The Ascent of the Soul | Page 3

constitutes him a spirit, or
personality; and that is what the word soul signifies in its popular usage.
There is another technical definition which may be true or false but
which is of no importance in our study.
The problem of life is the right adjustment of spirit and body, so that
the former shall never be the servant but always the master of the latter.
We are on this earth, in the midst of darkness, with nothing absolutely
sure except that in a little while we must die. We are two-fold beings in
which there is war almost from the cradle to the grave, and that war is
caused by the effort of the body to rule the soul and of the soul to
conquer the body.
At the gates of this mystery we continually do cry, and little light
comes from any quarter; indeed, it may be said no light except that of
the Christian revelation, and the, as yet, not very pronounced
prophecies of evolution.
One of the questions, which in all ages has been most persistently
asked, concerns the origin of the soul. Perhaps, in reality, that is no
more mysterious than the genesis of the body; but the body is material
and we live in a world of matter, and it is comparatively easy to see that
our bodies are from the earth which they inhabit. Our souls, however,
are invisible, immaterial, ethereal. There is no evident kinship between
a thought and a stone, between love and the soil which produces
vegetables, between a heroic choice and the stuff of the earth, between
spirit and matter. Well, then, whence does the soul come?
It will be interesting at least to recall a few of the many answers which
have been given to this inquiry.
One theory of the genesis of the soul is called Emanation. That means
that in the universe there is really but one source of spiritual being, one
Infinite Spirit, and that all other spiritual beings have proceeded from
Him as the rays of light are flashed from the sun; and that, in time, all
will return to Him again and be absorbed in the being from which they
have come. Thus all spirits are supposed to have proceeded from one

source--God. As all natural life in the end is but a manifestation of solar
energy, so all human beings are supposed to be only bits of God, for a
time imprisoned in bodies, and some time to return to the Deity and be
absorbed in Him, or in it.
Another answer to the question as to the soul's origin is that of
Preëxistence. This may be called the Oriental theory, for almost the
whole Orient holds this view. The substance of the teaching is
suggested by Wordsworth, in his "Ode to Immortality," in the
following lines:
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The soul that rises with us,
our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar."
Many Occidentals have believed in preëxistence. One of the most
intelligent persons whom I have ever known once affirmed that she had
had thoughts which she was sure were memories of events which had
occurred in a previous life. This answer only pushes the question one
stage further back, and leaves us still inquiring, Where do the souls of
men originally come from?
Another answer to our question affirms that every individual soul is
created by God whenever a body is in readiness to receive it--that when
a body is born a soul is made to order for it. An old poet wrote as
follows:
"Then God smites His hands together And strikes out a soul as a spark,
Into the organized glory of things, From the deeps of the dark."[1]
[Footnote 1: W.R. Alger, "History of the Doctrine of a Future Life,"
page 10.]
The Greek myth of Prometheus is an illustration of this teaching, for
"Prometheus is said to have made a human image from the dust of the
ground, and then, by fire stolen from heaven, to have animated it with a
living soul."[2]
[Footnote 2: W.R. Alger, "History of the Doctrine of a Future Life,"

page 10.]
Another answer teaches that all human souls have been derived by
heredity from that of Adam. This is a speculation found in medieval
theology, and in the Koran.
A fanciful theory suggests that all souls have been in existence since
the universe was formed; that they are floating in space like rays of
light; and that when a body comes into being a soul is drawn into it
with its first breath, or first nourishment. This is pure imagination, but
intelligent and earnest men have believed it to be the true solution of
the problem.
One other answer to