UC-NRLF SB ETM M2D Sngeraoll Lectures 011 ^Tmmortalitp IMMORTALITY AND THE NEW THEODICY. By Georgb A. Gord.on, D. D. 1896. HUMAN IMMORTALITY. Two supposed Objections to the Doctrine. By Professor William James. 1897. DIONYSOS AND IMMORTALITY: The Greek Faith in Immortality as affected by the rise of Individual- ism. By President Benjamin Ide Wheeler. 1898. THE CONCEPTION OF IMMORTALITY. By Pro- fessor JOSIAH ROYCB. 1899. LIFE EVERLASTING. By John Fiske, LL.D. 1900. SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY. By William Osler, M. D., LL. D. 1904. THE ENDLESS LIFE. By Samuel M. Crothers, D. D. 1905. INDIVIDUALITY AND IMMORTALITY. By Professor WlLHELM OSTWALD. 1906. THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. By Charles F. Dole. 1907. BUDDHISM AND IMMORTALITY. By William S. Bigelow, M. D. 1908. IS IMMORTALITY DESIRABLE? By G. Lowes Dickinson, Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. 1909. EGYPTIAN CONCEPTIONS OF IMMORTALITY. By George A. Reisner. 191 i. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY Boston and New York INDIVIDUALITY AND IMMORTALITY W$t 31ngersoll JUcture, iso6 INDIVIDUALITY AND IMMORTALITY BY WILHELM OSTWALD 'I Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Leipzig Temporary Professor at Harvard University BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY -Br**/ COPYRIGHT 1906 BY WILHELM OSTWALD ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published February igob ^ THE INGERSOLL LECTURESHIP Extract from the -will of Miss Caroline Haskell Ingersoll, who died in Keene, County of Cheshire, New Hampshire, Jan. 26, i8gj. First. In carrying out the wishes of my late beloved father, George Goldthwait Ingersoll, as declared by him in his last will and testament, I give and bequeath to Harvard University in Cam- bridge, Mass., where my late father was graduated, and which he always held in love and honor, the sum of Five thousand dollars ($5,000) as a fund for the establishment of a Lectureship on a plan some- what similar to that of the Dudleian lecture, that is — one lecture to be delivered each year, on any con- venient day between the last day of May and the first day of December, on this subject, "the Im- mortality of Man," said lecture not to form a part of the usual college course, nor to be delivered by any Professor or Tutor as part of his usual routine of instruction, though any such Professor or Tutor may be appointed to such service. The choice of said lecturer is not to be limited to any one religious denomination, nor to any one profession, but may be that of either clergyman or layman, the appoint- ment to take place at least six months before the delivery of said lecture. The above sum to be safely invested and three fourths of the annual in- terest thereof to be paid to the lecturer for his services and the remaining fourth to be expended in the publishment and gratuitous distribution of the lecture, a copy of which is always to be fur- nished by the lecturer for such purpose. The same lecture to be named and known as "the Ingersoll lecture on the Immortality of Man." 360469 INDIVIDUALITY AND IMMORTALITY WHEN the great and unex- pected honor of being in- vited to deliver the Ingersoll Lecture on Immortality came to me, my feelings were of a rather complex nature. First of all, I felt of course proud, and thankful that I was to be intrusted with such a responsible task. Secondly, I felt a deep respect, not only for the men who did me the honor to invite me, but also for the institution under whose auspices the lecture is delivered. For as a general thing, a scientist, whose task it is to analyze the facts of experience irrespective of 2 : . 'INDIVIDUALITY AND any preconceived ideas, will not find his results in accordance with ideas which are handed down from genera- tion to generation — ideas which have become venerable, not only because of their age, but also because of the in- fluence which they have had upon the development of mankind. There is a certain danger, not only in the occur- rence of such possible differences, but also in the mere fact that the scientist applies his trenchant and merciless tools of investigation to subjects which interest us because of their practical bearing, and are at the same time dear to our hearts and closely connected with our deepest and most earnest feelings. The fact that such considerations did not prevent the invitation shows IMMORTALITY 3 once more how deeply the modern man is persuaded of the ultimate wholesomeness of truth. No matter where an unprejudiced search after truth may lead an investigator ; if his work is that of an honest scientist it must and will finally turn out to be for the benefit of mankind. Our know- ledge is an incomplete piece of patch- work ; but each one of us is bound to make the best possible use of the incomplete knowledge he possesses, conscious always that his results are any day liable to be replaced by new discoveries or ideas. So the authori- ties in charge of the Ingersoll Lecture thought it right, if I understand them correctly, that the subject should be investigated from every possible point of view, being sure that this is the 4 INDIVIDUALITY AND only way that can bring us nearer and nearer to the ultimate truth. If a chemist or physicist of to-day is asked about his ideas on immor- tality, his first feeling will be that of some astonishment. He meets with no question in his work which is con- nected with this one, and his reply may usually be classified under one of two heads. He may remember the re- ligious impressions which have clung to him since his youth, kept alive by him or nearly forgotten, as the case may be, and he will then explain that such questions are in no way connected with his science; for the objects treated by his science are non-living matter. This is immediately evident in physics, and while there exists an organic chemistry, he will explain that any matter which IMMORTALITY 5 is called organic in his sense is de- cidedly dead before it can become the object of his investigation. It is only the inanimate part of the world which concerns him scientifically, and any ideas he may hold about the ques- tion of immortality are his private opinions and quite independent of his science. Or he may dismiss his inter- locutor still more shortly by saying from his standpoint of matter-and- motion: Soul is a function of living matter only. The moment life ceases in an organized body the value of this function becomes zero, and there is no further question about immor- tality. The very fact that I am standing before you at this moment, ready to deliver the Ingersoll Lecture, shows 6 INDIVIDUALITY AND that in my opinion there is something more to be said about this question than is contained in these two answers. I do not intend to follow the line of the first answer and to explain in an apolo- getic way that, while physical science has nothing to say about immortality, neither does it shut out any of the perspectives that are possible, and that a man is left free to think or to believe anything which is brought home to him by special considerations. That this standpoint is a practicable one is proven by the fact that even so great a scientist as Michael Faraday main- tained it through his long and incom- parably fruitful career. It will be necessary to investigate the other standpoint mentioned with much greater minuteness than that IMMORTALITY 7 reached by giving the brief, character- istic reply. It must be restated from its very foundation, because, as I have been maintaining for the last ten years, the matter-and-motion theory (or sci- entific materialism) has outgrown it- self and must be replaced by another theory, to which the name Energetics has been given. The question there- fore takes the form, What has ener- getics to say about immortality ? If we ask, Upon what property does the difference between man and even the highest of the lower animals de- pend? we get a most varied set of answers from different people. But when all considerations other than purely empirical ones are put aside, we find this difference dependent on the different development of memory. 