Hitherto only little study has been given to the spiritual qualities of the cells, and such investigations must always meet with certain insurmountable difficulties. The reason is that we only judge others by ourselves and we are therefore unable to understand the spiritual life of any being that is not one of our kin. If a being stands higher or lower than ourselves its spiritual experiences, if not entirely different from ours, are at least limited and modified by the being’s own power of comprehension. If, however, these beings show manifestations of life that we understand, we must conclude that their spiritual or mental life is correspondingly active.
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Such a position we occupy with regard to the beings called cells. From the result of their activities we conclude that they, like men, are endowed with aspirations capable of the highest conceivable evolution. What economic necessities are to man, the arterial blood is to the cell. The blood is an artificial product which nature no more gives to the cell than it gives clothes, food, houses and the like to man. Nature provides the raw material and cell and man alike must learn how to adapt it for the necessities of life. This operation, however, involves great difficulties. All such artificial products stand in inverse proportion to the power of the individual. The more perfect they are the more impossible it is for the individual to produce them. Only as citizens in a community, that is, through organization, are the individuals able to produce such products as exceed their isolated forces.
Although we cannot comprehend the inner life of the cell, nor the world in[149] which it dwells, we are able to judge, from the wonderful perfectness of the organisms built by cells, that they have reached in their world and measured by their power a higher state of development than man. It is not only possible but highly probable that the human individuals will sometime build an organism of the same perfectness, but as yet they have not done so. The cells have long ago passed the stage of organization that characterizes human society at present.
From the fact that the first purpose of every organic structure is to serve the individuals of which it is composed, it follows that nobody, except these same individuals, can build the organism in question. Independently the cells build the human body here in time and they must do the same in the future life. The organism cannot exist in other surroundings than those for which its organs are adapted. But this adaptation can only be effected by the individuals that form the building material[150] of the organs, because the organs just express their relations to the world in which they exist. Thus it follows of necessity that man’s resurrection or transition from one world to another must be identical with the dying cells’ upbuilding of that organism which man shall possess in a future life. Any other form of resurrection is neither possible nor conceivable. It is further confirmed by the relation that exists between the soul and the cells. This relationship, as we intend to show, is such that the soul receives its entire individuality, all its forces and faculties, from the cell-organism, the previous resurrection of which therefore is an indispensable condition for man’s own rise to another life.
If the mass of a body is living the body itself is alive. The whole receives its qualities from its elementary components. The organism itself is a living being. From the point of view of the building material the organism is a society composed of independently living[151] individuals; from the point of view of the whole again it is a living individual of higher order than the individuals that form its social side. Man is a cell in the social body, but is himself composed of lower individuals, which again consist of more primary units.
Man, considered as being possessed of a body, is an individual composed of lower individuals.
We now ask the question: What is the relation between the higher individual and the lower ones? This is only another and more exact form of the question: What is the relation between the soul and the body? Because, what is the body and what is the soul? The body is the sum of the lower individuals, or, in other words, it is the organized mass of cells. The soul, as the feeling, thinking and willing principle, is the real spiritual unity in this mass, or just what we denote by the word man, or the higher individual. To ask, what is the relationship between the higher individual and[152] its lower constituents is therefore the same as to ask, what is the relation between the soul and the cells? Take away the latter, and there is nothing left of the body. The cells mean here everything, and it is to them consequently that the soul can be thought to stand in relation.
Formerly the problem was to explain how soul and body as two substantially different entities were related to each other. They had then nothing in common, nothing to encourage an interaction. If now the relation holds between the soul and the cells we have at least commensurable quantities to deal with.
So far all is well. But now other difficulties arise. We can and must ask, how an interaction is possible between the soul and the cells even if they are formally, according to their inner nature, kindred beings? In other respects they are not so separated and different that a spiritual intercourse is inconceivable. As inaccessible as is the[153] inner life of the cell to man, so incontiguous is the spiritual life of man to the cell. These beings are so widely separated that they cannot possibly communicate directly with each other, and yet in order to establish a mental or spiritual interrelationship, such communication is just what is necessary.
The soul and the cells must have something in common that is of a purely spiritual nature. As the spiritual always is a comprehending substance with nothing but comprehensions as its content, the something common to both must consequently have the form of common comprehensions. Not all comprehensions, however, incite to activity and a smaller number yet call forth a co-operation of independently living individuals. But, obviously, the perceptions that concern us now must be of the latter kind. The comprehensions in general that induce a being to activity we call wants or appetites. In its desires a being conceives[154] its own ego in want of one thing or other. The feeling of discomfort, accompanying the want, naturally causes the endeavor to satisfy the want through a corresponding effort. The incitement to activity then is purely spiritual. Are the soul of man and the cells subject to such common needs, requiring their co-operation? If so, at least their wants or appetites cannot be wholly congruous. Such are only to be found in entirely similar beings. But different wants are satisfied in different ways; each requires a carefully adapted form of activity. All direct, immediate co-operation of the soul and the cells is therefore impossible. Only man with man, or cell with cell, can co-operate in the primary sense of the word.
But an indirect working alliance is not yet precluded. Though themselves different, the two beings may comprehend wants identical in substance, but not in form. The formal discrepancy would require not only different modes[155] of satisfying the need, but also different kinds of activity; but the common substance might yet under certain conditions so unite and interlink the different labors, that the result would show a mutual co-operation.
We shall presently see that the soul and the cells are so united with each other that the connecting link is the organism per se. From the point of view of the cells the organism, with its different members and organs, was nothing but the collective expressions of individual wants. Now man comprehends as his needs only the wants of the organs; in other words, the collective wants of the cells are the individual wants of the soul. Experience teaches us that the soul has no direct comprehension of the cells, but only of their organic unions. To prove this it may be sufficient to point out that before the discovery of the microscope, man knew absolutely nothing of the existence of these beings, much less that they were the all-governing forces[156] in his own body. But also in other ways we may ascertain that the comprehending power of the soul does not reach beyond the organs. This is apparent from the different significance the physiological processes have for the soul and for the cells. If we consider the most important of them all, our nutrition, and ask ourselves for whom the nourishment is really intended, we find that it is for the cells and for the cells alone.
The food benefits the soul only if it is utilized by the cells. But the nourishment............