CHAPTER XI

THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL

The Citadel of Superstition--Athanatism and Thanatism--Individual Character of Death--Immortality of the Unicellular Organisms (Protists)--Cosmic and Personal Immortality--Primary Thanatism (of Uncivilized Peoples)--Secondary Thanatism (of Ancient and Recent Philosophers)--Athanatism and Religion--Origin of the Belief in Immortality--Christian Athanatism--Eternal Life--The Day of Judgment--Metaphysical Athanatism--Substance of the Soul--Ether Souls and Air Souls; Fluid Souls and Solid Souls--Immortality of the Animal Soul--Arguments for and Against Athanatism--Athanatist Illusions

When we turn from the genetic study of the soul to the great question of its immortality, we come to that highest point of superstition which is regarded as the impregnable citadel of all mystical and dualistic notions. For in this crucial question, more than in any other problem, philosophic thought is complicated by the selfish interest of the human personality, who is determined to have a guarantee of his existence beyond the grave at any price. This "higher necessity of feeling" is so powerful that it sweeps aside all the logical arguments of critical reason. Consciously or unconsciously, most men are influenced in all their general views, and, therefore, in their theory of life, by the dogma of personal immortality; and to this theoretical error must be added practical consequences of the most far-reaching character. It is our task, therefore, to submit every aspect of this important dogma to a critical examination, and to prove its untenability in the light of the empirical data of modern biology.

In order to have a short and convenient expression for the two opposed opinions on the question, we shall call the belief in man's personal immortality "athanatism" (from _athanes_ or _athanatos_ == immortal). On the other hand, we give the name of "thanatism" (from _thanatos_ == death) to the opinion which holds that at a man's death not only all the other physiological functions are arrested, but his "soul" also disappears--that is, that sum of cerebral functions which psychic dualism regards as a peculiar entity, independent of the other vital processes in the living body.

In approaching this physiological problem of death we must point out the _individual_ character of this organic phenomenon. By death we understand simply the definitive cessation of the vital activity of the _individual_ organism, no matter to which category or stage of individuality the organism in question belongs. Man is dead when his own personality ceases to exist, whether he has left offspring that they may continue to propagate for many generations or not. In a certain sense we often say that the minds of great men (in a dynasty of eminent rulers, for instance, or a family of talented artists) live for many generations; and in the same way we speak of the "soul" of a noble woman living in her children and children's children. But in these cases we are dealing with intricate phenomena of _heredity_, in which a microscopic cell (the sperm-cell of the father or the egg-cell of the mother) transmits certain features to offspring. The particular personalities who produce those sexual cells in thousands are mortal beings, and at their death their personal psychic activity is extinguished like every other physiological function.

A number of eminent zoologists--Weismann being particularly prominent--have recently defended the opinion that only the lowest unicellular organisms, the protists, are immortal, in contradistinction to the multicellular plants and animals, whose bodies are formed of tissues. This curious theory is especially based on the fact that most of the protists multiply without sexual means, by division or the formation of spores. In such processes the whole body of the unicellular organism breaks up into two or more equal parts (daughter cells), and each of these portions completes itself by further growth until it has the size and form of the mother cell. However, by the very process of division the _individuality_ of the unicellular creature has been destroyed; both its physiological and its morphological unity have gone. The view of Weismann is logically inconsistent with the very notion of _individual_--an "indivisible" entity; for it implies a unity which cannot be divided without destroying its nature. In this sense the unicellular protophyta and protozoa are throughout life _physiological individuals_, just as much as the multicellular tissue-plants and animals. A sexual propagation by simple division is found in many of the multicellular species (for instance, in many cnidaria, corals, medusæ, etc.); the mother animal, the division of which gives birth to the two daughter animals, ceases to exist with the segmentation. "The protozoa," says Weismann, "have no individuals and no generations in the metazoic sense." I must entirely dissent from his thesis. As I was the first to introduce the title of _metazoa_, and oppose these multicellular, tissue-forming animals to the unicellular _protozoa_ (infusoria, rhizopods, etc.), and as I was the first to point out the essential difference in the development of the two (the former from germinal layers, and the latter not), I must protest that I consider the _protozoa_ to be just as mortal in the physiological (and psychological) sense as the _metazoa_; neither body nor soul is immortal in either group. The other erroneous consequences of Weismann's notion have been refuted by Moebius (1884), who justly remarks that "every event in the world is periodic," and that "there is no source from which immortal organic individuals might have sprung."

