WHY -WE -MAY BELIEVE-IN-LIFE AFTER ■ DEATH Charles- Edward Jefferson. WHY WE MAY BELIEVE IN LIFE AFTER DEATH EapmonU JF* West jflfomotial lectures on 3fmmottaiitp WHY WE MAY BELIEVE IN LIFE AFTER DEATH BY CHARLES EDWARD JEFFERSON PASTOR OF THE BROADWAY TABERNACLE NEW YORK BOSTON AND NEW YORK ' " HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY (Stfce fttoer?ibe tyxzM Cambri&ge 1911 COPYRIGHT, I91 1, BY CHARLES EDWARD JEFFERSON ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published September iqn oc/v> Y tVLvu^v^a-C 1 , (MmxaA/o \ PREFATORY NOTE This volume represents the first of the series of Raymond F. West Memorial Lectures at the Leland Stanford Junior University. These lec- tures were delivered on February 15 and 16, 191 1, by Rev. Charles E. Jefferson, D.D., LL. D., of the Broadway Tabernacle Church of New York City. The conditions of the lecture- ship are set forth in the following letter from its founders : In memory of our beloved son, Raymond Frederic West, a student in Leland Stanford Junior University, who was drowned in Eel River, in California, on January 18, 1906, be- fore the completion of his college 'course, we wish to present to the trustees and authorities of the Leland Stanford Junior University, at Palo Alto, California, the honored Alma Mater of our son, the^sum of ten thousand dollars v 615851 PREFATORY NOTE ($10,000) , to be held as a fund in perpetual trust, for the establishment of a lectureship on a plan similar to the Dudleian Lectures and the Inger- soll Lectures at Harvard University. By this plan, in each collegiate year, or on each alternate year, at the discretion of the Board of Trustees, from one to three lectures shall be given on some phase of this subject : " Immor- tality, Human Conduct, and Human Destiny." Such lectures shall not form a part of the usual college or university course, nor shall they be delivered by any professor or instructor in active service in the institution. Such lecturer may be a clergyman or a layman, a member of any ecclesiastical organization, or of none, but he should be a man of the highest personal char- acter and of superior intellectual endowment. He shall be chosen by the Faculty and the Board of Trustees of said University in such manner as the Board of Trustees may determine, but the appointment in any case shall be made at least six months before the delivery of said lectures. vi PREFATORY NOTE The above sum is to be safely invested, and the interest thereof is to be divided, at the dis- cretion of the Board of Trustees, into two parts, the one an honorarium to the lecturer, the other for the publication of the said lectures, or the gra- tuitous distribution of a number of copies of the same if published by the author. The manuscript of the course of lectures shall become the property of the University, and shall be published by the University unless some other form of publication is more acceptable. The course of lectures shall be known as the "Raymond F. West Memorial Lectures on Immortality, Human Conduct, and Human Destiny." F. W. WEST, MARY B. WEST. Seattle, Wash., January /S, igio. , CONTENTS I. Reasons for a Restudy of Hu- man Destiny i II. The Argument against Immor- tality .49 III. The Argument for Immortality 112 WHY WE MAY BELIEVE IN LIFE AFTER DEATH REASONS FOR A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY A superficial survey of the world to-day would probably convince the average observer that men in the twen- tieth century are not especially inter- ested in a life beyond death. The word Immortality has a far-off sound and sug- gests a topic which does not touch the nerve of the world's living concern. Most men are too busy to think of next year j how then can they find time to think of things beyond time's horizon ? One man has purchased a piece of i A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY ground, another has bought a yoke of oxen, and another has married a wife, and each man begs to be excused from a banquet at which nothing is served except thoughts in regard to the destiny of the soul. To others the problem presents no appeal because they are willing to leave all such matters with God. If he wishes us to live after death his will shall be done, and if he does not wish us to live after death, our life will end at the grave. Such questions belong not to man, but to God. They are high. We cannot attain unto them. This is the attitude of not a few. There are others who are nettled by an invitation to think on the soul's fu- ture, feeling that we have enough to at- tend to if we do our duty in the world 2 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY which now is. " One world at a time " is a motto which is supposed to em- body final wisdom, and if men will only apply themselves to the things which now concern them, they will have neither the time nor the disposition to pry into the things which are hidden from human sight. Byron at twenty- three petulantly exclaimed: "I will have nothing to do with your Immor- tality; we are miserable enough in this life, without the absurdity of speculat- ing upon another." / Certain men are too timid to approach the subject. They are constitutionally afraid of the mysterious and unknown. They feel uneasy in the twilight, be- cause it suggests the dark. Some of them have rejected the idea of a life to come. Pretensions to eternity they think 3 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY smack of conceit. They are far too humble to put forth such lofty and far- reaching claims. Mental timidity often wears the garb of modesty. Others are inclined to believe in the soul's sur- vival, but the reasons for their belief they do not care to pry into. They think it hazardous to examine the grounds for so great a hope. They are convinced that it is a good thing to believe in Immortality, whether it is true or not. Such a belief smooths the way and com- forts the heart, and so, even though every life ends at the grave, it would be better to have everybody believe that he is to live on forever. Even a delu- sion is to be tenaciously clung to, if only it makes life a little brighter. A lie, if it brings forth good fruit, is more de- sirable than a disconcerting truth. For 4 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY fear that you may find that the truth is depressing, you had better not try too hard to find it. Not a few take no interest in the be- lief in Immortality, because they consider it a dogma of religion. They do not care for dogmas of any sort. The idea of a future life is, they hold, a tenet of Christianity, one of the superstitions propagated by the Christian Church. Only the pious are supposed to want to live forever, and piety is the last offense with which some men are willing to be charged. Since the religion of Christ is outgrown and since the Church of Christ is obsolescent, a man who is abreast of the times will not concern himself with anything which the Church has taught. Many a man would openly confess his belief in the life to come, S A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY were it not for his fear of being counted pious. There are those who spurn the pro- mise of a life beyond death, because they consider themselves above it. They need no such inspiration, and they can dispense with all such comfort. A man ought to be brave enough, they assert, to do his full duty without contemplat- ing any future rewards ; and a man ought to be noble enough to keep himself clean from the world's pollutions with- out the fear of what may happen to him on the other side of death. Immor- tality, so these men think, is a doctrine formulated for the purpose of wheed- ling men into virtue and frightening them out of sin. The full-statured man needs no coaxing and cannot be bullied; and therefore the conception of an un- 6 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY seen world has no part to play in man's life on earth. There are others who are prejudiced against the doctrine because the dis- cussion of it carries one into the region of shadows and mists, of guesses and dreams. All sorts of legerdemain and charlatanism are possible in dealing with so elusive and nebulous a subject. When one leaves the contemplation of the world of time and sense, and be- gins to speculate about a world which no eye can see, he leaves the solid ground which was meant for human feet and tries to walk on air. Men of a practical bent have an antipathy to subjects which do not take hold of the shop and the market-place, and feel ill at ease when asked to grapple with a problem which cannot be stated 7 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY in terms of the market or discussed in a Board of Trade. There are others who do not care to discuss such questions, or even to think about them, because all such thought and discussion is in their opinion use- less. They have surrendered all hope of being able to arrive at convictions in re- gard to the destiny of man. All that is possible is an opinion, and the opinion when obtained is without value. The Unseen World is a Sphinx. You may shout into it your questions, but you receive no answer. The problem pre- sented by death is insoluble. The search for light has been ceaseless, but it is a search which will never be rewarded. The desire to know has been a devour- ing one, but it will never in this world be satisfied. These men have taken re- 8 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY fuge therefore in science. Science deals with what can be observed and verified. Immortality lies beyond her pale. It is the part of wisdom to keep one's self within a circle in which there is light. In regard to all questions concerning the fu- ture, the only defensible answer is: "I do not know." There is this consola- tion, however, — so these agnostics go on to say, — belief on matters such as this is of no importance. The man who be- lieves in Immortality is no better for his belief, and the man who does not be- lieve is no worse for his disbelief. The hope of Immortality is nothing but a fancy which has no power to touch the springs of action, or influence the char- acter and flow of life. Man's destiny is a field of speculation in which the idle or inquisitive may amuse themselves, 9 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY but into which men may refuse to go without condemnation or appreciable loss. And thus it comes to pass that in the twentieth century some men hold themselves above the problem of the soul's future, others consider themselves beneath it, while others pass by on the other side. But it must not be concluded that Immortality is a subject which has been banished from men's business and bos- oms, or that the present generation has ceased to take interest in questions that lay hold of the Unseen. It is true that the soul's future is not often made the subject of newspaper editorials, nor are the columns of our magazines filled with meditations on death and what lies beyond. Immortality is not a common topic of conversation in high society or 10 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY in low, and men do not discuss it at the corners of the streets. But the world is not to be judged from what one sees in public print. There are regions into which reporters do not venture, and con- cerning which the wisest writers have meagre knowledge. A whole world of thought and feeling lies beyond the ken of those who write, and it is the great- est subjects about which men are often most reluctant to speak. Because a man does not present his thoughts on Im- mortality to the first man he meets, it does not follow that he has no thoughts upon the subject. The daily press re- ports events in the world of action, it does not claim to register the move- ments in the vast and hidden world of thought. The eye which beholds the surface only, may conclude, from the ii A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY widespread frivolity and indifference, that all thought of high themes has been crushed out of the souls of men; but on looking closely it will be discovered that underneath the bales and barrels and boxes, the games and races and dis- sipations, the human heart in our age as in every age is pondering things un- seen. The men who shout it from the house- top that they have given up the hope of Immortality are only few in number compared with that great company who go down into the valley that is dark, expecting to come out into the light. It is true that sundry classes do not allow thoughts of a world beyond to tarry long in their mind, but there are other classes, larger and more numer- ous, to whom such thoughts are con- 12 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY stant visitors. The great company of the dying, in the days that precede the final hour, find themselves face to face with a question which, however unin- teresting and remote in the days of health, fixes a steady gaze upon them as they move gradually toward the Dark. William Cowper, the English poet, was at one time so full of life, he fancied he should never die, till a skull thrown out before him by a grave-digger, as he was passing through St. Margaret's church- yard in the night, recalled him to a sense of his mortality. Soon or late every man comes within sight of the cemetery in which is to lie not only another man's skull, but his own. There is not an hour of day or night in which a human being does not learn that his hours on earth are numbered, and to every one who 13 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY reaches that solemn hour the question is of thrilling interest : " If a man die, shall he live again ? " Next come the great throng of the bereaved. They have but recently stood by an open grave, and their thoughts keep wandering into the realm that lies beyond. The vanished loved one carries them, in spite of themselves, into regions unseen. The wife who has lost her hus- band, the mother who has lost her child, the daughter who has lost her mother, the friend who has lost his friend, all find that the present world is too nar- row to contain their thoughts, and stub- born questionings stir within them, which cannot be suppressed. If you are tempted to say that no one is thinking of the world beyond, remember the innu- merable company of those who weep. 14 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY Lift up your eyes again and look upon the great army of the defeated, the bruised and baffled, the crushed and dis- consolate, the men and the women over- taken by desolating experiences which have left the whole earth a desert sur- rounded by prison walls. It is when all the avenues on the earth are blocked, that the soul makes its escape upward. That way is always open, and it is those who suffer who most easily find it. It is when the heart is weighted down with a load which crushes, that the spirit learns how to walk along the ascending way. Who never ate his bread in sorrow, Who never spent the midnight hours Weeping and watching for the morrow, He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers ! But it is not simply the mournful to whom thoughts of eternity keep recur- A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY ring. They come also to the glad and the jubilant, to the strong and the tri- umphant. In many a solitude there walks to-day a Wordsworth listening to the intimations of Immortality, and in many a closet a deep-eyed Socrates ponders the mystery of an endless life. Philosophy has always been fascinated by the subject, and poetry has never been able to let it alone. Science is in- creasingly interested in it, and the circle of those who are pursuing systematic investigation into all the phenomena which may possibly throw light upon the problem is constantly enlarging. Having found so much in the world which she can see, science is not con- tent to leave untouched the world which she cannot see. Man is the most puz- zling and promising of all creatures, 16 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY and science will pursue him even into the realm of night. Thinkers are drawn irresistibly to the great and taxing sub- ject, and so also are lovers. It is the pas- sion of love, as Plato long ago pointed out, which gives insight into the world unseen. Love at its highest demands more time than this brief life can offer, and plays exultantly with thoughts of the infinite and eternal. When has love been so cold and stupid as not to care whether the grave is the end or not? By the sheer force of her divine passion she leaps toward the illimitable. The thought of endless existence gives her rapture, the thought of extinction causes pain. But whatever love may see or not see in the darkness, she cannot cover her eyes or cease looking. It is her nature to look beyond the horizons of time. *7 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY Shall we mention also the children, and add them to the great host of those who are thinking of the world beyond ? Was there ever a child whose thoughts did not play round the grave, and whose fancy did not paint pictures of heaven and hell? Wonder is instinctive to the young heart, and one of the earliest causes of wonder is death and the mys- tery into which it opens. Childhood is not all laughter, nor is youth unbroken play. We hear the laughter and we see the play, but we do not stop to measure the solemn ponderings and holy wonder- ings of the child-heart. However it may be with us after we are older, all chil- dren are natural believers in the unseen world. The question of Immortality, then, is a human question. It belongs to the 18 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY scholar and also to the man in the street. Kings and peasants alike ponder it. It beckoned to us when we were children, it will haunt us when we are oid. Philosophers and theologians dis- course about it, and unlettered and humble folk feel more than they are able to express. Unknown and un- noticed men, living in lonely places, turn wistfully again and again in their quiet hours toward that mystery which flows round all