8 INDIVIDUALITY AND Memory is the indispensable prere- quisite for learning, and man's culture rises so much higher than that of any- animal simply because his memory is by far the best. Memory helps man in knowing how to act when dangers approach or wants are to be satisfied. By memory he learns to distinguish between good and evil. Memory helps him not only to look into the past, which can no longer be changed at will, but also to look into the future, which may be changed to his advan- tage. For if he knows how things hap- pen he can foresee the later part of an event of which only an earlier part has been observed. The series of consec- utive events which he can survey at any given time may be a short or a long one, and his power of prediction IMMORTALITY 9 will be small or great accordingly ; but in every case he can act as a prophet, though perhaps not always a very powerful one. Memory in the broadest sense is found even in the lowest forms of ani- mal life, and in fact in all organic life. As Hering pointed out a long time ago, memory is a universal function of all living matter, if the meaning of the word be extended to its proper generality. The possession of mem- ory means, then, that all living matter is so changed, by any process which goes on in it, that a repetition of the same process becomes easier, or occurs sooner, or takes place more quickly, than any other process. What the cause of this property may be we do not know, and the construction of any io INDIVIDUALITY AND example or analogy from a physical- chemical standpoint is not an easy thing to do. There is no reason why this should not be done, however, and it seems possible that we may some day find out the very means which na- ture uses in the formation of memory. This part of the question, however, does not directly concern us in the pre- sent investigation. It is wonderful how the considera- tion of this property enables us to understand certain very general and important facts concerning living be- ings. That organisms form classes and species is a consequence of this property, for no animal or plant would keep a constant form or constant habits if the repetition of an act al- ready performed were not easier than IMMORTALITY n doing something new. The process resembles a path through the wilder- ness. The mere fact that the foot- prints of a previous wanderer can be recognized is sufficient to cause the later wanderer to keep in the same path, although he might possibly find another more convenient way if he made himself independent. The third man follows where his predecessors went, and the path becomes more and more distinct and a deviation from it more and more difficult and un- likely to occur. We may imagine the processes which brought about the origin of species and the maintenance of their relatively constant properties to have been of this same type. A very important point in this gen- eral idea is the transmission of memory 12 INDIVIDUALITY AND from parents to offspring. The great riddle of heredity, which caused Dar- win so much thinking without a cor- responding result, may be brought somewhat nearer to a solution by the aid of this same concept of memory. A general view of the facts of genera- tion and propagation shows us that the life of the offspring is nothing more nor less than the continuation of the life of the parents. Among simple cells propagation usually takes the form of a simple division ; the nucleus first dividing itself into two equal parts, and the whole cell soon afterward separat- ing into two. It is impossible to tell in this case which of the two cells is the parent and which is the offspring, since the two parts remain alike during the whole process of separation, and IMMORTALITY 13 each may claim with the same right either relation to the other. Neither is it possible to say that the parent cell has died in giving rise to the two child-cells. The tran- sition from the stage of a single cell to that of two separate cells is a quite continuous one, and there is no mo- ment when the old cell disappears or ceases to exist. No part of the original cell can be recognized as the corpse of a being which has perished. The only possible way, then, of look- ing at this process is to say that the life of the original cell is continued under changed circumstances, namely, instead of one individual, two now exist. If the two cells remain united, as is usual in organisms consisting of a great number of cells, no doubt occurs to us 14 INDIVIDUALITY AND as to the continuance of the life of the organism, even though all of its con- stituent cells divide until not one of the original cells remains. And the case is certainly not in the least changed if the two cells separate, either immedi- ately after their formation or at a later time, into two independent individuals. In this way life may continue, even if one of the child-cells perishes by some accident. For each of the new cells will divide again, and the greater the number of individual cells formed, the more certain the continuance of their common life. Death has here lost much of his power ; many individ- uals may perish, but the organism as such remains alive. Only when the very last of all the offspring perishes may death be regarded as the victor. IMMORTALITY 15 In following out this train of ideas we have already approached the ques- tion of immortality, for a famous bio- logist has called the fact just described Immortality. It is not my intention to adopt this view, for while the possi- bility of final death is much lessened by propagation and separation, or, in general, by the dissipation of life, it is not entirely excluded, but only made more improbable. We can easily conceive of circum- stances of such a generally deadly char- acter that no individual can escape them. Then the divided organism will die just as does the single one. The question of the occurrence of such an event in the world's history cannot be answered conclusively, because it is connected with that other open ques- 16 INDIVIDUALITY AND tion, Are all the living beings on the earth descended from one single cell, or has life come into being at different places and times ? If we choose the first alternative, then all existing or- ganisms are descendants or parts of the same organism, and this organism has enjoyed practical immortality up to the present. Even in the other case it is not necessary to assume that any one of the different parent