When we take the idea of immortality in the widest sense, and extend it to the totality of the knowable universe, it has a scientific significance; it is then not merely acceptable, but self-evident, to the monistic philosopher. In that sense the thesis of the indestructibility and eternal duration of all that exists is equivalent to our supreme law of nature, the _law of substance_ (see chap. xii). As we intend to discuss this immortality of the cosmos fully later on, in establishing the theory of the persistence of matter and force, we shall not dilate on it at present. We pass on immediately to the criticism of that belief in immortality which is the only sense usually attached to the word, the immortality of the individual soul. We shall first inquire into the extent and the origin of this mystic and dualistic notion, and point out, in particular, the wide acceptance of the contradictory thesis, our monistic, empirically established _thanatism_. I must distinguish two essentially different forms of thanatism--primary and secondary; primary thanatism is the original absence of the dogma of immortality (in the primitive uncivilized races); secondary thanatism is the later outcome of a rational knowledge of nature in the civilized intelligence.

We still find it asserted in philosophic, and especially in theological, works that belief in the personal immortality of the human soul was originally shared by all men--or, at least, by all "rational" men. That is not the case. This dogma is not an original idea of the human mind, nor has it ever found universal acceptance. It has been absolutely proved by modern comparative ethnology that many uncivilized races of the earliest and most primitive stage had no notion either of immortality or of God. That is true, for instance, of the Veddahs of Ceylon, those primitive pygmies whom, on the authority of the able studies of the Sarasins, we consider to be a relic of the earliest inhabitants of India;[22] it is also the case in several of the earliest groups of the nearly related Dravidas, the Indian Seelongs, and some native Australian races. Similarly, several of the primitive branches of the American race, in the interior of Brazil, on the upper Amazon, etc., have no knowledge either of gods or immortality. This _primary_ absence of belief in immortality and deity is an extremely important fact; it is, obviously, easy to distinguish from the _secondary_ absence of such belief, which has come about in the highest civilized races as the result of laborious critico-philosophical study.

Differently from the primary thanatism which originally characterized primitive man, and has always been widely spread, the _secondary_ absence of belief in immortality is only found at a late stage of history: it is the ripe fruit of profound reflection on life and death, the outcome of bold and independent philosophical speculation. We first meet it in some of the Ionic philosophers of the sixth century B.C., then in the founders of the old materialistic philosophy, Democritus and Empedocles, and also in Simonides and Epicurus, Seneca and Plinius, and in an elaborate form in Lucretius Carus. With the spread of Christianity at the decay of classical antiquity, athanatism, one of its chief articles of faith, dominated the world, and so, amid other forms of superstition, the myth of personal immortality came to be invested with a high importance.

Naturally, through the long night of the Dark Ages it was rarely that a brave free-thinker ventured to express an opinion to the contrary: the examples of Galileo, Giordano Bruno, and other independent philosophers, effectually destroyed all freedom of utterance. Heresy only became possible when the Reformation and the Renaissance had broken the power of the papacy. The history of modern philosophy tells of the manifold methods by which the matured mind of man sought to rid itself of the superstition of immortality. Still, the intimate connection of the belief with the Christian dogma invested it with such power, even in the more emancipated sphere of Protestantism, that the majority of convinced free-thinkers kept their sentiments to themselves. From time to time some distinguished scholar ventured to make a frank declaration of his belief in the impossibility of the continued life of the soul after death. This was done in France in the second half of the eighteenth century by Voltaire, Danton, Mirabeau, and others, and by the leaders of the materialistic school of those days, Holbach, Lamettrie, etc. The same opinion was defended by the able friend of the Materialists, the greatest of the Hohenzollerns, the monistic "philosopher of Sans-souci." What would Frederick the Great, the "crowned thanatist and atheist," say, could he compare his monistic views with those of his successor of to-day?

Among thoughtful physicians the conviction that the existence of the soul came to an end at death has been common for centuries: generally, however, they refrained from giving it expression. Moreover, the empirical science of the brain remained so imperfect during the last century that the soul could continue to be regarded as its mysterious inhabitant. It was the gigantic progress of biology in the present century, and especially in the latter half of the century, that finally destroyed the myth. The establishment of the theory of descent and the cellular theory, the astounding discoveries of ontogeny and experimental physiology--above all, the marvellous progress of the microscopic anatomy of the brain, gradually deprived athanatism of every basis; now, indeed, it is rarely that an informed and honorable biologist is found to defend the immortality of the soul. All the monistic philosophers of the century (Strauss, Feuerbach, Büchner, Spencer, etc.) are thanatists.

