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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/34569-0.txt b/34569-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..57eca02 --- /dev/null +++ b/34569-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1582 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Life Everlasting, by John Fiske + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Life Everlasting + +Author: John Fiske + +Release Date: December 5, 2010 [EBook #34569] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE EVERLASTING *** + + + + +Produced by Larry B. Harrison, Louise Pattison and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +By John Fiske + +ESSAYS AND PHILOSOPHY + + +A CENTURY OF SCIENCE, and other Essays. + +MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS: Old Tales and Superstitions interpreted by +Comparative Mythology. + +OUTLINES OF COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. New Edition. With introduction by Josiah +Royce, and index. 4 vols. + +THE UNSEEN WORLD, and other Essays. + +EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST. + +DARWINISM, and other Essays. + +THE DESTINY OF MAN, viewed in the Light of His Origin. + +THE IDEA OF GOD, as affected by Modern Knowledge. + +THROUGH NATURE TO GOD. + +LIFE EVERLASTING. + +_For complete list of Mr. Fiske's Historical and Philosophical Works, +and Essays, see pages at the back of this work._ + + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON AND NEW YORK + + + + +LIFE EVERLASTING + + + + + [Illustration] + + + LIFE EVERLASTING + + BY + + JOHN FISKE + + + [Illustration] + + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + + The Riverside Press Cambridge + + + COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY ABBY M. FISKE, + EXECUTRIX + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + _Published September, 1901_ + + + + +[Illustration] + + +NOTE + + +On the evening of December 19, 1900, Mr. Fiske delivered in Sanders +Theatre, Cambridge, the address here printed. It was given at the +request of Harvard University, in accordance with the terms of the +Ingersoll lectureship, but it stood clearly in Mr. Fiske's mind as a +continuation, and in a sense the completion, of that series of +philosophic studies successively issued under the titles, "The Destiny +of Man viewed in the Light of his Origin," "The Idea of God as affected +by Modern Knowledge," and "Through Nature to God." Mr. Fiske delayed the +publication of "Life Everlasting," and it is possible that he designed +amplifying it. Yet, as he stated in his Preface to "The Idea of God," +that both that book and "The Destiny of Man" were printed exactly as +delivered, "without the addition, or subtraction, or alteration of a +single word," so he may have intended to print this study in the same +way. At any rate it is now printed exactly as it was delivered, his +perfectly clear manuscript being carefully followed. + + 4 PARK STREET, BOSTON + _Autumn, 1901_ + + + + +[Illustration] + + +THE INGERSOLL LECTURESHIP + +_Extract from the will of Miss Caroline Haskell Ingersoll, who died in +Keene, County of Cheshire, New Hampshire, Jan. 26, 1893._ + + +First. In carrying out the wishes of my late beloved father, George +Goldthwait Ingersoll, as declared by him in his last will and testament, +I give and bequeath to Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., where my +late father was graduated, and which he always held in love and honor, +the sum of Five thousand dollars ($5,000) as a fund for the +establishment of a Lectureship on a plan somewhat similar to that of the +Dudleian lecture, that is--one lecture to be delivered each year, on any +convenient day between the last day of May and the first day of +December, on this subject, "the Immortality of Man," said lecture not to +form a part of the usual college course, nor to be delivered by any +Professor or Tutor as part of his usual routine of instruction, though +any such Professor or Tutor may be appointed to such service. The choice +of said lecturer is not to be limited to any one religious denomination, +nor to any one profession, but may be that of either clergyman or +layman, the appointment to take place at least six months before the +delivery of said lecture. The above sum to be safely invested and three +fourths of the annual interest thereof to be paid to the lecturer for +his services and the remaining fourth to be expended in the publishment +and gratuitous distribution of the lecture, a copy of which is always to +be furnished by the lecturer for such purpose. The same lecture to be +named and known as "the Ingersoll lecture on the Immortality of Man." + + + + +LIFE EVERLASTING + + + + +[Illustration] + + +LIFE EVERLASTING + + +Few incidents in ancient history are more tragic than the death of +Pompey. The spectacle of the mighty warrior who had conquered the Orient +and contended with Cæsar for the mastery of the world, a defeated and +despairing fugitive, treacherously murdered and lying unburied on the +Egyptian strand, was one that drew tears from Cæsar himself and from +many another. Yet among the poets of the sixteenth century Renaissance +there was one who took a different view of the matter. In an epigram of +incomparable beauty Francesco Molsa exclaims:-- + + Dux, Pharea quamvis jaceas inhumatus arena, + Non ideo fati est sævior ira tui: + Indignum fuerat tellus tibi victa sepulcrum; + Non decuit cœlo, te, nisi, Magne, tegi! + +It is almost impossible to preserve in a translation the peculiar charm +of these lines, but a friend of mine in one of the pleasant student days +of forty years ago produced this happy and fitting paraphrase:-- + + We grieve not, Pompey, that to thee + No earthly tomb was given; + All lands subdued, nought else was free + To shelter thee but Heaven! + +Here the art of the poet lies in the boldness with which he seizes upon +one of the most subtle and startling effects of contrast. In the very +circumstance which to the ancient mind was the acme of humiliation and +horror his genius discerns the occasion for most exalted panegyric, the +bitterness of death is lost in the abounding triumph of the soul +enlarged and set free, the attributes of woe are transformed into +crowning glories. + +It is just in this spirit of the Modenese poet that mankind has sought +to take away from death its sting, from the grave its victory. That +solemn moment in which, for those who have gone before and for us who +are to follow, the eye of sense beholds naught save the ending of the +world, the entrance upon a black and silent eternity, the eye of faith +declares to be the supreme moment of a new birth for the disenthralled +soul, the introduction to a new era of life compared with which the +present one is not worthy of the name. Τίς δ’ οἶδεν, exclaims +Euripides, + + Τίς δ’ οἶδέν εἰ τὸ ζῇν μέν ἐστι κατθανεῖν, + Τὸ κατθανεῖν δὲ ζῇν; + +Who can tell but that this which we call life is really death, from +which what we call death is an awakening? From this vantage ground of +thought the human soul comes to look without dread upon the termination +of this terrestrial existence. The failure of the bodily powers, the +stoppage of the fluttering pulse, the cold stillness upon the features +so lately wreathed in smiles of merriment, the corruption of the tomb, +the breaking of the ties of love, the loss of all that has given value +to existence, the dull blankness of irremediable sorrow, the knell of +everlasting farewells,--all this is seized upon by the sovereign +imagination of man and transformed into a scene of transcending glory, +such as in all the vast career of the universe is reserved for humanity +alone. In the highest of creatures the Divine immanence has acquired +sufficient concentration and steadiness to survive the dissolution of +the flesh and assert an individuality untrammelled by the limitations +which in the present life everywhere persistently surround it. Upon this +view death is not a calamity but a boon, not a punishment inflicted +upon Man, but the supreme manifestation of his exceptional prerogative +as chief among God's creatures. Thus the faith in immortal life is the +great poetic achievement of the human mind, it is all-pervasive, it is +concerned with every moment and every aspect of our existence as moral +individuals, and it is the one thing that makes this world inhabitable +for beings constructed like ourselves. The destruction of this sublime +poetic conception would be like depriving a planet of its atmosphere; it +would leave nothing but a moral desert as cold and dead as the savage +surface of the moon. + +We have now to consider this supreme poetic achievement of man--his +belief in his own Immortality--in the light of our modern studies of +evolution; we must notice some distinctions between its earlier and +later stages, and briefly examine some of the objections which have been +alleged in the name of science against the validity of the belief. + +Here, as in all departments of the efflorescence of the human mind, the +beginnings were lowly, and necessarily so. Nothing very lofty or +far-reaching could be expected from the kind of brain that was encased +in the Neanderthal skull. Among existing savages there are tribes +concerning which travellers have doubted whether they possess ideas that +can properly be called religious. But wherever untutored humanity exists +we find the conception of a world of ghosts more or less distinctly +elaborated; the thronging simulacra of departed tribesmen linger near +their accustomed haunts, keenly sensitive to favour or neglect, and +quick to punish all infractions of the rules which the stern exigencies +of life in the wilderness have prescribed for the conduct of the tribe. +This crude primeval ghost-world is thus already closely associated with +the ethical side of life, and out of this association have grown some of +the most colossal governing agencies by which the development of human +society has been influenced. It is therefore not without reason that +modern students of anthropology devote so much time to animism and +fetishism and other crude workings of that savage intelligence of which +the primeval ghost-world is a product. + +It is not at all unlikely that the savage's notion of ghosts may have +originated chiefly in his experience of dreams, and this is the +explanation at present most in favour. The sleeping warrior ranges far +and wide over the country, while he chases the buffalo and joins in the +medicine dance with comrades known to have died yet now as active and as +voluble as himself, but suddenly the scene changes and he is back in his +familiar hut surrounded by his people who can testify that he has not +for a moment left them. It is not unlikely, I say, that the notion of +one's conscious self as something which can quit the material body and +return to it may have started in such often-repeated humble +experiences. It can hardly be doubted, however, that this savage +conception of the detachable conscious self is simply the primitive +phase of the Christian conception of the conscious soul which dwells +within the perishable body and quits it at death. Through many stages of +elaboration and refinement the sequence between the two conceptions is +unmistakable. + +At this point the materialist interposes with an argument which he +regards as crushing. He reminds us that if we would estimate the value +of an idea, as of a race-horse or a mastiff, it is well to take a look +at its pedigree. What, then, is to be said--he scornfully asks--of a +doctrine of personal immortality which when reduced to its lowest terms +is seen to have started in a savage's misinterpretation of his dreams? +What more is needed to prove it unworthy of the serious attention of a +scientific student of nature? On the other hand, the student whose mood +is truly scientific will feel that one of mankind's cardinal beliefs +must not be dismissed too lightly because of the crudeness and error in +that primitive stratum of human thought in which it first took root. In +his perceptions within certain limits the savage is eminently keen and +accurate, but when it comes to intellectual judgments that go at all +below the surface of things his mind is a mere farrago of grotesque +fancies, wherein, nevertheless, some kernels of truth are here and there +embedded. It is a long way from the dragon swallowing the sun to the +interposition of the moon's dark body between us and that luminary. The +dragon was a figment of fancy, but the eclipse was none the less a fact. + +Now if we may take an illustration from the workings of an infant's +mind, it is pretty clearly made out that as baby sits propped among his +pillows and turns his eyes hither and thither in following his mother's +movements to and fro in the room, she seems in coming toward him to +enlarge and in going away to diminish in size, like Alice in Wonderland. +It is only with the education of the eye and the small muscles which +adjust it that the larger area subtended on the retina instantly means +comparative nearness and the smaller area comparative remoteness. At +first the sensations are interpreted directly, and the impression upon +baby's nascent intelligence is a gross error. The mother is not waxing +great and small by turns, but only approaching and receding. If, +however, we consider that in baby's mind the enlarged retinal spot means +more and the diminished spot less of the pleasurable feelings excited by +a familiar and gracious presence, the approach of which is greeted with +smiles and out-stretched arms, while its departure is bemoaned with +cries and tears, we see that as to the essentials of the situation the +dawning intelligence is entirely right, although its specific +interpretation is quite wrong. Mamma has not really dwindled and +vanished like the penny in a conjurer's palm, but has only flitted from +the field of vision. + +To come back now to our primeval savage, when he sees in a dream his +deceased comrade and mistakes the vision for a reality, his error is not +concerned with the most fundamental part of the matter. The +all-important fact is that this dreaming savage has somehow acquired a +mental attitude toward death which is totally different from that of all +other animals, and is therefore peculiarly human. Throughout the +half-dozen invertebrate branches or sub-kingdoms, where intelligence is +manifested only in its lower forms of reflex action and instinct, we +find no evidence that any creature has come to know of death. There is a +sense, no doubt, in which we may say that the love of life is +universal. As a rule, all animals shun danger, and natural selection +maintains this rule by the pitiless slaughter of all delinquents, of all +in whom the needful inherited tendencies are too weak. But in the lower +animal grades and in the vegetal world the courting of life and the +shrinking from death go on without conscious intelligence, as the blades +of grass in a meadow or the clustering leaves upon a tree compete with +one another for the maximum of exposure to sunshine until perhaps stout +boughs and stems are warped or twisted in the struggle. Among +invertebrates, even when we get so high as lobsters and cuttlefish, the +consciousness attendant upon the seizing of prey and the escape from +enemies probably does not extend beyond the facts within the immediate +sphere of vision. Even among those ants that have marshalled hosts and +grand tactics there is doubtless no such thing as meditation of death. +Passing to the vertebrates, it is not until we reach the warm-blooded +birds and mammals that we find what we are seeking. Among sundry birds +and mammals we see indications of a dawning recognition of the presence +of death. An early manifestation is the sense of bereavement when the +maternal instinct is rudely disturbed, as in the cow mourning for her +calf. This feeling goes a little way, but not a great way, beyond the +sense of physical discomfort, and is soon relieved by milking. Much more +intense and abiding is the feeling of bereavement among birds that mate +for life, and among the higher apes, and it reaches its culmination in +the dog whose intelligence and affections have been so profoundly +modified through his immensely long comradeship with man. Nowhere in +literature do we strike upon a deeper note of pathos than in Scott's +immortal lines on the dog who starved while watching his young master's +lifeless body, alone upon a Highland moor:-- + + "How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber? + When the wind stirred his garment, how oft didst thou start!" + +Yet even this devoted creature could have carried his thoughts but +little way toward the point reached by our dreaming savage with his +incipient ghost-world. More power of abstraction and generalization was +needed. While the sight of the killing of a fellow-creature may arouse +violent terror in the higher mammals below man, there is nothing to +indicate that the sight of the dead body awakens in the dumb spectator +any general conceptions in which his own ultimate doom is included. The +only feeling aroused seems to vary between utter indifference and faint +curiosity. Professor Shaler makes a statement of cardinal importance in +this connection when he says: "If we should seek some one mark which, in +the intellectual advance from the brutes to man, might denote the +passage to the human side, we might well find it in the moment when it +dawned on the nascent man that death was a mystery which he had in his +turn to meet."