the world. The man of the schools and the man who cannot read stand side by side and peer into the abyss which yawns round the edges of the Seen. It is an old question which we are propounding, but it is a question ever new : " If a man die, shall he live again ? " The question is kept fresh by death. So 19 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY long as men keep on dying, the heart will continue to ask the old, old ques- tion. If we could banish death we should slay the question. It is the fu- neral bell which calls men inexorably to face the ancient problem. No ques- tion ceases to be interesting simply be- cause it has often been asked before. An experience is not trite because it is as old as humanity. Death is not com- monplace to any one of us. No one of us has experienced it, and therefore we gaze upon it with awe and wonder. When we shall at last drink of the mys- terious cup, the experience will be as novel to us as it was to the first man who fell on death. This is why the questions which spring out of the grave have a perennial fascination. Age can- not wither them. They thrill the heart 20 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY and pierce it in the twentieth century as they did in the first. But is not the answer to the question of the soul's future evermore the same? Do not the arguments in favor of sur- vival and the arguments opposed to it remain practically unaltered ? Has not everything on both sides been said which it is possible for reason to dis- cover or ingenuity to conceive? Does not each repeated discussion leave us where we were at the outset, and is not every investigation therefore barren and time spent upon it wasted ? Why, then, take up the subject anew ? Why not let it alone ? The answer is, We cannot let it alone. You can no more let death alone than you can let love alone, or life. We are so consti- tuted that we instinctively take hold of 21 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY it. We may run away from it for a sea- son, but soon or late we find ourselves back with it again. The scientist may give himself up to the study of matter, and the philosopher may lose himself in the contemplation of earthly rela- tions, but the common man will shout from the street through the window the question : " If a man die, shall he live again?" The question is forced upon the heart by the order of earthly expe- rience, and every generation must give its own answer, and buttress its con- clusion with the best reasons it can find. The argument for Immortality is al- ways changing, because we are living in a growing world. The argument of Socrates recorded in the "Phaedo " will not satisfy the minds of men living now. 22 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY We are citizens of a changed world. The Greek heaven and earth have passed away, and all things have become new. An argument to have living force must spring from the life of the age which is to be mastered by it. It must be the product of the forces which are domi- nating current thought. The argument for Immortality is like a book of sci- ence. It cannot be written once for all. Scarcely is the ink dry on the pages of the latest volume of the scientific specialist, when a new discovery is made, and certain paragraphs must be supplemented, and a chapter here and there recast. No book of history is final. New materials are brought to light, or old materials are looked at from a dif- ferent view-point, and to the end of time men will go on writing newhis- 23 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY tories of Greece and Rome, of Eng- land and America. The Past does not change, but it is seen always in a changed perspective and under a differ- ent light. To a passenger standing on the deck of a steamer moving down the Hudson River, the receding landscape is ever changing. The hills and valleys, mountains and forests do not change, but the winding of the river, altering the position of the boat, constantly throws the features of the landscape into new combinations, and while old landmarks are always fading in the dis- tance, new attractions are always lifting themselves in the foreground of a pic- ture which is always beautiful, but never two hours the same. So it is with the arguments by which are supported the mighty hopes and 24 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY vitalizing beliefs of men. Humanity, like a river, is ever flowing, and men are carried down the moving stream. The view-point is ever shifting. Old things are seen at a different angle and new things are coming constantly into view. Fresh discoveries throw a transforming light on old situations, and even the fixed stars of heaven are sometimes dis- sipated into mist. For this reason no arguments have reached their final form. Arguments, like the men who frame them, have in them a mortal element. Time burns up the hay and wood and stubble, and by its purifying fires melts the gold and silver into other forms and sets the precious stones in novel pat- terns. Views which once were tenable cease to commend themselves to thoughtful men. Inferences which were 25 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY at one time reasonable are reasonable no longer. Deductions which everybody counted valid are scouted now by everybody. All this is likely to happen whenever the situation is lighted up by the flash of newly-discovered facts. Forms are no more eternal in the world of thought than in the world of matter. Philosophies, like continents, flow from form to .form. Things apparently im- movable are suddenly shaken by an unexpected gust of the Zeitgeist, and things supposedly eternal are swept away by the swelling tide of the world's mental life, (it is hazardous to take for granted that an argument valid for one generation will satisfy the generation which comes after) Moreover, the world is as capricious as a child. It has its humors and its 26 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY whims. Fashions in the world of thought are often as short-lived as are the fashions in the world of dress. Mankind is open at different stages of its develop- ment to different types of appeal. What it feels at one time, it ceases to feel at another. What it to-day counts desir- able, it casts from it later on with scorn. The same phenomena produce a differ- ent impression on the same mind which has passed into a different mood. These subjective fluctuations, these tempera- mental caprices, render repeated re- statements of old truths imperative. The old argument must be worked into an up-to-date form. We deal with an old set of problems and an old mass of experiences, (but the world is never threadbare to a mind that has sufficient energy to thinkj Each mind must seize 27 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY the old material, and out of it fashion a home in which to dwell. It is the task of our generation to ad- just itself to a new mental world. The last century has very properly been called the wonderful century, and by its inventions and discoveries has given the twentieth century a deal of difficult work to do. Masses of facts have been accumulated which will require the in- dustry of a hundred years to classify and understand. The sky is now higher, the horizon is wider, space is vaster, and time is longer. We possess new instruments of analysis and an improved apparatus for ascertaining the roots of things. Many an ancient hypothesis has been exploded by bringing it into con- tact with a fresh fact, and many a be- lief long honored has been relegated to 28 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY the lumber room of the mind. Every- thing, therefore, must be restudied, and all the old values must be reappraised. Nothing is too venerable to go into the melting pot and nothing is too sacred to be cross-examined and sifted. Old tra- ditions must be ripped open, ancient beliefs must be tested by fire. Men are determined as never before to know the truth. It is not an age which takes kindly to credulity or dreams. Men must give a reason for whatever belief is in them, and the belief must have something substantial on which to rest. This eagerness to sift all things to the utmost, and to get rid of all intellectual dross and emotional chaff, is not the fury of a diseased and anarchic spirit, but a manifestation of vigorous vitality throbbing in the soul of a world that 29 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY has been born again. The call to re- examine all of our creeds, to overhaul all our institutions, and to take stock of all our mental possessions, however disconcerting to many and laborious to all, is simply a necessity thrust on us by the fact that we belong to an evolv- ing race and are part of a growing world. When so many things have gone, and so many other things are apparently going, it is natural that men should look carefully around them to ascertain what is likely to be left. How much of the Bible are we going to retain, how much of the Apostles' Creed, how many of those hopes which religion has nour- ished, how many of those loyalties which it has been her work to strengthen and bless ? If any of our beliefs are su- 30 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY perannuated, we want to know which ones they are; if any of our hopes are insecurely founded, we do not wish to shut our eyes to the truth. If the stock of our convictions is to be modified, we want to know in what respects and to what extent. What, for instance, are we to do with this old notion of Immortality? What becomes of it when submitted to the modern test? How does it look under the gleam of the new lights ? How does it fit into the new world with its wider horizon and its larger outlook? What has science to say, and the new philo- sophy, and the future religion ? Has the torch of the new knowledge dimmed the lustre of this precious belief? Have the professional observers and experi- menters with their blowpipes and cru- 3* A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY cibles, their microscopes and X rays, found out anything to undermine this glorious hope ? Do thinking men, abreast of the times, consider Immortality a reasonable expectation, or is it only an irrational surmise, an audacious con- jecture, a gossamer hope, a soothing and delusory dream? If there be a life beyond the grave, can it be proved, verified, demonstrated ? Is this a ques- tion which science has anything to do with, or must it be left forever to the poets and the visionaries, the philo- sophers and the theologians? It is be- cause we are living in a new day that the old problem of Immortality sparkles with a fresh interest, and makes new and enlarged claims upon the attention of thoughtful men. It is a question which belongs to all 32 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY men who are willing to think. It is not the special property of the learned nor can it be monopolized by the experts. To discuss it fairly and profitably re- quires no extraordinary endowments, nor does the right to speak with con- fidence depend on the possession of special scholastic equipment. It is a query which rises in the heart of every man, and where shall the answer be found? The Laboratory says : "It is not in me"; and the Library says: " It is not in me." The mounds of buried cities say: "It is not in us"; and the manuscripts of ancient sages say: "It is not in us." " It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof." The rich man and the poor man, the king and the peasant, the savant and the man in the 33 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY street, stand on equal footing before this perplexing and hoary-headed pro- blem. The answer is to be found by each man in his own heart. The solu- tion cannot be reached by one man for all, but must be obtained by every man for himself by the forth-putting of his own powers. No man can claim the right to close the mouth of another, or can vaunt himself because of exclusive authority to promulgate final and incon- trovertible conclusions. There are sundry assumptions lodged in many minds which are a handicap to a fair discussion of this problem, and to get rid of these assumptions is the first step to be taken in our journey. It is frequently assumed that a man who has a desire to believe in Immortality is by this desire rendered incapable of 34 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY forming a judgment which is sound By his feeling he is warped hopelessly from the type of mind capable of rinding truth. But a man who does not desire to believe in Immortality is of course equally influenced by his feelings, so that no one, it would seem, has a right to speak upon the subject but the man who has no feeling whatever, the man to whom the outcome is totally imma- terial, who cares not a whit whether life or extinction awaits the human race. But indifference to the interests in- volved does not furnish a man with gifts of insight or insure him against errors of judgment. The man who is indifferent to the interests of the black man is not the best of all judges to de- cide concerning the moral character of slavery. The man who takes no in- 35 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY terest in the distinction between right and wrong is not the man best fitted to declare what right or wrong is. There are many problems which cannot be studied profitably in a "dry light," and one of these is the problem of human destiny. A man fully human cannot help feeling on great issues. Feeling gives new keenness to the eyes, and strengthens the reason for the doing of her work. Only men who realize the magnitude of the issues involved can give to the subject the scrutiny it de- serves, and the question then is, Which desire is more likely to lead the intel- lect astray, the desire to live forever or the desire to sink into an endless sleep? The feeling that death ends all is pos- sibly as distorting to the judgment as is the feeling that man lives forever. 36 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY It is assumed often that a religious man cannot speak impartially on this subject, because his religious faith has imparted a twisting bias to the mind. Religious people are too prejudiced, it is thought, to reach conclusions which it is safe to follow. But if religion gives the mind a bias, so does unbelief. The man who is not religious is biassed no less than the man who is a worshipper of God. The question then is, Which one of these biasses is more likely to cripple the mind in its search for truth ? It is assumed again that many men are not to be listened to when they speak of Immortality, because of presupposi- tions existing in their mind, by which their argument is colored and their con- clusion predetermined. But no mind is free from presuppositions, and every 37 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY man's argument is colored and moulded by the contents of his mind. A man with an empty mind is the last man in the world to be trusted with sovereign investiga- tions. What we have to ask of any man is not whether he has presuppositions, but whether his presuppositions have their roots in reason and are held in sub- jection by a spirit desirous of arriving at the truth. It is assumed by many that if certainty is not attainable in the discussion of any problem, one does wisely to ignore that problem altogether. But such a maxim, if acted on, would close every court room in the land. The courts use facts so far as facts can be ascertained, but when further needed facts are not forth- coming, inferences and deductions are given the right of way, and probability 38 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY is allowed to guide judge and jury to a decision. What is probably so is the highest result which the greatest of minds in many situations can possibly attain to. Human life, outside the court room as well as inside, could not go on unless men were willing to act on probabilities. Everything conspires then to keep one in a humble mood in the discussion of human destiny. Incontrovertible and absolute certainty is not attainable. This fact in itself should prompt one to move with gentle step. The extent of our ig- norance and the damaged condition of our mental instruments, and the vastness of the problem into which we desire to look, all combine to teach a becoming docility, and have a tendency to quench every impulse to conceited vanity and 39 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY crush every temptation to put on airs. The man who says disdainfully that be- lief in Immortality is absurd, and the man who declares with supercilious and oracular accent that men who reject Immortality are fools, are both alike deficient in that reverent attitude and meekness of temper which all seekers after truth are under obligation to covet and so far as possible attain. There is only one man more reprehensible than the bigots who dogmatically proclaim either immortality or annihilation, and that is the man who has never taken the trouble to arrive at any conviction what- ever. What shall we think of a man, endowed with the sensibilities and pow- ers of a human being, seeing the great river of human life flowing by him in- cessantly toward the grave without ask- 40 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY ing himself the question, "Whither?" What an anomaly a man is,*who, in a scientific age when the human intellect is furiously breaking into all the locked chests and dredging all the deepest seas, stands unconcerned in the presence of death, and feels no curiosity in what lies beyond. It is an evidence of mental weakness if not of moral cowardice for a man to capitulate before the greatest of problems, putting forth no effort to contribute to its solution. We are bound as rational creatures to face the ques- tion, "What can I know?" and this is no more obligatory than is the question, "What may I hope?" The common saying " One world at a time is enough " is a discreditable motto, if man is a being created