The dogma of personal immortality owes its great popularity and its high importance to its intimate connection with the teaching of Christianity. This circumstance gave rise to the erroneous and still prevalent belief that the myth is a fundamental element of all the higher religions. That is by no means the case. The higher Oriental religions include no belief whatever in the immortality of the soul; it is not found in Buddhism, the religion that dominates thirty per cent. of the entire human race; it is not found in the ancient popular religion of the Chinese, nor in the reformed religion of Confucius which succeeded it; and, what is still more significant, it is not found in the earlier and purer religion of the Jews. Neither in the "five Mosaic books," nor in any of the writings of the Old Testament which were written before the Babylonian Exile, is there any trace of the notion of individual persistence after death.

The mystic notion that the human soul will live forever after death has had a polyphyletic origin. It was unknown to the earliest speaking man (the hypothetical _homo primigenius_ of Asia), to his predecessors, of course, the _pithecanthropus_ and _prothylobates_, and to the least developed of his modern successors, the Veddahs of Ceylon, the Seelongs of India, and other distant races. With the development of reason and deeper reflection on life and death, sleep and dreams, mystic ideas of a dualistic composition of our nature were evolved--independently of each other--in a number of the earlier races. Very different influences were at work in these polyphyletic creations--worship of ancestors, love of relatives, love of life and desire of its prolongation, hope of better conditions of life beyond the grave, hope of the reward of good and punishment of evil deeds, and so forth. Comparative psychology has recently brought to our knowledge a great variety of myths and legends of that character; they are, for the most part, closely associated with the oldest forms of theistic and religious belief. In most of the modern religions athanatism is intimately connected with theism; the majority of believers transfer their materialistic idea of a "personal God" to their "immortal soul." That is particularly true of the dominant religion of modern civilized states, Christianity.

As everybody knows, the dogma of the immortality of the soul has long since assumed in the Christian religion that rigid form which it has in the articles of faith: "I believe in the resurrection of the body and in an eternal life." Man will arise on "the last day," as Christ is alleged to have done on Easter morn, and receive a reward according to the tenor of his earthly life. This typically Christian idea is thoroughly materialistic and anthropomorphic; it is very little superior to the corresponding crude legends of uncivilized peoples. The impossibility of "the resurrection of the body" is clear to every man who has some knowledge of anatomy and physiology. The resurrection of Christ, which is celebrated every Easter by millions of Christians, is as purely mythical as "the awakening of the dead," which he is alleged to have taught. These mystic articles of faith are just as untenable in the light of pure reason as the cognate hypothesis of "eternal life."

The fantastic notions which the Christian Church disseminates as to the eternal life of the immortal soul after the dissolution of the body are just as materialistic as the dogma of "the resurrection of the body." In his interesting work on _Religion in the Light of the Darwinian Theory_, Savage justly remarks: "It is one of the standing charges of the Church against science that it is materialistic. I must say, in passing, that the whole ecclesiastical doctrine of a future life has always been, and still is, materialism of the purest type. It teaches that the material body shall rise, and dwell in a material heaven." To prove this one has only to read impartially some of the sermons and ornate discourses in which the glory of the future life is extolled as the highest good of the Christian, and belief in it is laid down to be the foundation of morality. According to them, all the joys of the most advanced modern civilization await the pious believer in Paradise, while the "All-loving Father" reserves his eternal fires for the godless materialist.

In opposition to the materialist athanatism, which is dominant in the Christian and Mohammedan Churches, we have, apparently, a purer and higher form of faith in the _metaphysical athanatism_, as taught by most of our dualist and spiritualist philosophers. Plato must be considered its chief creator: in the fourth century before Christ he taught that complete dualism of body and soul which afterwards became one of the most important, theoretically, and one of the most influential, practically, of the Christian articles of faith. The body is mortal, material, physical; the soul is immortal, immaterial, metaphysical. They are only temporarily associated, for the course of the individual life. As Plato postulated an eternal life before as well as after this temporary association, he must be classed as an adherent of "metempsychosis," or transmigration of souls; the soul existed as such, or as an "eternal idea," before it entered into a human body. When it quits one body it seeks such other as is most suited to its character for its habitation. The souls of bloody tyrants pass into the bodies of wolves and vultures, those of virtuous toilers migrate into the bodies of bees and ants, and so forth. The childish naïvety of this Platonic morality is obvious; on closer examination his views are found to be absolutely incompatible with the scientific truth which we owe to modern anatomy, physiology, histology, and ontogeny; we mention them only because, in spite of their absurdity, they have had a profound influence on thought and culture. On the one hand, the mysticism of the Neo-Platonists, which penetrated into Christianity, attaches itself to the psychology of Plato; on the other hand, it became subsequently one of the chief supports of spiritualistic and idealistic philosophy. The Platonic "idea" gave way in time to the notion of psychic "substance"; this is just as incomprehensible and metaphysical, though it often assumed a physical appearance.