organ- isms which have developed at various times has finished its career, since all of them may have survived in their oifspring. Be that as it may, we can conceive of a universal catastrophe which would annihilate all life in all parts of the world, — which would destroy all the descendants of the first cell or first cells. And this conception IMMORTALITY 17 destroys the possibility of calling this sort of existence immortality, since the idea of immortality includes not only an unlimited possibility for the contin- uance of life, but also an absolute im- possibility of destroying it utterly. Although we meet with the idea of immortality in this line of thought, examination shows that we do not find real immortality here. And 1 feel sure that none of us expected to find it here, since it is not a material immor- tality but a spiritual one that we are seeking. Let us therefore return to our starting-point, the consideration of memory in its broadest sense, as set forth by Hering. We found that the existence of various species was ex- plained by the general fact of memory as well as by heredity. And this idea 18 INDIVIDUALITY AND is a still more far-reaching one, since memory explains also the functions of mind. From the chaotic stream of ever- changing events which forms our life, those parts which are repeated in a similar way distinguish themselves by their mere repetition in accordance with the law of memory. They take place more easily and form prominent parts of the stream of events. Here we find the cause of reflex actions, instinctive actions, and finally of conscious mem- ory. All the content of our experience relates to such repeated events only, for only repeated experience is expe- rience in the proper sense of the word. Only by repetition do we gain know- ledge, and only such series of facts as are repeated in a similar way become IMMORTALITY 19 so known to us that we can predict from one part of such a series the parts which are to follow. The mind is no- thing more than a collection of such known series. If we experience a wholly new event, we invariably say that we do not understand it, and only after due repetition can it form a part of true experience. Thus those parts of our general ex- perience which recur often in the same way appear to be the most important parts, and indeed the only ones worth knowing. To explain the repetition of similar experiences we are accustomed to make the assumption that the re- peated parts are in existence all the time, and that their appearance and disappearance is caused only by the variable direction of our attention. I 20 INDIVIDUALITY AND may be looking at a flower-pot on my window-sill. I turn to my book and the flower-pot disappears so far as I am concerned. I turn my head again, and the flower - pot appears. What better supposition can I make than that it stood there all the while, since it depends only on my turning my head whether the flower-pot shall form a part of my consciousness or not ? In this way we get the idea of an existence which lasts longer than our sense-impression does. With visible, unchanging objects this supposition appears very natural and self-evident, although the arbitrary part of it has been recognized since the time of Berkeley. But in the same way we form the idea of persistence in the case of far more abstract concepts. The IMMORTALITY 21 chemist asserts that when he has burned coal to an invisible gas, car- bonic acid, the vanished carbon has not really disappeared, but only been transformed into another form by its combination with the oxygen of the air. In this case the supposition is much more far-fetched, since all the appreciable properties of the carbon have disappeared with the exception of weight, and this persists only in the sense that the carbonic acid has a weight equal to the sum of the weights of the carbon and the oxygen before the change. But since it is possible to invert the process and change the car- bonic acid into exactly as much carbon and oxygen as disappeared during its formation, we get a brief and intelli- gible description of these facts by con- 22 INDIVIDUALITY AND , sidering the elements of a compound substance as being hidden in it in some unrecognizable new form from which they can be recovered by proper means. This is the true sense of the law of the conservation of the elements. Still less obvious is the persistence of the most general entity we know of in the physical world. I mean Energy. Energy in the form of mechanical work may be transformed into electricity, assuming a wholly new shape which has nothing in common with the former one except the proportionality of the quantities. And electricity may be transformed into light or heat or chem- ical energy, assuming the most diverse forms. But if we conclude such a se- ries of transformations by changing the energy back into the form of me- IMMORTALITY 23 chanical work, we get exactly the amount we started from, provided that all losses on the way have been avoided or taken into account. We summarize this behavior by saying, Energy can- not be created or destroyed : energy is, therefore, an eternal thing. There are a number of other things which are endowed with this same property of persistence. Mass is one of these. We know of nothing which can affect the quantity of a given mass. We may cool or warm it; we may bring the strongest chemical changes to bear on it ; it may show a change in every other property ; but its mass will not change. This fact is usually expressed by the words, Matter can- not be created or destroyed. But in- asmuch as the term " matter " is indis~ 24 INDIVIDUALITY AND tinct in its meaning and exhibits many mystical components on closer inves- tigation, we shall do better to avoid the word altogether and to limit our con- siderations to exactly defined magni- tudes. IF you say that mass cannot be created or destroyed, you state ex- actly what I have already said, — that no change whatever can cause a given mass to change. We have then already two things or entities which seem to have a scien- tific right to be called eternal, or if you like, immortal. Science knows of still others, but as investigation of them would not tell us anything new, we may confine ourselves to these two. Now what does it mean to call a thing eter- nal ? For us it means that we do not know IMMORTALITY 25 of any circumstance by which the amount of mass or the amount of energy in a given system has ever been changed. We conclude from this that in future no circumstance will occur which will cause such a change. You see immediately how very shaky the ground is on which this best known scientific eternity rests. It is the most philistine idea that, because things have until now gone on in a certain way, therefore they will never go in any other way. And however closely we examine the case, we find that it always comes back to this same point. You may say, It is well known that everything in the world is regulated by cause and effect; that inviolable laws rule in the same way the path of the sun and the vibrations of the sin- 26 INDIVIDUALITY AND gle atom. When. I ask. How do you know this ? and get the answer, This is the general result of experience, then we find ourselves at the starting- point again. For experience tells us that things have