for two worlds. It is dis- honoring to humanity to assert that it 4i A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY makes no difference whether men be- lieve themselves to be immortal or not. Men are always helped by knowing the truth. Every little fact which has come into human apprehension has assisted humanity in its upward way. Such little facts as that water will boil and make steam, that a stream will turn a wheel, that electricity will carry voice vibra- tions, when once learned and acted on, make much of the difference between barbarism and civilization. If it be true that man survives death, then this is the greatest of all facts, and it is impossible for man to accept it and act on it with- out changing the face of the world. It is absurd that a great hope can be sub- tracted from the stock of a man's spir- itual possessions without leaving him weaker and poorer, and it is incredible 42 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY that he should keep alive in his heart the hope of Immortality without being immeasurably richer and stronger. The timidity which fears to peer into the problem lest the basis of man's hope might be found to be sand, is a moral collapse and a scandal. To prefer a de- lusion which pleases, to a truth which makes sad, is the deepest and blackest of all skepticisms. If believing what is not true makes the world better than believing the truth, then is " the pillar'd firmament rottenness and earth's base built on stubble." He makes no con- tribution to humanity who is too timid to love and follow at all costs the truth. That life after death is possible need not be argued. That life after death is probable is a thesis which may profit- ably be considered. A thoughtful man 43 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY will not accept it without serious med- itation, and a careful weighing of all the considerations which may be urged on either side. If endless life is prob- able, then it becomes at once a theme for elevating contemplation. We ought to come back to it again and again. In the language of religion it is one of the means of grace, a sacrament to be fed on and to be thankful for. The con- templation of life eternal has a tendency to exalt the thoughts, to widen the sympathies, and to concentrate the pur- poses. The hope of going on quickens the ambitions and stirs men to project more colossal enterprises. The belief in the endless life tranquillizes feeling, purges passion, cleanses motives, solaces the ache of the heart, and exerts powers of repression on impulses which are 44 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY low and tendencies which work ruin. It enriches and enlarges the heart, giv- ing a new depth to tenderness, a loftier dignity to patience, a fresh radiance to love. It checks us in the fury of appe- tite and the madness of passion, and shames us out of many a petty ambi- tion and ignoble scheme. It braces us for Gethsemanes, and sets free latent capacities of the mind. It nourishes the ethical sense and keeps it from wither- ing. It quickens imagination and kindles fires which burn through all the storms. It wraps the world in the folds of a mys- tery, a mystery not of darkness, but of light. One can exist without it, but why should he wish to do so? A bird can exist without wings, but a wingless bird is defective. One can do noble deeds with eyes that look no farther 45 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY than the grave, but why should one be contented with earth's small horizon if the soul is made for wider circles and higher skies? Because one believes that virtue is its own reward, he is not forbidden to believe that the reward is eternal. Joy as well as strength is a part of our inheritance. But a man to be secure must have a reasoned faith. Aspiration is good, but it is not enough. Surmise is sweet, but it is frail when the wind blows and the floods come. In the early and buoyant years it is easy to dream of bright worlds innumerable, but in the days which are evil, and when the years draw nigh in which the heart sighs, "I have no pleas- ure in them! " one needs to feel that his hope is built upon a rock. In the fore- noon one can work with vim and satis- 4 6 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY faction, without thought of things tran- scending time, for, when the tides of vi- tality are at flood, there is joy in the mere act of putting forth one's strength; but in the afternoon, especially in the hours immediately preceding sunset, it makes a deal of difference whether a man be- lieves that the dawn is on his fore- head, or that the shadows are lengthen- ing towards an endless night. It is not enough to have a view, an opinion, a notion. One needs a reasoned convic- tion. No man can give us this. Each one of us must win it for himself. We owe it to ourselves to work our way, at whatever pains, to some definite and unshakable conclusion, and having reached it we owe it to our brother men to let them know the outcome of all our seeking. A well-grounded and steadfast 47 A RESTUDY OF HUMAN DESTINY belief in a life beyond the grave is one of the most precious of all the contri- butions which a man can make to the spiritual wealth of his generation. Such a belief is not a chanceful possession, a trifle won in life's great lottery; it is a spiritual acquisition, something earned by effort, fought for with courage and won by struggle, maintained in the teetrTof opposition by the intrepid en- durance of an unquailing spirit, and to be handed on as a rich legacy to others who are also summoned to fight the same battle, and whom it is our privilege to help to win the crown. II THE ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMOR- TALITY Like all the great questions concern- ing the ultimate realities and issues, the question of Immortality has two sides. There are facts which point to the soul's survival, and there are facts which point the other way. Both sets of facts must be faced and pondered. There are evidences that death ends all, and there are evidences that death is only a new beginning. Both kinds of evidence must be scrutinized and rated. There are in- ferences drawn from what we know that the soul dies at death, and there are other inferences deduced from the 49 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY same knowledge that the soul lives for- ever. The question is, which group of deductions is on the whole most solidly sustained. It is a question for the reason, and the man who would deal fairly with it must bring to the discussion of it the unspent energy of all his powers. The argument against the life beyond may be summarized as follows : Immortality cannot be proved, and science is averse to accepting any con- clusions which cannot be verified. As we are all under the influence of science, we instinctively share this reluctance. What cannot be proved can hardly be called essential, and may wisely be dropped out of account altogether. The absence of conclusive proof in favor of matters counted fundamental is an argu- ment against them, So ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY But to this it may be replied that the extinction or annihilation of the soul at death cannot be proved, and therefore cannot be admitted. The idea that death ends all is only a supposition, an infer- ence, an assumption; and since the op- posite supposition, inference, or assump- tion is possible, the question is open for consideration without prejudice to either side. If science hesitates to subscribe to that which she cannot prove, she must wait a long time before she assents to the doctrine that death ends all. And if we are really imbued with the true scientific spirit, we shall not make haste to pin our faith to the sleeve of those who mistake a mere conjecture for demonstrated fact. If it is said that Immortality is only an hypothesis or postulate, the reply is that the opposite Si ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY belief is also nothing but a postulate or hypothesis, and that the point to be decided is, which hypothesis on the whole best fits into and accounts for all the facts. Coming then to the facts, the first fact to be considered is that appearances are all against the belief in Immortality. Man as we see and know him decays and disappears. His senses, one by one, fall into ruin, his body is dis- solved, and the elements of it are caught up by Nature and put to other uses. What happens to the body apparently happens to the immaterial portion of man's being. The mind as well as the body is subject to decay. One by one the psychical powers dis- integrate before our eyes. Memory crumbles, imagination falls down and 52 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY dies, judgment, reason, will, all the fac- ulties which give man distinction and constitute his glory, succumb to an en- emy too strong for them, and so far as our eyes can carry us the soul is only a bundle of powers tied together by a cord of flesh, the bundle falling apart as soon as the cord is loosened or de- stroyed. The energies which form the body separate and go their sev- eral ways, never to be reunited. Our faculties enable us to trace the pro- cess, and the goal cannot be disputed. The inference is that the energies which make up the soul also disinte- grate, and flow back into the great cosmos from which they came. The silence of the grave is ominous. No ^/^ voices have ever come from it. Science has perfected her instruments of hear- 53 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY ing to a miraculous degree of sensitive- ness, but there are no perceptible vibrations from the tomb. The thick- ness of the veil which separates the world of the living from the world of the dead is also significant. No light has ever shone through it. No form has ever been descried on the other side. Science has developed her in- struments of seeing to a perfection which has almost converted men into gods, but there are no discoverable light vibrations from the dark king- dom beyond the grave. The silence of the dead is a fact that chills and mys- tifies. In the words of Carry le : "Thou- sands of generations, all as noisy as our own, have been swallowed up of time, and there remains no wreck of them any more, and Pleiades, and Arc- 54 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY turus, and Orion, and Sirius, are still shining in their courses, clear and young as when the shepherd first noted them on the plains of Shinar." The fact that so many generations with hungry hearts have passionately implored the silence to break into voice, with no re- sponse but the echo of their wailing importunities, would seem to indicate that there is no one within the shadow from whom an answer can ever come. Appearances are all against the doctrine of Immortality. But appearances are often deceiving. We cannot always believe our eyes. We see the sun rolling down the west- ern sky. The astronomer corrects our vision by his reasoned calculations. We see the earth standing still. No one of our senses can detect a trace of 55 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY movement. But science assures us that the earth is flying through space at the rate of nineteen miles a second, and we accept the revelation because it is founded on data which satisfy the rea- son. Every sensible man prefers to fol- low reason rather than his eyes. The question of Immortality is a problem for the reason. It cannot be settled by the eye. There are problems forever beyond the reach of the optic nerve. We cannot walk by sight either in science or in religion. Many realities are admitted by science which science can- not see. She believes with all her mind and heart in a world that is supersen- sible. She believes in colors which the eye has never seen, in sounds which the ear has never heard, in an ether which man can never hope either to 56 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY hear or to see or to feel, in movements which cannot be detected, and in flam- ing suns which the keenest-eyed of all the telescopes can never expect to find. Science does not limit herself to ex- istences which she can see or hear or handle. She willingly assumes what- ever is necessary to account for the phenomena which spread themselves out in the field of her vision. The argument from silence is always a dubious one. Silence is a precarious ground on which to build stable con- clusions. The unseen world is indeed silent, but it may be that we have at pre- sent no faculties to cognize the voices of that world. If there are even phys- ical vibrations too fine to be caught by our eye or our ear or by the most deli- cate of extant inventions, it is not diffi- 57 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY cult to believe in the existence of spirit- ual beings with whom our dull minds cannot at present hold conscious com- munion. It may be that the dead have taken on a form which cannot report itself to any of the senses with which we are at present endowed. Our senses are wonderful, but they have narrow limitations, and they carry us only a little way into the all-encircling mys- tery. It is possible that while it is not best for us at the present stage of hu- man development to hold communica- tions with the dead, there may come a time, however, when latent powers now sleeping in us will be able to see and hear the things which so many genera- tions have desired to hear and see and have not been able. The senses, then, cannot be allowed to speak the final 58 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY word on this great question. If the move- ments of the solid earth beneath our feet cannot report themselves to our consciousness, let us not be surprised at our ignorance of the movements of a world in which the dead live, if they live at all, set free from the physical organism by which it was possible for us to come into communion with them here. Another fact which must be faced is the difficulty which the imagination finds in conceiving any such existence as that which the doctrine of Immor- tality involves. There are certain for- midable obstructions presented to the picturing faculty of the mind, and these stumbling-blocks have a tendency to render the doctrine if not incredible, at least difficult to believe/ If the dead are 59 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY indeed alive, in what form do they ex- ist? They are separated from the body, and a disembodied spirit is inconceiv- able. We cannot conceive of the soul and the body existing separate in this world; how then can we conceive of such an anomaly in any world? If you try to think of the dead, you inevitably think of them in connection with the body which they had in their life upon earth. What cannot be pictured, the imagination is inclined to toss aside as unreal. Only the imaginable seems to be credible. But even if one were able to con- ceive the continued existence of a sin- gle soul after death, he would meet with insurmountable obstacles as soon as he attempted to form a picture in immortal forms and colors of all the members of 60 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY the human race, who are living now and who have ever lived and who are going to live in ages yet unborn. The historic period presents us swarming multitudes which cannot be counted, and the pre- historic era brings into view masses and myriads of human beings which cannot even be imagined. When the mind attempts to grasp the innumer- able and inconceivable and unimagin- able multitudes of the interminable eons and ages, it sickens and falls in a swoon. What a spectacle is presented by the story of human life on the earth! Tribes and clans, nations and races, continents covered with people, most of them ig- norant, savage, brutish, cruel, and super- stitious, living without aim and dying without achievement, — who can toler- ate the thought that all these countless 61 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY lives were carefully perpetuated after death, that not one individual in all that mountain mass of breathing, palpitating flesh has ever ceased to be ? The thought that all are still alive is to many minds repulsive, revolting, intolerable. The thought that all are locked in an ever- lasting sleep is soothing, refreshing. Their dust is mingled with the earth and Nature makes use of it in what ways she can, and the thought that their souls were long since dissipated into nothingness brings the mind relief. The universe seems a cleaner place after this immeasurable waste and wel- ter of human life has been gotten rid of. A millstone seems to have been loosened from the neck of creation and cast into a bottomless sea. There are certain moods in which the Imagina- 62 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY tion cries out trumpet-tongued against the thought of Immortality. But the Imagination, like all the other faculties of the mind, is not infallible, and is often tempted to put on airs. So regal are her powers that she readily imposes on us, and all the resources of the critical reason are necessary to hold her in her place. It is not true that the unpicturable is impossible and that what cannot be visualized must be rejected as incredible. The powers of the im- agination are limited, and there are wide domains into which she is not allowed to go. She cannot picture a thought, nor draw the outline of an emotion, nor form the image of a purpose. All the contents of consciousness are unpictur- able. We can think them, but we can- not paint them. The soul itself has 63 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY never sat for its portrait. There is no image of it in the heavens above or in the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth. The Imagination has never traced the outline of the human spirit. If it is impossible for the Imagination to picture the soul in this world, it is not surprising that it cannot picture it in the other. No one can picture the soul in the body, and therefore it need not frighten