[1] + +[1] Shaler, _The Individual_, p. 194. + +It is therefore interesting to note that the first approaches, albeit +remote ones, toward a realizing sense of death occur among those animals +in which the beginnings of family life have been made, and the habitual +exercise of altruistic emotions helps to widen the intelligence and +facilitate the appropriation to one's self of the experiences of one's +comrades and mates. Such is the case with permanently mated birds and +with the higher apes, while the case of the dog, exceptional as it is +through his acquired dependence upon man, has similar implications. Now +I have elsewhere proved and repeatedly illustrated that the leading +peculiarity which distinguished man's apelike progenitors from all other +creatures was the progressive increase in the duration of infancy, which +was a direct consequence of expanding intelligence, and was moreover the +immediate cause of the genesis of the human family and of human society. +It appears now that the realizing sense of death, such as we find it in +untutored men of primitive habits of thought, has originated in the +selfsame circumstances which have wrought the mighty change from +gregariousness to sociality, from the general level of mammalian +existence to the unique level of humanity. I have elsewhere called +attention to the profoundly interesting fact that the notion of an +Unseen World beyond that in which we lead our daily lives is coeval with +the earliest beginnings of Humanity upon our planet. We may now observe +that it adds greatly to the interest and to the significance of this +fact, when we find that the very circumstances which tended to single +out our progenitors, and raise them from the average mammalian level +into Manhood, tended also to make them realize the problem of death and +meet it with a solution. The grouping of facts now begins to make it +appear that this primeval solution was but the natural outcome of the +whole cosmic process that had gone before; that when nascent Humanity +first eluded the burden of the problem by rising above it, this was but +part and parcel of the unprecedented cosmic operation through which +man's Humanity was developed and declared. The long and cumulative play +of cause and effect which wrought the lengthening of the period of +helpless babyhood and the correlative maternal care, and which thus +differentiated the non-human horde of primates into a group of human +clans, was attended by a strong development of the sympathetic feelings +as it vastly increased the mutual dependence among individuals. During +the same period the gradual acquirement of articulate speech was +accompanied by a great increase in the powers of abstraction and +generalization. These new capacities were applied to the interpretation +of death, just as they were applied to all other things; and thus, in +the very process of becoming human, our progenitors arose to the +consciousness of death as something with which humanity has always and +everywhere to reckon. From the earliest and most rudimentary stages of +the process, however, the conception of death was not of an event which +puts an end to human individuality, but of an event which human +individuality survives. If we look at the circumstances of the genesis +of mankind purely from the naturalist's point of view, it cannot fail to +be highly significant that the mental attitude toward death should from +the first have assumed this form, that the human soul should from the +start have felt itself encompassed not only by the endless multitude of +visible and tangible and audible things, but also by an Unseen World. In +view of this striking fact it is of small moment that the earliest +generalizations which in course of time developed into a world of ghosts +and demons were grotesquely erroneous. Primitive theorizing is sure to +be faulty and in the light of later knowledge comes to seem absurd and +bizarre. Such has been in modern days the fate of the savage's +ghost-world, along with the Ptolemaic astronomy, the doctrine of +signatures, and many another sample of the "wisdom of the ancients." But +the fact that primitive man mis-stated his relation to the Unseen World +in no wise militates against the truth of his assumption that such a +world exists for us. + +To this question as to the truth of the assumption I shall return in the +sequel. We have very briefly sketched the manner of its origination, and +here we may leave this part of our subject with the remark that the +belief in a future life, in a world unseen to mortal eyes, is not only +coeval with the beginnings of the human race but is also coextensive +with it in all its subsequent stages of development. It is in short one +of the differential attributes of humanity. Man is not only the primate +who possesses articulate speech and the power of abstract reasoning, who +is characterized by a long period of plastic infancy and a corresponding +capacity for progress, who is grouped in societies of which the +primordial units were clans; he is not only all this, but he is the +creature who expects to survive the event of physical death. This +expectation was one of his acquisitions gained while attaining to the +human plane of existence, and the interesting question in the natural +history of man is whether it is to be regarded as a permanent +acquisition, or is rather analogous to the organ that subserves, perhaps +through long ages, an important but temporary purpose, after the +fulfilment of which it dwindles into a rudiment neglected and forgotten. + +I do not overlook the existence of divers theological systems in which +the attitude toward a future life is very different from that with which +our Christian education has made us familiar. We sometimes hear such +systems cited as exceptions to the alleged universality of the human +belief in immortality. The Buddhist looks forward through myriads of +successive sentient existences to a culminating state of Nirwana, which +if not actual extinction is at least complete quiescence, the absolute +zero of being. It hardly needs saying, however, that Buddhistic +theology, though it may have arrived at such a zero through long flights +of metaphysical reasoning, is nevertheless based in all its foundations +upon the primitive belief in man's survival of death. Sometimes it is +said that the Jews of the Old Testament times had no proper conception +of immortality. It can hardly be maintained, however, that such stories +as that of the conversation at Endor between the living Saul and the +dead Samuel could emanate from a people destitute of belief in a life +after death. In point of fact ancient Jewish thought abounds in traces +of the primitive ghost-world. It is only by contrast with the glorious +and inspiring Christian development of the belief in immortality that +the earlier dispensation seems so jejune and meagre in its faith. There +was little to arouse religious emotion in the dismal world of flitting +shadows, the Sheol or Hades from which the Greek hero would so gladly +have escaped, even to take the most menial position in all the sunlit +world. Greek and Hebrew thought, in what we call the classic ages, stood +alike in need of religious revival. The mythic lore of the Greek mind +had flowered luxuriantly in æsthetic fancies, while the spiritual life +of Judaism languished amid strict obedience to forms and precepts. The +far-reaching thoughts of Greek philosophers and the lofty ethics of +Hebrew preachers were divorced from the primitive ghost-world, even as +the mental processes of the modern scholar are separated by a great gulf +from those of the woman who comes to scrub the floor. The advent of +Christianity fused together the various elements. The doctrine of a +future life was endowed with all the moral significance that Jewish +thought could give to it, and with all the mystic glory that Hellenic +speculation could contribute, so that the effect upon men was that of a +fresh revelation of life and immortality through the gospel. Grotesque +and hideous features also were brought in from the ghost-worlds of the +classic ages, as well as from that of the Teutonic barbarians, and the +result is seen in mediæval Christianity. At no other time, perhaps, has +the Unseen World played such a leading part in men's minds as in the +twelfth and thirteenth centuries of our Christian era, in the age that +witnessed the culmination of sublimity in church architecture, in the +society whose thought found comprehensive expression in the "Summa" of +St. Thomas, as the thought of our times is expressed in Spencer's "First +Principles," in an intellectual atmosphere, which just as it was about +passing away was depicted for all coming time in the poem of Dante. It +was a time of spiritual awakening such as mankind had never before +witnessed, but it was also an age of new problems, an age wherein the +seeds of revolt were thickly germinating. The nature and constitution of +the Unseen World had been too rashly and too elaborately set forth in +theorems born of the slender knowledge of primitive times, and the +growing tendency to interrogate Nature soon led to conclusions which +broke down the old edifice of thought. In the sixteenth century came +Copernicus and administered such a shock to the mind as even Luther's +defiance of the papacy scarcely equalled. In recent days, when Bishop +Wilberforce reckoned without his host in trying to twit Huxley with his +monkey ancestry, our minds were getting inured to all sorts of audacious +innovations, so that they did not greatly disturb us. For its unsettling +effects upon time-honoured beliefs and mental habits the Darwinian +theory is no more to be compared to the Copernican than the invention of +the steamboat is to be compared to the voyages of Columbus. We are in no +danger of overrating the bewilderment that was wrought by the discovery +that our earth is not the physical centre of things, and that the sun +apparently does not exist for the sole purpose of giving light and +warmth to man's terrestrial habitat. We need not wonder that in +conservative Spain scarcely a century ago the University of Salamanca +prohibited the teaching of the Newtonian astronomy. We need not wonder +that Galileo should have been commanded to hold his tongue on a topic +that seemed to cast discredit upon the whole theology that assumes man +to be the central object of the Divine care. + +This unsettling of men's minds was of course indefinitely increased by +the revolt of Descartes against the scholastic philosophy, by Newton's +immense contributions to physics, and by such discoveries as those of +Harvey, Black, and Lavoisier, which showed by what methods truth could +be obtained concerning Nature's operations, and how different such +methods were from those by which the accepted systems of theology had +been built up. The result has been wholesale skepticism directed +against everything whatever that now exists or has ever existed in the +shape of an ancient belief. This result was first reached in France +about the middle of the eighteenth century, when the thoughts of Locke +and Newton were eagerly absorbed in a community irritated beyond +endurance by social injustice, and in which the church had done much to +forfeit respect. Thus came about that violent outbreak of materialistic +atheism which, in spite of its generous aims and many admirable +achievements, is surely one of the most mournful episodes in the history +of human thought. The French philosophers set an example to three +generations; the note struck by Diderot and Buffon and D'Alembert +continued to resound until the scientific horizon had become radiant in +every quarter with the promise of a brighter day, and its echoes have +not yet died. It was but lately that the voice of Lamettrie was heard +again from the lips of Strauss and Buechner, and even to-day we may +sometimes be entertained by a belated eighteenth century naturalist who +is fully persuaded that his denial of human immortality is an inevitable +corollary from the doctrine of evolution. Indeed the progress of +scientific discovery has been so rapid since the time of Diderot, its +achievements have been so vast, its results so multifarious and so +dazzling, that it has well-nigh absorbed the attention of the foremost +minds. The dogmas of theology seem stale and empty, the speculations of +metaphysics vain and unprofitable, in comparison with the fascinating +marvels of chemistry and astronomy, of palæontology and spectrum +analysis; and it is natural that we should rejoice over the methods of +research that are enabling us thus to wrest from Nature a few of her +long guarded secrets, and to make up our minds to have nothing to do +with conclusions that are not obtained or at least verified by such +scientific methods. Daily we hear sounded the praises of observation, of +experiment, of comparison; we are warned against long deductions, since +the strength of any chain of arguments is measured by that of its +weakest link, and experience is perpetually teaching us, to our +vexation and chagrin, that what reason says must be so is not so, that +facts will not fit hypothesis. The more things we try to explain, the +better we realize that we live in a world of unexplained residua. Away, +then, with all so-called truths that cannot be tested by weights and +measures, or other direct appeals to the senses! Your modern philosopher +will have nothing of them. His system is composed, from start to finish, +of scientific theorems. As for the higher speculations, the deeper +generalizations, in which philosophy has been wont to indulge concerning +the aim and meaning of existence, he waves them away as profitless or +even mischievous. The world is full of questions as pressing as they are +baffling. As I once heard Herbert Spencer say, "You cannot take up any +problem in physics without being quickly led to some metaphysical +problem which you can neither solve nor evade." It was in order to +secure philosophic peace of mind that Auguste Comte undertook to build +up what he called Positive Philosophy, in which the existence of all +such problems was to be complacently ignored,--much as the ostrich seeks +escape from a dilemma by burying its head in the sand. In a far more +reverent and justifiable spirit the agnostic like Huxley or Spencer +acknowledges the limitations of the human mind and builds as far as he +may, leaving the rest to God. + +In the fervour of this modern reliance upon scientific methods, we are +warned with especial emphasis against all humours and predilections +which we may be in danger of cherishing as human beings. In a new sense +of the words we are reminded that "the heart of man is deceitful and +desperately wicked," and if any belief is especially pleasant or +consoling to us, forthwith does Science lay upon us her austere command +to mortify the flesh and treat the belief in question with exceptional +disfavour and suspicion. Thus there has grown up a kind of Puritanism in +the scientific temper which, while announcing its unalterable purpose to +follow Truth though she lead us to Hades, takes a kind of grim +satisfaction in emphasizing the place of destination. + +Now there can be no sort of doubt that this rigid and vigorous +scientific temper is in the main eminently wholesome and commendable. In +the interests of intellectual honesty there is nothing which we need +more than to be put on our guard against allowing our reasoning +processes to be warped by our feelings. Nevertheless in steering clear +of Scylla it would be a pity to tumble straight into the maw of +Charybdis, and it behooves us to ask just how far the canons of +scientific method are competent to guide us in dealing with ultimate +questions. Science has given us so many surprises that our capacity for +being shocked or astounded is well-nigh exhausted, and our old +unregenerate human nature has been bullied and badgered into something +like