THE NATURE, ORIGIN, AND DESTINY OF THE SOUL.
Whence and 1Vhither. By Dr. Paul Carus. (Kogan Paul, Trench, and Co. Is. 6d.)—This little work is an inquiry into the nature, origin, and destiny of the soul. It is in some ways suggestive, while not satisfying. The soul is pure form, not separate soul-being, it is the feeling, the thinking, the acting. The author rejects the old dualism, which he rightly holds as gone for ever, but he almost slides into a fatal doctrine of practical annihilation of soul-life. The individual perishes, he says, but the personality remains. What is that personality? It is pure form. That is all we need care about, he argues. But at times the language he uses comes very near to the Comtist doctrine of "subjective immortality," the most baseless and thin illusion ever palmed off on credulous people in the name of philosophy. It is true that the average man's crude and materialistic notions of another life must be corrected and idealised. We must get rid of the notion that a future life means, as Emerson puts it, "wearing out one's old boots." But at the same time the fact of personal identity is essential, and the con- sciousness that the "ego" continues seems to us fundamental. Let that go and what does a future life mean ? It must mean a merging in the general soul,—a faith "all unsweet" as Tennyson says. Nor can we agree with the author that, while individuals perish, " deeds " remain. What is a deed ? There is no objective fact called a deed. The deed is registered on the character of a person, it is also the outcome of the will. If the will perishes, there is nothing in the mere deed, while if the survival of the person merely means subjective life in posterity, then we must find the significance of the deed in that posterity. Having expressed our feeling as to fundamental principles discussed in this little work, we may say that it is well worth reading as a contribution to the greateet of all themes.
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