us to discover that no one can picture the soul out of the body. There are more things in heaven and earth than are set forth in our picture books. We shall possibly be able to paint the soul on the other side of death when we become able to paint it on this side. As for the difficulty of picturing a whole race of immortal beings, that is 6 4 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY simply a proof of our limitations. We are frail creatures and cannot stand up under the weight of conceptions which are suggested by the immeasurable uni- verse in which we live. We are finite, and we cannot comprehend the powers and the ways of the Infinite. The Power capable of creating all these innumer- able billions of human beings, and keep- ing them alive from the cradle to the grave, is no doubt capable of sustaining them so long as they fulfil his purpose. What his purpose is we do not know, and until this is known we can pass no judgment on the wisdom of perpetuat- ing their existence. That all the hosts of earth's savage and uncivilized crea- tures should remain forever in the same condition in which they found them- selves when death overtook them is not 65 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY only improbable but preposterous, but to think of a universe of men ever mov- ing upward in the scale of thought and love and will is a conception both exhil- arating and satisfying. If we are to be- lieve only that which can be pictured, then we must give up our belief in God. He is forever the unpicturable One, and no image of him can be made. He transcends the limits of all our powers of thinking, and to entertain the thought of his keeping alive all the souls whose home was once this planet, is no more difficult than to conceive a power mighty enough to keep the stars all burning in the immeasurable depths of space. A third fact still more daunting is that thought is dependent on the brain. Human consciousness, so far as we 66 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY know it, is a function of the gray mat- ter of an organ lodged within the skull. There are no mental phenomena in this world independent of physical organiza- tion. Every phenomenon in conscious- ness is attended by a corresponding movement in the cerebral convolutions. This is not theory, but demonstrated fact. It is one of the cardinal facts with which physiological psychology is at work. It has been found that forms of thinking are specialized, and that each kind of thinking has its own separate field in the brain. Injury inflicted upon any one of these brain areas works havoc with the particular form of conscious- ness associated with that area. Modify- ing the structure of the brain cells by an instrument or by drugs produces transformations in the mind, metamor- 6 7 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY phoses in character. Destruction of any piece of the apparatus involves the loss of one or other of the mental operations. The total destruction of the brain de- stroys consciousness altogether. The conclusion is certainly natural, and would seem to be inevitable, that the brain is an organ upon which the soul depends. The salivary glands secrete saliva, the liver secretes bile, so does the brain produce that curious product known as consciousness. Thought is the flame caused by oxygen and carbon burning in the brain, it is the light flashing out from an electric circuit, it is the music which emanates from an seolian harp located in the skull. Brain and mind are linked together in an in- timacy closer and more wonderful than the earlier science suspected. The f unc- 68 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY tional dependence of consciousness on physical organization is the most start- ling fact which physiological science has brought to the attention of our age. No other fact seems to have such an imme- diate bearing upon the whole problem of the soul's future as this one, and prob- ably no other fact has shaken the faith of so many believers in Immortality or has thrown so many persons into doubt as to the validity of one of the sovereign hopes of mankind. It is worth while, therefore, to face this fact with clear-eyed patience, that we may ascertain its full dimensions and come to know how much it means and proves. The fact stated again is this: Consciousness, so far as we know it on the earth, is dependent on the cere- bral convolutions. Thought, so far as 6 9 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY we know it, is a function of the brain. But right here care must be exercised to keep unwarranted suppositions from stealing in. Conjectures and philoso- phizings have a curious fashion of leak- ing in around every well-established fact. We must not forget that there are different kinds of dependence and vari- ous types of functions, and whether or not the soul ceases to exist when the brain is dissolved, depends upon the type of function and the kind of depend- ence represented in the brain. We know that for every molecular activity there is a certain change in consciousness, but we do not know that the one is cre- ated by the other. They are concurrent phenomena, but their relationship still lies completely in the dark. It is not proved that molecular vibrations are 70 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY converted into consciousness or that chemical activities in the brain cells are manufactured into purpose, thought, or love. There is nothing in mental phe- nomena like anything existing in the body. They belong to another order of existences; and tosaythatapinchof gray matter has the capacity to originate an emotion or idea is to assert as fact more than anybody knows. If the brain gen- erates thought as the steam engine gen- erates steam, then the destruction of the body means the ending of the soul. But science has as yet discovered no- thing to prove that brain and conscious- ness are thus connected. It may be that the soul is to the brain what the engi- neer is to the engine, and that the soul uses the brain as a locomotive to carry it along the track of its thought. It is ft ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY conceivable that the soul is not music, but the musician, and that the brain is the instrument on which the soul makes its music, the harp on which the harper is playing, the pianoforte on which the pianist is finding self-expression, the cornet or trumpet through which the musician is blowing spiritual melodies. The harper is dependent, it is true, on his harp, but he survives the breaking of the harp strings; the pianist cannot produce piano music when the piano strings are unstrung, but his life runs on independent of the fate of his piano; the cornetist does not cease to be when his instrument is destroyed. It is not de- nied that in this earthly life thought in its human form is dependent on the brain, and that without a brain man on earth can do no thinking; but if the 72 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY brain is only the instrument on which the soul plays its mental and emotional compositions, it is open for us to believe that when the present instrument is worn out another will be provided. A universe which is ingenious enough to locate in the skull a mechanism so mar- velous as the human brain, may be trusted to construct an instrument still more wonderful to take the place of the one which Death has broken to pieces. Physiological psychology knows no- thing which overturns the doctrine of the life everlasting. Another fact thrusts itself upon us, demanding interpretation. The earlier stages of the career of all human opin- ions and beliefs have in recent years been exhaustively investigated, and the origin of our belief in Immortality has 73 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY been found to be so humble as to cast suspicion upon its value. There seems to be evidence to support the contention that it was in his dreams that primeval man got his first notions of the unseen world. The comrades that he had buried appeared to him in his sleep. He again saw their faces, heard their voices, fished and marched and hunted with them as in the days of old. In this way, so scholars tell us, our forefathers came to believe in a spirit world in which the dead are not only still alive, but in- terested in the things which occupied their minds and enlisted their enthusi- asm when they were living on the earth. Grotesque and fantastic imaginations filled the brains of these primitive men. Their religion was a mass of supersti- tion, and their hearts were torn and 74 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY tortured by the hideous phantasmagoria which took shape in their ignorant and half -formed minds. Fetishism is the name which has been given to this con- glomerate of fancy and belief, and em- bedded at the centre of it is the notion of a life beyond the grave. If we have no hesitancy in casting aside the hun- dred crude and crazy notions which sprang up in those early days, why not conclude that the idea of a spirit world is of the same insubstantial texture, a cur- ious anachronism which has been al- lowed to survive already quite too long ? Is it not likely that the life after death is only a mirage projected from the desert centre of a barbaric mind? But the value of any existing thing is not to be determined by the environ- ment in which it had its birth, but by 75 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY the role it plays in the life of mankind. The validity of a belief does not depend upon its cradle, but upon the throne which that belief is able to ascend and hold. Nothing is to be despised because its origin is lowly. Were this a sound principle of action, everything on earth would deserve scorning, because every- thing on earth began low down. One cannot disparage religion by saying that it started in fetishism, without also dis- crediting science, for science and re- ligion began at the same point. Science and religion were twins rocked in the same cradle, and both alike have thrown off their earlier crudities and supersti- tions in the light of a broader day. It is no condemnation to modern astro- nomy that it began in astrology, or to modern chemistry that the first chem- 7 6 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY ists were alchemists. The earliest as- tronomy believed that there were stars worth studying, and the first chemists believed that there were elements worth experimenting with and combining; so did the first thinkers on human life and its destiny believe that there is a spirit world with which man is vitally con- cerned. The earlier crudities must not be allowed to blind us to the abiding convictions which have outlasted them all. No one despises St. Peter's because the first architect built only a mud hut, or the Sistine Madonna because the first artist made a few awkward scrawls with a charred stick on a rock, or the ninth symphony of Beethoven because the first musician produced noises which would to-day lacerate our ear; nor is it reasonable to reject the sublime teach- 77 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY ing of Jesus on the life eternal because the idea of Immortality was born in a manger located in the rude stable of the primitive man. With beliefs as with men, it is not the start, but the ending, which is most worth our attention. Whether the idea of Immortality be true or false, there is no reason why in either case it might not start in a dream. If there be a God who has access to the mind of man, we have no right to assume he can make no use of dreams. Still another fact is not without influ- ence in shaping the conclusions of men in regard to the fate of the soul. The expansion of the universe, as beheld through the eye of modern science, com- pels man to see himself in a new light. The earth is no longer the centre of 7 8 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY creation. We are the inhabitants of an insignificant planet in an obscure corner of a universe too vast to be measured. The starry heavens drive the old ques- tion like a dagger deeper into the be- wildered heart: "What is man, that thou art mindful of him ? " In the mood of self-abasement which scientific dis- covery has forced upon many minds, the old claim to life everlasting seems wildly presumptuous, and even to en- tertain the thought of it smacks of van- ity and unpardonable conceit. Frail and fleeting as the ephemera of a summer day, insignificant as the insects which buzz out their little hour and are no more, who is man that he should im- agine himself to be the darling of the universe, destined to have his life per- petuated in other spheres in which his 79 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY puny efforts may bring renewed dis- comfitures and his petty enterprises drag on to their customary insignificant and disappointing goal ? This is a frame of mind in which all desire to think of Immortality is extinguished. The doc- trine of a future life is not overthrown; it is ignored. An atmosphere is created in which the hope of life evermore is asphyxiated. Electricity and radium, time reactions and antitoxins, are more worth while than are any of the pro- blems whose solution can be reached only by the shaky ladder of probability or the blind leap of faith. This is the attitude of those who have been beaten into crawling self-depreciation by the repeated enlargements of the world of sense and time. Immortality has be- come to many a man only "the guess of 80 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY a worm in the dust, and the shadow of its desire." But if modern science has enlarged our conception of the physical universe, it has also widened our conception of man. If the outward horizon has been receding, the inner horizon has not remained where it was. There are widening horizons in man as well as in Nature. Man has increased in stature with every increase of the world which he is bringing more and more under his sway. He is greater than any of the worlds which he has discovered. The astronomic bodies are huge, but he is greater than they; for, as Pascal long ago remarked, should they fall on him he would be conscious of their fall. Science has removed the earth from the central position given it by the Ptole- 81 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY maic astronomy, but man still retains the central place granted him by the old story in Genesis. Genesis and science agree in placing man at the top of cre- ation, in laying the physical world at his feet waiting for him to subdue it, in making the animal creation look into his face, knowing that its fate is to be determined by his will. Science and re- ligion both make him the lord of crea- tion, and never has he been so conspic- uously and indisputably lord as to-day. The area of his knowledge has under- gone amazing expansion. His powers of knowing have been almost incred- ibly increased. He has developed the apparatus of research to marvelous per- fection. By the extension of his vision and hearing he has wrested from Nature secrets which she concealed from the 82 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY mightiest of the ancient kings. His sovereignty over the cosmic forces has now reached a pitch which renders him capable of achievements which were once possible only to the genii in the fairy tales. He has become a mira- cle worker, the latchet of whose shoes the greatest of the fabled magicians is not worthy to unloose. Enemies which baffled the skill and the power of count- less generations now lie dead at his feet, slain like so many serpents by the spell of his wizardry. Pestilence and famine and diseases which scourged millions to their grave slink away from him like guilty things afraid. And all this, it is evident, is only the beginning. Man is as yet a child. He can only walk. What will he do when he is old enough to run? He is yet in 83 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY the early morning. What may be ex- pected of him at noon? In the glowing hour of each new achievement, a voice keeps whispering to him: "You shall do greater things than these ! w He him- self is the wonder of wonders. Physio- logical science has analyzed his body, and her conclusion is that he is fearfully and wonderfully made. Psychology is at work upon his mind, and his mind is discovered to be far more wonderful than his body. Psychology has been re- written as well as biology and chemis- try. Personality has disclosed mysteries as great as any found amid the constel- lations. Under the eye of science the hu- man self has become increasingly com- plex and wonderful. We have not yet groped our way to its outer boundaries. The mind is found to be immeasurably 8 4 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY larger than was once imagined. Con- sciousness is only a part of the activity of the soul. It is an island in an unmeas- ured sea, a mountain-top glowing in the sun, with vast expanses all around it ly- ing hidden in the dark. In personality there are depths below depths, fathom- less abysses into which we can only gaze and wonder. Man is endowed with oc- cult powers, the extent of which it is not possible to conjecture. There are in human nature deep-lying capacities whose character is as yet only dimly known, and whose future development may usher in ages of marvels which will cast into commonplace the century which we call wonderful. This is not a time for putting one's mouth in the dust, sobbing with despairful heart: "What is man?" It is a time to stand 85 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY upon one's feet and exclaim with a more jubilant accent and an augmented as- surance : u Thou hast created him a little lower than God, And hast crowned him with glory and honor." It is not conceit, but sober sense, which leads to the surmise that gifts so wonderful cannot find full scope for their appointed exercise within the nar- row limits of this earthly life, and that death is only a liberator letting life out to its completion. If science creates in a certain type of mind moods of skepti- cism and despair, there are other minds in which she creates a mood not un- like that of the great Apostle when he shouted : " O death, where is thy sting ? O death, where is thy victory ? " Another fact starts up before us. The desire for Immortality is not universal. 