happened in accord- ance with this rule up to the present ; but that they will happen in the same way throughout all the future is a mere assumption, which may have a greater or a smaller probability, but conveys no certainty whatever. This result is not altered by the fact that certain predictions have proven to be very close to the facts of later experience. The motion of the heav- enly bodies gives us an example of a probability which comes very near to being a certainty. We are able now to calculate eclipses to a fraction of IMMORTALITY 27 a second, provided they are to occur at a time not too remote. But all of these calculations depend on our knowledge of certain numerical val- ues, especially the masses of the moving bodies, and our prediction becomes the more uncertain the far- ther off the eclipse is to be. Let us assume as an example that the time of an eclipse a hundred years off can be calculated with an error as small as a tenth of a second. For a thousand years the error will then be a second, and for a million years a thousand seconds, or more than half an hour. In fifty million years it becomes a whole day, and in eighteen thousand million years the error amounts to a whole year, provided the different laws on which the calculation is based are 28 INDIVIDUALITY AND absolutely correct. Even this assump- tion is not at all a justifiable one, and so our true probability in this case shrinks to a much smaller value still. What will be the result finally if we extend our calculation to eternity? The answer is simply, An infinitely large probable error, or no probability at all. Our conviction as to the eternity of mass is of exactly the same kind. Even if we assume that our experi- ences concerning mass will not change in general character in the future, it must still be remembered that our means of investigating possible changes in mass are limited in accuracy. We are able to determine the mass of a kilogram to a millionth of its value. To this degree of accuracy science IMMORTALITY 29 of our time has attained. If we then assume that no greater change than this millionth will occur in a given mass in a hundred years, we can easily calculate the time necessary for our kilogram to disappear completely. If some one became convinced, as a con- sequence, for example, of an otherwise developed theory of " matter," that such a change really does occur, we would be wholly unable to disprove his theory by reference to the inde- structibility of mass. All we could show him is that the change cannot well be greater than the amount stated, and this with the proviso that masses behave in future as we know they have behaved in the past. In connection with this we may consider another class of permanent 30 INDIVIDUALITY AND beings, the chemical elements. The law above mentioned can be extended to the conservation of the elements, and it then states that a given quantity of any element cannot be altered by any change. If we start, for example, with one gram of iron, and change it through any series of compounds, we can, at any stage of the transformation, get our iron back unaltered in weight and with unaltered properties. These facts are described in a hypothetical way by assuming that the elements consist of very small atoms of definite shape and weight, and that chemical combination consists in the union of two or more different atoms by some bond, electrical, gravitational, or what- ever it may be. Since atoms are assumed to keep their individuality in all their IMMORTALITY 31 combinations, it seems quite evident that elements should be recoverable without change from their combina- tions. The atoms have in this case only hypothetical existence, and this picture of the behavior of the chemical elements is therefore also a hypothet- ical one, but the law of the conserva- tion of the elements is an empirical law and a very exact one too. It is only in the last year or so that our hitherto unshaken conviction of the eternity of elements has suffered a severe blow. I refer to the discovery by Sir William Ramsay of the fact that the element radium can change into another element, helium, and something else that is not yet known. From the standpoint of a chemical " Weltanschauung " this is the most 32 INDIVIDUALITY AND important discovery since the date of the discovery of oxygen, when our present ideas about the fundamental concepts of chemistry began to take form. It teaches unquestionably that there are some elements at least which are decidedly mortal. The investiga- tions of Rutherford have brought to our attention a whole series of such elements, possessing varying lifetimes. Some of these come into existence only to leave this vale of tears after a few seconds, while others measure their lives in hours, days, years, and millions of years. We know indeed only very little about the other properties of these ephemeral beings, and they are characterized mainly by their aver- age time of life, which can be mea- sured by fairly accurate and convenient IMMORTALITY 33 methods. From these facts it is not a very long step to the conclusion that the other elements, which have as yet shown us no signs of mortality, hide this property only by virtue of the ex- treme slowness of their passing. This case shows very clearly how such possi- bilities as have been described as being beyond our limited means of obser- vation may become realities if these means are sufficiently refined. Energy occupies a somewhat surer position, inasmuch as we do not yet possess any hint of its mortality, or know of any exceptions to the law of the conservation of energy. This same wonderful substance, the element ra- dium, has threatened energy in its con- servatism, not with mortality, but the contrary, a creation out of nothing. 34 INDIVIDUALITY AND If you place a piece of radium in a calorimeter you will observe that it gives out heat for days and weeks and months and years without interruption and at a constant rate. This seemed even more impossible than a perma- nent annihilation of energy, and the riddle remained unsolved until Ram- sey made the discovery described above. The transmutation of radium into helium is the source of the de- veloped heat. Just as steam yields heat when it changes into liquid water, so radium develops heat when it changes into helium. So the law of the conservation of energy is sus- tained by the facts, and from what I know of science I have the impres- sion that energy will outlive every- thing else in the universe. I should IMMORTALITY 35 not feel justified in saying more than this. But to resume our theme : all of our inferences about eternity are based on extrapolation from finite time and observations coupled with a certain error. It is a general rule that such extrapolations become the more un- certain the farther they go, and for infinite time or space the probable error oversteps all limits, and the con- trary of our prediction may be as true as the prediction itself. In science, therefore, no predictions of any kind which relate to infinite time or to eternity are possible. For a limited time predictions are possi- ble, but never with absolute certainty. They are in every case subject to a cer- tain probable error, which is dependent 36 INDIVIDUALITY AND on the nature of the case, but increases invariably