ation and conservation."
Considerations connected with the stability of the universe give
strength to this view, since it is clear that, were there either
an increase or a diminution, the order of the world must cease. The
definite and invariable amount of energy in the universe must therefore
be accepted as a scientific fact. The changes we witness are in its
distribution.

But, since the soul must be regarded as an active principle, to call a
new one into existence out of nothing is necessarily to add to the force
previously in the world. And, if this has been done in the case of every
individual who has been born, and is to be repeated for every individual
hereafter, the totality of force must be continually increasing.

Moreover, to many devout persons there is something very revolting in
the suggestion that the Almighty is a servitor to the caprices and lusts
of man, and that, at a certain term after its origin, it is necessary
for him to create for the embryo a soul.

Considering man as composed of two portions, a soul and a body, the
obvious relations of the latter may cast much light on the mysterious,
the obscure relations of the former. Now, the substance of which the
body consists is obtained from the general mass of matter around us,
and after death to that general mass it is restored. Has Nature, then,
displayed before our eyes in the origin, mutations, and destiny of the
material part, the body, a revelation that may guide us to a knowledge
of the origin and destiny of the companion, the spiritual part, the
soul?

Let us listen for a moment to one of the most powerful of Mohammedan
writers:

"God has created the spirit of man out of a drop of his own light;
its destiny is to return to him. Do not deceive yourself with the vain
imagination that it will die when the body dies. The form you had on
your entrance into this world, and your present form, are not the
same; hence there is no necessity of your perishing, on account of the
perishing of your body. Your spirit came into this world a stranger, it
is only sojourning, in a temporary home. From the trials and tempests
of this troublesome life, our refuge is in God. In reunion with him we
shall find eternal rest--a rest without sorrow, a joy without pain, a
strength without infirmity, a knowledge without doubt, a tranquil and
yet an ecstatic vision of the source of life and light and glory, the
source from which we came." So says the Saracen philosoph