Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1883 — HATE ANIMALS SOULS. [ARTICLE]

HATE ANIMALS SOULS.

BeM»n» Why the Writer Supposes that They Have. V [From the Troy Daily Times.] We assume in the beginning that it is admitted that matter in itself is.inert and senseless; that the material organism of the human body in itself is. in respect to .its final causes, as powerless as the common clod, until it is animated by a spiritual agent, which directs and uses ite members and organs, with an intelligent purpose; that, when this spiritual agent is withdrawn, the whole material organism ceases to act and the process of decomposition immediately commences. This spiritual agent cannot be discerned by the senses, and cannot be known in ourselves by con' 1 sciousness, and in others by its phenomena. To this agent we refer the phenomena of the bodily motions and perceptions, memory, reason, sympathy, love and will, showing that we must refer the same class of phenomena to the same cause. If, therefore, we refer certain phenomena in man to the soul as its cause, we must refer to the same phenomena in animals to the same cause. Moreover, if any animal manifest a single phenomenop which in man we refer to the soul, we must refer the same phenomenon to the soul in that animal also, and, if one animal has a soul, we must infer-that all animals have souls. That not one but many animals manifest the phenomena, .two or more that we have enumerated as psychical, no one, we think, will deny. We shall, therefore, dismiss this part of the subject briefly. •

1. Animals move themselves and direct their members with intelligent purposes. Inert matter cannot exert itself in this way. Therefore, animals are not inert matter. 2. Matter which does move itself and direct its members with, intelligent purposes has a soul. Now animals do move themselves in tliis way. Therefore animals are a matter animated by a soul. 3. Animals evidently perceive the world of material objects about them by the means of a sentient organism. The act of sense perception is a complex precess which involves the energy of a spiritual agent or soul. 4. They manifest the phenomena of memory. They remember familiar objects, their homes, the faces of men, sounds, odors and tastes. 5. They manifest intelligence in their movements. They are also manifestly guided by the relation of cause and effect.

6. They manifest sympathy and affection and the moral quality of faithfulness toward humam beings. All these are the phenomena which in man we ascribe to the active energy of the soul. If these phenomena are the result of the action of the material organism in animals, they are the results of the material organism in man,; and the theory of the materialist that these phenomena can be attributed to material substance ’must be If we deny this in respect to man, we must also deny it in respect to animals, and admit that they have souls as well as men.

it may be urged that these phenomena that are observed in animals belong to the lower forms of physical energy, and that the phenomena of the higher forms are wanting. We admit this fact, but urge that it does not destroy the force of our argument. In the great variety of organic beings which have life we see a great diversity of development. There are living creatures whose organism is of the very simplest nature, and as we ascend the scale of being we find the material organism becoming more complex, until we reach man, the most highly developed of all. We de not, however, because of this diversity, refuse to consider any particular species as an organic being. We are willing to admit that animals and men are alike in having a material organism of the same general nature; also that man is an animal, the highest in the scale of being. Now the spiritual nature of both folldws the same analogy. The soul of the animal is the same /general nature, as man. It is spiritual, does not occupy space, and its energy resul , in psycnical products of phenomena. This soul, however, is not as fully developed, is not so complex in its nature, not so high in the scale of spiritual being as the soul of man. Nevertheless it is a soul, a spiritual being distinct from the ‘material organism which it animates. What becomes of this soul after death of the material organism ? In. our own case, we know that the soul does not perish, but that it passes into a higher state of existence. We believe thatafter death the human soul will develop faculties now dormant and unrecognized, approriate to the condition of its new state of existence, just as in Schild the faculties are aroused into life one after another. So it may be that the animal soul may finally develop the faculties of the soul as those which we as "human beings now enjoy.—(J. E. Nerwin, Anandale. N. Y.