The conception of the soul as a "substance" is far from clear in many psychologists; sometimes it is regarded as an "immaterial" entity of a peculiar character in an abstract and idealistic sense, sometimes in a concrete and realistic sense, and sometimes as a confused _tertium quid_ between the two. If we adhere to the monistic idea of substance, which we develop in chap. xii., and which takes it to be the simplest element of our whole world-system, we find _energy_ and _matter_ inseparably associated in it. We must, therefore, distinguish in the "substance of the soul" the characteristic psychic _energy_ which is all we perceive (sensation, presentation, volition, etc.), and the psychic _matter_, which is the inseparable basis of its activity--that is, the living protoplasm. Thus, in the higher animals the "matter" of the soul is a part of the nervous system; in the lower nerveless animals and plants it is a part of their multicellular protoplasmic body; and in the unicellular protists it is a part of their protoplasmic cell-body. In this way we are brought once more to the psychic organs, and to an appreciation of the fact that these material organs are indispensable for the action of the soul; but the soul itself is _actual_--it is the sum-total of their physiological functions.

However, the idea of a specific "soul-substance" found in the dualistic philosophers who admit such a thing is very different from this. They conceive the immortal soul to be material, yet invisible, and essentially different from the visible body which it inhabits.

Thus _invisibility_ comes to be regarded as a most important attribute of the soul. Some, in fact, compare the soul with ether, and regard it, like ether, as an extremely subtle, light, and highly elastic material, an imponderable agency, that fills the intervals between the ponderable particles of the living organism, others compare the soul with the wind, and so give it a gaseous nature; and it is this simile which first found favor with primitive peoples, and led in time to the familiar dualistic conception. When a man died, the body remained as a lifeless corpse, but the immortal soul "flew out of it with the last breath."

The comparison of the human soul with physical ether as a qualitatively similar idea has assumed a more concrete shape in recent times through the great progress of optics and electricity (especially in the last decade); for these sciences have taught us a good deal about the energy of ether, and enabled us to formulate certain conclusions as to the material character of this all-pervading agency. As I intend to describe these important discoveries later on (in chap. xii.), I shall do no more at present than briefly point out that they render the notion of an "etheric soul" absolutely untenable. Such an etheric soul--that is a psychic substance--which is similar to physical ether, and which, like ether, passes between the ponderable elements of the living protoplasm or the molecules of the brain, cannot possibly account for the individual life of the soul. Neither the mystic notions of that kind which were warmly discussed about the middle of the century, nor the attempts of modern "Neovitalists" to put their mystical "vital force" on a line with physical ether, call for refutation any longer.

Much more widespread, and still much respected, is the view which ascribes a gaseous nature to the substance of the soul. The comparison of human breath with the wind is a very old one; they were originally considered to be identical, and were both given the same name. The _anemos_ and _psyche_ of the Greeks, and the _anima_ and _spiritus_ of the Romans, were originally all names for "a breath of wind"; they were transferred from this to the breath of man. After a time this "living breath" was identified with the "vital force," and finally it came to be regarded as the soul itself, or, in a narrower sense, as its highest manifestation, the "spirit." From that the imagination went on to derive the mystic notion of individual "spirits"; these, also, are still usually conceived as "aëriform beings"--though they are credited with the physiological functions of an organism, and they have been photographed in certain well-known spiritist circles.

