It is hard to conceive a soul entirely cut loose from the old bones, and roving rudderless about eternity.  It was probably this inability to mentally divorce soul from substance that gave us that absurdly satisfactory belief in the resurrection of the flesh.  There is said to be a race of people somewhere in Africa who believe in the immortality of the body, but deny the resurrection of the soul.  The dead will rise refreshed after their long sleep, and in their anxiety to test their rejuvenated powers, will skip bodily away and forget their souls.  Upon returning to look for them, they will find nothing but little blue flames, which can never be extinguished, but may be carried about and used for cooking purposes.  This belief probably originates in some dim perception of the law of compensation.  In this life the body is the drudge of the spirit; in the next the situation is reversed.

The heaven of the Mussulman is not incompatible with this kind of immortality.  Its delights, being merely carnal ones, could be as well or better enjoyed without a soul, and the latter might be booked for the Christian heaven, with only just enough of the body to attach a pair of wings to.  Mr. Solyman Muley Abdul Ben Gazel could thus enjoy a dual immortality and secure a double portion of eternal felicity at no expense to anybody.

In fact, there can be no doubt whatever that this theory of a double heaven is the true one, and needs but to be fairly stated to be universally received, inasmuch as it supposes the maximum of felicity for terrestrial good behaviour.  It is therefore a sensible theory, resting upon quite as solid a foundation of fact as any other theory, and must commend itself at once to the proverbial good sense of Christians everywhere.  The trouble is that some architectural scoundrel of a priest is likely to build a religion upon it; and what the world needs is theory-good, solid, nourishing theory.  Music-Muscular and Mechanical.

One cheerful evidence of the decivilization of the Anglo-Saxon race is the late tendency to return to first principles in art, as manifested in substituting noise for music.  Herein we detect symptoms of a rapid relapse into original barbarism.  The savage who beats his gong or kettledrum until his face is of a delicate blue, and his eyes assert themselves like those of an unterrified snail, believes that musical skill is a mere question of brawn-a matter of muscle.  If not wholly ignorant of technical gymnastics, he has a theory that a deftness at dumb-bells is a prime requisite in a finished artist.  The advance-in a circle-of civilization has only partially unsettled this belief in the human mind, and we are constantly though unconsciously reverting to it.

It is true the modern demand for a great deal of music has outstripped the supply of muscle for its production; but the ingenuity of man has partially made up for his lack of physical strength, and the sublimer harmonies may still be rendered with tolerable effectiveness, and with little actual fatigue to the artist.  As we retrograde towards the condition of Primeval Man-the man with the gong and kettledrum-the blacksmith slowly reasserts his place as the interpreter of the maestro.