The Creation of God - Jacob Hartmann (readict TXT) 📗

Dry truth, real knowledge, hard facts, are less interesting, less entertaining, than a plausible fable or a fanciful story. While the latter is listened to, with eagerness and pleasure, the former barely receives ordinary civility and attention. The effort requisite to understand and to think, requires resolution, determination, and fixed attention. The senses are not stimulated, the emotions and feelings not aroused, by mathematical problems or astronomical calculations. The muscular tissues are much more easily trained, disciplined, and educated than the nervous tissues. In the former we see immediate results. There is a pleasure in the pursuit, a palpable satisfaction in watching the muscular action and physical development. The most agreeable part about that kind of exercise, training—or education if you choose—is that it is easily acquired and soon put in practice, and much admired. It has other advantages in addition. The fatigue and exhaustion in consequence of muscular exercise, add no small amount of enjoyment to that already experienced, by having to replenish the spent energies, to fill the demand for new material called for. The gustatory and olfactory nerves are stimulated by odor of the viands provided, and what is still more important, the glandular activity that is set in motion produces an amount of exhilaration, so satisfactory that it is recognized as one of the principal features for every and on all occasions. “A feast is made for laughter and wine maketh merry” (Eccles. x, 19).

Muscular action, however, cannot take place without nervous action. These two tissues are dependent one on the other. Yet the muscular tissue may be considered as subordinate to the nervous tissue. While the muscular tissue may become totally inactive or incapacitated, or even removed, the brain tissue may retain its activity and continue to perform its functions. The very reverse takes place when the brain is either injured or removed. We know by experience, experiments, that injuries or other pathological changes will cause impairment to muscular tissue.

It is hard to conceive, and harder still to understand, that an animal—man included—is nothing more than a vitalized machine, composed in the first place of two distinct working parts—muscular and nervous—while all the other portions have to perform duty in order to sustain them.

The word function is a term applied to all tissues in general, as kidneys, liver, stomach, etc.; each has its function. So have muscles and nerves. The former has for its function contraction, while the latter has for its function to control and regulate that contraction.

The first part of the machinery is governed and checked by the domination of the other. That dominion, that control, is termed Volition, in other words, will power!

1. Will power! What is it? It is a power which every animal possesses, and every animal exercises, in accordance with its particular organization and degree of organic development.

2. Every animal has the power, with the aid of its senses—five senses of sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling—to select substances from the vegetable and mineral kingdom, for its immediate want, for the sustenance of life.

3. It has the power of locomotion to go in search for those substances, and to carry them to a place of safety, for present or future use. It has the power to select the kind of food, to choose that which is beneficial and reject that which is injurious. The five senses direct in that selection.

4. The animal has will power to protect and defend his possessions—through his senses the brain directs and the muscles act.

5. The animal has will power, when the organs of procreation are developed, to choose a partner for the production of young. The senses serve in making the selection, as regards beauty, form, size, etc.

6. It has the will power to nourish and protect its young or to destroy it.

7. Animals have the will power to build their habitation, their home, and furnish it in a manner best suited for their comfort.

8. Animals have the power to articulate sound, and have the will to communicate with each other if they so desire, to antagonize or to quarrel.

9. They have the will power to select from the surrounding elements. They choose water, air, sunshine, high or low altitudes; they migrate from warm to cold, and from cold to warm, climates.

10. They have social intercourse among themselves; have a will power to organize as a band or body to protect themselves against the attacks of other organized bodies, to fight and to battle.

11. Animals instruct their young—guide them and protect them, as well as feed them. They have their code of morals. They have all such functions as serenading, love-making, music, jealousy, pleasure, and anger. Animals have judgment; they can compare and reflect on cold and heat, danger and tranquillity, comfort and discomfort. They can reject or accept.

12. They have memory, perception, and understanding. Domestic and wild animals exhibit these peculiarities. They will manifest their likes and dislikes, hate and love, courage and cowardice.

The will power depends on the nervous system—the cerebral hemispheres, the cerebrum or small brain, the thalamus opticus, corpus striata, corpora quadrigemina, the peduncles, medulla oblongata, spinal cord, etc. That is, all the organs that constitute the nervous machinery, that control the muscular tissues in all their acts, and keep a watchful outlook over all other organs of the body.

The will power, then, is the power to act in accordance and in harmony with the things recognized, or the selection made by any of the five senses, discriminating between that which is good for them and that which is injurious, or good and evil.

Animals in selecting grass for food will avoid that which is injurious to them. The olfactory and gustatory nerves guide them. They will seek shelter, and evidently know what to do when a thunderstorm approaches, etc., etc.

Will power is a property, quality, or function belonging to all living creatures in common. The degree of will power depends upon the quality, quantity, and perfection of the nervous organization. Man has will power in a measure greater as the nervous system is developed, educated, and perfected.

Morality—a quality that does not exclusively belong to man. What is morality? It is nothing more than a restraint, or check, on our actions and our feelings. It is the regulating of the actions of life towards ourselves and towards others. It is the obedience to recognized and established laws in a community, socially and politically. It means not to trespass against the laws of nature, against ourselves, or against our neighbors.

Animals restrain themselves and obey.

Morality differs according to the social customs and practices, and the civil laws regulating the same, which were made and adopted for mutual benefit and protection. These are either crude or refined, depending on the condition of society.

To a limited degree animals have morality. Man has it in a higher and more refined degree, according to the progress and culture attained.

Intelligence—Animals possess intelligence, if the meaning of it is, to recognize sounds and figures, be obedient to the voice, understand what is said, perform certain acts, execute the will of a master, know the difference between right and wrong, express gratitude, exercise watchfulness, protect life and property, remember places and objects in general, be capable of some degree of improvement, susceptible of training and modification of conduct, etc., within the limits of the nervous power the animal has.

What is the soul? Is the soul something quite independent of matter? Is it a something entire and complete in itself? A perfect part of a perfect whole? Does the soul possess all the excellences and qualities theologians claim for it? Whence does it come? What does it consist of? Has it an existence separate and apart from the body? If so, where? In what state does it exist previous to entering the body? Does every human being receive a like quality and quantity? Has it consistency? density? elasticity? Is there any connection between the soul principle and