86 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY In many noble minds it does not exist. Millions of human beings are apparently indifferent to the issues of death; to many of them an assurance of extinction would be a welcome announcement. They are weary with living and have no wish to go on. They love to think of death as a sleep in which all unsatisfied desires are extinguished and all despairs are slain. There are minds of a high order to which Immortality presents itself as a dismal hypothesis, a doc- trine unbelievable. That death ends all is to some a deep-rooted conviction. They walk toward the tomb with elastic step, confident and glad that there the journey forever ends. An argument for Immortality has often been framed out of the sayings of great men who have be- lieved in it. An argument for annihila- 8 7 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY tion might be constructed out of the sayings of men who have denied it. Would it not seem from this conflict of opinion that a considerable part of the belief in Immortality now existing in the world is due to religious training? Impressions are made upon the mind by instruction in the years of youth which are not easily effaced. The fact that in many intelligent and cultivated minds what is called the instinctive belief in Immortality has no existence suggests the possibility that this belief, wherever found, is after all an artificial creation, and that however long it may continue to abide in the uninstructed hearts of the masses, it is a mental pos- session which increasing enlightenment is certain to destroy. If man is by na- ture the heir of Immortality, would not 88 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY some ineradicable presentiment of this exist in the universal heart? Does not every fish have the instinct to swim, and every bird the instinct to fly, and every animal the instinct to run ? and if man is created to live forever, would not this fact be stamped indelibly on the structure of every human being? Would not a man wish to do that for which he had been created? If there be a spirit world filled with intelligent personalities, would not that world tug incessantly at men, creating in them pre- monitions and anticipations and long- ings which could not be suppressed? Is it credible that so cardinal a fact as the life eternal could be so hidden as to escape detection by men of loftiest intelligence and keenest moral vision? The fact that so many men do not be- 8 9 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY lieve in Immortality, or desire it, is an indication that it is only a brain-sick fancy of an occasional dreamer. The argument is plausible, but not so conclusive as it sounds. No doubt the belief in Immortality is often nour- ished and strengthened by early relig- ious teaching, nor is there doubt that the disbelief in Immortality is often planted and watered by teaching of the opposite sort. If some men are trained into a belief in a life beyond, so are other men trained into a belief that the grave ends all. That thousands should not believe in Immortality is by no means surprising, when one takes into consid- eration the large number of enthusiastic and persuasive teachers who have drilled their pupils in the catechism of unbe- lief. If we are to reject belief in an 90 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY endless life because it is a manufac- tured product, we must discard belief in a life ended by the grave, for the same reason. The frequent absence of an instinct- ive desire for the life unending must not be given too great significance. We should not forget the immaturity of mankind. The animal instincts are still predominant, and the spiritual capaci- ties are only partially developed. In millions of human beings there is no ap- petite for art, no hungering after know- ledge, no aspiration after moral excel- lence. Men as well as plants go through successive stages of development, and not every one reaches the goal ap- pointed. Arrested development is a phe- nomenon met with in all the kingdoms of life. A certain trait may be said to 9i ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY be characteristic of a species, although that trait does not appear in every in- dividual member of the species. The desire for Immortality may be said to be universal, even though in many men it is not found. The aesthetic sense is a common human possession, but in some men it is so feeble that one might say it does not exist at all. There is a dif- ference in colors, but many eyes can- not detect the difference. Man can see the difference, although many men can- not. Because a few men are color-blind we are not to deny the human eye power to make a distinction in colors. We are justified in saying that all men have ten fingers, although an occasional man has only nine. It is possible to lose a finger by accident or disease, and it is also possible to be born with one 92 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY finger lacking. Such exceptions do not change the fact that man is a creature with ten fingers. Now humanity is in a process of evo- lution, and men are not all equally de- veloped. Capacities which in one man are full-orbed, are in another man em- bryonic. Instincts which are full-blown in one, are latent in another. Powers which in one soul are controlling, are in another soul so feeble that they cut no figure in the shaping of the life. The student of history is prepared to find every conceivable variety of combina- tion of propensities, aptitudes, and en- dowments in the characters which take part in the great world drama. There are men who have no ear for music, others no eye for art, others no sense of justice, others no desire for purity, 93 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY others no idea of pity, others no con- ception of altruism, others no love of spiritual attainment and conquest. If the desire for Immortality be one of the primitive instincts, we must be pre- pared to find it feeble in many men, and in others undiscoverable altogether. That it should be absent from whole strata of human society is no more sur- prising than that the love of beauty or the desire for moral growth should be lacking in strata equally extensive. It is an imperfect world in which we are living, and many things fail to ap- pear in individuals which are a funda- mental and constituent part of human nature. Defective development will account for many things, and degeneration will account for many more. Science in 94 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY tracing the story of evolution has much to say about retrogression, and a return to lower and more primitive forms. It is not uncommon for an organism to lose its footing on the perilous ladder and go tumbling down to a lower rung. The tragic story of the shriveling and disappearing of unused organs is one of the most thrilling chapters which sci- ence has written. Faculties neglected become the prey of the forces of death. Powers subjected to no strain atrophy and disappear. It may be that the organ of belief, like other organs, is under the sovereignty of this general law, and that only he who cultivates a belief in Immortality is granted permission to re- tain it. If a man lives as though this world were all, he must expect the other world to fade into a shadowy pos- 95 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY sibility, and finally into a dusky impos- sibility. If one builds all his hopes on this life, the life to come cannot seem in the end other than vague and insub- stantial. Where one's heart is, there will his treasure be. Those things are ever most real to us on which we do most set our minds. To banish from thought the other world is to dissipate it into mist. That many persons do not believe in Immortality is only what one might expect from the manner of life which they are living. It is a life in which no place is left for Hope. The life may move on high intellectual and aesthetic levels, but if it is exclusively preoccupied with the things of time and sense the unseen world will grow increasingly shadowy, and an endless life will all the time become harder to 9 6 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY believe. Charles Darwin lost his love of poetry, music, and painting, not be- cause he was a reprobate or evil liver, but because he gave his thought to other things. Even Shakespeare be- came nauseating to him, so complete was the atrophy of the aesthetic powers of the mind. The enjoyment of the con- templation of the spirit world abides only for him who lives with the spirit world evermore in sight, and to him who does not thus live, the idea of the spirit world is likely to become what Hamlet and Lear became to Darwin, unpalatable and revolting. It is not the low-lived only, but the high-lived, the men and women who devote them- selves with absorbing self-consecration to high pursuits, who become, often- times, hopeless of a life hereafter. Their 97 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY pursuits, though high, do not look be- yond the earth. The absence of belief in Immortality is not in every case, then, due to degen- eracy of intellect, or stunting of moral sense, or perversity of will, but simply to a growing insensitiveness to the fine things of the spirit. He would be bold, indeed, who would pretend to say why any particular man believes or disbe- lieves as he does. We do not know the potency of heredity, or the subtle influ- ences of physical organization, or the moral value of the many forces which spin and weave in the hidden chambers of the soul. The modifications of brain structure are numberless, and the vari- ety of mental feature and emotional com- plexion is infinite. No one can account for all the variations in the physiological 98 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY structure of plants and animals. Nature has ways of breaking through the canons of her established procedure, and doing things beyond the flight of human antici- pation, and high above the reach of hu- man interpretation. So in the wide realm of human thought and hope there are developments of belief and unbelief, growths of faith and skepticism, tran- scending all our powers of understand- ing, and introducing problems for the philosophic intellect as fascinating as they are baffling. The spectacle then of a noble man or woman casting belief in Immortality from him as a burden too heavy to be borne, however it may be- wilder us, need not shake or overturn our faith. In a world like this, unanimity of belief concerning anything, no matter what it is, cannot be expected. Upon 99 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY every problem, however complex or sim- ple, there are divergences of opinion, and it is because there are contradictory voices always clashing round us that we are thrown back on the use of our own fac- ulties and need to take diligent heed lest we miss the way. On every question some men turn to the right and other men turn to the left, and it is for each one of us to say which company he will fol- low. The fact that great men and true reject belief in Immortality does not excuse us from the call to ponder the question for ourselves, nor does it follow that because opinion is divided the sur- vival of the soul is doubtful. A thing may be doubtable and doubted, and yet remain all the time one of the most solid and certain of all realities. The division of opinion is simply one of the factors ioo ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY to be taken into account by those who work out the problem. We are to ask, not which hypothesis commends itself to the best minds, or which hypothesis commends itself to the majority of the best minds, but which hypothesis com- mends itself to the largest number of minds which seem best fitted, by inher- itance and genius and training, to deal with a question of this nature. The con- sensus of opinion of those best qualified to speak has a rightful place among the determinant factors of a man's personal belief. One other argument remains to be considered. The belief in Immortality, it is said, is not needed. It is superfluous. Men need no such stimulus as it offers, no such consolation as it is supposed to give. Indeed, it is worse than super- ior ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY fluous, it is mischievous, even perni- cious. It is a menace to the highest moral life. It destroys the disinterested- ness of virtue, and when virtue becomes calculating and prudent she ceases to be virtuous. The belief in Immortality has hitherto been cultivated for the pur- pose of persuading men to cease to do evil and of helping them to learn to do well. To secure fidelity to high ideals, prizes have been suspended in the other world, and to frighten men from evil courses fires have been kindled there. But all this is enervating and demoraliz- ing. Virtue needs no assistance and no sanctions. Virtue is its own reward. A man ought to be noble enough to keep himself clean without a threat, and brave enough to do right without the promise of a sugar-plum. It is morbid 102 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY and unmanly, therefore, to give one's thought to a future life. To want to live forever is a sort of refined selfish- ness. Let every man give himself un- reservedly to the world that now is, letting other possible worlds shift for themselves. This way lies manliness, virtue, morality at its highest. Moreover, if the mind should in spite of every effort persist in thinking now and then of what the grave conceals, let every thought of personal immor- tality be carefully excluded. Whatever is personal is limited, and the future must be swept clean of all limitations. The thought of an immortality which is personal debases, while the concep- tion of corporate immortality ennobles and sets free. It is permitted us to hope that man may be immortal, while men 103 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY are not. The race may survive, while the individual perishes. A man may die, but his deeds live on. His soul may vanish, but the essence of his life sur- vives in the work which he did, in the social influences he set in motion, in the ideals he helped to glorify and crown. This is eternal life of a superior sort. This is a future cleansed of every taint of selfishness and purged of all human earthiness. To the great anthem of humanity it is permitted for every man to contribute an enriching note, and this anthem, over the dust of those who lived to make it possible, rolls on forever. But should you find it impossible to think of humanity surviving forever- more, and find yourself compelled to believe that even this august anthem must some day die away, there still re- 104 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY mains this glorious thought that the souls of men survive in the soul of the sum of things. Or should you prefer to employ the terms which religion has consecrated to her use, you can think of every soul losing itself in God, melt- ing into Deity, fused in the great Being of whom the cosmos is the visible ex- pression. This is the immortality on which there is not a blot. All per- sonal limitations are annihilated, all per- sonal memories are washed away, all personal affections are dissolved, all per- sonal tendencies and peculiarities and achievements are swallowed up in the fathomless gulf of the unspeakable and ineffable Whole. The ultimate goal of the soul is absorption in the Infinite, or, to use the word of the Sages of the East, Nirvana. i°5 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY But this line of reasoning, however ethereal and imposing, has dubious foun- dations. If it is selfish to desire to live on the other side the grave, it is selfish to desire to live on this side. If it is de- moralizing to character to anticipate life a hundred years from now, it is demoral- izing to anticipate the life of next year, next month, next week, to-morrow. It would seem that in order to live at one's best, one ought not to want to live at all. But experience proves that when one has no desire to live, the fac- ulties lose their edge, and the vital forces dwindle. The desire to live is not selfishness, but only the desire to live for narrow and dishonoring ends. The mother who wants her life to be prolonged until her children are old enough to face the duties and dangers 1 06 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY of the world is hardly to be condemned as selfish. One might desire to live for- ever for the purpose of forever doing good. If it is vitiating to think of rewards and penalties beyond death, it must be contaminating to take account of them in the life which now is. The school- boy, to be healthy and normal, must not think of promotion; the clerk must banish all desire for advancement; the farmer must not look forward to the harvest, nor any of the world's work- ers to the recompense of their reward. What shall we say of reasoning which cuts across the grain of all the healthy instincts and natural workings of the human mind? The man who lives in this world, heedless of all consequences of his deeds, is called a madman or a 107 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY fool. If life beyond the grave is possible, why should not the possible conse- quences be occasionally considered? Virtue is indeed its own reward, but if the reward runs on forever, why con- ceal from the imagination a fact so glo- rious? It never hurts us to know the best. The largest knowledge is the saf- est ground from which to project our plans and enterprises. The God who so orders life as to make use in this world of the