humility; so that now, at the end of the greatest and most +bewildering of centuries, we may fitly pause for a moment and ask how +fares it, in these exacting days, with that Unseen World which man +brought with him when he was first making his appearance on our planet? +And what has science to say about that time-honoured belief that the +human soul survives the death of the human body? + +The position that science irrevocably condemns such a belief seems at +first sight a very strong one and has unquestionably had a good deal of +weight with many minds of the present generation. Throughout the animal +kingdom we never see sensation, perception, instinct, volition, +reasoning, or any of the phenomena which we distinguish as mental, +manifested except in connection with nerve-matter arranged in systems of +various degrees of complexity. We can trace sundry relations of general +correspondence between the increasing manifestations of intelligence and +the increasing complications of the nervous system. Injuries to the +nervous structure entail failures of function, either in the mental +operations themselves or in the control which they exercise over the +actions of the body; there is either psychical aberration, or loss of +consciousness, or muscular paralysis. At the moment of death, as soon as +the current of arterial blood ceases to flow through the cerebral +vessels, all signs of consciousness cease for the looker-on; and after +the nervous system has been resolved into its elements, what reason have +we to suppose that consciousness survives, any more than that the +wetness of water should survive its separation into oxygen and hydrogen? + +So far as our terrestrial experience goes there can be but one answer to +such a question. We have no more warrant in experience for supposing +consciousness to exist without a nervous system than we have for +supposing the properties of water to exist in a world destitute of +hydrogen and oxygen. Our power of framing conceptions is narrowly +limited by experience, and when we try to figure to ourselves the +conditions of a future life we are either hopelessly baffled at the +start or else we fall back upon grossly materialistic imagery. The +savage's ghost-world is a mere repetition of the fights and hunts with +which he is familiar. The early Christians looked forward to a speedy +resurrection from Sheol, followed by an endless bodily existence upon a +renovated earth. Dante's pictures of the Unseen World are often so +intensely materialistic as to seem grotesque in our more truly spiritual +age. Popular conceptions of heaven to-day abound in symbolism that is +confessedly a mere reflection from the world of matter; insomuch that +persons of sufficient culture to realize the inadequacy of these popular +images are wont to avoid the difficulty by refraining from putting their +hopes and beliefs into any definite or describable form. Among such +minds there is a tacit agreement that the unseen world must be purely +spiritual in constitution, yet no mental image of such a world can be +formed. We are all agreed that life beyond the grave would be a delusion +and a cruel mockery without the continuance of the tender household +affections which alone make the present life worth living; but to +imagine the recognition of soul by soul apart from the material +structure in which we have known soul to be manifested, apart from the +look of the loved face, the tones of the loved voice, or the renewed +touch of the long vanished hand, is something quite beyond our power. +Even if you try to imagine your own psychical activity as continuing +without the aid of the physical machinery of sensation, you soon get +into unmanageable difficulties. The furniture of your mind consists in +great part of sensuous images, chiefly visual, and you cannot in thought +follow yourself into a world that does not announce itself to you +through sense impressions. From all this it plainly appears that our +notion of the survival of conscious activity apart from material +conditions is not only unsupported by any evidence that can be gathered +from the world of which we have experience but is utterly and hopelessly +inconceivable. + +The argument here summarized is in no way profound or abstruse; it is +extremely obvious, and as its propositions cannot well be controverted, +it has had great weight with many people. I dare say it may be held +responsible for the larger part of contemporary skepticism as to the +future life. People have grown accustomed to demanding scientific +support for doctrines, whereas this doctrine is not only destitute of +scientific support but lands us in inconceivabilities; is it not, then, +untenable and absurd? Such is the common argument. There are those who +seek to meet it with inductive evidence of the presence of disembodied +spirits or ghosts which hold direct communication only with certain +specially endowed persons known as mediums. Concerning such inductive +evidence it may be said that very little has as yet been brought +forward which is likely to make much impression upon minds trained in +investigation. If its value as evidence were to be conceded, it would +seem to point to the conclusion that the grade of intelligence which +survives the grave is about on a par with that which in the present life +we are accustomed to shut up in asylums for idiots. On the whole the +mediumistic ideas and methods are frankly materialistic, their alleged +communications with the other world are through sights and sounds, and +if their pretensions could be sustained the result would be simply the +rehabilitation of the primitive ghost-world. Their theory of things +moves on so low a plane as hardly to merit notice in a serious +philosophic discussion. + +To return to the argument that the doctrine of the survival of conscious +activity apart from material conditions is unsupported by experience and +is inconceivable, we may observe that it is inconceivable just because +it is entirely without foundation in experience. Our powers of +conception are narrowly determined by the limits of our experience, and +when that experience has never furnished us with the materials for +framing a conception we simply cannot frame it. Hence we cannot conceive +of the conscious soul as entirely dissociated from any material vehicle. + +Now we are prepared to ask, How much does this famous argument amount +to, as against the belief that the soul survives the body? The answer +is, Nothing! absolutely nothing. It not only fails to disprove the +validity of the belief, but it does not raise even the slightest _prima +facie_ presumption against it. This will at once become apparent if we +remember that human experience is very far indeed from being infinite, +and that there are in all probability immense regions of existence in +every way as real as the region which we know, yet concerning which we +cannot form the faintest rudiment of a conception. Within the past +century the study of light and other radiant forces has furnished us +with a suggestive object-lesson. The luminiferous ether combines +properties which are inconceivable in connection. How curious to think +that we live and move in an ocean of ether in which the particles of +all material things are floating like islands! But how amazing to learn +that this ocean of ether is also an adamantine firmament! Is not this +sheer nonsense? an ocean firmament of ether-adamant! Yet such seems to +be the fact, and our philosophy must make the best of it. Now suppose +that all this world were crowded with disembodied souls, an infinite +throng most aptly called "the majority," a thousand or more on every +spot in space as broad as the point of a cambric needle, in what way +could we become aware of their existence? Clearly in no way, since we +have no organ or faculty for the perception of soul apart from the +material structure and activities in which it has been manifested +throughout the whole course of our experience. There we will suppose are +the countless millions, the existence of any one of whom, could we +detect it, would suffice to demonstrate the doctrine of a future life, +and yet, for lack of the requisite means of communication, all this +evidence is inaccessible. Such an illustration shows that "the entire +absence of testimony does not even raise a negative presumption except +in cases where testimony is accessible." The reason is obvious. Until we +can go wherever the testimony may be, we are not entitled to affirm that +there is an absence of testimony. So long as our knowledge is restricted +by the conditions of this terrestrial life, we are not in a position to +make negative assertions as to regions of existence outside of these +conditions. We may feel quite free, therefore, to give due weight to any +considerations which make it probable that consciousness survives the +wreck of the material body. + +We are now in a position to see the fallacy of Moleschott's often-quoted +aphorism, "No thought without phosphorus!" When this saying was a new +one, there were worthy people who felt that somehow it was all over with +man's immortal soul. With phosphorus you light your candle, and with +phosphorus you discover Neptune and write the Fifth Symphony; how +charmingly simple and convincing! And yet was anything save a bit of +rhetoric really gained by singling out phosphorus among the chemical +constituents of brain tissue rather than nitrogen or carbon? Suppose the +dictum had been, "No thought without a brain." The obvious answer would +have been, "If you refer to the present life, most erudite professor, +your remark is true, but hardly novel or startling; if you refer to any +condition of things subsequent to death, pray where did you obtain your +knowledge?" + +Nevertheless this point cannot be disposed of simply by exhibiting the +flaw in Moleschott's rhetoric. His remark rests upon the assumption that +conscious mental phenomena are products of the organic tissues with +which they are associated. This is of course the central stronghold of +materialism. A century ago the case was very boldly put when we were +asked to believe that the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes +bile. Nobody to-day would think of making such a comparison, but it is +more cautiously stated that consciousness is a "function" of the brain, +or at all events of the nervous system, even as bile-making is a +function of the liver. Before we yield any modicum of assent to this +statement we may observe that "function" is a word with a wide range of +meaning, and we must insist upon some closer definition. Here +materialism calls to its aid the discovery of the correlation and +equivalence of forces, one of the most stupendous achievements of our +century. We now know that heat and light and electricity and actinism +are not forces generically distinct and isolated each from the others. +All are specific modes of molecular motion, transformable one into +another at any moment as naturally as a cloud condenses into raindrops. +Any such molecular motion, moreover, may come from the arrested visible +motion of a mass, and may in turn be liberated so as to resume the form +of visible motion, as when an electric current is transformed into the +onward movement of the trolley car. The change in our conception of +Nature that has been wrought by this wonderful discovery is more +profound than all changes that went before. The balance in the hands of +the chemist had already proved that no matter is ever lost but only +transformed, and that every material form at any moment visible owes its +existence to the metamorphosis of some previous form. So now it was +further shown that the myriad properties or qualities of matter are +simply the expression of myriads of activities which are all in a final +analysis motions; that no motion is ever lost but only transformed, and +that every kind of motion at any moment perceptible--whether in the form +of movement through space, or of light, or heat, or electricity, or the +actinism that builds up the green stuff in the leaves of plants--owes +its existence to the metamorphosis of some previous kind of motion. +Every living organism is a marvellous aggregate of divers forms of +matter performing divers characteristic motions, and the sum total of +these motions is the whole of life, as regarded purely on its physical +side. When we take food we bring into the system sundry nitrogenous and +hydrocarbon compounds, each of which is alive with little energies or +latent capacities for certain kinds of motion. The oxygen of the air, +especially in its unstable form of ozone, is a powerful inciter of +chemical motions, and when we breathe it in, the little latent +capacities presently become actual motions. Some of them are realized in +the rhythmical movements of heart and lungs, some in the undulations +that sustain the animal temperature, some in the formation of the tiny +drops that collect in a secreting gland, some in the repair of tissue by +the substitution of new complex molecules for old ones that are broken +down, some in the contraction of a group of muscles, some in the changes +within the substance of nerve that accompany conscious thought, +sensation, and volition. Ah, yes, here we come to it at last! We do not +doubt that all these myriad motions are members in a series of +transformations, wherein the appearance of each results from the +disappearance of its predecessors. We have neither the instruments nor +the calculus to prove this in the infinite multitude of details, but the +general theory has been so completely established wherever it is +accessible to instruments and calculus that we can have no hesitation in +granting its universality wherever matter and motion are concerned in +any shape or amount. No scientific man will for a moment doubt that the +little vibratory discharge between cerebral ganglia which accompanies a +thought is one member in a series of molecular motions that might be +measured and expressed in terms of quantity if we only possessed an +apparatus sufficiently delicate and subtle. + +Now if such is the case with the little physical motion within the +brain, how is it with the accompanying thought? Does the correlation +obtain between physical motions and conscious feelings? Are states of +consciousness links in the Protean series of motions, in such wise that +the vibration within the brain produces the thought or feeling? In other +words is the thought or feeling merely a transformed vibration? Does a +certain amount of vibration perish to be replaced by an exact equivalent +in the shape of thought? and then does the thought perish in the act of +giving place to other vibrations which end in a visible motion of +muscles? as when, for example, you hear the sound of a bell and start +toward the door. + +On this point there has been much confusion of ideas. When I put the +question to Tyndall in conversation, nearly thirty years ago, he seemed +to think that there must be some such completeness of correlation +between the physical and the psychical; but his mind was not at ease on +the subject. Herbert Spencer, in his "First Principles," rather +cautiously took the same direction and tried to show how a certain +amount of motion might be transformable into a certain amount of +feeling. He observed that the consciousness of effort or muscular strain +in lifting a heavy weight is more intense than in lifting a light +weight, and that when a loud sound sets up atmospheric vibrations of +great amplitude the shock to our auditory consciousness is +correspondingly greater than in the case of a gentle sound which sets up +vibrations of small amplitude. But when he comes to the inner regions of +thought and emotion which are not reached by percussion and strain, he +is less successful in finding illustrations. It is especially worthy of +note that in the final edition of "First Principles," published in this +year 1900 and in Spencer's eighty-first, he goes very far toward +withdrawing from his original position, while in his Preface he calls +attention to this change as one of the most important in the book. In my +"Cosmic Philosophy," published in 1874, I maintained that to prove the +transformation of motion into feeling or of feeling into motion is in +the very nature of things impossible. In order to be convinced of this, +let us go back a few years and ask how the great doctrine of the +correlation of forces became established. Its first absolute +verification occurred about 1846, when Dr. Joule showed "that the fall +of 772 lbs. through one foot will raise the temperature of a pound of +water one degree of Fahrenheit."