with the length of time over which the prediction is extended. Science does not give us the only possibility of reaching a knowledge of the future. Religious beliefs, reve- lations, and other similar sources of assurance exist, and these may indeed convey to some minds a stronger conviction of the truth of a predic- tion than is afforded by science. But there is a great difference in the in- terpretation reached by various men guided by these different sources. Re- ligious beliefs and similar sources are limited in the matter of the number of men giving them credence, and it is generally admitted that the convic- tion of their truth is dependent on a certain kind of interior personal expe- IMMORTALITY 37 Hence. They offer no general proofs which must be accepted until error is found in them, as is the case with sci- entific proofs, and they can only be accepted by those who have passed through the inner experience and had the truth revealed to them by intui- tion. If, then, the predictions of science lose somewhat in force with the indi- vidual, they gain much in the very generality of their acceptance. Of all the common treasures of mankind, science is by far the most general and the one most independent of dif- ferences in race, sex, and age. And while a religious belief invariably shows historically the greatest changes in content and intensity, science may seem to grow slower or faster at different 38 INDIVIDUALITY AND periods, but the growth is constantly in the same direction. Science may therefore be considered as the surest and most lasting part of the spiritual treasure which man possesses. Such predictions as are indorsed by science are accepted as the most reliable ones by the intelligent majority of men. Let us turn to another aspect of the eternity of energy and mass. If we take two different masses and com- bine them, the resulting mass will be- have like the sum of the two single masses. This is a regular and imme- diate consequence of the conservation of mass, showing that physical addi- tion does not change masses in amount. But though the two masses retain their quantity r , they lose their individuality. If one of the masses was of one kilo- IMMORTALITY 39 gram and the other of two, the joint mass will be one of three kilograms. This mass may be divided again into two, one of one, and the other of two kilograms; but all our ways of measuring mass fail to tell whether the new kilogram is identically the old one, or is formed wholly or par- tially from the former two kilogram mass. This is a general fact of very great importance indeed, and it may be illustrated by another example. If you take two glasses of water and pour them together into one basin, the sum of the two quantities is obtained. You may then fill the two glasses again from the basin, but there is no means known in earth or heaven of finding out whether the water in each glass is now the same as before. Indeed, the 40 INDIVIDUALITY AND question as to the identity or non- identity of the different portions of water is without meaning, since there is no means of singling out the indi- vidual parts of the water and identify- ing them. The thought may occur to some one that if we could observe the indi- vidual atoms of water identification would be possible. Even this hope I must destroy. For the atomic theory starts from the assumption that the atoms of water are all alike in shape, weight, and other inherent properties, and that they vary only in such pro- perties as may belong to one and the same atom ; velocity and direction of motion, for example. The same is assumed for every other pure sub- stance. So any means of identification IMMORTALITY 41 is excluded by our definition. More than that, atoms are only hypothetical things, and even if they could be identified, the identification would be a hypothetical one, and not a real one. And the same conclusion holds true for energy. So far there has been no assumption of an atomistic structure of energy, evidently because no scien- tific necessity has led to such an hy- pothesis. And so the identification of any special bit of energy appears still more hopeless than it did in the case of mass. By coming into contact with another quantity of like energy it is at once lost as completely as a drop is lost in the ocean. It retains its ex- istence only in that it adds its share to the common quantity of energy, and no means is known by which this 42 INDIVIDUALITY AND token of its continued existence can be destroyed. This behavior is the more remark- able in that not the least doubt occurs to us about the identity of the bit of mass, or of water, or the bit of energy, so long as they are kept alone. Identity or individuality or personality, whichever you may wish to call it, is maintained under these circumstances. It is a strange thing indeed that by merely being associated with another thing of the same kind identity is lost. And still more strange is the fact that every being of this kind seems driven by an irresistible impulse to seek every oc- casion for losing its identity. Every known physical fact leads to the con- clusion that diffusion, or a homoge- neous distribution, of energy is the IMMORTALITY 43 general aim of all happenings. No change whatever seems to have oc- curred, and probably none ever will occur, resulting in a concentration greater than the corresponding dissi- pation of energy. A partial concen- tration may be brought about in a system, but only at the expense of a greater dissipation, and the sum total is always an increase in dissipation. While we are as sure as science can make us about the general validity of this law as applied to the physical world, its application to human de- velopment may be doubted. It seems to me to hold good in this case also, if it is applied with proper caution. The difficulty lies in the circumstance that we have no exact objective means of measuring homogeneity and hetero- 44 INDIVIDUALITY AND geneity in human affairs, and we can therefore not study any given system closely enough to draw a quantitative conclusion. It seems pretty certain that increase of culture tends to dimin- ish the differences between men. It equalizes not only the general standard of living, but attenuates also even the natural differences of sex and age. From this point of view I should look upon the accumulation of enormous wealth in the hands of a single man as indicating an imperfect state of cul- ture. The property which has been de- scribed as an irresistible tendency toward diffusion may also be observed in certain cases in man. In conscious beings such natural tendencies are ac- companied by a certain feeling which IMMORTALITY 45 we call will, and we are happy when we are allowed to act according to these tendencies or according to our will. Now, if we recall the happiest mo- ments of our lives, they will be found in every case to be connected with a curious loss of personality. In the happiness of love this fact will be at once discovered. And if you are en- joying intensely a work of art, a sym- phony of Beethoven's, for example, you find yourself relieved of the bur- den of personality and carried away by the stream of music as a drop is carried by a wave. The same feeling comes with the grand impressions nature gives us. Even when I am