Experimental physics has succeeded, during the last decade of the century, in reducing all gaseous bodies to a liquid--most of them, also, to a solid--condition. Nothing more is needed than special apparatus, which exerts a violent pressure on the gases at a very low temperature. By this process not only the atmospheric elements, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, but even compound gases (such as carbonic-acid gas) and gaseous aggregates (like the atmosphere) have been changed from gaseous to liquid form. In this way the "invisible" substances have become "visible" to all, and in a certain sense "tangible." With this transformation the mystic nimbus which formerly veiled the character of the gas in popular estimation--as an invisible body that wrought visible effects--has entirely disappeared. If, then, the substance of the soul were really gaseous, it should be possible to liquefy it by the application of a high pressure at a low temperature. We could then catch the soul as it is "breathed out" at the moment of death, condense it, and exhibit it in a bottle as "immortal fluid" (_Fluidum animae immortale_). By a further lowering of temperature and increase of pressure it might be possible to solidify it--to produce "soul-snow." The experiment has not yet succeeded.

If athanatism were true, if, indeed, the human soul were to live for all eternity, we should have to grant the same privilege to the souls of the higher animals, at least to those of the nearest related mammals (apes, dogs, etc.). For man is not distinguished from them by a special _kind_ of soul, or by any peculiar and exclusive psychic function, but only by a higher _degree_ of psychic activity, a superior stage of development. In particular, consciousness--the function of the association of ideas, thought, and reason--has reached a higher level in many men (by no means in all) than in most of the animals. Yet this difference is far from being so great as is popularly supposed; and it is much slighter in every respect than the corresponding difference between the higher and the lower animal souls, or even the difference between the highest and the lowest stages of the human soul itself. If we ascribe "personal immortality" to man, we are bound to grant it also to the higher animals.

It is, therefore, quite natural that we should find this belief in the immortality of the animal soul among many ancient and modern peoples; we even meet it sometimes to-day in many thoughtful men who postulate an "immortal life" for themselves, and have, at the same time, a thorough empirical knowledge of the psychic life of the animals. I once knew an old head-forester, who, being left a widower and without children at an early age, had lived alone for more than thirty years in a noble forest of East Prussia. His only companions were one or two servants, with whom he exchanged merely a few necessary words, and a great pack of different kinds of dogs, with which he lived in perfect psychic communion. Through many years of training this keen observer and friend of nature had penetrated deep into the individual souls of his dogs, and he was as convinced of their personal immortality as he was of his own. Some of his most intelligent dogs were, in his impartial and objective estimation, at a higher stage of psychic development than his old, stupid maid and the rough, wrinkled manservant. Any unprejudiced observer, who will study the conscious and intelligent psychic activity of a fine dog for a year, and follow attentively the physiological processes of its thought, judgment, and reason, will have to admit that it has just as valid a claim to immortality as man himself.

The proofs of the immortality of the soul, which have been adduced for the last two thousand years, and are, indeed, still credited with some validity, have their origin, for the most part, not in an effort to discover the truth, but in an alleged "necessity of emotion"--that is, in imagination and poetic conceit. As Kant puts it, the immortality of the soul is not an object of pure reason, but a "postulate of practical reason." But we must set "practical reason" entirely aside, together with all the "exigencies of emotion, or of moral education, etc.," when we enter upon an honest and impartial pursuit of truth; for we shall only attain it by the work of pure reason, starting from empirical data and capable of logical analysis. We have to say the same of athanatism as of theism; both are creations of poetic mysticism and of transcendental "faith," not of rational science.

When we come to analyze all the different proofs that have been urged for the immortality of the soul, we find that not a single one of them is of a scientific character; not a single one is consistent with the truths we have learned in the last few decades from physiological psychology and the theory of descent. The _theological_ proof--that a personal creator has breathed an immortal soul (generally regarded as a portion of the divine soul) into man--is a pure myth. The _cosmological_ proof--that the "moral order of the world" demands the eternal duration of the human soul--is a baseless dogma. The _teleological_ proof--that the "higher destiny" of man involves the perfecting of his defective, earthly soul beyond the grave--rests on a false anthropism. The _moral_ proof--that the defects and the unsatisfied desires of earthly existence must be fulfilled by "compensative justice" on the other side of eternity--is nothing more than a pious wish. The _ethnological_ proof--that the belief in immortality, like the belief in God, is an innate truth, common to all humanity--is an error in fact. The _ontological_ proof--that the soul, being a "simple, immaterial, and indivisible entity," cannot be involved in the corruption of death--is based on an entirely erroneous view of the psychic phenomena; it is a spiritualistic fallacy. All these and similar "proofs of athanatism" are in a parlous condition; they are definitely annulled by the scientific criticism of the last few decades.