[2] When this was proved it gave us the +mechanical equivalent of heat, and the theory acquired a truly +scientific character. Similar quantitative correlations were established +in the case of heat and chemical action by Dulong and Petit, and in the +case of chemical action and electricity by Faraday. The truth of the +theory is wholly a question of quantitative measurement. Now you can +measure heat, you can measure electricity, and since the action of +nerves in all probability consists of undulatory motions it is to some +extent measurable, and doubtless would be completely measurable had we +the means. But when you come to thoughts and emotions, I beg to know +how you are going to work to give an account of them in foot-pounds! It +is not simply that we have no means at hand, no calculus equal to the +occasion; the thing is absurd on its face. It is as true to-day as it +was in the time of Descartes that thought is devoid of extension and +cannot be submitted to mechanical measurement. + +[2] Herbert Spencer, _First Principles_ (final ed.), p. 185. + +It appears to me, therefore, that what we should really find, if we +could trace in detail the metamorphosis of motions within the body, from +the sense-organs to the brain, and thence outward to the muscular +system, would be somewhat as follows: the inward motion, carrying the +message into the brain, would perish in giving place to the vibration +which accompanies the conscious state; and this vibration in turn would +perish in giving place to the outward motion, carrying the mandate out +to the muscles. If we had the means of measurement we could prove the +equivalence from step to step. But where would the conscious state, the +thought or feeling, come into this circuit? Why, nowhere. The physical +circuit of motions is complete in itself; the state of consciousness is +accessible only to its possessor. To him it is the subjective equivalent +of the vibration within the brain, whereof it is neither the cause nor +the effect, neither the producer nor the offspring, but simply the +concomitant. In other words the natural history of the mass of +activities that are perpetually being concentrated within our bodies, +to be presently once more disintegrated and diffused, shows us a closed +circle which is entirely physical, and in which one segment belongs to +the nervous system. As for our conscious life, that forms no part of the +closed circle but stands entirely outside of it, concentric with the +segment which belongs to the nervous system. + +These conclusions are not at all in harmony with the materialistic view +of the case. If consciousness is a product of molecular motion, it is a +natural inference that it must lapse when the motion ceases. But if +consciousness is a kind of existence which within our experience +accompanies a certain phase of molecular motion, then the case is +entirely altered, and the possibility or probability of the continuance +of the one without the other becomes a subject for further inquiry. +Materialists sometimes declare that the relation of conscious +intelligence to the brain is like that of music to the harp, and when +the harp is broken there can be no more music. An opposite view, long +familiar to us, is that the conscious soul is an emanation from the +Divine Intelligence that shapes and sustains the world, and during its +temporary imprisonment in material forms the brain is its instrument of +expression. Thus the soul is not the music, but the harper; and +obviously this view is in harmony with the conclusions which I have +deduced from the correlation of forces. + +Upon these conclusions we cannot directly base an argument sustaining +man's immortality, but we certainly remove the only serious objection +that has ever been alleged against it. We leave the field clear for +those general considerations of philosophic analogy and moral +probability which are all the guides upon which we can call for help in +this arduous inquiry. But it may be suggested at this point that perhaps +our argument has acquired a wider scope than was at first contemplated. +Consciousness is not peculiar to man, but is possessed in some degree by +the greater portion of the animal kingdom. Among the higher birds and +mammals the amount of conscious life is very considerable, and here too +it must be argued that consciousness is not a product of molecular +motion in the nervous system but its concomitant. The same argument +which removes the objection to immortality for man removes it also for +an indefinite number of animal species. What, then, is to be said of the +reasonableness of supposing a future life for sundry lower animals? and +if we were to reach a negative conclusion in their case, while reaching +a positive conclusion in the case of man, on what principle are we to +draw the line? Sometimes we hear this question propounded as a +difficulty in the Darwinian theory of man's origin. How could immortal +man have been produced through heredity from an ephemeral brute? + +The difficulty is one of the sort which we are apt to encounter when we +try to designate absolute beginnings and to mark off hard and fast +lines, for in Nature there are no such things. Voltaire asked the same +kind of question more than a hundred years before Darwinism had been +heard of. When does the immortal soul of the human individual come into +existence? Is it at the moment of conception, or when the new-born babe +begins to breathe, or at some moment between, or even perhaps at some +era of early childhood when moral responsibility can be said to have +begun? Some of the answers to these questions would transform an +ephemeral creature into an immortal one in the same person. The most +proper answer is a frank confession of ignorance. Whether it be in the +individual or in the race, we cannot tell just where the soul comes in. +A due heed to Nature's analogies, however, is helpful in this +connection. The maxim that Nature makes no leaps is far from true. +Nature's habit is to make prodigious leaps, but only after long +preparation. Slowly rises the water in the tank, inch by inch through +many a weary hour, until at length it over-flows and straightway vast +systems of machinery are awakened into rumbling life. Slowly grows the +eccentricity of the ellipse as you shift its position in the cone, and +still the nature of the curve is not essentially varied, when suddenly, +presto! one more little shift, and the finite ellipse becomes an +infinite hyperbola mocking our feeble powers of conception as it speeds +away on its everlasting career. Perhaps in our ignorance such analogies +may help us to realize the possibility that steadily developing +ephemeral conscious life may reach a critical point where it suddenly +puts on immortality. + +If this suggestion is a sound one, we must probably regard the conscious +life of animals as only the ephemeral adumbration of that which comes to +maturity in man. The considerations adduced this evening must convince +us that we are at perfect liberty to treat the question of man's +immortality in the disinterested spirit of the naturalist. In the course +of evolution there is no more philosophical difficulty in man's +acquiring immortal life than in his acquiring the erect posture and +articulate speech. In my little book "The Destiny of Man" I insisted +upon the dramatic tendency or divine purpose indicated in the long +cosmic process which has manifestly from the outset aimed at the +production and perfection of the higher spiritual attributes of +humanity. In another little book, "Through Nature to God," I called +attention to the fact that belief in an Unseen World, especially +associated with the moral significance of life, was coeval with the +genesis of Man, and had played a predominating part in his development +ever since, and I argued that under such circumstances the belief must +be based upon an eternal reality, since a contrary supposition is +negatived by all that we know of the habits and methods of the cosmic +process of Evolution. No time is left here to repeat these arguments, +but I hope enough has been said to indicate the probability that the +patient study of evolution is likely soon to supply the basis for a +Natural Theology more comprehensive, more profound, and more hopeful +than could formerly have been imagined. The Nineteenth Century has borne +the brunt, the Twentieth will reap the fruition. + + + + +WRITINGS OF JOHN FISKE + +[Illustration] + + +Historical + + +THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA + + _With some Account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest. With + a Steel Portrait of Mr. Fiske, many maps, facsimiles, etc. 2 vols. + crown 8vo, gilt top, $3.60._ + +The book brings together a great deal of information hitherto accessible +only in special treatises, and elucidates with care and judgment some of +the most perplexing problems in the history of discovery.--_The Speaker_ +(London). + + +OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS + + _2 vols. crown 8vo, gilt top, $3.60. Illustrated Edition, 2 vols. + 8vo, $8.00._ + +History has rarely been invested with such interest and charm as in +these volumes.--_The Outlook_ (New York). + + +THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW ENGLAND + + _Or, the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious + Liberty. Crown 8vo, $1.80. Illustrated Edition. Containing + Portraits, Maps, Facsimiles, Contemporary Views, Prints, and other + Historic Materials. 8vo, gilt top, $4.00._ + +Having in the first chapters strikingly and convincingly shown that New +England's history was the birth of centuries of travail, and having +prepared his readers to estimate at their true importance the events of +our early colonial life, Mr. Fiske is ready to take up his task as the +historian of the New England of the Puritans.--_Advertiser_ (Boston). + + +THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES IN AMERICA + + _With 8 Maps. 2 vols. crown 8vo, gilt top, $3.60. Illustrated + Edition, 2 vols. 8vo, $8.00._ + +The work is a lucid summary of the events of a changeful and important +time, carefully examined by a conscientious scholar, who is master of +his subject.--_Daily News_ (London). + + +_All prices are net._ + + +NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND + + _With Maps. Crown 8vo, $1.80._ + +Illustrated Edition. _Containing about 200 Illustrations. 8vo, gilt top, +$4.00._ + +This volume presents in broad and philosophic manner the causes and +events which marked the victory on this continent of the English +civilization over the French. + + +THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION + + _With Plans of Battles, and a Steel Portrait of Washington. 2 vols. + crown 8vo, gilt top, $3.60. Illustrated Edition. Containing about + 300 Illustrations. 2 vols. 8vo, gilt top, $8.00._ + +Beneath his sympathetic and illuminating touch the familiar story comes +out in fresh and vivid colors.--_New Orleans Times-Democrat._ + + +THE CRITICAL PERIOD OF AMERICAN HISTORY, 1783-1789 + + _With Map, Notes, etc. Crown 8vo, gilt top, $1.80. Illustrated + Edition. Containing about 170 Illustrations. 8vo, gilt top, $4.00._ + +_The foregoing historical works also in the Riverside Pocket Edition, in +12 vols. Each with a frontispiece. Narrow 16mo, limp leather, $2.00 +each. The set, $24.00._ + + +THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE + + _In Riverside Library for Young People. With Maps. 16mo, 75 cents._ + + +THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY IN THE CIVIL WAR + + _With 23 Maps and Plans. 1 vol. crown 8vo, $1.80._ + + +A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES FOR SCHOOLS + + _With Topical Analysis, Suggestive Questions, and Directions for + Teachers, by F. A. Hill, and Illustrations and Maps. Crown 8vo, + $1.00, net._ + + +AMERICAN POLITICAL IDEAS + + _Crown 8vo, $1.50._ + + +Religious and Philosophical + + +THE DESTINY OF MAN + + _Viewed in the Light of His Origin. 16mo, gilt top, $1.00._ + +Of one thing we may be sure: that none are leading us more surely or +rapidly to the full truth than men like the author of this little book, +who reverently study the works of God for the lessons which He would +teach his children.--_Christian Union_ (New York). + + +THE IDEA OF GOD + + _As Affected by Modern Knowledge. 16mo, gilt top, $1.00._ + +The vigor, the earnestness, the honesty, and the freedom from cant and +subtlety in his writings are exceedingly refreshing. He is a scholar, a +critic, and a thinker of the first order.--_Christian Register_ +(Boston). + + +THROUGH NATURE TO GOD + + _16mo, gilt top, $1.00._ + + CONTENTS.--_The Mystery of Evil; The Cosmic Roots of Love and + Self-Sacrifice; The Everlasting Reality of Religion._ + +The little volume has a reasonableness and a persuasiveness that cannot +fail to commend its arguments to all.--_Public Ledger_ (Philadelphia). + + +LIFE EVERLASTING + + _16mo, gilt top, $1.00 net._ + +This brief work is a contribution to the evolution of the theory of +evolution on lines which are full of the deepest suggestiveness to +Christian thinkers.--_The Congregationalist._ + + +OUTLINES OF COSMIC PHILOSOPHY + + _Based on the Doctrine of Evolution, with Criticisms on the Positive + Philosophy. In 4 volumes, 8vo, $7.20._ + +You must allow me to thank you for the very great interest with which I +have at last slowly read the whole of your work.... I never in my life +read so lucid an expositor (and therefore thinker) as you are.--CHARLES +DARWIN. + + +DARWINISM, AND OTHER ESSAYS + + _Crown 8vo, gilt top, $1.80._ + + +MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS + + _Old Tales and Superstitions interpreted by Comparative Mythology. + Crown 8vo, gilt top, $1.80._ + + +THE UNSEEN WORLD + + _And Other Essays. Crown 8vo, gilt top, $1.80._ + + +EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST + + _Crown 8vo, gilt top, $1.80._ + + +Miscellaneous + + +A CENTURY OF SCIENCE + + _And Other Essays. Crown 8vo, $1.80._ + +Among our thoughtful essayists there are none more brilliant than Mr. +John Fiske. His pure style suits his clear thought.--_The Nation_ (New +York). + + +CIVIL GOVERNMENT IN THE UNITED STATES + + _Considered with some Reference to its Origins. With Questions on + the Text by Frank A. Hill, and Bibliographical Notes by Mr. Fiske. + Crown 8vo, $1.00, net._ + +It is most admirable, alike in plan and execution, and will do a vast +amount of good in teaching our people the principles and forms of our +civil institutions.--MOSES COIT TYLER, _Professor of American +Constitutional History and Law, Cornell University_. + + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +BOSTON: 4 PARK ST.; NEW YORK: 16 EAST 40TH ST. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Life Everlasting, by John Fiske + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE EVERLASTING *** + +***** This file should be named 34569-0.txt or 34569-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/5/6/34569/ + +Produced by Larry B. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/34569-0.zip b/34569-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b4cd918 --- /dev/null +++ b/34569-0.zip diff --git a/34569-8.txt b/34569-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7577c50 --- /dev/null +++ b/34569-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1582 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Life Everlasting, by John Fiske + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Life Everlasting + +Author: John Fiske + +Release Date: December 5, 2010 [EBook #34569] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE EVERLASTING *** + + + + +Produced by Larry B. Harrison, Louise Pattison and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +By John Fiske + +ESSAYS AND PHILOSOPHY + + +A CENTURY OF SCIENCE, and other Essays. + +MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS: Old Tales and Superstitions interpreted by +Comparative Mythology. + +OUTLINES OF COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. New Edition. With introduction by Josiah +Royce, and index. 