Part 30

The fiat of the Creator MAY at once produce a reconstruction of the body, however widely scattered its particles, and the return of the soul to the brain, from which it had once departed; but is it not somewhat irrational to think that we should again be endowed with organs, without the functions and passions to which they are subservient?

IDA. It may be a bliss to gaze even on the shadows of those we love. There is a beautiful allegory of this solemn question told in the “Spectator,” which, as Addison approves, it cannot be profanation to admire. It is the Indian legend of “Marraton and Yaratilda,” in which the devoted husband comes unawares on Paradise, and sees the shadowy forms of his wife and children, without their substance. The story exquisitely blends the fond wish of Marraton to die, that he may be again admitted to the holy communion of those so fondly loved; for Paradise is painted in the mind’s eye even of the heathen, although, in his dearth of revelation, he associates the joys of his elysium with the sensual pleasures of terrestrial life. The Indian dreams of his dogs, believing that the greatest hunters shall be in the highest favour with Brahma; the proselytes of the prophet die in a vision of their houri’s beauty; and the warriors of Odin already drink the honey-water from the skulls of their enemies, served up to them by the beautiful “Valkhas” of the “Valhalla.” Thus even the creed of infidels is not atheism. What thinks Evelyn?

EV. As you do, Ida. As to the atheist, one, perchance, may have lived, if we rightly interpret the sentiments of Diogenes, and Bion, and Lucian, and Voltaire; but, I believe, one never died. My solemn duty has summoned me to the death-bed of more than one reputed infidel, who have in health reasoned with fluency and splendour, and have penned abstruse theses on life and the world’s creation. But, when danger lay in their path of life, their stoic heroism fled, and left them abject cowards. They looked not even on the lightning’s flash without trembling, and the vision of death was a sting to the conscience. I have seen many a death-bed like that of Beaufort, who made “no signal of his hope,” not because he disbelieved a God, but because a conviction of his sin left him without a hope and faith in the promises.

Of course there cannot be an Euthanasia where irreligion has marked a life, but, believe me, there would be no fear of death in an atheist.

ASTR. The mythologist and pagan may cite their tables, and worship their idols in the recesses of their pagodas and choultries; but some idea of the Deity has been unfolded to the mind of all. Even the eastern princes have had some glimpses of the true faith, and shahs and caliphs were once engaged in building their Nestorine or Christian churches.

The profane Chinese has, it is true, called his realm the celestial empire; Fohi, who is believed to have reigned three thousand years before Christ, established his “Iconolatria” or “idolatry,” and Si Lao Kiun struck at the establishment of polytheism, but the purer theology of Confucius prevailed over his rival.

The Deity, indeed, is the essence of every creed, for all believe in a great spirit as well as an immortal mind and a paradise. Like the reasonings of natural philosophy, our notions and epithets of the great Creator certainly differ, but in all there is faith in his perfection. Xam Ti is the great spirit of the Chinese, as Woden is the god of the Gothic races, and Brahma, or Alla, or the Kitchi Manitou, or even the sun, the source of light, and heat, and joy to the creation, are the deities of other nations. Nor may we wonder more that the Ghebir, and the Peruvian, and the Natches should worship their orb of fire, than that the Irish should, on the morning of their Beltane, light their peat fires to the sun.

The doctrines of the Brahmins all attest their creed of theism, if we interpret aright the evidence of the learned Pundits of Benares, especially in the Gentoo code; and the records of Abul Fazel in the “Baghvat Geeta,” an episode in the poem of the “Mahabarat,” written to prove the unity. The devout Christian will deem this creed a woful error, but he will confess his admiration of their sublime notion of the divine attribute, which Colonel Dow has thus imparted to us: “As God is immaterial, he is above all conception; as he is invisible, he can have no form; but from what we behold of his works, we may conclude that he is eternal, omnipotent, knowing all things, and present everywhere.”

I will grant that the oriental notions of cosmogony, or the creation of the world, are a blot on their scripture page: because the pagan theologians were shorn of the light of Christianity, they were prone to refer creation to natural causes within their own comprehension, and their ideas were fabulous and impure. Thus, among the Hindoos and Egyptians, there is a mass of obscenity adduced to account for the development of the globe, in the associations of Vishnu and Siva, and Osiris and Isis; and the temples of Elephanta and Elora are adorned with symbolic paintings of this incarnation of Vishnu. Yet, with all this error, there is in the “Vedas” or Hindoo scriptures, a not remote analogy to the Bible itself; and, granting that the cosmogony of Phœnicia is little more than a mysterious romance; yet, whether the great cause be the demiurgic spirit uniting with desire, or the being “That” of the Hindoos, the essence of all these mysteries still combines the grand scheme of the creation,—the formation of a beautiful world from a chaos of wide and dark waters.

