Progression to Immortality (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1902 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER V OUR PRETERNATURAL ENDOWMENT It is certainly most strange, considering our destiny on earth, that the insufficiency of our senses seems to give us but a slight hold upon it, so to speak. It is equally strange that we are endowed with some faculties which, if not "supernatural," are something more than "natural," endowments which, speaking with all reverence, seem to point toward the existence of beings superior to ourselves, and even to a degree of kinship with them. There are certain prodigies of childhood occasionally born into the world with faculties either of a different nature or of a different degree from the ordinary gifts of mankind, children who solve problems without apparent effort, and of a nature so complicated that very excellent mathematicians can verify the results only after long and careful calculation. If these children are asked how they obtain the results, they do not know. They have a preternatural gift which enables them to give the solutions without the labor which would be exacted from the cleverest of adults. The same may be said of music. Mozart was a composer at four years of age. At four he composed a concerto which his father said was so difficult that no one could perform it. That seems incredible, but it is authoritatively on record. At six his father took him on an extended tour, during which he played before most of the sovereigns of Germany. An ordinary student of talent, mature, thoroughly prepared and persevering, might hope to compose a concerto of the character only after many years of faithful study. We call these extraordinary gifts "genius "--in the case of children "precocious genius"--and we seem to consider the wonderful endowment thus sufficiently explained. Inspiration is a better word; it implies a f...