The extreme importance of the subject leads us to oppose to these untenable "proofs of immortality" a brief exposition of the sound scientific arguments against it. The _physiological_ argument shows that the human soul is not an independent, immaterial substance, but, like the soul of all the higher animals, merely a collective title for the sum-total of man's cerebral functions; and these are just as much determined by physical and chemical processes as any of the other vital functions, and just as amenable to the law of substance. The _histological_ argument is based on the extremely complicated microscopic structure of the brain; it shows us the true "elementary organs of the soul" in the ganglionic cells. The _experimental_ argument proves that the various functions of the soul are bound up with certain special parts of the brain, and cannot be exercised unless these are in a normal condition; if the areas are destroyed, their function is extinguished; and this is especially applicable to the "organs of thought," the four central instruments of mental activity. The _pathological_ argument is the complement of the physiological; when certain parts of the brain (the centres of speech, sight, hearing, etc.) are destroyed by sickness, their activity (speech, vision, hearing, etc.) disappears; in this way nature herself makes the decisive physiological experiment. The _ontogenetic_ argument puts before us the facts of the development of the soul in the individual; we see how the child-soul gradually unfolds its various powers; the youth presents them in full bloom, the mature man shows their ripe fruit; in old age we see the gradual decay of the psychic powers, corresponding to the senile degeneration of the brain. The _phylogenetic_ argument derives its strength from palæontology, and the comparative anatomy and physiology of the brain; co-operating with and completing each other, these sciences prove to the hilt that the human brain (and, consequently, its function--the soul) has been evolved step by step from that of the mammal, and, still further back, from that of the lower vertebrate.

These inquiries, which might be supplemented by many other results of modern science, prove the old dogma of the immortality of the soul to be absolutely untenable; in the twentieth century it will not be regarded as a subject of serious scientific research, but will be left wholly to transcendental "faith." The "critique of pure reason" shows this treasured faith to be a mere _superstition_, like the belief in a personal God which generally accompanies it. Yet even to-day millions of "believers"--not only of the lower, uneducated masses, but even of the most cultured classes--look on this superstition as their dearest possession and their most "priceless treasure." It is, therefore, necessary to enter more deeply into the subject, and--assuming it to be true--to make a critical inquiry into its practical value. It soon becomes apparent to the impartial critic that this value rests, for the most part, on fancy, on the want of clear judgment and consecutive thought. It is my firm and honest conviction that a definitive abandonment of these "athanatist illusions" would involve no painful loss, but an inestimable positive gain for humanity.

Man's "emotional craving" clings to the belief on immortality for two main reasons: firstly, in the hope of better conditions of life beyond the grave; and, secondly, in the hope of seeing once more the dear and loved ones whom death has torn from us. As for the first hope, it corresponds to a natural feeling of the justice of compensation, which is quite correct subjectively, but has no objective validity whatever. We make our claim for an indemnity for the unnumbered defects and sorrows of our earthly existence, without the slightest real prospect or guarantee of receiving it. We long for an eternal life in which we shall meet no sadness and no pain, but an unbounded peace and joy. The pictures that most men form of this blissful existence are extremely curious; the immaterial soul is placed in the midst of grossly material pleasures. The imagination of each believer paints the enduring splendor according to his personal taste. The American Indian, whose athanatism Schiller has so well depicted, trusts to find in his Paradise the finest hunting-grounds with innumerable hordes of buffaloes and bears; the Eskimo looks forward to sun-tipped icebergs with an inexhaustible supply of bears, seals, and other polar animals; the effeminate Cingalese frames his Paradise on the wonderful island-paradise of Ceylon with its noble gardens and forests--adding that there will be unlimited supplies of rice and curry, of cocoanuts and other fruit, always at hand; the Mohammedan Arab believes it will be a place of shady gardens of flowers, watered by cool springs, and filled with lovely maidens; the Catholic fisherman of Sicily looks forward to a daily superabundance of the most valuable fishes and the finest macaroni, and eternal absolution for all his sins, which he can go on committing in his eternal home; the evangelical of North Europe longs for an immense Gothic cathedral, in which he can chant the praises of the Lord of Hosts for all eternity. In a word, each believer really expects his eternal life to be a direct continuation of his individual life on earth, only in a "much improved and enlarged edition."