sitting quietly sketching in the open there comes to me in a happy moment a sweet feeling of being united with the 46 INDIVIDUALITY AND nature about me, which is distinctly characterized by complete forgetful- ness of my poor self. We may con- clude from this that individuality means limitations and unhappiness, or is at least closely connected with them. Considering living beings more closely, we find generally greater in- dividuality united with shorter dura- tion. We have already seen that we must distinguish several grades of in- dividuality. The life of any animal or plant is limited either by partition, when the single being changes into two, or by death, when it changes into none. Either change may properly be called a loss of individuality, for by the fact of division the concept of an individual is contradicted as strongly as by the fact of death. IMMORTALITY 47 But we may, as I have already ex- plained, consider the sum of all the generations issuing from the first liv- ing being as a collective individual. Such a collective being is of course possessed of less individuality, but it has increased in duration. Looked at in this way, animate beings arrange themselves into a continuous series with inanimate matter, in which we found exactly the same reciprocal re- lation between individuality and du- ration : the least individualized things, like mass and energy, are the most durable ones, and vice versa. This is indeed quite general. The most indi- vidualized thing imaginable is the pre- sent moment : it is quite unique and will never return ; it is an absolute individuum. In our memory, when 48 INDIVIDUALITY AND other moments have taken its place, it gradually loses its character and be- comes more and more like other mo- ments ; this the more the farther back it goes in memory, and soon it cannot be distinguished from other moments ; at last it is forgotten, and dies like an animal or plant. Different moments have very dif- ferent periods of life in our memory. Among the mass of unimportant and insipid moments, which die almost as soon as they are born, we find some whose influence is felt over days, months, years, even over the whole of our conscious lifetime. Their mem- ory is not lost so long as the man lives to whom this moment came, and in this way the inherent brevity of the moment's existence is overcome and IMMORTALITY 49 it persists. It is, however, not eternal, since memory ends with life. Immortality, in the immediate sense of the word, is of course not to be found in human beings. " All men are mortal " is indeed one of the most trivial empirical facts in our experi- ence. So when we turn to human immortality, we can only ask, Is there in man anything more permanent than his body ? In this connection we must remem- ber that the individuality of a living man is an incomplete and changing one. We are not in advanced age and in youth the same individual. Mind and body go through a series of changes during life, so that the same person at different ages is as different as different men are. What 5 o INDIVIDUALITY AND we call the individuality of a man consists only in the continuity of his changes, and the only sure means of identifying a man is to trace his ex- istence continually through interme- diate time. If a man survives his body, the continuity of his existence is broken by the event of death, and if he is possessed of immortality of some kind, it can be of only a partial nature. Secondly, survival in some form or other does not necessarily mean im- mortality. To deserve the name, the surviving part must continue its ex- istence for an unlimited time. Then two cases seem possible : either the surviving part changes during its fur- ther existence as continually as it did during its connection with the body, IMMORTALITY 51 or it remains constant. As all changes in individuality which occurred dur- ing the term of ordinary life went on in regular functional relation with the changes in the body, the inference is near that the body conditioned these changes, and that after its withdrawal the surviving part must remain con- stant. In an unchanging state like this such a being could remain for any length of time, for an infinite time, indeed, provided it could exist in a place where no changes occurred. But if this being is to remain in connec- tion with changing beings like living men, it cannot remain unchanged, since connection and mutual influence mean change, and all the above-de- scribed difficulties of a changing exist- ence extended over an unlimited time 52 INDIVIDUALITY AND arise at once. And if, on the other hand, as is often assumed, the surviv- ing being is changed into a transcend- ent state in which there is no question of time or space, then any kind of in- teraction between such a being and man in his ordinary life seems to be excluded, since all relations with us must assume the forms of time and space, all others being unintelligible to us. The conclusion to be drawn from these considerations reads : Either the surviving being is immortal in the strict sense of the word, in which case it is not to be expected that it could communicate with men, and its exist- ence would forever remain unknown to us. Or : nothing remains after death, in which case we should of IMMORTALITY 53 course have no experience of any sur- viving part of ourselves. To decide between these two alternatives is im- possible, for they are indistinguishable and the same in effect. We may then turn to the other seemingly less probable assumption, that there is something which survives, something which remains in connec- tion with living men, and is therefore subject to change, and probably lim- ited in existence. Does experience aid us here ? Every man leaves after his death certain things in the world changed by his influence. He may have built a house, or gained a fortune, or writ- ten a book, or begotten children. Even a child who dies soon after birth leaves an impression on his mother, which 54 INDIVIDUALITY AND changes her. These relics are wholly personal or individual, and depend on the man who caused them ; only their effect is not alone determined by this, but also by the person or thing on which the effect is impressed. Such effects may last a longer or a shorter time, but they finally die out asymp- totically into imperceptibility. There is a very general desire in mankind to leave such impressions. From the scratched letters which a boy scribbles on the wall to the pyramids which have stood for scores of cen- turies we find the same purpose, — to extend the results of personal life be- yond its local and temporal duration. And we are not fully satisfied with the mere existence of such objective sou- venirs, but want other people to see IMMORTALITY 55 them and realize their meaning. So the boy does not scratch lines without significance, but the letters of his name or something else which interests him, and in the same way the Egyptian king did not forget to explain by let- ters and pictures his own connection with the huge building which will carry his name down through ages in the future. This general desire for the propa- gation of one's personal influence is closely connected with the desire for the propagation of one's flesh and blood. Looked at from an objective and egotistic standpoint, it