Philosophy of Rebirth-5

[Guest guest]

We may maintain,-provisionally at least,-certain things,

as the legitimate presumptions of the philosophic reason,

and throw the burden of disproving them on their denier.

 

Among these postulates is the principle that,

that which has no end,

must necessarily have had no beginning;

all that begins or is created,

has an end by cessation of the process,

which created or maintains it,

or an end by the dissolution of the materials,

of which it is compounded,

or an end by the end of the function,

for which it came into being.

 

If there is an exception to this law,

it must be by a descent of spirit into matter,

animating matter with divinity,

or giving matter its own immortality;

but the spirit which descends,

is itself immortal and is not created.

 

If the soul was created,

to animate the body,

if it depended on the body,

for its coming into existence,

it can have no reason for existence,

after the disappearance of the body.

It is naturally to be supposed that,

the breath or power given for body's animation,

would return at its final dissolution to its Maker.

 

If, on the contrary, it still persists,

as an immortal embodied being,

there must be a subtle or psychic body,

in which it continues, and it is fairly certain,

that this psychic body and its inhabitant,

must be pre-existent to the material vehicle.

 

If the soul remains,

but in a disembodied condition,

then it can have no original dependence,

on a body for its existence;

it must have subsisted,

as an unembodied spirit before its birth,

even as it persists,

in its disembodied spiritual entity after death.