With almost the entire balance of Eld. W.'s article we fully agree, and hence do not need to notice much of it. In his last paragraph he says, after having referred at length to the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, "These passages show that man's physical organization does not constitute his essential existence, but that it consists in that life principle which takes on the new body." Here, again, we can agree verbally with our reviewer. Our only difference is in our understanding of the meaning of terms, after all. He supposes that there is a life principle, or force, which may exist independent of matter, and which he calls the soul. We accept the declaration of science, that there is no such separately existing force, that matter and force are inseparable. The life principle, so-called, is essentially what we mean by organization; for life is the result of organization, and not organization the result of life. Thus, Eld. W. and our readers must clearly see that after all this whole matter is summed up in the single question, Which is primary, life or organization? which is a purely scientific problem.
Finally Eld. W. says: "Now, if spirit and character are the products of material bodies, how can bodies so suddenly changed and radically different still produce the same spirits and characters?" "How can a pure, spiritual body produce the same character as a gross, diseased body?" Does our reviewer wish us to infer that he believes that there will be gross characters in Heaven? Will he not allow that characters which are more or less perverted by gross, diseased bodies shall be "changed," when mortal puts on immortality, so as to agree with pure, spiritual bodies? If not, then according to his theory, there must be in Heaven, gross and diseased bodies!
But Eld. W. says, in his last period, that "men will be recognized" by their characters "after the resurrection." Thus he admits that the character is the means of identification, which is essentially our position. If this is true, and Eld. W. admits its truth, then if the character is preserved by means of the life-record in Heaven, will not the identity be preserved also, and what need have we of an immaterial entity—the very existence of which is hypothetical and contrary to all accepted principles of science—to accomplish the same thing? Thus we have Eld. W. on our side, in the assertion that the soul or spirit for which he argues, if it exists at all, is an unnecessary appendage to the body.