seems a rather nonsensical instinct. Why should I desire that some one else should enjoy the goods of this world that I have spent my whole life in 56 INDIVIDUALITY AND gathering ? But as a matter of fact it makes a fundamental difference even to the most hardened egotist whether this some one else is his own son or a stranger. He would not move a finger for the stranger, but he is ready to offer the greatest sacrifices for his son. It is true that there are some excep- tions to this rule, but every one regards a man devoid of paternal instinct as a monster, an ethical cripple. And the fact that such a case is a deviation from the general rule is a sufficient reason against its continuance, since such a man would either have no children at all, or, if he had, he would neglect them and prevent their development. Remembering that family and race are individuals too, of larger size and more diffused than a single man, to IMMORTALITY 57 be sure, but still possessing very defi- nite connections, we are aware at once that the instinct of self-preservation is here at work again. The effects of this instinct are blended with and doubled by the other instinct which makes us wish to leave records of our existence and our individuality, and by the operation of these factors a pro- longation of every individual existence in a greater or less degree is secured. Such a prolongation is not immor- tality in its strictest sense. For we observe that such influences, though they outlive the term of bodily life in the majority of cases, gradually cease to act, and die out asymptotically, just as any isolated physical existence does, by diffusing into the great mass of general existence and losing individ- 58 INDIVIDUALITY AND uality and the possibility of being dis- tinguished. This is true primarily in the course of a sequence of generations. In order that a family may be continued, the son marries a wife from another family, and his son does the same. As a result the continuance of the family is se- cured, but at the cost of its individu- ality. By these necessary connections with other families, diffusion into the general mass of the world takes place, and the very means of continuing its existence results in this inevitable dif- fusion. And finally a family like man- kind in general is subject to the pos- sibility of ultimate destruction by some cosmic accident. And other things left by an indi- vidual man at death take the same IMMORTALITY 59 course. Consider the best case, where we often use the word " immortal," that of a great poet or scientist. We say that Homer and Goethe, Aristotle and Darwin, are immortal, because their work is lasting, and will persist for scores of centuries, and their per- sonal influence has proven independent of their bodily existence. Even the fact that death prevented them from doing more work of the kind they gave to us during their lives is not so important as it would seem at the first glance. When a man grows old his creative power, both bodily and men- tal, often dies, long before the ordinary functions of life have ceased. If a man lives his natural time out, he will prob- ably do all the work that he is able to do well, and his death is then not 60 INDIVIDUALITY AND a matter of importance. Only when death is premature do we feel that something has been lost, and only in such cases can we feel that death is cruel and unjust. It is certainly a strarfge thing that physiology has done so little to ex- plain the general facts of age and death. Judging by our present know- ledge, there is no reason whatever why a living being should not live for any length of time. All the matter and energy used up can be restored by nu- trition, and there seems to be no expla- nation for the fact that the organism ceases to transform nutrition into the materials necessary for its continuance, as it could do in the spring-time of its life. It would seem that either the store of some necessary factor becomes IMMORTALITY 61 exhausted, or that some pernicious factor is accumulated, by the mere fact of living, so that further life becomes at last impossible. To correct this in- fluence a new being must begin life all over again, and therefore death and birth are to be considered the means by which life is continued as long as possible. That some reason of this nature exists is made evident by the well- known experiments of Maupas on the propagation of protozoa. If they are kept in the environment most favor- able for their existence, they will go on for a time growing and dividing in a quite regular manner. But after a series of asexual propagations by simple di- vision they suddenly change their be- havior. They couple and form germs 62 INDIVIDUALITY AND and then a new series of asexual pro- pagations begins. These facts can be explained in exactly the way already pointed out: either some poison is developed which can be thrown off only by sexual propagation, some necessary factor is secured by this means which is then slowly exhausted, and the lack of which forces the being finally to secure a new supply by a return to sexual propagation. Considered from this standpoint death is not only not an evil, but it is a necessary factor in the existence of the race. And looking into my own mind with all the frankness and scien- tific objectiveness which I can apply to this most personal question, I find no horror connected with the idea of my own death. Of course it is objection- IMMORTALITY 63 able to suffer illness or pain, and there are beside still many things which I should like to do or to experience be- fore I die. But this would be a loss to me only if I were afterward conscious of it and could regret it, and such possibilities seem to be out of the question. As to my friends and rela- tions, they will feel my loss the less, the older I become. After I have lived out the span of my life, the bodily ending will seem a perfectly natural thing, and it will be more a feeling of relief than one of sorrow that will come in watching the end. Quite independent of individual life or death, the work a man has done remains effective. How long it will remain effective is entirely dependent on the degree to which the work has 64 INDIVIDUALITY AND suited the wants of the race. Work of no value to these wants will be wiped out as soon as possible, while useful work will be retained so long as it is seen to be useful. The examples I have given show how very long the influence of a great and useful worker may persist, but there is no doubt that by this very influence the individuality of his work disappears, however slowly. It becomes more and more a part of the general mental equipment of his clan, his nation, his race. It will then exist as long as these exist, no longer as a distinct idea or work of art, but as a common possession. Here again the general law of diffusion already met with is at work, and duration and in- dividuality are linked as are reciprocal numbers: the one increases as the other diminishes. IMMORTALITY 65 This is the only lasting kind of life that I can discover in the realm of our experience. In this man is distin- guished in a most decisive way from all of his fellow creatures, since in no lower race can a single individuum con- tribute his share, not only for the pro- pagation, but also for the