WHAT DO WE KNOW OF MAN? by W. H. Ebert

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, February 19, 1880.

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 8

WHAT DO WE KNOW OF MAN?

By W. H. Ebert

BY W. H. EBERT.

What do we know of man, viewed from a rational and philosophical standpoint? The man of an inquiring mind delights in a research into the nature of his own being, his origin, his ancestral history, his capacities, his duties, and his destiny. The pages of all common history give us instruction concerning man in many ages, countries, and conditions. In every age and in every condition there are seen manifestations of all the common characteristics possessed by the human family to-day.

Man has ever been the same in all his history, and will continue to repeat himself and his general nature, as long as he continues to be man, restrained or modified always by his education. In like manner, each one of the infinite variety of animals and insects has its own particular organism, with its own capacities. And all, including man, repeat their own existence. Each succeeding generation is a perfect duplicate of the preceding one and of all its past ancestry.

Then what do we absolutely know of man? We need go no farther back in contemplating either ourselves or any other individual being than to the commencement of such an existence. All before this, in any individual experience, is a perfect blank. No man has the faintest knowledge of a being or of a conscious state, until he has a personal existence in a body. Neither can we with reason, even aided by science and philosophy, contemplate man as an intellectual being after the dissolution of that body. All afterward, to it, is perfect oblivion. So says true philosophy. Reason, with all its facilities and appliances, can trace man in his existence and actions only from the cradle to the tomb. There reason stops.

Each individual existence, being marked with a beginning, may also, says reason, have an ending. And it most certainly will have an ending, unless sustained and perpetuated by some power which is capable of thus sustaining and perpetuating it, and which, in its own nature, is without beginning or ending. Existence is most certainly the result of organization, and anything that destroys that organization puts an end to the existence. Then reason says that unless that organization can be restored, the existence cannot be renewed; and we know of no means that is within the reach of man of restoring that body to its living condition. Man, with all his scientific researches, with all materia medica before him, cannot even save his fellow-man from dying, much less restore him to life again when dead. Under some circumstances he may prolong life for a time, but only for a time; but he cannot restore. The best we may do for man, in the view in which we now contemplate him, is to receive him kindly and tenderly when we first meet him; care for and educate his given faculties; enjoy his society while he lives; and, when he dies, consign him to an eternal and unconscious silence. This is the bound of reason.

No man, if he will yield to the dictates of the commonest faculties of reason, can conceive the idea that “to die” means “to live,” or that “to live” means “to die.” The rational conclusion of it all is, “to be,” or “not to be.” Man’s state is either among the living or among the dead. And so it must ever remain. There can be no half-way condition. Reason says there cannot.

Observation is sufficient to satisfy every one that all men are alike subject to death. And reason says that unless man is again made to live by the same Agency that first planned and caused his existence, death will be to him an eternal state. This is entirely logical. And, further, it is reasonable to suppose that unless a bodily organization of the same individual that died is restored, he can never live again; for without a body there can be no existence. And if it were not organized like the first body, it could not be a perpetuation of the first existence; but it would be both a new creation and a different existence. But nature and reason of themselves know nothing of such a wonderful plan as this would be. And as in this article the intention is to examine man from only the standpoint of reason, we shall not undertake to look beyond our position for any better hope than this life affords.

But, lest some should decide that our conclusion that the manifestations of intellect are the result of the organization of matter, is too hastily and unfairly drawn, it is only necessary to refer to the one fact, that from the brain emanate all our thoughts. Where there is no brain, there can be no thought. Where the brain is very small, thought is also small. Where the brain is large, thought is also large. Upon the size and perfection of the brain, depend the capacity and perfection of the mind. Destroy any one organ of the brain, and there is no longer any manifestation of the faculty of the mind of which that organ is the seat. In a very badly diseased state of the brain, all the powers of the mind or intellect are dethroned. Hence, where death ensues, there can be no doubt that intellectual consciousness, and life, are entirely at an end. So decides reason.

But, with all these facts before us, man, although under sentence of death, is a wonderful being. He has a high order of intelligence. His actions are the result of his will. He legislates; he plans; he decides; he executes; he spans the earth; he grasps the stars; he seeks out, not only the nature of matter, but the laws that govern it; he separates and combines matter; he is a moral agent. Naturally, he is perfection to a finite extent. He acts, so far as he can act, with perfect independence. He can be restrained only by reason or physical force, from doing anything that he has ability to do. He is not by nature a slave.

But somewhere there must be an authority to which he is accountable for the use he makes of so important an existence and its abilities. If his life and moral abilities were intrusted to him by some great Creator on the condition that he would use them in such a way as to honor his origin, and he has, by violation of that duty, forfeited that life, it can justly be taken away from him for his willful rebellion.

Whatever is conditional is liable to be forfeited; and, when forfeited, is as though it had never been promised. This is a fair ruling. Man has life. He dies. And in death, so far as reason and philosophy inform us, he is left. This is all we may be said to know of man. “What we believe of man,” we propose to make the subject of another article.

Frankton, Ind., Dec. 21.