IDA. You are wandering very far eastward, Astrophel: I will propose this question to Evelyn.

If it is so evident that the brain and mind, although not identical, exist in a most intimate union, may we not undervalue their relative influence by adducing the energy of intellect and brilliancy of conception possessed by many in advanced life? Remember the green old age of Plato, and Cicero, and Newton, and Johnson, and, above all, Goëthe, whose last work was brilliant as his first. And all this, coincident with that love of Infinite Wisdom that exists, (as we read in the “Consolations of a Philosopher,”) “even in the imperfect life which belongs to the earth, increases with age, outlives the perfection of the corporeal faculties, and, at the moment of death is felt by the conscious being.” Does this imply decay?

EV. The retentive powers of old age, are the exception to a rule, which the ultra spiritualist assumes as a general rule, in attempting to disprove the growth and decay of mind, according to the age of the body. But as lives are of different duration and constitutions vary, so may mental powers indicate different degrees of vigour. If mind increases, no doubt it decreases; and I have known many, who retain every faculty but memory, which is the first to decay and indicate failing power; and so also is it with idiots, in whose memory, usually, the greatest defects appear; the faculty of counting numbers reaches only to three, and of letters to C, the third letter in the alphabet.

Ida will grant that there is no more impressive lesson of humility than the dwindling and decay of genius, when, in the words of the Athenian misanthrope—

“Nature, as it grows again toward earth, Is fashion’d for the journey, dull and heavy.”

Reflect on the painful end of Sheridan and other brilliant wits of their day; that

“From Marlborough’s eyes the streams of dotage flow, And Swift expires a driveller and a show;”

and we may almost wish that biography should begin at each end, and finish in the middle, or zenith of a life.

IDA. If the fact be so, I grant the lesson to our pride, Evelyn; and we may dwell with fervent admiration on the divinity of that mind, which can ennoble and consecrate our body, so fraught as it is with basest passions, and so decayable withal.

NATURE OF SLEEP.

“——Sleep, gentle sleep! Nature’s soft nurse.” HENRY IV. Part ii.

IDA. I begin to perceive the importance of this digression on the nature of mind. You wish us to believe, there is a temporary desertion of the spirit from the body, and therefore the body sleeps?

EV. Not absolute desertion, but a limit to its influence. Many have thought in conformity to your question; and indeed, Ida, it is a belief so holy, that I may feel it to be almost an impiety to differ.

From the time of Aristotle to Haller, the term “Sleep” expresses that condition which is marked by a cessation of certain mental manifestations, coincident with the degree of oppression; for it is an error to say that the body sleeps,—it is the brain only, perhaps I may say, the cerebrum, or the fore lobes; for I believe the lower part of it (that which imparts an energy to the process of breathing and of blood circulation) is never in a complete sleep, but merely in a state of languor, or rather of repose, sufficient for its restoration,—if it were to sleep, death would be the result.

This repose is in contrast with a state of waking, that activity of mind in which ideas are constantly chasing each other like the waves of ocean; the mode of displacing one idea being by the excitement of another in its place.

In that state of sound sleep which overcomes children, whose tender brains are soon tired, or old persons whose brains are worn, and in persons of little reflection,—the mind is perfectly passive, and its manifestations cease.

So writes Professor Stewart,—that there was a total suspension of volition during sleep, as regards its influence over mental or corporeal faculties; and I may even adduce a scrap from Burton, although I am an admirer of the quaint old compiler for little else than his measureless industry:—

“Sleep is a rest or binding of the outward senses, and of the common sense, for the preservation of body and soul. Illigation of senses proceeds from an inhibition of spirits, the way being stopped by which they should come; this stopping is caused by vapours arising out of the stomach, filling the nerves by which the spirits should be conveyed. When these vapours are spent, the passage is open, and the spirits perform their accustomed duties: so that waking is the action and motion of the senses, which the spirits, dispersed over all parts, cause.”

ASTR. But is volition always suspended even in sound sleep? Was it not the opinion of Berkley, that the mind even then was percipient? How else can we account for the waking exactly at one predetermined hour? If we retire to sleep at the latest hour, or oppressed with fatigue, so strong an impression is produced in our mind, that the breaking of our sleep is almost at the given moment.