general de- velopment of the race. Animals seem generally to have no idea of death. I remember having seen a mouse step over the body of another, which had just been killed, in order to reach its food more easily. They live from hand to mouth, with no other foresight than a purely instinctive and unconscious one. In such animals as have by long domestication been influenced by man- kind, some traces of conscious foresight appear. But while a dog shuns his 66 INDIVIDUALITY AND master's whip, the effects of which he has experienced and can therefore fore- see, he will not shun his master's gun, even though it has just killed another dog before his eyes. The human hor- ror of death is a direct consequence of our greatly developed powers of foresight and memory, and this horror has been developed by the sight of painful and premature death. Our civilization is proceeding in such a way that preternatural death is more and more avoided, and we battle with the same eagerness against wild beasts and murder as against malady and misery. And our still existent horror of death we may regard as an inherited instinct, developed in the prehistoric times when death by force was common. All in- stincts develop slowly, and only be- IMMORTALITY 67 come fixed long after the time when they might begin to be useful, and in the same way all once acquired instincts persist long after the time when their necessity and even their usefulness has ceased. We may then think of a dis- tant future time when this instinctive horror of death will have disappeared through the slow improvement of the human race. There remains one last and most im- portant question, What becomes of the foundation of all our ethics without the idea of a personal future life, in which vice shall be punished and vir- tue rewarded ? I do not hesitate to answer that I not only think ethics possible without this idea, but that I even think that this condition involves a very refined 68 INDIVIDUALITY AND and exalted state of ethical develop- ment. Let us consider the general facts again. There can be no doubt about nature being full of cruelty. All through the whole realm of organic beings we find in nearly every class of animals and plants some species which live at the expense of their fellow creatures. I mean parasitic organisms of every kind, whether they live in the interior of their hosts, whom they kill or make miserable, or whether they feed directly on other creatures. No one thinks of punishing a cat who tortures a poor mouse for no vital purpose whatever, and we find it perfectly natural that the larvae of certain wasps should de- velop in the interior of caterpillars, slowly devouring their hosts from IMMORTALITY 69 within. It is only man who tries to change this general way of nature's and to diminish as far as possible cruelty and injustice to his fellow men and his fellow creatures. And from the strong desire that this black stain should be removed as fully as possi- ble from humanity, the idea developed that there must be beyond our bodily life a possibility of compensating for the evil which is done and for that which is suffered during life without due punishment or reward as sug- gested by our sense of justice. But reward and punishment take on a wholly different aspect when we re- gard mankind as one collective being. Then the single individual is compara- ble to a cell in a highly developed or- ganism. Destruction of his fellow cells 70 INDIVIDUALITY AND would be a nuisance and a menace to the whole organism, and therefore any cell which destroyed its neighbors would be either removed from the organism or else encysted and kept from doing further damage. And on the other hand such cells as fulfilled useful purposes would be nourished and protected. The very necessity for overcoming such dangerous actions on the part of the cells means a decrease in the effi- ciency of the organism, since the work necessary for the purpose could be better used for the immediate benefit of the organism itself. The best thing would then be to avoid beforehand the formation of such bad cells, and an or- ganism possessed of appropriate means of doing this would have a great ad- vantage. IMMORTALITY 71 The application of these considera- tions to the human collective organ- ism is obvious. Punishment means in every case a loss, and the aim of increasing culture is not to make pun- ishment more effective, but to make it unnecessary. The more each indi- vidual is filled with the consciousness that he belongs to the great collective organism of humanity, the less will he be able to separate his own aims and interests from those of humanity. A reconciliation between duty to the race and personal happiness is the result, as well as an unmistakable standard by which to judge our own actions and those of our fellow men. Self-sacrifice has been considered in all ages and by all religions as the very highest perfection of ethical develop- 72 INDIVIDUALITY AND ment. At the same time every man who has thought a little deeper has been aware that the self-sacrifice must have a meaning, that it must result in some effect which could not be attained by- other means. Otherwise the self-sacri- fice would not be a gain, but rather a loss, to humanity. But we consider self-sacrifice for the sake of humanity as justified, and this corresponds with our general feeling. We admire a man who throws himself into a fire or a torrent to save a child from death ; it should mean even more to us when a physician goes into the midst of a raging pestilence conscious of the peril awaiting him. But we do not esteem a man the more for risking his life to save his money from a burning house. In fact, we find the interests of hu- IMMORTALITY 73 manity in the very centre of our ethi- cal consciousness. To frighten people into ethical action by threatening them with eternal punishment is a poor and inefficacious way of influencing them. The natural way is to develop a con- sciousness of the all-pervading relation between the several individuals which make up humanity, and this to such a degree that the corresponding actions become not only a duty but a habit, and at last an instinct, directing all our doings quite spontaneously for the interest of humanity. And every mental and moral advance which we make for ourselves by our constant efforts at self-education will be at the same time a gain for humanity, since it will be transmitted to our children, our friends, and our pupils, and will 74 IMMORTALITY be to them easier than it was to us, according to the general law of mem- ory. Beside the fact of inherited taint there exists the fact of inherited per- fection, and every advance which we, by the sweat of our brows, may succeed in making towards our own perfection, is so much gain for our children and our children's children forever. I must confess that I can think of no grander perspective of immortality than this. CAMBRIDGE • MASSACHUSETTS U . S • A THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO 50 CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. tHfiR-g & *9 3& 29May'57LS -5— —4 MOcHgj n ryr •- t ^0ct!62DT REC'D LD OCT 2 1362 INTER-LIBRARY LOAN 3 ^SBBKk V* i ,.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES C03l252iab 360469 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY