Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, MONDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1911. SCIENCE AND THE SOUL.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 12585, 16 October 1911, Page 4

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, MONDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1911. SCIENCE AND THE SOUL.

v,ery- striking address on the existence of the soul m man, delivered by Pro-i feasor Mac Donald at the British Science, Congress at/ Portsmouth (according to Honie papers) has greatly interested meri: pi science. The view given is regarded^ by physiologists as a rare and excep-j tional stimulus to research. Professor^ Mac Donald showed first that the eye of* man, as perfect an optical instrument as' could be designed, can only have been! made by "some external 1 agency," cog-.; nisant of all the properties of light. 'lUib| eyeball .was developed before any light could reach it and therefore they must ask, "What is the. force that m this case imi tates the action of light?" It must be a physical force. That is to say — the opti' cai mechanisms of the eyeball were formed m the absence of light by some definite physical cause other than light The eyeball was formed m the absence , of light and was used, after a certain period, by light, a force which up .to this time' had no access to it and yetfound it perfectly formed for its special' use. In the same way there could be little doubt but that sound formed tin.'-sound-conducting and resonant portionsof the ear. Similar arguments applied, not less forcibly to the brain and mind of man. Its movements and will -pow^r suggested that the brain was inyster'i . ously affected by invisible and untrace able* "harmonies." He argued that such phenomena- as sleep and deepanae}; thesia familiarise us with the fact that the mind: was not necessarily always as sociated \vith the brain, but only with this when m a certain condition. ' : .'• .

"There >vns no scientific evidence tosup-

port or rebut the statement tliat the brain was possibly affected by influence* other than those which reached it by the definite paths proceeding from the sense organs and from the different receptive surfaces of the body. It was still possible that the brain was an instrument traversed, freely as the- ear by -sound^by an unknown influence which found resonance within it. The analogoy which he had prepared m dealing with ttu/eyeball was seen to have some mean|rig, inasmuch as an instrument shaped ift the embryo by a certain set, of conditions might: m due course of time bea6me the medium of some new influence. In this connection' he could not, he/said, avoid the world "soul.' 'As m the case of the eye, it was natural to supjjbse the existence of "some external agent" over and above natural selection which "would have done no more than assist m the process." In a passage of great imaginative power he compared the brain or soul with a harp, acted upon by what they "used to call "the music of the spheres." In further elucidation of this theory the professor said : "Take wireless telegraphy. Here is an 'influence roaming at large through the world, which does not have ahy visible effect, however, until it comes into contact with instruments specially prepared to ; receive it. Might not that analogy hold good of the brain U Might " the brain not be an instrument specially prepared to be acted upon by the universal mind? That is the suggestion I have made m) my ad--dresses—just a brief suggestion m passing to indicate my position. Of course, the philosopher will at once be eager to ask the question -Is there any -conscious 1 direction of the , influence which we can assume to be acting upon the brain?' Well, that is w r hat.,the:pTulbsopher must find out for himself. Scientific reason for' the existence of a soul m man (comments one writer) has seldom been argued more logically, simply, and persuasively. All dogma or dogmatic insistence was, of course^ avoided. The theory was described as a belief, not a demonstrated conclusion, since the facts are beyond and outside proof ; bust it is not the less important on that account. The essen---tial point is that the very strictest men of science find out more and more clear? ly.,' as, they see further into the behavior of matter, that something' superior to matter must be acknowledged } and even used as '„ a'. working hypothesis! .The chemists m, their are day by day driving into, the -open the wonders of the world. .As the circle of knowledge enlarges : the , surrounding cu'ele ot mystery , enlarges. The greatest men of science . to-day^ are Then who rely . ,'on , imagination, X ! . and. the XX more they . probe the' , finite the more are they' forced into wonder at the marvels, of the infinite. Th^.gr^at im-; portance of this speech of,' the .president of the physiological section is that it' expresses quite plainly, with the approval of other scientific workers m the s>m_ ,£eld, the truth that belief >m the^exist-^ ence of soul is a direct practical' help m scientific inquiry. The day is/ quite passing Svhen the dogmatic materialist is recruited froni the leading : men .pt science. They are much more ready to establish belief m , some, "one far-off divine event, to which the whole creation moves." They find, then* reasons now m the ether, now m electricity, now m "the mind, of man, which seemed to the German philosopher Kant, as to Professor Macdonald, a crowning marvel comparable only with the "in-, finite starry heave?is," ;, ..!, „