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DEALINGS WITH THE DEAD
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rushed out of being for accommodation's sake. Yet not one of these portions would be spirit, because that is indivisible; they can never be. It is a philosophic truth, as well as a scientific axiom, that "Matter is divisible forever; spirit is not."

Beasts have spirits, but not immortal ones; for the reason that they are the result of mere physical energy, and natural elements acted on by natural forces. Their mission is to serve certain uses, the greatest of which is that of affording, in some mysterious way, temporary homes for higher beings, or rather for what is thereafter to become such—as already alluded to in the article on Transmigration.

Nothing material is endowed with perpetuity; for nothing particled can ever be so. True it is, that the spirit of a beast is many degrees finer in texture, and more sublimated than the luminiferous ether by which we come in contact with colors; but the soul of a man is myriads of degrees more subtile in constitution than even this essential part of animals. The last is particled, the former homogeneous, sui generis, Deific in origin, peculiar in nature, expansive in power, infinite in capacity of acquirement, and probably eternal in duration.

Comparisons are useful: Suppose, then, that the sacred rite is to be celebrated that shall call a new soul into outer being. Well, at the moment of orgasm, there leaps forth from the very heart of the winged globe a monad; with the speed of light, it rushes down the spinal column, supplied in its route with a nervo-magnetic garment—a voluntary contribution from every particle of his physical being. It reaches the neighborhood of the prostate gland, passes through it, during which it receives additional envelopes, of a nature easily