principles of hope and fear, may not find it impossible to make use of the same principles in the build- ing of character which is to outlast the stars. The idea of shutting out all thought of the future for the purpose of enhanc- ing the quality of virtue in the present, is an idol of the cave. So long as man is a creature who looks before and after, 1 08 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY so long will he be sobered by memory and heartened by hope. It is not reason, but arbitrary caprice, which says that hope shall not wing her way beyond the grave. The denial of personal immortality is the denial of immortality altogether. To substitute for personal immortality corporate or any other sort of quasi- immortality is to offer not bread, but a stone. O may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence has, it is true, a lofty sound, but the sound when analyzed is found to carry in its heart a dirge. The tragedy can- not be covered by high-sounding talk of losing one's self in Deity. Poets like Virgil and others may sing of the soul 109 ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY melting into God, but the words, how- ever aesthetically impressive, have no ascertainable meaning. It is impossible for one person to melt into another. Personality robbed of all the marks of individuality ceases to be personality altogether. Take away the qualities by which a person is known and you de- stroy the person. Such expressions as " Pure Being" or the " Abyss of Being " or the "Ocean of Being" have no sig- nificance for thought. They are simply phrases with which men juggle, self- deceived and deceiving others. Alfred Tennyson gave expression to the con- viction of the unspoiled human heart in the lines: Eternal form shall still divide The eternal soul from all beside, And I shall know him when we meet. IIO ARGUMENT AGAINST IMMORTALITY If the soul lives at all after death, it lives endowed with self-consciousness and with the power of self-determination. These are not limitations, but the essen- tial conditions of self-activity and self- realization. The scintillating phraseo- logy of pantheistic poetry is only the purple velvet with which the ingenious mind decks out the forbidding doctrine of annihilation. If funeral bells are toll- ing for one and all of us the march to everlasting death, let us face the fact, never wincing, nor attempt to muffle the solemn music of their tones in the se- ductive rustling of gaudy and deceitful phrases. Ill THE ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY Having considered various facts which seem to make war upon the hope of Immortality, or at least to render the mind reluctant to rest upon that hope, let us now bring together the various facts which point in the opposite di- rection, and which, while not proofs, whether taken singly or all together, are nevertheless bits of testimony of varied weight, which must be taken into ac- count by those who seek convictions in regard to this momentous matter. First of all, let us turn to Science and ask her what she has to say. It is true that she cannot say anything posi- 112 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY tively in the way of " Yea " or " Nay," for the reason that Science is limited to the study of the phenomena of ex- perience. All such questions as that of Immortality lie entirely beyond her sphere. No one now on the earth has ever experienced Immortality, and no one is in possession of faculties which are able to take cognizance of disem- bodied spiritual existences. The nerv- ous system is limited in its powers of receptiveness, and is not able to estab- lish communication with a world in which matter does not play a part. The unseen world is therefore beyond the reach of Science. Spirits do not ac- knowledge the potency of blowpipes, crucibles, lenses, or retorts. Observ- ation and experiment, the two great in- struments of Science, are useless when ii3 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY one comes to deal with the souls of the dead. This last statement is by some dis- puted. There are those who will not acknowledge that the dead cannot make themselves known both to our mind and to our senses. They claim that we have no right to limit the powers of the human intellect, that latent capacities lie buried which in most men have never been developed, and that there are good grounds to believe that ex- perimental science will some day have in its possession a mass of facts which will prove to positive demonstration the survival of the soul after death. It is declared by a few that such facts are already in their possession, but as yet the overwhelming majority of sane thinkers are unwilling to admit that any 114 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY demonstrable communication between the inhabitants of the two worlds has been established, nor are they willing to concede that it will ever be possible by any perfecting of the methods of Science, or by any refinement of the powers of human nature, to prove that the dead are still alive. But whatever the future may have in store, it is safe to assert that, up to the present, Science has no authentic and satisfying word to speak on the subject of Immortality. She cannot prove life beyond death, neither can she disprove it. She has no warrant for condemning those who be- lieve it, and she can furnish only a du- bious support to those who deny it. She has much to say about many things, but not about Immortality. Her instru- ments of research are powerful, but "5 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY they are impotent in the realm of the dead. And yet it is well worth while to listen in the school of Science, for while she cannot speak words of authority bearing directly on this problem, she teaches many things which, when duly pondered, have a tendency to predis- pose the mind in favor of the life ever- lasting. She cannot create belief, but she can strengthen the belief which already exists. She cannot compel belief, but by pointing out certain facts which she has found in the course of her investi- gations, she can make it easier to be- lieve. One of the most striking of scientific facts is that nothing can be destroyed. Science affirms that matter is indestruct- ible, and so also is energy. One can 116 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY change the form of both, but one can annihilate neither of them. Both of them may pass through many transformations, but the mass of each remains evermore the same. This indestructibility of force and matter is the basis of one of the most famous of our modern scientific dogmas, — the Conservation of Energy. It is a doctrine which passes undisputed through the entire scientific world, and it is not without bearings on the sub- ject now in hand. If forces like heat and light and electricity are indestructible, possibly personal force is also beyond the reach of annihilation. Personality is a form of energy, and if the cosmic en- ergies with which the scientist in his laboratory is wont to work cannot be destroyed, it may be that this highest of all the forces of energy with which we 117 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY are acquainted, the energy of the human will, also belongs to the category of re- alities which will abide forever. If en- ergy is capable of undergoing amazing metamorphoses when subjected to new conditions, it may be that man can take a new form and put on incorruption when touched by the fire of death and subjected to the play of spiritual forces whose home is in the unseen world. This is not proof, but it has a tendency to loosen certain prejudices of the mind against continued personal existence. Among the generalizations of modern science the doctrine of evolution holds the foremost place. In its details and implications it splits men of science into conflicting schools, but the root idea is universally accepted: that we are living in a growing universe, that man is a 118 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY creature of development, and that he has come up through uncounted ages from an origin that was lowly. Science has opened a wondrous vista through which we see the past. She has dis- closed that interminable flight of steps up which man has made his way into the possession of his present powers. The struggle has been a long and painful one, and the progress has been pur- chased at a frightful cost. In the pres- ence of a spectacle so amazing, ques- tions crowd upon the meditative mind. What is the meaning of all this ? Why this vast expenditure of time and pain and blood? How can we reconcile so extravagant and unprofitable a process with the workings of an Infinite mind at once rational and beneficent? Surely some radiant end is held in view. It 119 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY must be a divine event toward which this struggling and bleeding creation moves. There must be an august and transcendently glorious finale of this dark and dreary drama which has been unfolding painfully through the ages, growing brighter with the tedious and almost imperceptible gradations of a reluctant dawn, maintaining even to the present hour distressing marks of crude- ness, failure, and imperfection, but fur- nishing, here and there, sometimes faint, and sometimes gleaming hints of a vast and incomprehensible and heavenly de- sign. By the enlargement of the past, Science has given the future new dimen- sions. By unrolling before our eyes that which has been, she has awakened in us vaster expectations of what is going to be. By training us to look downward she has 1 20 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY educated us to look upward. The mind which beholds the extended and toil- some journey which humanity has made, leaps by an innate propulsion into the ages yet unborn. In a world so large everything glorious seems possible. Life with such amazing powers of en- durance and persistence — why should it not run on forever ? Why should man have come so far if he is destined to go no farther? The mind recoils in pain from the thought that after a journey so rough and so steep, he should in a mo- ment cease to be. Science has lifted us to a nobler temper. When one is imbued with the scientific spirit it is difficult to harbor ideas which are narrow or mean. The vision of the vast sweep of upward- moving life predisposes the mind to hospitality toward the very largest con- 121 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY ceptions of man's mission and destiny. A creature which has traveled such dis- tances and fought such battles and won such victories deserves, one is com- pelled to say, to conquer death and rob the grave of its victory. If at this point some one suggests that all such cravings of the mind are satisfied by the thought that the race goes on even though the individual may perish by the way, the reply is that, according to Science, the years of the human race upon this planet are num- bered. The sun is losing heat — the sun is dying. The day will come when it will be a ball of ice. Long before that day all life upon our earth will have be- come extinct. The race of men in the physical stage of its career will come to an end, and if only in the flesh and on 122 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY this planet it is possible for mankind to exist, then soon or late there will re- main nowhere in the universe a solitary vestige of that wonderful order of be- ings once known as men. Against such a consummation the soul of Charles Darwin rebelled. "It is an intolerable thought," he wrote, "that man and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long- continued, slow progress." While evo- lution furnishes no proof that the soul survives death, it nevertheless incites in the mind a wish that such survival were possible, and renders it reluctant to con- sider the grave as the goal of the hu- man journey. The pictured doom of the solar system renders the mind more in- sistent in its demand that man shall be saved. 123 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY Our generation has been trained by its scientific teachers to allow large sig- nificance to phenomena which are ubi- quitous and persistent. For the evanes- cent and the occasional, modern science has scant regard; but for everything which has in it the power of surviving and expanding, she has a beautiful re- spect Things which persist have a rea- son, she declares, for being, and no- thing can be permanent which is not an essential part of the great world order. The permanence of certain types of life, and the perpetuation of certain functions in organisms, are facts of deep meaning to a mind scientifically trained. What always has been is likely to con- tinue to be, and however inexplicable it may be to the intellect or difficult to justify at the bar of the reason, it is 124 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY rooted, we may confidently believe, in the eternal reality, and has an essential part to play in the great cosmic scheme. Now one of the most fascinating of all fields open to scientific investigation is the primeval world. During the last half-century primitive man has focussed the attention of many minds. Our re- mote ancestors have been supposed to hold the keys which are going to un- lock the doors through which we may pass into the heart of not a few of the world's mysteries. No record left by them has been neglected. Every mark which they made on rock or metal, every implement left buried in the sand, every syllable which has escaped oblit- eration, has been scrutinized and pon- dered by men convinced that in these denizens of primeval days there lie ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY clues to the labyrinths in which we are wandering now. To push these investi- gations back to the earliest utmost has been the ambition of every paleontolo- gist. At his heels have followed the philosopher and the psychologist, eager to grasp the meaning of that long van- ished world. Among the many facts dis- covered none is more incontestable than this: the belief in the unseen world is coeval with man's origin on this earth. From the beginning man believed that life does not end at death, and looked upon his comrades whom death had hidden from his eyes as still living in some ghostly world. The belief was not peculiar to any one tribe or clan, nor was it confined to any one quarter of the globe. It was ubiquitous. Wher- ever early man has left legible traces 126 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY of his existence he has left evidence of his belief in a life after death. How he came into this belief we do not know. Why he came into it we cannot say. It seems to be one of his primeval posses- sions, like the power of standing up- right and the gift of speech. But the ubiquity of a belief does not prove its validity, for many a supersti- tion once ubiquitous has been later on doomed to die. The belief in a life after death as held by primitive man was immeshed in a mass of crude and fool- ish notions which have long since been outgrown. But while many a grotesque and silly notion has passed away, the belief in the unseen world as the home of the dead still survives. Through un- counted ages it has held its ground, and no storm or revolution seems able to 127 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY overthrow it. Many ideas have been left behind, many hopes have been sur- rendered, many dreams are dreamed no more, but the primitive conviction that man is alive on the other side of death is still a possession of every race of men. Its roots run down into the deep places of the mind, and seem to be inextricably intertwined with man's indestructible mental possessions. It is probably a part of himself. Nothing, apparently, is able to destroy it. Arguments against it avail nothing. Changing fashions of opinion may for a season shake it, but they do not uproot it. The skepticism of the learned does not cause it to wilt. The unbelief of the elite is only the shadow of a passing cloud. Many plausible rea- sons can be urged against it, but they lack the power to overthrow. Men who 128 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY throw away the teachings of Jesus do not as a rule part with this. Men who reject all religions are still haunted by obstinate questionings, which indicate that down deep within them the germ of the old belief in Immortality is still alive. Those who, sick of life, meditate suicide, find themselves saying: " To die, — to sleep ; — To sleep! perchance to dream, — ay, there's the rub = tia^Jj For in that sleep of death what dreams may come." This primitive belief has a grip on us, and we cannot shake it off. What gives it this vitality? What is the source of its strength? It lives in the hearts of sav- ages. It makes its home in the breast of barbarians. It builds a temple in the souls of the men who have climbed 129 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY highest. It not only exists, but it works. It is a factor in human development. It is a force in social evolution. It is a power in political and industrial as well as in domestic and religious life. Tear it out of the human heart and you change the destiny of the world. Man is what he is to-day largely because of this indestructible belief, this steadfast and glowing hope. It is ubiquitous and it is persistent. It seems to meet the test which Science has presented for de- termining what are the things of high significance. So vital and permanent a phenomenon cannot be due to chance. There is a reason for its existence, and the reason lies deep in the consti- tution of the cosmic order. Belief in a future life is seemingly an essential constituent of our human world. This 130 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY universal and long-continued gazing through the tomb into a world beyond is presumptive evidence that there is something there. It is not the nature of living organisms to throw out tendencies persistently toward