SURVIVAL OF THE SPIRIT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19960, 31 May 1928, Page 14

SURVIVAL OF THE SPIRIT.

Sir, —I am entirely in agreement with my friend, Mr. EL Morris, when he says that "evolutionists are waiting" for some demonstration of "the existence of mind, consciousness or spirit apart from living organisms," and i invir.e his assent to the converse that there can be no proof of the existence of matter apart from a perceiving mind. This metaphysical controversy seems to have its roots in the personal, and therefore selfish, anxiety we feel, each for his own individual immortality. But God (which is only smother name for "The Good") is not the inspirer of that petty self-regard, and i;f we would only merge our little selves in the great "Self" of humanity, our mother, our nurse, and the proper object of our devotion, there would be no need to worry about the future destiny that awaits us. At least that is the conclusion to which every decade of my lii'e has brought its contribution. j. Giles. Mount Eden, May 28, 1928. Sir, —Your correspondent, Mr. E. Morris, considers thatt my brief contribution to this discussion published in the Herald some time ago is "rather wide oi the mark.'" That is not true. I took up the matter just where Sir Arthur Keith left it and tried to show the unreasonableness oi trying to find evidence for survival in the physical brain and nervous system. I cannot see with Mr. Morris what evolution lias to do with, that point. Surely it is a wholesale begging of the question to assert that "evolutionists regard ithe living condition as essential to the manifestation of mind." The "living condition," indeed! What is it but mind that produces the Ijving condition ? Your correspondent is waiting for psychologists to demonstrate the existence of mind apart from living organisms. 1 am not sure that they are called upqn to do this in support of the doctrine of survival, for there is a difference between disappearance and extinction; but if mind does not exist before the organism, what is it that builds up that organism for mind to inhabit ? Any biologist will tell us that in the growing organism eaoh single cell acts and cooperates as 4f it knew what every other cell were doing. . This is a clear example of mind building itself a dwelling, something like the way in which the nautilus! builds up its chambered, spiral shell <i3 it is needed. Mr. Morris rather ambiguously concludes by saying that "evolutionists will continue to regard nature a; equal to tha production of all its phenomena." Who or what is this "nature," anyhow ? And by what process other than the operation of mind on matter does it produce its (living) phenomena? Unaccountable emergence is so well known to scientific evolutionists that they can hardly deny the possibility of survival on rational grounds. Waiuku Vicarage. J. C. Fcssfll. Sir, —The solution to this question sug gested by the Kev. Mr. Fussell, likening the mind to a musical instrument and the soul to the musxian wb; transmutes it into music, is a hypothesis which literally further confuses trie subject. To commence with, the analogy is confusing,- for we have evidence cf the musician's existence, and there is no occasion to infer it from the instrument and its manifestations. The question at issuo is the existence of the soul. Were Mr. Fussell's idea true, we are faced with the position that the talented musician, without 3n instrument, is impotent; further, :if the five senses for 'the reception of impressions and the brain for their co-ordination are necessary for the functioning of a soul, how can we conceive of that soul continuing to function without its instrument, (he bruin. This question seeks an answer by the sonl theorists. C. E. Major.