4 vols. + +THE UNSEEN WORLD, and other Essays. + +EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST. + +DARWINISM, and other Essays. + +THE DESTINY OF MAN, viewed in the Light of His Origin. + +THE IDEA OF GOD, as affected by Modern Knowledge. + +THROUGH NATURE TO GOD. + +LIFE EVERLASTING. + +_For complete list of Mr. Fiske's Historical and Philosophical Works, +and Essays, see pages at the back of this work._ + + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON AND NEW YORK + + + + +LIFE EVERLASTING + + + + + [Illustration] + + + LIFE EVERLASTING + + BY + + JOHN FISKE + + + [Illustration] + + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + + The Riverside Press Cambridge + + + COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY ABBY M. FISKE, + EXECUTRIX + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + _Published September, 1901_ + + + + +[Illustration] + + +NOTE + + +On the evening of December 19, 1900, Mr. Fiske delivered in Sanders +Theatre, Cambridge, the address here printed. It was given at the +request of Harvard University, in accordance with the terms of the +Ingersoll lectureship, but it stood clearly in Mr. Fiske's mind as a +continuation, and in a sense the completion, of that series of +philosophic studies successively issued under the titles, "The Destiny +of Man viewed in the Light of his Origin," "The Idea of God as affected +by Modern Knowledge," and "Through Nature to God." Mr. Fiske delayed the +publication of "Life Everlasting," and it is possible that he designed +amplifying it. Yet, as he stated in his Preface to "The Idea of God," +that both that book and "The Destiny of Man" were printed exactly as +delivered, "without the addition, or subtraction, or alteration of a +single word," so he may have intended to print this study in the same +way. At any rate it is now printed exactly as it was delivered, his +perfectly clear manuscript being carefully followed. + + 4 PARK STREET, BOSTON + _Autumn, 1901_ + + + + +[Illustration] + + +THE INGERSOLL LECTURESHIP + +_Extract from the will of Miss Caroline Haskell Ingersoll, who died in +Keene, County of Cheshire, New Hampshire, Jan. 26, 1893._ + + +First. In carrying out the wishes of my late beloved father, George +Goldthwait Ingersoll, as declared by him in his last will and testament, +I give and bequeath to Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., where my +late father was graduated, and which he always held in love and honor, +the sum of Five thousand dollars ($5,000) as a fund for the +establishment of a Lectureship on a plan somewhat similar to that of the +Dudleian lecture, that is--one lecture to be delivered each year, on any +convenient day between the last day of May and the first day of +December, on this subject, "the Immortality of Man," said lecture not to +form a part of the usual college course, nor to be delivered by any +Professor or Tutor as part of his usual routine of instruction, though +any such Professor or Tutor may be appointed to such service. The choice +of said lecturer is not to be limited to any one religious denomination, +nor to any one profession, but may be that of either clergyman or +layman, the appointment to take place at least six months before the +delivery of said lecture. The above sum to be safely invested and three +fourths of the annual interest thereof to be paid to the lecturer for +his services and the remaining fourth to be expended in the publishment +and gratuitous distribution of the lecture, a copy of which is always to +be furnished by the lecturer for such purpose. The same lecture to be +named and known as "the Ingersoll lecture on the Immortality of Man." + + + + +LIFE EVERLASTING + + + + +[Illustration] + + +LIFE EVERLASTING + + +Few incidents in ancient history are more tragic than the death of +Pompey. The spectacle of the mighty warrior who had conquered the Orient +and contended with Csar for the mastery of the world, a defeated and +despairing fugitive, treacherously murdered and lying unburied on the +Egyptian strand, was one that drew tears from Csar himself and from +many another. Yet among the poets of the sixteenth century Renaissance +there was one who took a different view of the matter. In an epigram of +incomparable beauty Francesco Molsa exclaims:-- + + Dux, Pharea quamvis jaceas inhumatus arena, + Non ideo fati est svior ira tui: + Indignum fuerat tellus tibi victa sepulcrum; + Non decuit coelo, te, nisi, Magne, tegi! + +It is almost impossible to preserve in a translation the peculiar charm +of these lines, but a friend of mine in one of the pleasant student days +of forty years ago produced this happy and fitting paraphrase:-- + + We grieve not, Pompey, that to thee + No earthly tomb was given; + All lands subdued, nought else was free + To shelter thee but Heaven! + +Here the art of the poet lies in the boldness with which he seizes upon +one of the most subtle and startling effects of contrast. In the very +circumstance which to the ancient mind was the acme of humiliation and +horror his genius discerns the occasion for most exalted panegyric, the +bitterness of death is lost in the abounding triumph of the soul +enlarged and set free, the attributes of woe are transformed into +crowning glories. + +It is just in this spirit of the Modenese poet that mankind has sought +to take away from death its sting, from the grave its victory. That +solemn moment in which, for those who have gone before and for us who +are to follow, the eye of sense beholds naught save the ending of the +world, the entrance upon a black and silent eternity, the eye of faith +declares to be the supreme moment of a new birth for the disenthralled +soul, the introduction to a new era of life compared with which the +present one is not worthy of the name. [Greek: Tis d' oiden], exclaims +Euripides, + + [Greek: Tis d' oiden ei to zn men esti katthanein, + To katthanein de zn?] + +Who can tell but that this which we call life is really death, from +which what we call death is an awakening? From this vantage ground of +thought the human soul comes to look without dread upon the termination +of this terrestrial existence. The failure of the bodily powers, the +stoppage of the fluttering pulse, the cold stillness upon the features +so lately wreathed in smiles of merriment, the corruption of the tomb, +the breaking of the ties of love, the loss of all that has given value +to existence, the dull blankness of irremediable sorrow, the knell of +everlasting farewells,--all this is seized upon by the sovereign +imagination of man and transformed into a scene of transcending glory, +such as in all the vast career of the universe is reserved for humanity +alone. In the highest of creatures the Divine immanence has acquired +sufficient concentration and steadiness to survive the dissolution of +the flesh and assert an individuality untrammelled by the limitations +which in the present life everywhere persistently surround it. Upon this +view death is not a calamity but a boon, not a punishment inflicted +upon Man, but the supreme manifestation of his exceptional prerogative +as chief among God's creatures. Thus the faith in immortal life is the +great poetic achievement of the human mind, it is all-pervasive, it is +concerned with every moment and every aspect of our existence as moral +individuals, and it is the one thing that makes this world inhabitable +for beings constructed like ourselves. The destruction of this sublime +poetic conception would be like depriving a planet of its atmosphere; it +would leave nothing but a moral desert as cold and dead as the savage +surface of the moon. + +We have now to consider this supreme poetic achievement of man--his +belief in his own Immortality--in the light of our modern studies of +evolution; we must notice some distinctions between its earlier and +later stages, and briefly examine some of the objections which have been +alleged in the name of science against the validity of the belief. + +Here, as in all departments of the efflorescence of the human mind, the +beginnings were lowly, and necessarily so. Nothing very lofty or +far-reaching could be expected from the kind of brain that was encased +in the Neanderthal skull. Among existing savages there are tribes +concerning which travellers have doubted whether they possess ideas that +can properly be called religious. But wherever untutored humanity exists +we find the conception of a world of ghosts more or less distinctly +elaborated; the thronging simulacra of departed tribesmen linger near +their accustomed haunts, keenly sensitive to favour or neglect, and +quick to punish all infractions of the rules which the stern exigencies +of life in the wilderness have prescribed for the conduct of the tribe. +This crude primeval ghost-world is thus already closely associated with +the ethical side of life, and out of this association have grown some of +the most colossal governing agencies by which the development of human +society has been influenced. It is therefore not without reason that +modern students of anthropology devote so much time to animism and +fetishism and other crude workings of that savage intelligence of which +the primeval ghost-world is a product. + +It is not at all unlikely that the savage's notion of ghosts may have +originated chiefly in his experience of dreams, and this is the +explanation at present most in favour. The sleeping warrior ranges far +and wide over the country, while he chases the buffalo and joins in the +medicine dance with comrades known to have died yet now as active and as +voluble as himself, but suddenly the scene changes and he is back in his +familiar hut surrounded by his people who can testify that he has not +for a moment left them. It is not unlikely, I say, that the notion of +one's conscious self as something which can quit the material body and +return to it may have started in such often-repeated humble +experiences. It can hardly be doubted, however, that this savage +conception of the detachable conscious self is simply the primitive +phase of the Christian conception of the conscious soul which dwells +within the perishable body and quits it at death. Through many stages of +elaboration and refinement the sequence between the two conceptions is +unmistakable. + +At this point the materialist interposes with an argument which he +regards as crushing. He reminds us that if we would estimate the value +of an idea, as of a race-horse or a mastiff, it is well to take a look +at its pedigree. What, then, is to be said--he scornfully asks--of a +doctrine of personal immortality which when reduced to its lowest terms +is seen to have started in a savage's misinterpretation of his dreams? +What more is needed to prove it unworthy of the serious attention of a +scientific student of nature? On the other hand, the student whose mood +is truly scientific will feel that one of mankind's cardinal beliefs +must not be dismissed too lightly because of the crudeness and error in +that primitive stratum of human thought in which it first took root. In +his perceptions within certain limits the savage is eminently keen and +accurate, but when it comes to intellectual judgments that go at all +below the surface of things his mind is a mere farrago of grotesque +fancies, wherein, nevertheless, some kernels of truth are here and there +embedded. It is a long way from the dragon swallowing the sun to the +interposition of the moon's dark body between us and that luminary. The +dragon was a figment of fancy, but the eclipse was none the less a fact. + +Now if we may take an illustration from the workings of an infant's +mind, it is pretty clearly made out that as baby sits propped among his +pillows and turns his eyes hither and thither in following his mother's +movements to and fro in the room, she seems in coming toward him to +enlarge and in going away to diminish in size, like Alice in Wonderland. +It is only with the education of the eye and the small muscles which +adjust it that the larger area subtended on the retina instantly means +comparative nearness and the smaller area comparative remoteness. At +first the sensations are interpreted directly, and the impression upon +baby's nascent intelligence is a gross error. The mother is not waxing +great and small by turns, but only approaching and receding. If, +however, we consider that in baby's mind the enlarged retinal spot means +more and the diminished spot less of the pleasurable feelings excited by +a familiar and gracious presence, the approach of which is greeted with +smiles and out-stretched arms, while its departure is bemoaned with +cries and tears, we see that as to the essentials of the situation the +dawning intelligence is entirely right, although its specific +interpretation is quite wrong. Mamma has not really dwindled and +vanished like the penny in a conjurer's palm, but has only flitted from +the field of vision. + +To come back now to our primeval savage, when he sees in a dream his +deceased comrade and mistakes the vision for a reality, his error is not +concerned with the most fundamental part of the matter. The +all-important fact is that this dreaming savage has somehow acquired a +mental attitude toward death which is totally different from that of all +other animals, and is therefore peculiarly human. Throughout the +half-dozen invertebrate branches or sub-kingdoms, where intelligence is +manifested only in its lower forms of reflex action and instinct, we +find no evidence that any creature has come to know of death. There is a +sense, no doubt, in which we may say that the love of life is +universal. As a rule, all animals shun danger, and natural selection +maintains this rule by the pitiless slaughter of all delinquents, of all +in whom the needful inherited tendencies are too weak. But in the lower +animal grades and in the vegetal world the courting of life and the +shrinking from death go on without conscious intelligence, as the blades +of grass in a meadow or the clustering leaves upon a tree compete with +one another for the maximum of exposure to sunshine until perhaps stout +boughs and stems are warped or twisted in the struggle. Among +invertebrates, even when we get so high as lobsters and cuttlefish, the +consciousness attendant upon the seizing of prey and the escape from +enemies probably does not extend beyond the facts within the immediate +sphere of vision. Even among those ants that have marshalled hosts and +grand tactics there is doubtless no such thing as meditation of death. +Passing to the vertebrates, it is not until we reach the warm-blooded +birds and mammals that we find what we are seeking. Among sundry birds +and mammals we see indications of a dawning recognition of the presence +of death. An early manifestation is the sense of bereavement when the +maternal instinct is rudely disturbed, as in the cow mourning for her +calf. This feeling goes a little way, but not a great way, beyond the +sense of physical discomfort, and is soon relieved by milking. Much more +intense and abiding is the feeling of bereavement among birds that mate +for life, and among the higher apes, and it reaches its culmination in +the dog whose intelligence and affections have been so profoundly +modified through his immensely long comradeship with man. Nowhere in +literature do we strike upon a deeper note of pathos than in Scott's +immortal lines on the dog who starved while watching his young master's +lifeless body, alone upon a Highland moor:-- + + "How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber? + When the wind stirred his garment, how oft didst thou start!" + +Yet even this devoted creature could have carried his thoughts but +little way toward the point reached by our dreaming savage with his +incipient ghost-world. More power of abstraction and generalization was +needed. While the sight of the killing of a fellow-creature may arouse +violent terror in the higher mammals below man, there is nothing to +indicate that the sight of the dead body awakens in the dumb spectator +any general conceptions in which his own ultimate doom is included. The +only feeling aroused seems to vary between utter indifference and faint +curiosity. Professor Shaler makes a statement of cardinal importance in +this connection when he says: "If we should seek some one mark which, in +the intellectual advance from the brutes to man, might denote the +passage to the human side, we might well find it in the moment when it +dawned on the nascent man that death was a mystery which he had in his +turn to meet."