We must lay special stress on the thoroughly materialistic character of _Christian_ athanatism, which is closely connected with the absurd dogma of the "resurrection of the body." As thousands of paintings of famous masters inform us, the bodies that have risen again, with the souls that have been born again, walk about in heaven just as they did in this vale of tears; they see God with their eyes, they hear His voice with their ears, they sing hymns to His praise with their larynx, and so forth. In fine, the modern inhabitants of the Christian Paradise have the same dual character of body and soul, the same organs of an earthly body, as our ancient ancestors had in Odin's Hall in Walhalla, as the "immortal" Turks and Arabs have in Mohammed's lovely gardens, as the old Greek demi-gods and heroes had in the enjoyment of nectar and ambrosia at the table of Zeus.

But, however gloriously we may depict this eternal life in Paradise, it remains _endless_ in duration. Do we realize what "eternity" means?--the uninterrupted continuance of our individual life forever! The profound legend of the "wandering Jew," the fruitless search for rest of the unhappy Ahasuerus, should teach us to appreciate such an "eternal life" at its true value. The best we can desire after a courageous life, spent in doing good according to our light, is the eternal peace of the grave. "Lord, give them an eternal rest."

Any impartial scholar who is acquainted with geological calculations of time, and has reflected on the long series of millions of years the organic history of the earth has occupied, must admit that the crude notion of an eternal life is not a _comfort_, but a fearful _menace_, to the best of men. Only want of clear judgment and consecutive thought can dispute it.

The best and most plausible ground for athanatism is found in the hope that immortality will reunite us to the beloved friends who have been prematurely taken from us by some grim mischance. But even this supposed good fortune proves to be an illusion on closer inquiry; and in any case it would be greatly marred by the prospect of meeting the less agreeable acquaintances and the enemies who have troubled our existence here below. Even the closest family ties would involve many a difficulty. There are plenty of men who would gladly sacrifice all the glories of Paradise if it meant the eternal companionship of their "better half" and their mother-in-law. It is more than questionable whether Henry VIII. would like the prospect of living eternally with his six wives; or Augustus the Strong of Poland, who had a hundred mistresses and three hundred and fifty-two children. As he was on good terms with the Vicar of Christ, he must be assumed to be in Paradise, in spite of his sins, and in spite of the fact that his mad military ventures cost the lives of more than a hundred thousand Saxons.

Another insoluble difficulty faces the athanatist when he asks _in what stage of their individual development_ the disembodied souls will spend their eternal life. Will the new-born infant develop its psychic powers in heaven under the same hard conditions of the "struggle for life" which educate man here on earth? Will the talented youth who has fallen in the wholesale murder of war unfold his rich, unused mental powers in Walhalla? Will the feeble, childish old man, who has filled the world with the fame of his deeds in the ripeness of his age, live forever in mental decay? Or will he return to an earlier stage of development? If the immortal souls in Olympus are to live in a condition of rejuvenescence and perfectness, then both the stimulus to the formation of, and the interest in, personality disappear for them.

Not less impossible, in the light of pure reason, do we find the anthropistic myth of the "last judgment," and the separation of the souls of men into two great groups, of which one is destined for the eternal joys of Paradise and the other for the eternal torments of hell--and that from a personal God who is called the "Father of Love"! And it is this "Universal Father" who has himself created the conditions of heredity and adaptation, in virtue of which the elect, on the one side, were _bound_ to pursue the path towards eternal bliss, and the luckless poor and miserable, on the other hand, were _driven_ into the paths of the damned?

A critical comparison of the countless and manifold fantasies which belief in immortality has produced during the last few thousand years in the different races and religions yields a most remarkable picture. An intensely interesting presentation of it, based on most extensive original research, may be found in Adalbert Svoboda's distinguished works, _The Illusion of the Soul_ and _Forms of Faith_. However absurd and inconsistent with modern knowledge most of these myths seem to be, they still play an important part, and, as "postulates of practical reason," they exercise a powerful influence on the opinions of individuals and on the destiny of races.

The idealist and spiritualist philosophy of the day will freely grant that these prevalent materialistic forms of belief in immortality are untenable; it will say that the refined idea of an immaterial soul, a Platonic "idea" or a transcendental psychic substance, must be substituted for them. But modern realism can have nothing whatever to do with these incomprehensible notions; they satisfy neither the mind's feeling of causality nor the yearning of our emotions. If we take a comprehensive glance at all that modern anthropology, psychology, and cosmology teach with regard to athanatism, we are forced to this definite conclusion: "The belief in the immortality of the human soul is a dogma which is in hopeless contradiction with the most solid empirical truths of modern science."