supports which do not exist. Organisms do not make re- sponses continuously to imaginary stim- uli. Living things, so far as Science knows them, respond only to realities. If the heart of man is ever feeling after something on the other side the grave, if it reacts upon the darkness which death creates, we have good ground for thinking that there is a reality hid- den in the darkness, a real world to which the soul of man belongs. The fact that belief in Immortality is ubiqui- tous and persistent is not incontrovert- ible proof that man lives forever, but *3* ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY Science has given us such a deep re- spect for things which are universal and which abide, that she has increased our reverence for the primitive and inde- structible conviction that when a man dies he lives again. Science has also in recent years given us a new apprehension of the mysteri- ousness of man's being. Personality is being studied with as much patience and enthusiasm as radium and electric- ity. The farther the investigations are pushed the more wonderful the human soul is found to be. The self is a world in itself, and is inthe possession of pow- ers the extent of which has not been de- termined. There are depths and heights of the mind which cannot be measured. Sleeping powers lie concealed which have not yet been awakened. Conscious- l 3 2 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY ness is apparently only a small part of our mental self. Immeasurable realms extend out beyond the frontiers of con- sciousness. Energies are locked up which have not yet been called into ac- tion ; the greatest of the miracles have not yet been performed. Hallucination, te- lepathy, hypnotism, clairvoyance, these are names of kingdoms which lie out- stretched in this dim shadow-land, and what may some day be disclosed the keenest-eyed of the prophets cannot now foresee. All that we know is that hu- man personality is inexpressively, awe- inspiringly wonderful. There are dim and mystifying hints that the soul is possessed of powers which cannot find expression in the molecular action of the brain, altogether too vast to find scope for their exercise in the limited *33 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY earth-arena, and promising prodigies of achievement for which the space of threescore years and ten is quite too brief. Here again there is no proof which cannot be doubted, but Science by giv- ing us glimpses into the abysmal depths of personality makes us less reluctant to believe that the soul is too great to perish. In the frame of mind which Science creates and fosters, we are prepared to listen sympathetically to the testimony of Philosophy. Philosophy like Science brings no incontrovertible proofs, but she has accumulated a variety of infer- ences and deductions which must be sifted, weighed, and allowed to exert upon the judgment what influence they may. The combined consider- ations of Philosophy cannot establish 134 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY the truth of Immortality for any one who is determined to deny it. The force of what she has to say is strong, but not irresistible. It is left for every man to conclude for himself whether he shall accept or reject the doctrine of life ever- lasting. Certainty in matters such as this is an attainment, and only those who seek with patient and reverent hearts find. Philosophy carries in her eye the en- tire universe, the world within as well as the world without. To the philoso- pher the phenomena of consciousness are as solid and significant as are the phenomena in the realm of force and matter. Facts, Philosophy insists, are not confined to happenings in the earth and sky. They are found also in the world which man carries in his heart. 135 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY There are facts of consciousness as well as facts of history, and the inner move- ments of the soul are not to be over- looked in framing our theory of the world. Philosophy pays attention to the activities of the intellect and also to the movements of the heart. She recog- nizes the value of the reason, and she pays deference to the affections and emotions. The intellect is only a small fraction of man's total being, the pro- cesses of the reason are but a fragment of the aggregate operations of the soul. Man has thoughts, opinions, notions, ideas, and he also has attractions and repulsions, instincts and intuitions, pas- sions and emotions, aspirations and in- eradicable hungerings. All these mys- tic and mighty powers must be called as witnesses and allowed to testify in 136 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY the great investigation concerning the nature and the destiny of the soul. The heart has reasons which the Reason cannot understand. The philosopher in rummaging through the treasure-house of the soul finds the idea of Immor- tality and also the desire for it. He cannot help asking if this desire for Im- mortality may not be evidence of man's capacity for it. If there is an appetite for life everlasting, the chances are that the appetite will not go unsatisfied. If the heart's aspirations keep leaping toward eternity, it is not unlikely that eternity has some blessed thing in store. The normal human heart takes kindly to the thought of life beyond the grave. It communes with it as with an old and faithful friend. The thought of anni- hilation, on the other hand, brings to 137 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY the fresh and unspoiled heart a chill and gloom. The soul revolts from it, and slinks away as from a treacherous foe. Nowhere does our heart utter so vehement a protest against oblivion as at the open grave of one whom we have loved. The soul in its most affec- tionate moments recoils from the idea of extinction. The colder Reason may say: "Believe no more"; but the heart stands up and answers: "I have felt." There is a heat of inner evidence which compels us to believe against the sense. At the grave of a great man, stricken down at the noon of his power, there is something within us which shouts out against the thought that already he has passed into nothingness and is now no more than if he had never been. In its highest moods the soul turns instinct- 138 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY ively toward a future life. It is its nature to do this. We know things by what they do. If the soul is so constituted as to turn spontaneously in its greatest hours toward the morning of another day, the rational inference is that such a day will dawn. Man has an ethical sense, an innate love of Justice. An act of injustice brings pain to the developed man, even though the injustice does not affect his own temporal interests. He feels that an unjust act is an outrage on the uni- verse, and that the Eternal Spirit must be just even though the heavens fall. But the world is filled with cruelty and foul play. Never a day dawns and fades that some heart does not break under the weight of undeserved and accumu- lated wrongs. Again and again is truth 139 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY crushed to the earth, and in many cases it does not rise again until long after the actors in the human drama who saw its overthrow have made their exit to return no more. Right is forever on the scaffold, wrong is forever on the throne. Vice dressed in satin rides in a carriage, while virtue clad in rags goes afoot. In many a quarter the poor and the help- less are ground under the feet of might, and there is no deliverer. Whole gen- erations have gone groaning to the grave, scourged by the iniquity of rulers and robbed by the rapacity of those who should have been their protectors and friends. God is indeed in his heaven, but all is not well with the world. The moral judgment is constantly scandal- ized by the interminable tragedy of the world's life. The injustice of the order 140 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY of events inflicts deep and dangerous wounds in the mind of the observer of the astonishing drama, and where is re- lief to be found ? Only in the belief that this world is not all. If every human life ends at the grave, then there are wrongs that never can be righted, and losses that can never be made good. There are outrages that can never be atoned for, and recompenses that can never be secured. Without another world, the present world becomes an insoluble riddle, and life an enigma which tortures the heart. A second world is needed to render the first world endurable.(^Life beyond death is neces- sary if we are to retain unshaken our faith in the justice of the World-Rulen) We cannot easily bring ourselves to* think that we are living in a universe 141 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY so ordered as to bring us to permanent moral confusion. If souls, after life's fitful fever here, live on, the tragedy of human history is not removed, but the heart is braced to gaze upon it with un- quailing fortitude, and hope is furnished with soaring and puissant wings. But it is not justice only which in this world fails to reach its coronation. There is nothing which man hopes or plans, when he is living at his highest, which finds room for full fruition inside the limits of the earthly life. Man's reach is greater than his grasp. He al- ways aims higher than he can climb, sees farther than he can travel, begins more than he can finish. The human world is marred on every side by im- perfections. Human life is at all its edges incomplete. But man remains the 142 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY incorrigible dreamer. He forever hun- gers for a knowledge he cannot gain, seeks for a happiness he cannot find, strives for a beauty he cannot attain, and struggles for a goodness which is evermore beyond him. He makes won- drous progress, but he pursues a flying goal, and death overtakes him before he has reached his destination. He lays the foundations of a structure which death will not permit him to complete. This is the fate of all the generations. No one of them has reached the con- summation of its expectations. In the midst of the great disappointment, there are voices of lamentation, crying, " Van- ity of vanities, all is vanity"; but above the voices of defeat and despair rise, musical and clear, jubilant and pro- phetic voices declaring that somewhere, 143 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY somehow the heart shall be satisfied and its dream shall come true. It is a thrilling and noteworthy fact that man keeps on feeling that the world is not large enough for the full exercise of all his powers. Time as measured by our clocks is not long enough for him to se- cure the things for which he longs and struggles. The greatest and most indus- trious men die with their enterprises uncompleted. It is not the savage who laments most bitterly that art is long and time is fleeting, or who goes into the grave with unfinished plans; it is the scholar, the thinker, the statesman, the artist, the prophet, the poet, the saint, who lay down their work when the night falls, conscious that they have only made a start. Why does man un- dertake more than he can possibly ac- 144 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY complish, and why does he yearn for things which the earth cannot afford? If this is folly, why is the folly so per- sistent, and why is it most pronounced in the highest and noblest types of men? If man at his best cannot lay out his work within the earth horizon, and is constantly formulating projects which extend into regions far beyond, it is not unreasonable to infer that he is a citi- zen of two worlds, and that what can- not be continued here will be com- pleted otherwhere. If the creator of the universe is building a tower and is do- ing a part of his work through men, it is reasonable to believe that he has counted the cost and will not slay his servants in the initial stages of their work. When we see a building with its walls only a few feet above the ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY ground, we conclude that the builder has only begun his operations, and have no doubt that he will not cease from his labors until the house is made com- plete. It is the incompleteness of the human soul as we know it here upon the earth, which gives solid ground to the philosophic mind for its expect- ation that the builder man goes right on building after a cloud has received him from our sight. The capacity for progress is one of the proved endowments of our human nature. The love of improvement is a love that survives from age to age. Amazing progress has been made, but it is not sufficient to satisfy the mind of man. What fails to satisfy man is hardly likely to satisfy man's maker. Human character at its best is stained and flawed. 146 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY The virtues are only partially developed, and the graces have attained only a scrubby growth. It is hard to believe that man as he now is, embodies the ideal which lay in the Eternal mind when the earth was planned and the structure of a creature to be the owner of it was first conceived. The span of earth is quite too short to bring out in the garden of the heart all the flowers whose seeds are planted there. The enemies of the soul are far too numer- ous to be overthrown between the cradle and the grave. The highest powers are of a tardy growth, and the soul does not attain maturity under the suns of seventy summers : man makes such swift and wonder-working progress in his brief passage across the earth that it seems incredible that powers so mar- 147 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY velous should be forever palsied by the touch of death. One likes to believe that swelling buds are not created to perish by an ill-timed frost, but will be permitted to see the summer. Who knows but that all of the goodness which we see on earth is but hint and suggestion of those higher developments of holiness which shall go on forever under more genial skies? Progress be- comes a grim and tantalizing spectre if we think of it as so weak of limb that it can hobble only to the grave. It is the prerogative of man to dream of an unending progress, in which the soul shall pass from strength to strength and mount from one glory to a higher one, ever pursuing and yet never reach- ing the inconceivable and unattainable loveliness hidden " in light unapproach- 148 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY able," the incomprehensible and incom- municable glory of Him whom no man hath seen, nor can see. It is when philosophy indulges in her loftiest flights that she passes into the domain of religion. Indeed, religion in one of its aspects is a philosophy, and in its methods it is more like science than is commonly supposed. It is too often taken for granted that in religion one must walk by faith, whereas in science one can walk by sight. But the man of science, no less than the man of religion, is obliged to walk by faith. Science cannot take her first step with- out a splendid act of faith. She must assume that the universe is intelligible, and that her processes can be known. She must take for granted the reality of the perceiving mind and of that which 149 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY the mind takes hold of. The man of science is sworn to be faithful to the facts, and so also is the man of religion. The facts of consciousness are as sacred and solid as any of the facts which can be shaken out of crucibles and test tubes. Science believes in experiment, and so also does religion. It is by ex- perience that religion maintains her power and wins her conquests. Like science, she speaks what she knows and testifies as to that which she has seen. When we come to the testimony of religion we do not come to a ghostly witness whose words are thin as air and whose conclusions are of such frail stuff as dreams are made of. Religion is rooted in man's reason, and there is no more trustworthy voice than that with which she speaks. ISO ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY From the beginning religion has as- sumed and asserted the continued ex- istence of man. The sacred books of the world appeal to man as a creature who is to live after death. So constant and central has been the place of this doctrine in the religions of the world, that it is often taken for granted that Immortality is a distinctively religious doctrine, bound up with the fortunes of some particular religious faith. Men prejudiced against religion have some- times looked upon this doctrine askance, assuming that anything growing out of a religious stock is likely to be super- stition or illusion. It is commonly as- sumed that it is a Christian doctrine, introduced by Christ into our world, proved by him by his resurrection from the dead, and that if doubt can be ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY cast upon this alleged resurrection, then the foundation of the Christian world's belief in Immortality is hopelessly un- dermined. But this is to give the doc- trine too narrow a foundation. Men be- lieved in Immortality long before Jesus came. The idea that man survives death is not a novelty introduced by the Chris- tian religion. It is taught, to be sure, in the Hebrew scriptures, and much more plainly in the writings of the New Tes- tament, but the arguments for Immor- tality are not confined to the Bible. Long before the Bible was written there were arguments for Immortality which satisfied philosophic and scien- tific minds, and long before the argu- ments were formulated the belief lived without proof in the hearts of men. The belief in a life beyond death is a univer- IS2 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY sal possession. No one religion can claim the honor of first promulgating it. The doctrine of Immortality is a part of the Christian religion, but it is also a part of other great religions, and it is also a part of the great human tra- dition in which all classes