[1] + +[1] Shaler, _The Individual_, p. 194. + +It is therefore interesting to note that the first approaches, albeit +remote ones, toward a realizing sense of death occur among those animals +in which the beginnings of family life have been made, and the habitual +exercise of altruistic emotions helps to widen the intelligence and +facilitate the appropriation to one's self of the experiences of one's +comrades and mates. Such is the case with permanently mated birds and +with the higher apes, while the case of the dog, exceptional as it is +through his acquired dependence upon man, has similar implications. Now +I have elsewhere proved and repeatedly illustrated that the leading +peculiarity which distinguished man's apelike progenitors from all other +creatures was the progressive increase in the duration of infancy, which +was a direct consequence of expanding intelligence, and was moreover the +immediate cause of the genesis of the human family and of human society. +It appears now that the realizing sense of death, such as we find it in +untutored men of primitive habits of thought, has originated in the +selfsame circumstances which have wrought the mighty change from +gregariousness to sociality, from the general level of mammalian +existence to the unique level of humanity. I have elsewhere called +attention to the profoundly interesting fact that the notion of an +Unseen World beyond that in which we lead our daily lives is coeval with +the earliest beginnings of Humanity upon our planet. We may now observe +that it adds greatly to the interest and to the significance of this +fact, when we find that the very circumstances which tended to single +out our progenitors, and raise them from the average mammalian level +into Manhood, tended also to make them realize the problem of death and +meet it with a solution. The grouping of facts now begins to make it +appear that this primeval solution was but the natural outcome of the +whole cosmic process that had gone before; that when nascent Humanity +first eluded the burden of the problem by rising above it, this was but +part and parcel of the unprecedented cosmic operation through which +man's Humanity was developed and declared. The long and cumulative play +of cause and effect which wrought the lengthening of the period of +helpless babyhood and the correlative maternal care, and which thus +differentiated the non-human horde of primates into a group of human +clans, was attended by a strong development of the sympathetic feelings +as it vastly increased the mutual dependence among individuals. During +the same period the gradual acquirement of articulate speech was +accompanied by a great increase in the powers of abstraction and +generalization. These new capacities were applied to the interpretation +of death, just as they were applied to all other things; and thus, in +the very process of becoming human, our progenitors arose to the +consciousness of death as something with which humanity has always and +everywhere to reckon. From the earliest and most rudimentary stages of +the process, however, the conception of death was not of an event which +puts an end to human individuality, but of an event which human +individuality survives. If we look at the circumstances of the genesis +of mankind purely from the naturalist's point of view, it cannot fail to +be highly significant that the mental attitude toward death should from +the first have assumed this form, that the human soul should from the +start have felt itself encompassed not only by the endless multitude of +visible and tangible and audible things, but also by an Unseen World. In +view of this striking fact it is of small moment that the earliest +generalizations which in course of time developed into a world of ghosts +and demons were grotesquely erroneous. Primitive theorizing is sure to +be faulty and in the light of later knowledge comes to seem absurd and +bizarre. Such has been in modern days the fate of the savage's +ghost-world, along with the Ptolemaic astronomy, the doctrine of +signatures, and many another sample of the "wisdom of the ancients." But +the fact that primitive man mis-stated his relation to the Unseen World +in no wise militates against the truth of his assumption that such a +world exists for us. + +To this question as to the truth of the assumption I shall return in the +sequel. We have very briefly sketched the manner of its origination, and +here we may leave this part of our subject with the remark that the +belief in a future life, in a world unseen to mortal eyes, is not only +coeval with the beginnings of the human race but is also coextensive +with it in all its subsequent stages of development. It is in short one +of the differential attributes of humanity. Man is not only the primate +who possesses articulate speech and the power of abstract reasoning, who +is characterized by a long period of plastic infancy and a corresponding +capacity for progress, who is grouped in societies of which the +primordial units were clans; he is not only all this, but he is the +creature who expects to survive the event of physical death. This +expectation was one of his acquisitions gained while attaining to the +human plane of existence, and the interesting question in the natural +history of man is whether it is to be regarded as a permanent +acquisition, or is rather analogous to the organ that subserves, perhaps +through long ages, an important but temporary purpose, after the +fulfilment of which it dwindles into a rudiment neglected and forgotten. + +I do not overlook the existence of divers theological systems in which +the attitude toward a future life is very different from that with which +our Christian education has made us familiar. We sometimes hear such +systems cited as exceptions to the alleged universality of the human +belief in immortality. The Buddhist looks forward through myriads of +successive sentient existences to a culminating state of Nirwana, which +if not actual extinction is at least complete quiescence, the absolute +zero of being. It hardly needs saying, however, that Buddhistic +theology, though it may have arrived at such a zero through long flights +of metaphysical reasoning, is nevertheless based in all its foundations +upon the primitive belief in man's survival of death. Sometimes it is +said that the Jews of the Old Testament times had no proper conception +of immortality. It can hardly be maintained, however, that such stories +as that of the conversation at Endor between the living Saul and the +dead Samuel could emanate from a people destitute of belief in a life +after death. In point of fact ancient Jewish thought abounds in traces +of the primitive ghost-world. It is only by contrast with the glorious +and inspiring Christian development of the belief in immortality that +the earlier dispensation seems so jejune and meagre in its faith. There +was little to arouse religious emotion in the dismal world of flitting +shadows, the Sheol or Hades from which the Greek hero would so gladly +have escaped, even to take the most menial position in all the sunlit +world. Greek and Hebrew thought, in what we call the classic ages, stood +alike in need of religious revival. The mythic lore of the Greek mind +had flowered luxuriantly in sthetic fancies, while the spiritual life +of Judaism languished amid strict obedience to forms and precepts. The +far-reaching thoughts of Greek philosophers and the lofty ethics of +Hebrew preachers were divorced from the primitive ghost-world, even as +the mental processes of the modern scholar are separated by a great gulf +from those of the woman who comes to scrub the floor. The advent of +Christianity fused together the various elements. The doctrine of a +future life was endowed with all the moral significance that Jewish +thought could give to it, and with all the mystic glory that Hellenic +speculation could contribute, so that the effect upon men was that of a +fresh revelation of life and immortality through the gospel. Grotesque +and hideous features also were brought in from the ghost-worlds of the +classic ages, as well as from that of the Teutonic barbarians, and the +result is seen in medival Christianity. At no other time, perhaps, has +the Unseen World played such a leading part in men's minds as in the +twelfth and thirteenth centuries of our Christian era, in the age that +witnessed the culmination of sublimity in church architecture, in the +society whose thought found comprehensive expression in the "Summa" of +St. Thomas, as the thought of our times is expressed in Spencer's "First +Principles," in an intellectual atmosphere, which just as it was about +passing away was depicted for all coming time in the poem of Dante. It +was a time of spiritual awakening such as mankind had never before +witnessed, but it was also an age of new problems, an age wherein the +seeds of revolt were thickly germinating. The nature and constitution of +the Unseen World had been too rashly and too elaborately set forth in +theorems born of the slender knowledge of primitive times, and the +growing tendency to interrogate Nature soon led to conclusions which +broke down the old edifice of thought. In the sixteenth century came +Copernicus and administered such a shock to the mind as even Luther's +defiance of the papacy scarcely equalled. In recent days, when Bishop +Wilberforce reckoned without his host in trying to twit Huxley with his +monkey ancestry, our minds were getting inured to all sorts of audacious +innovations, so that they did not greatly disturb us. For its unsettling +effects upon time-honoured beliefs and mental habits the Darwinian +theory is no more to be compared to the Copernican than the invention of +the steamboat is to be compared to the voyages of Columbus. We are in no +danger of overrating the bewilderment that was wrought by the discovery +that our earth is not the physical centre of things, and that the sun +apparently does not exist for the sole purpose of giving light and +warmth to man's terrestrial habitat. We need not wonder that in +conservative Spain scarcely a century ago the University of Salamanca +prohibited the teaching of the Newtonian astronomy. We need not wonder +that Galileo should have been commanded to hold his tongue on a topic +that seemed to cast discredit upon the whole theology that assumes man +to be the central object of the Divine care. + +This unsettling of men's minds was of course indefinitely increased by +the revolt of Descartes against the scholastic philosophy, by Newton's +immense contributions to physics, and by such discoveries as those of +Harvey, Black, and Lavoisier, which showed by what methods truth could +be obtained concerning Nature's operations, and how different such +methods were from those by which the accepted systems of theology had +been built up. The result has been wholesale skepticism directed +against everything whatever that now exists or has ever existed in the +shape of an ancient belief. This result was first reached in France +about the middle of the eighteenth century, when the thoughts of Locke +and Newton were eagerly absorbed in a community irritated beyond +endurance by social injustice, and in which the church had done much to +forfeit respect. Thus came about that violent outbreak of materialistic +atheism which, in spite of its generous aims and many admirable +achievements, is surely one of the most mournful episodes in the history +of human thought. The French philosophers set an example to three +generations; the note struck by Diderot and Buffon and D'Alembert +continued to resound until the scientific horizon had become radiant in +every quarter with the promise of a brighter day, and its echoes have +not yet died. It was but lately that the voice of Lamettrie was heard +again from the lips of Strauss and Buechner, and even to-day we may +sometimes be entertained by a belated eighteenth century naturalist who +is fully persuaded that his denial of human immortality is an inevitable +corollary from the doctrine of evolution. Indeed the progress of +scientific discovery has been so rapid since the time of Diderot, its +achievements have been so vast, its results so multifarious and so +dazzling, that it has well-nigh absorbed the attention of the foremost +minds. The dogmas of theology seem stale and empty, the speculations of +metaphysics vain and unprofitable, in comparison with the fascinating +marvels of chemistry and astronomy, of palontology and spectrum +analysis; and it is natural that we should rejoice over the methods of +research that are enabling us thus to wrest from Nature a few of her +long guarded secrets, and to make up our minds to have nothing to do +with conclusions that are not obtained or at least verified by such +scientific methods. Daily we hear sounded the praises of observation, of +experiment, of comparison; we are warned against long deductions, since +the strength of any chain of arguments is measured by that of its +weakest link, and experience is perpetually teaching us, to our +vexation and chagrin, that what reason says must be so is not so, that +facts will not fit hypothesis. The more things we try to explain, the +better we realize that we live in a world of unexplained residua. Away, +then, with all so-called truths that cannot be tested by weights and +measures, or other direct appeals to the senses! Your modern philosopher +will have nothing of them. His system is composed, from start to finish, +of scientific theorems. As for the higher speculations, the deeper +generalizations, in which philosophy has been wont to indulge concerning +the aim and meaning of existence, he waves them away as profitless or +even mischievous. The world is full of questions as pressing as they are +baffling. As I once heard Herbert Spencer say, "You cannot take up any +problem in physics without being quickly led to some metaphysical +problem which you can neither solve nor evade." It was in order to +secure philosophic peace of mind that Auguste Comte undertook to build +up what he called Positive Philosophy, in which the existence of all +such problems was to be complacently ignored,--much as the ostrich seeks +escape from a dilemma by burying its head in the sand. In a far more +reverent and justifiable spirit the agnostic like Huxley or Spencer +acknowledges the limitations of the human mind and builds as far as he +may, leaving the rest to God. + +In the fervour of this modern reliance upon scientific methods, we are +warned with especial emphasis against all humours and predilections +which we may be in danger of cherishing as human beings. In a new sense +of the words we are reminded that "the heart of man is deceitful and +desperately wicked," and if any belief is especially pleasant or +consoling to us, forthwith does Science lay upon us her austere command +to mortify the flesh and treat the belief in question with exceptional +disfavour and suspicion. Thus there has grown up a kind of Puritanism in +the scientific temper which, while announcing its unalterable purpose to +follow Truth though she lead us to Hades, takes a kind of grim +satisfaction in emphasizing the place of destination. + +Now there can be no sort of doubt that this rigid and vigorous +scientific temper is in the main eminently wholesome and commendable. In +the interests of intellectual honesty there is nothing which we need +more than to be put on our guard against allowing our reasoning +processes to be warped by our feelings. Nevertheless in steering clear +of Scylla it would be a pity to tumble straight into the maw of +Charybdis, and it behooves us to ask just how far the canons of +scientific method are competent to guide us in dealing with ultimate +questions. Science has given us so many surprises that our capacity for +being shocked or astounded is well-nigh exhausted, and our old +unregenerate human nature has been bullied and badgered into something +like humility; so that now, at the end of the greatest and most +bewildering of centuries, we may fitly pause for a moment and ask how +fares it, in these exacting days, with that Unseen World which man +brought with him when he was first making his appearance on our planet? +And what has science to say about that time-honoured belief that the +human soul survives the death of the human body? + +The position that science irrevocably condemns such a belief seems at +first sight a very strong one and has unquestionably had a good deal of +weight with many minds of the present generation. Throughout the animal +kingdom we never see sensation, perception, instinct, volition, +reasoning, or any of the phenomena which we distinguish as mental, +manifested except in connection with nerve-matter arranged in systems of +various degrees of complexity. We can trace sundry relations of general +correspondence between the increasing manifestations of intelligence and +the increasing complications of the nervous system. Injuries to the +nervous structure entail failures of function, either in the mental +operations themselves or in the control which they exercise over the +actions of the body; there is either psychical aberration, or loss of +consciousness, or muscular paralysis. At the moment of death, as soon as +the current of arterial blood ceases to flow through the cerebral +vessels, all signs of consciousness cease for the looker-on; and after +the nervous system has been resolved into its elements, what reason have +we to suppose that consciousness survives, any more than that the +wetness of water should survive its separation into oxygen and hydrogen? + +So far as our terrestrial experience goes there can be but one answer to +such a question. We