When the involuntary
partnership between mind and matter ceases through death, it is possible,
or at least conceivable, that the impalpable soul, admitting that such a
thing exists, may survive in some medium where it may be free from
material shackles, but, while life endures, the flesh has wants which must
be gratified, and which, therefore, take precedence of the yearnings of
the soul, just as Saint Paul points out was the case with himself; and
herein lies the inexorable conflict between the moral law and the law of
competition which favors the strong, and from whence comes all the
abominations of selfishness, of violence, of cruelty and crime.
Approached thus, perhaps no historical fragment is more suggestive than
the exodus of the Jews from Egypt under Moses, who was the first great
optimist, nor one which is seldomer read with an eye to the contrast which
it discloses between Moses the law-giver, the idealist, the religious
prophet, and the visionary; and Moses the political adventurer and the
keen and unscrupulous man of the world. And yet it is here at the point at
which mind and matter clashed, that Moses merits most attention. For Moses
and the Mosaic civilization broke down at this point, which is, indeed,
the chasm which has engulfed every progressive civilization since the dawn
of time.
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