of men have a share. We may call it a scientific be- lief, or a philosophic belief, or a relig- ious belief. Probably we name it best when we call it simply a human belief, a belief that is the birthright of every man born into our world, no matter what philosophy he subscribes to, or what religion he holds. To the Christian believer Jesus of Nazareth brought Immortality to light, that is, he lit up the ancient belief by his luminous affirmations and still more by his rising from the tomb. The Christian *53 r ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY philosopher accounts for the ubiquity of the belief in Immortality by the fact that Jesus Christ is the light that lights every man who comes into the world. But the man who is not a Christian need not join the doctrine of Immortality with the Christian doctrines of incarnation, atonement, and resurrection in such a way as to feel compelled to reject the first because he cannot accept the others. There are broad and solid religious grounds for believing in Immortality, apart from the distinctive Christian dog- mas, and there is no reason why the mind of the non-Christian man should be prejudiced against the doctrine of the life everlasting because of its Christian associations. There is in man a religious instinct, an instinct which reaches out toward 154 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY a Superior Being in communion with whom this instinct finds rest and peace. The capacity for worship exists in all men in whom it has not been destroyed. Men differ from one another in their spiritual as well as in their intellectual and aesthetic endowments. In gifts men are not created equal. Not every man can write " Hamlet," or the "Principia," or the Wagner operas. Not every man can invent the incandescent lamp, the aeroplane, or the instruments which pick up from the air telegraphic messages without the assistance of a wire. Now and then there comes into our world a genius, a man to whom is given an affluence of that which exists in some measure in all. If some men have anf extraordinary faculty for art, and others for discovery of natural laws, and others i5S ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY for invention, so do other men have a phenomenal faculty for discerning the things of the spirit. It is as unreasonable to deny the existence of spiritual genius as it would be to deny the existence of poetic or musical or inventive genius. These spiritual geniuses are called poets, prophets, seers. They see. They possess intuition, insight, preternatural vision. From this class of men have come the world's religious leaders. Having seen, they have spoken. Their words have had in them a penetrating fire. It is given to some men to make themselves believed. They speak as having au- thority, and not as men who learn things out of books. They do not argue. They care little for external proofs of what they say. They carry the proof of their convictions in themselves. 156 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY Such men are often found outside the priesthood of religion. Occasionally they are found among the philosophers, statesmen, writers, poets. When a man of this class believes in Immortality he trusts entirely his own intuitions. His belief has not been handed to him. It has grown up in his own heart. Such a man was the Greek Socrates, another was the German Goethe, another was the French Hugo, another was the Eng- lish Tennyson, another was the Ameri- can Emerson. All these were certain of Immortality, but as Emerson expressed it, they were all better believers than they could give grounds for. The real evidence is too subtle or too high to be written down. It is this action of the mind which has created the great affirm- ations of religion. The prophets of iS7 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY Israel were seers endowed with unique and unparalleled powers of vision in the realm of the spirit. They saw what seers of other lands could not so clearly see. Spiritual genius was granted in preeminent degree to the Hebrew, as artistic genius was bestowed upon the Greek, and the genius for organization was intrusted to the Roman. The pro- phets of Israel saw what their contem- poraries could not see. But wonderful as they were, they were all conscious of hampering limitations. They all felt that they saw in a glass darkly. They all anticipated the coming of a prophet whose clear eye should see what was hidden from them, and whose tongue should frame a message to which they could not give utterance, g In the fulness of time such a pro- 158 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY phet came — Jesus of Nazareth. Chris- tians see in him the fulfilment of all the dreams of patriarchs, kings, and prophets, and acknowledge him to be the Son of God, k the Saviour of the world. By well-nigh universal consent he is to-day conceded to be the greatest of all the world's prophets. His name is written above every name. He had wonderful eyes, and he saw more deeply into life than any man who preceded him or who has come after him. What he says, therefore, on the destiny of man is worthy reverent attention. It is clear from the recorded sayings of Jesus that he had no doubt whatever of the soul's power to survive death. That such men as Abraham and Isaac and Jacob should now be nothing but dust was to his mind incredible and absurd. There is 159 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY fine scorn in his hot declaration hurled at a school of thinkers who denied life after death: "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." As to his own resurrection he entertained no doubt. The conversation of Socrates with his friends in the prison looking out upon the Agora at Athens, and the conversation of Jesus with his friends in the upper chamber at Jerusalem, have often been contrasted, and may be studied with profit by all who are interested in the high things of the spirit. Both Soc- rates and Jesus were convinced that death does not end all, and yet how different is the tone in which the subject is handled. Socrates deals in argument. He adduces reasons why he expects to live after the deadly hemlock has closed his eyes in death. Jesus does not argue. 1 60 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY He affirms. In the rich music of the Athenian's speech there occurs an oc- casional note of questioning and uncer- tainty, but in all that Jesus says there is not a trace of speculation or conjecture, nothing but the onflow of a mighty, im- perturbable conviction. "In my Father's house are many mansions: I go to pre- pare a place for you." He states it with all the calm certainty of one who gives expression to an indisputable, demon- strated, scientific fact. It cannot be questioned that Jesus went to the cross in the firm conviction that after death he would live again. Nor is it open to question that a few years after his death his disciples were abroad in all the lands declaring in the name of Jesus that death had lost its sting and that the grave can win no vic- 161 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY tory. The founder of the Christian re- ligion had, after his death, in some way or other convinced his followers that he was still alive and in communion with them, and in all their preaching the two words which had in them the sweetest music were "Jesus" and "Re- surrection." That the first Christians believed that Jesus rose from the tomb and made himself known to his disci- ples is proved by a literary document — Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians — written within twenty-five years of the crucifixion. But in a matter of such moment it is fortunate that we have a proof more substantial and impressive than any page of writing can furnish. That the first Christians believed that they had seen Jesus after his death is proved beyond the reach of contradic- 162 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY tion by an institution which can be traced back to the century in which Jesus lived — the Christian Sunday. This day is a memorial of what the first-century Christians regarded as the greatest of all events — the resurrection of their leader. That the doctrine of a future life was held in the forefront of early Christian teaching, and that this doctrine was foundationed on the resur- rection of Jesus, is not open to dispute. Historians like Edward Gibbon, who have scant sympathy with the Christian faith, do not hesitate to acknowledge that it was the Christian doctrine of Im- mortality which helps to account for the rapid progress of the Christian re- ligion throughout the Roman world. The consciousness of Jesus is a colos- sal phenomenon which cannot be got 163 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY rid of by any process of scientific or philosophic reasoning, and no one whose mind is not irremediably twisted by prejudice will endeavor to cover it over or evade it. No man has a right to claim that he possesses the scientific spirit who shuts his eyes to one of the cardinal facts in human history — the mind of Jesus. It is absurd to devote attention to meteors and comets, bugs and beetles, worms and microbes, light and heat, and leave unstudied the most significant and potent product which the cosmos has brought forth. Man is the climax of creation as every one ad- mits, and it is no less certain that the climax of humanity is Jesus. However we may choose to account for him, there is no doubt that he appeared in history, and that one of the deepest of 164 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY his convictions was the certainty of the endless life. To him man's power to survive the grave is an axiom; not a question to be debated, but a fact to be accepted with joy. It was not his fashion to argue or to make collections of evidences by which the soul's con- tinued existence might be made to ap- pear probable. What other men had ventured to suggest as a daring surmise, a glowing hope, a glorious possibility, Jesus set forth as a self-evident and in- controvertible certainty. His conviction deserves to rank high — Christians think that it deserves to rank the highest — among all the proofs that the human hope of life eternal is not built upon the sand. His attitude strengthens the wavering attitude of us men who cannot share his insight, and so frank was he 165 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY and so full in all his communications to his fellows, that if the human expect- ation of life after death were without foundation, he most certainly would have told them. When he says "Be- cause I live ye shall live also," he crowns with his benediction the bravest, sweet- est, and most far-reaching of all the dreams of men. But the teachings even of Jesus are not to be received without scrutiny, and without an effort to ascertain the grounds on which they may reasonably be ac- cepted. Religion, like Science, makes full use of the reason. Like Science she employs observation and experiment in reaching the final conclusions. She proves all things, and holds fast that which is found to be good. She tests the spirits whether they be of God, be- 166 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY cause many false voices are sounding through the world. By the fruits of a doctrine she judges of its validity. The declarations of religious intuition are so many hypotheses which must, if they are to be retained, be verified by the accumulating facts of experience. Now what does experience tell us in regard to this hypothesis of a life to come? It informs us that when men act upon this belief, their entire nature gives evidence of moving in harmony with the laws of its being. It is a wholesome doctrine, and the heart feeds upon it. So also does the intellect. Under its influence character reaches a nobler stature and the troubled spirit finds rest. If every one should accept the doctrine of the life everlasting and practice it from day to day, who can doubt that the world 167 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY would be far better and happier than it is ? The doctrine of Immortality gives us a worthy view of man. A worthy view of man is an essential factor in producing a noble type of man. Man is apt to be what he thinks he is. If he thinks himself a creature of a day, doomed to extinction at sunset, he finds it easier to contract his aspirations, and to circumscribe within narrower limits his aims and enterprises. An ignoble view of man lowers our view of God. A lowered conception of the Eternal has a tendency to blight the highest and finest faculties of human nature. It is when men think high and worthy things of the Power which made them that they find deliverance from fleshly tyrannies and come into a strength which does not fail. The doctrine of Immortality 168 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY involves a lofty view of God. It inspires us with a holy curiosity to find out more and more who he is and what human life really means. Human society has reached its highest levels in those re- gions of the earth in which the doctrine of Immortality as taught by Jesus has obtained firmest lodgment in the minds of men. " The truths which are most essential for us to know/' says James Anthony Froude, "cannot be discerned by specu- lative arguments. Chemistry cannot tell us why some food is wholesome and other food is poisonous. That food is best for us which best nourishes the body into health and vigor." What is true of the body is in this respect true also of the mind. Neither philosophy nor science nor religion can tell by 169 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY looking at them which beliefs are true and which are false. This must be found out by experience. The doctrine of An- nihilation and the doctrine of Immor- tality are both plausible doctrines. In support of each of them, much may be said. The speculative reason has no power to detect which one is true and which one is false. The only thing for us to do is to note the effect of both doctrines on the lives of those who ac- cept them. The observation must be extended over wide areas of time and must include a multitude of persons. The question is not, Can one man be a praiseworthy citizen and build a charac- ter both noble and strong, while stead- fastly believing that all life ends at the grave? for so wonderful are the re- sources of our human nature that it is 170 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY possible for isolated individuals to defy all laws and calculations and still achieve results which by the common experi- ence of mankind would have been de- clared impossible. There is a modern stoicism which, while rejecting all thought of a life beyond death, breathes a spirit so robust and lofty, and is found connected with a character so admirable, that some have been inclined to ques- tion whether a belief in Immortality is after all an important force in the stimu- lating of human faculty and the mould- ing of human lives. In the presence of heroic spirits who have abandoned all hope of a life to come, making their way triumphantly far up the heights, it is easy to conclude that it makes no dif- ference whether a man believes in an- other world or not. But it is not safe to 171 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY judge the truth or falsity of a doctrine by its observable effects upon occa- sional and exceptional lives. To ascer- tain the worth and validity of a belief one must study its workings in the large. We must note what it does with the average man. We must observe its fruits in the long run. We must meas- ure its influence on the general tone of feeling and on the trend of communal action. Thus studied, is there room for dispute that the belief in Immortality elevates and purifies, invigorates and brightens, while the belief in extinction depresses and weakens, making vic- torious life more difficult, and sweeping much of the sunlight from the sky? Those who have suffered most know best the value of the hope of the end- less life. Robert Burns, in a letter to 172 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY Alexander Cunningham, gave expres- sion to the conviction which is deep rooted in the hearts of those who labor and are heavy laden: "There are two great pillars that bear us up amid the wreck of misfortune and misery. The one is composed of a certain noble, stub- born something in man, known by the name of courage, fortitude, magna- nimity. The other is made up of those feelings and sentiments which, however the skeptic may deny them or the en- thusiast may disfigure them, are yet, I am convinced, original and component parts of the human soul, those senses of the mind — if I may be allowed the expression — which connect us with, and link us to those awful, obscure realities: an all-powerful and equally beneficent God, and a world to come, 173 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY beyond death and the grave." If there is an occasional human being who can keep the song in his heart and dispense with the second of what the Scottish poet calls the pillars which bear us up, the majority of men are in need of both of them. What we need to bear us up we may safely accept as true. If a man questions the soul's survival of death, how shall he escape from his skepticism? By making his life larger. How shall he overcome the doubts which he has inherited or acquired? By the daily practice of Immortality. Let him follow the injunction of the great Apostle: "Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth." To feel as- sured that one is indeed a son of God, one must live like a son of God. To 174 ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY attain confidence that one lives forever, he must live to-day like an Immortal. If any man willeth to do God's will, he shall know' of the teaching of Jesus, whether it be of God or whether he spoke from himself. CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . 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