have no more warrant in experience for supposing +consciousness to exist without a nervous system than we have for +supposing the properties of water to exist in a world destitute of +hydrogen and oxygen. Our power of framing conceptions is narrowly +limited by experience, and when we try to figure to ourselves the +conditions of a future life we are either hopelessly baffled at the +start or else we fall back upon grossly materialistic imagery. The +savage's ghost-world is a mere repetition of the fights and hunts with +which he is familiar. The early Christians looked forward to a speedy +resurrection from Sheol, followed by an endless bodily existence upon a +renovated earth. Dante's pictures of the Unseen World are often so +intensely materialistic as to seem grotesque in our more truly spiritual +age. Popular conceptions of heaven to-day abound in symbolism that is +confessedly a mere reflection from the world of matter; insomuch that +persons of sufficient culture to realize the inadequacy of these popular +images are wont to avoid the difficulty by refraining from putting their +hopes and beliefs into any definite or describable form. Among such +minds there is a tacit agreement that the unseen world must be purely +spiritual in constitution, yet no mental image of such a world can be +formed. We are all agreed that life beyond the grave would be a delusion +and a cruel mockery without the continuance of the tender household +affections which alone make the present life worth living; but to +imagine the recognition of soul by soul apart from the material +structure in which we have known soul to be manifested, apart from the +look of the loved face, the tones of the loved voice, or the renewed +touch of the long vanished hand, is something quite beyond our power. +Even if you try to imagine your own psychical activity as continuing +without the aid of the physical machinery of sensation, you soon get +into unmanageable difficulties. The furniture of your mind consists in +great part of sensuous images, chiefly visual, and you cannot in thought +follow yourself into a world that does not announce itself to you +through sense impressions. From all this it plainly appears that our +notion of the survival of conscious activity apart from material +conditions is not only unsupported by any evidence that can be gathered +from the world of which we have experience but is utterly and hopelessly +inconceivable. + +The argument here summarized is in no way profound or abstruse; it is +extremely obvious, and as its propositions cannot well be controverted, +it has had great weight with many people. I dare say it may be held +responsible for the larger part of contemporary skepticism as to the +future life. People have grown accustomed to demanding scientific +support for doctrines, whereas this doctrine is not only destitute of +scientific support but lands us in inconceivabilities; is it not, then, +untenable and absurd? Such is the common argument. There are those who +seek to meet it with inductive evidence of the presence of disembodied +spirits or ghosts which hold direct communication only with certain +specially endowed persons known as mediums. Concerning such inductive +evidence it may be said that very little has as yet been brought +forward which is likely to make much impression upon minds trained in +investigation. If its value as evidence were to be conceded, it would +seem to point to the conclusion that the grade of intelligence which +survives the grave is about on a par with that which in the present life +we are accustomed to shut up in asylums for idiots. On the whole the +mediumistic ideas and methods are frankly materialistic, their alleged +communications with the other world are through sights and sounds, and +if their pretensions could be sustained the result would be simply the +rehabilitation of the primitive ghost-world. Their theory of things +moves on so low a plane as hardly to merit notice in a serious +philosophic discussion. + +To return to the argument that the doctrine of the survival of conscious +activity apart from material conditions is unsupported by experience and +is inconceivable, we may observe that it is inconceivable just because +it is entirely without foundation in experience. Our powers of +conception are narrowly determined by the limits of our experience, and +when that experience has never furnished us with the materials for +framing a conception we simply cannot frame it. Hence we cannot conceive +of the conscious soul as entirely dissociated from any material vehicle. + +Now we are prepared to ask, How much does this famous argument amount +to, as against the belief that the soul survives the body? The answer +is, Nothing! absolutely nothing. It not only fails to disprove the +validity of the belief, but it does not raise even the slightest _prima +facie_ presumption against it. This will at once become apparent if we +remember that human experience is very far indeed from being infinite, +and that there are in all probability immense regions of existence in +every way as real as the region which we know, yet concerning which we +cannot form the faintest rudiment of a conception. Within the past +century the study of light and other radiant forces has furnished us +with a suggestive object-lesson. The luminiferous ether combines +properties which are inconceivable in connection. How curious to think +that we live and move in an ocean of ether in which the particles of +all material things are floating like islands! But how amazing to learn +that this ocean of ether is also an adamantine firmament! Is not this +sheer nonsense? an ocean firmament of ether-adamant! Yet such seems to +be the fact, and our philosophy must make the best of it. Now suppose +that all this world were crowded with disembodied souls, an infinite +throng most aptly called "the majority," a thousand or more on every +spot in space as broad as the point of a cambric needle, in what way +could we become aware of their existence? Clearly in no way, since we +have no organ or faculty for the perception of soul apart from the +material structure and activities in which it has been manifested +throughout the whole course of our experience. There we will suppose are +the countless millions, the existence of any one of whom, could we +detect it, would suffice to demonstrate the doctrine of a future life, +and yet, for lack of the requisite means of communication, all this +evidence is inaccessible. Such an illustration shows that "the entire +absence of testimony does not even raise a negative presumption except +in cases where testimony is accessible." The reason is obvious. Until we +can go wherever the testimony may be, we are not entitled to affirm that +there is an absence of testimony. So long as our knowledge is restricted +by the conditions of this terrestrial life, we are not in a position to +make negative assertions as to regions of existence outside of these +conditions. We may feel quite free, therefore, to give due weight to any +considerations which make it probable that consciousness survives the +wreck of the material body. + +We are now in a position to see the fallacy of Moleschott's often-quoted +aphorism, "No thought without phosphorus!" When this saying was a new +one, there were worthy people who felt that somehow it was all over with +man's immortal soul. With phosphorus you light your candle, and with +phosphorus you discover Neptune and write the Fifth Symphony; how +charmingly simple and convincing! And yet was anything save a bit of +rhetoric really gained by singling out phosphorus among the chemical +constituents of brain tissue rather than nitrogen or carbon? Suppose the +dictum had been, "No thought without a brain." The obvious answer would +have been, "If you refer to the present life, most erudite professor, +your remark is true, but hardly novel or startling; if you refer to any +condition of things subsequent to death, pray where did you obtain your +knowledge?" + +Nevertheless this point cannot be disposed of simply by exhibiting the +flaw in Moleschott's rhetoric. His remark rests upon the assumption that +conscious mental phenomena are products of the organic tissues with +which they are associated. This is of course the central stronghold of +materialism. A century ago the case was very boldly put when we were +asked to believe that the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes +bile. Nobody to-day would think of making such a comparison, but it is +more cautiously stated that consciousness is a "function" of the brain, +or at all events of the nervous system, even as bile-making is a +function of the liver. Before we yield any modicum of assent to this +statement we may observe that "function" is a word with a wide range of +meaning, and we must insist upon some closer definition. Here +materialism calls to its aid the discovery of the correlation and +equivalence of forces, one of the most stupendous achievements of our +century. We now know that heat and light and electricity and actinism +are not forces generically distinct and isolated each from the others. +All are specific modes of molecular motion, transformable one into +another at any moment as naturally as a cloud condenses into raindrops. +Any such molecular motion, moreover, may come from the arrested visible +motion of a mass, and may in turn be liberated so as to resume the form +of visible motion, as when an electric current is transformed into the +onward movement of the trolley car. The change in our conception of +Nature that has been wrought by this wonderful discovery is more +profound than all changes that went before. The balance in the hands of +the chemist had already proved that no matter is ever lost but only +transformed, and that every material form at any moment visible owes its +existence to the metamorphosis of some previous form. So now it was +further shown that the myriad properties or qualities of matter are +simply the expression of myriads of activities which are all in a final +analysis motions; that no motion is ever lost but only transformed, and +that every kind of motion at any moment perceptible--whether in the form +of movement through space, or of light, or heat, or electricity, or the +actinism that builds up the green stuff in the leaves of plants--owes +its existence to the metamorphosis of some previous kind of motion. +Every living organism is a marvellous aggregate of divers forms of +matter performing divers characteristic motions, and the sum total of +these motions is the whole of life, as regarded purely on its physical +side. When we take food we bring into the system sundry nitrogenous and +hydrocarbon compounds, each of which is alive with little energies or +latent capacities for certain kinds of motion. The oxygen of the air, +especially in its unstable form of ozone, is a powerful inciter of +chemical motions, and when we breathe it in, the little latent +capacities presently become actual motions. Some of them are realized in +the rhythmical movements of heart and lungs, some in the undulations +that sustain the animal temperature, some in the formation of the tiny +drops that collect in a secreting gland, some in the repair of tissue by +the substitution of new complex molecules for old ones that are broken +down, some in the contraction of a group of muscles, some in the changes +within the substance of nerve that accompany conscious thought, +sensation, and volition. Ah, yes, here we come to it at last! We do not +doubt that all these myriad motions are members in a series of +transformations, wherein the appearance of each results from the +disappearance of its predecessors. We have neither the instruments nor +the calculus to prove this in the infinite multitude of details, but the +general theory has been so completely established wherever it is +accessible to instruments and calculus that we can have no hesitation in +granting its universality wherever matter and motion are concerned in +any shape or amount. No scientific man will for a moment doubt that the +little vibratory discharge between cerebral ganglia which accompanies a +thought is one member in a series of molecular motions that might be +measured and expressed in terms of quantity if we only possessed an +apparatus sufficiently delicate and subtle. + +Now if such is the case with the little physical motion within the +brain, how is it with the accompanying thought? Does the correlation +obtain between physical motions and conscious feelings? Are states of +consciousness links in the Protean series of motions, in such wise that +the vibration within the brain produces the thought or feeling? In other +words is the thought or feeling merely a transformed vibration? Does a +certain amount of vibration perish to be replaced by an exact equivalent +in the shape of thought? and then does the thought perish in the act of +giving place to other vibrations which end in a visible motion of +muscles? as when, for example, you hear the sound of a bell and start +toward the door. + +On this point there has been much confusion of ideas. When I put the +question to Tyndall in conversation, nearly thirty years ago, he seemed +to think that there must be some such completeness of correlation +between the physical and the psychical; but his mind was not at ease on +the subject. Herbert Spencer, in his "First Principles," rather +cautiously took the same direction and tried to show how a certain +amount of motion might be transformable into a certain amount of +feeling. He observed that the consciousness of effort or muscular strain +in lifting a heavy weight is more intense than in lifting a light +weight, and that when a loud sound sets up atmospheric vibrations of +great amplitude the shock to our auditory consciousness is +correspondingly greater than in the case of a gentle sound which sets up +vibrations of small amplitude. But when he comes to the inner regions of +thought and emotion which are not reached by percussion and strain, he +is less successful in finding illustrations. It is especially worthy of +note that in the final edition of "First Principles," published in this +year 1900 and in Spencer's eighty-first, he goes very far toward +withdrawing from his original position, while in his Preface he calls +attention to this change as one of the most important in the book. In my +"Cosmic Philosophy," published in 1874, I maintained that to prove the +transformation of motion into feeling or of feeling into motion is in +the very nature of things impossible. In order to be convinced of this, +let us go back a few years and ask how the great doctrine of the +correlation of forces became established. Its first absolute +verification occurred about 1846, when Dr. Joule showed "that the fall +of 772 lbs. through one foot will raise the temperature of a pound of +water one degree of Fahrenheit."