, from the influence they exert upon the individual *and upon society, may furnish evidences of their correctness or falsity. To be able to have a clearer view of the unseen world than that which science or logic offers, the veil which conceals the truth from us must be lifted, or we must believe it has been lifted, that a revelation has been made, and that the human race has not been obliged to live for thousands of years with no light except that furnished by human reason—that reason, notwithstanding its wonderful powers, which we often have cause to distrust, since the most powerful intellects have come to such opposite conclusions, starting from the same premises. To what extent is it reasonable and just to place our selves under the guidance of faith? In the discussion of human affairs we perceive that it is one of the noblest of qualities, and that without it society would be a thousand times worse than the severest pessimist asserts. Therefore faith is one of the funda mental principles of our nature, and by no means to be excluded from the elements of evidence which we are to examine in forming an opinion as to whether this is a spiritual as well as a material world, and all the reasoning which might lid attempted could never prevent the mass of mankind from resting on a foundation which ministers to their hopes, their sentiments, their affections; but, on the other hand, all the persuasive elo quence of the most exalted zeal of thousands of the believers in the spirituality of man's nature will be powerless in the presence of the restless efforts of many earnest and sincere minds, who cannot tind it in their natures to relinquish the search after a truth which their opponents tell them can be found only by the aid of faith.