[2] When this was proved it gave us the +mechanical equivalent of heat, and the theory acquired a truly +scientific character. Similar quantitative correlations were established +in the case of heat and chemical action by Dulong and Petit, and in the +case of chemical action and electricity by Faraday. The truth of the +theory is wholly a question of quantitative measurement. Now you can +measure heat, you can measure electricity, and since the action of +nerves in all probability consists of undulatory motions it is to some +extent measurable, and doubtless would be completely measurable had we +the means. But when you come to thoughts and emotions, I beg to know +how you are going to work to give an account of them in foot-pounds! It +is not simply that we have no means at hand, no calculus equal to the +occasion; the thing is absurd on its face. It is as true to-day as it +was in the time of Descartes that thought is devoid of extension and +cannot be submitted to mechanical measurement. + +[2] Herbert Spencer, _First Principles_ (final ed.), p. 185. + +It appears to me, therefore, that what we should really find, if we +could trace in detail the metamorphosis of motions within the body, from +the sense-organs to the brain, and thence outward to the muscular +system, would be somewhat as follows: the inward motion, carrying the +message into the brain, would perish in giving place to the vibration +which accompanies the conscious state; and this vibration in turn would +perish in giving place to the outward motion, carrying the mandate out +to the muscles. If we had the means of measurement we could prove the +equivalence from step to step. But where would the conscious state, the +thought or feeling, come into this circuit? Why, nowhere. The physical +circuit of motions is complete in itself; the state of consciousness is +accessible only to its possessor. To him it is the subjective equivalent +of the vibration within the brain, whereof it is neither the cause nor +the effect, neither the producer nor the offspring, but simply the +concomitant. In other words the natural history of the mass of +activities that are perpetually being concentrated within our bodies, +to be presently once more disintegrated and diffused, shows us a closed +circle which is entirely physical, and in which one segment belongs to +the nervous system. As for our conscious life, that forms no part of the +closed circle but stands entirely outside of it, concentric with the +segment which belongs to the nervous system. + +These conclusions are not at all in harmony with the materialistic view +of the case. If consciousness is a product of molecular motion, it is a +natural inference that it must lapse when the motion ceases. But if +consciousness is a kind of existence which within our experience +accompanies a certain phase of molecular motion, then the case is +entirely altered, and the possibility or probability of the continuance +of the one without the other becomes a subject for further inquiry. +Materialists sometimes declare that the relation of conscious +intelligence to the brain is like that of music to the harp, and when +the harp is broken there can be no more music. An opposite view, long +familiar to us, is that the conscious soul is an emanation from the +Divine Intelligence that shapes and sustains the world, and during its +temporary imprisonment in material forms the brain is its instrument of +expression. Thus the soul is not the music, but the harper; and +obviously this view is in harmony with the conclusions which I have +deduced from the correlation of forces. + +Upon these conclusions we cannot directly base an argument sustaining +man's immortality, but we certainly remove the only serious objection +that has ever been alleged against it. We leave the field clear for +those general considerations of philosophic analogy and moral +probability which are all the guides upon which we can call for help in +this arduous inquiry. But it may be suggested at this point that perhaps +our argument has acquired a wider scope than was at first contemplated. +Consciousness is not peculiar to man, but is possessed in some degree by +the greater portion of the animal kingdom. Among the higher birds and +mammals the amount of conscious life is very considerable, and here too +it must be argued that consciousness is not a product of molecular +motion in the nervous system but its concomitant. The same argument +which removes the objection to immortality for man removes it also for +an indefinite number of animal species. What, then, is to be said of the +reasonableness of supposing a future life for sundry lower animals? and +if we were to reach a negative conclusion in their case, while reaching +a positive conclusion in the case of man, on what principle are we to +draw the line? Sometimes we hear this question propounded as a +difficulty in the Darwinian theory of man's origin. How could immortal +man have been produced through heredity from an ephemeral brute? + +The difficulty is one of the sort which we are apt to encounter when we +try to designate absolute beginnings and to mark off hard and fast +lines, for in Nature there are no such things. Voltaire asked the same +kind of question more than a hundred years before Darwinism had been +heard of. When does the immortal soul of the human individual come into +existence? Is it at the moment of conception, or when the new-born babe +begins to breathe, or at some moment between, or even perhaps at some +era of early childhood when moral responsibility can be said to have +begun? Some of the answers to these questions would transform an +ephemeral creature into an immortal one in the same person. The most +proper answer is a frank confession of ignorance. Whether it be in the +individual or in the race, we cannot tell just where the soul comes in. +A due heed to Nature's analogies, however, is helpful in this +connection. The maxim that Nature makes no leaps is far from true. +Nature's habit is to make prodigious leaps, but only after long +preparation. Slowly rises the water in the tank, inch by inch through +many a weary hour, until at length it over-flows and straightway vast +systems of machinery are awakened into rumbling life. Slowly grows the +eccentricity of the ellipse as you shift its position in the cone, and +still the nature of the curve is not essentially varied, when suddenly, +presto! one more little shift, and the finite ellipse becomes an +infinite hyperbola mocking our feeble powers of conception as it speeds +away on its everlasting career. Perhaps in our ignorance such analogies +may help us to realize the possibility that steadily developing +ephemeral conscious life may reach a critical point where it suddenly +puts on immortality. + +If this suggestion is a sound one, we must probably regard the conscious +life of animals as only the ephemeral adumbration of that which comes to +maturity in man. The considerations adduced this evening must convince +us that we are at perfect liberty to treat the question of man's +immortality in the disinterested spirit of the naturalist. In the course +of evolution there is no more philosophical difficulty in man's +acquiring immortal life than in his acquiring the erect posture and +articulate speech. In my little book "The Destiny of Man" I insisted +upon the dramatic tendency or divine purpose indicated in the long +cosmic process which has manifestly from the outset aimed at the +production and perfection of the higher spiritual attributes of +humanity. In another little book, "Through Nature to God," I called +attention to the fact that belief in an Unseen World, especially +associated with the moral significance of life, was coeval with the +genesis of Man, and had played a predominating part in his development +ever since, and I argued that under such circumstances the belief must +be based upon an eternal reality, since a contrary supposition is +negatived by all that we know of the habits and methods of the cosmic +process of Evolution. No time is left here to repeat these arguments, +but I hope enough has been said to indicate the probability that the +patient study of evolution is likely soon to supply the basis for a +Natural Theology more comprehensive, more profound, and more hopeful +than could formerly have been imagined. The Nineteenth Century has borne +the brunt, the Twentieth will reap the fruition. + + + + +WRITINGS OF JOHN FISKE + +[Illustration] + + +Historical + + +THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA + + _With some Account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest. With + a Steel Portrait of Mr. Fiske, many maps, facsimiles, etc. 2 vols. + crown 8vo, gilt top, $3.60._ + +The book brings together a great deal of information hitherto accessible +only in special treatises, and elucidates with care and judgment some of +the most perplexing problems in the history of discovery.--_The Speaker_ +(London). + + +OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS + + _2 vols. crown 8vo, gilt top, $3.60. Illustrated Edition, 2 vols. + 8vo, $8.00._ + +History has rarely been invested with such interest and charm as in +these volumes.--_The Outlook_ (New York). + + +THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW ENGLAND + + _Or, the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious + Liberty. Crown 8vo, $1.80. Illustrated Edition. Containing + Portraits, Maps, Facsimiles, Contemporary Views, Prints, and other + Historic Materials. 8vo, gilt top, $4.00._ + +Having in the first chapters strikingly and convincingly shown that New +England's history was the birth of centuries of travail, and having +prepared his readers to estimate at their true importance the events of +our early colonial life, Mr. Fiske is ready to take up his task as the +historian of the New England of the Puritans.--_Advertiser_ (Boston). + + +THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES IN AMERICA + + _With 8 Maps. 2 vols. crown 8vo, gilt top, $3.60. Illustrated + Edition, 2 vols. 8vo, $8.00._ + +The work is a lucid summary of the events of a changeful and important +time, carefully examined by a conscientious scholar, who is master of +his subject.--_Daily News_ (London). + + +_All prices are net._ + + +NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND + + _With Maps. Crown 8vo, $1.80._ + +Illustrated Edition. _Containing about 200 Illustrations. 8vo, gilt top, +$4.00._ + +This volume presents in broad and philosophic manner the causes and +events which marked the victory on this continent of the English +civilization over the French. + + +THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION + + _With Plans of Battles, and a Steel Portrait of Washington. 2 vols. + crown 8vo, gilt top, $3.60. Illustrated Edition. Containing about + 300 Illustrations. 2 vols. 8vo, gilt top, $8.00._ + +Beneath his sympathetic and illuminating touch the familiar story comes +out in fresh and vivid colors.--_New Orleans Times-Democrat._ + + +THE CRITICAL PERIOD OF AMERICAN HISTORY, 1783-1789 + + _With Map, Notes, etc. Crown 8vo, gilt top, $1.80. Illustrated + Edition. Containing about 170 Illustrations. 8vo, gilt top, $4.00._ + +_The foregoing historical works also in the Riverside Pocket Edition, in +12 vols. Each with a frontispiece. Narrow 16mo, limp leather, $2.00 +each. The set, $24.00._ + + +THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE + + _In Riverside Library for Young People. With Maps. 16mo, 75 cents._ + + +THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY IN THE CIVIL WAR + + _With 23 Maps and Plans. 1 vol. crown 8vo, $1.80._ + + +A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES FOR SCHOOLS + + _With Topical Analysis, Suggestive Questions, and Directions for + Teachers, by F. A. Hill, and Illustrations and Maps. Crown 8vo, + $1.00, net._ + + +AMERICAN POLITICAL IDEAS + + _Crown 8vo, $1.50._ + + +Religious and Philosophical + + +THE DESTINY OF MAN + + _Viewed in the Light of His Origin. 16mo, gilt top, $1.00._ + +Of one thing we may be sure: that none are leading us more surely or +rapidly to the full truth than men like the author of this little book, +who reverently study the works of God for the lessons which He would +teach his children.--_Christian Union_ (New York). + + +THE IDEA OF GOD + + _As Affected by Modern Knowledge. 16mo, gilt top, $1.00._ + +The vigor, the earnestness, the honesty, and the freedom from cant and +subtlety in his writings are exceedingly refreshing. He is a scholar, a +critic, and a thinker of the first order.--_Christian Register_ +(Boston). + + +THROUGH NATURE TO GOD + + _16mo, gilt top, $1.00._ + + CONTENTS.--_The Mystery of Evil; The Cosmic Roots of Love and + Self-Sacrifice; The Everlasting Reality of Religion._ + +The little volume has a reasonableness and a persuasiveness that cannot +fail to commend its arguments to all.--_Public Ledger_ (Philadelphia). + + +LIFE EVERLASTING + + _16mo, gilt top, $1.00 net._ + +This brief work is a contribution to the evolution of the theory of +evolution on lines which are full of the deepest suggestiveness to +Christian thinkers.--_The Congregationalist._ + + +OUTLINES OF COSMIC PHILOSOPHY + + _Based on the Doctrine of Evolution, with Criticisms on the Positive + Philosophy. In 4 volumes, 8vo, $7.20._ + +You must allow me to thank you for the very great interest with which I +have at last slowly read the whole of your work.... I never in my life +read so lucid an expositor (and therefore thinker) as you are.--CHARLES +DARWIN. + + +DARWINISM, AND OTHER ESSAYS + + _Crown 8vo, gilt top, $1.80._ + + +MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS + + _Old Tales and Superstitions interpreted by Comparative Mythology. + Crown 8vo, gilt top, $1.80._ + + +THE UNSEEN WORLD + + _And Other Essays. Crown 8vo, gilt top, $1.80._ + + +EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST + + _Crown 8vo, gilt top, $1.80._ + + +Miscellaneous + + +A CENTURY OF SCIENCE + + _And Other Essays. Crown 8vo, $1.80._ + +Among our thoughtful essayists there are none more brilliant than Mr. +John Fiske. His pure style suits his clear thought.--_The Nation_ (New +York). + + +CIVIL GOVERNMENT IN THE UNITED STATES + + _Considered with some Reference to its Origins. With Questions on + the Text by Frank A. Hill, and Bibliographical Notes by Mr. Fiske. + Crown 8vo, $1.00, net._ + +It is most admirable, alike in plan and execution, and will do a vast +amount of good in teaching our people the principles and forms of our +civil institutions.--MOSES COIT TYLER, _Professor of American +Constitutional History and Law, Cornell University_. + + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +BOSTON: 4 PARK ST.; NEW YORK: 16 EAST 40TH ST. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Life Everlasting, by John Fiske + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE EVERLASTING *** + +***** This file should be named 34569-8.txt or 34569-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/5/6/34569/ + +Produced by Larry B. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Life Everlasting + +Author: John Fiske + +Release Date: December 5, 2010 [EBook #34569] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE EVERLASTING *** + + + + +Produced by Larry B. Harrison, Louise Pattison and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="tnote"> +<p>This text includes Greek characters, e.g. <span class="greek" title="Tis d' oiden">Τίς δ’ οἶδέν</span>. You may need to select a different +browser font to display them properly. Mouse over the Greek to display a transliteration.</p> +</div> + +<div class="sidebar"> +<h2><span class="old">By John Fiske</span></h2> + +<h3>ESSAYS AND PHILOSOPHY</h3> + + +<p>A CENTURY OF SCIENCE, and other Essays.</p> + +<p>MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS: Old Tales and Superstitions interpreted by +Comparative Mythology.</p> + +<p>OUTLINES OF COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. New Edition. With introduction by Josiah +Royce, and index. 4 vols.</p> + +<p>THE UNSEEN WORLD, and other Essays.</p> + +<p>EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST.</p> + +<p>DARWINISM, and other Essays.</p> + +<p>THE DESTINY OF MAN, viewed in the Light of His Origin.</p> + +<p>THE IDEA OF GOD, as affected by Modern Knowledge.</p> + +<p>THROUGH NATURE TO GOD.</p> + +<p>LIFE EVERLASTING.</p> + +<p><i>For complete list of Mr. Fiske's Historical and Philosophical Works, +and Essays, see pages at the back of this work.</i></p> + +<p></p><p>HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY <span class="smcap">Boston and New York</span></p> + +</div> + + +<p class="space"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> + +<h1><a name="LIFE_EVERLASTING" id="LIFE_EVERLASTING"></a>LIFE EVERLASTING</h1> +<p class="space"> </p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/deco_004a.png" width="400" height="81" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<h2>LIFE EVERLASTING</h2> + +<p class="center">BY</p> + +<p class="center">JOHN FISKE</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/deco_004b.png" width="100" height="128" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="center">BOSTON AND NEW YORK<br /> + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="old">The Riverside Press Cambridge</span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p> + + + +<p class="center space">COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY ABBY M. FISKE, EXECUTRIX</p> +<p class="center">ALL RIGHTS RESERVED<br /></p> +<p class="center"><i>Published September, 1901</i></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/deco_006.png" width="400" height="113" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<h3>NOTE</h3> + + +<p>On the evening of December 19, 1900, Mr. Fiske delivered in Sanders +Theatre, Cambridge, the address here printed. It was given at the +request of Harvard University, in accordance with the terms of the +Ingersoll lectureship, but it stood clearly in Mr. Fiske's mind as a +continuation, and in a sense the completion, of that series of +philosophic studies successively issued under the titles, "The Destiny +of Man viewed in the Light of his Origin," "The Idea of God as affected +by Modern Knowledge," and "Through Nature to God." Mr. Fiske delayed the +publication of "Life Everlasting," and it is possible that he designed +amplifying it. Yet, as he stated in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> his Preface to "The Idea of God," +that both that book and "The Destiny of Man" were printed exactly as +delivered, "without the addition, or subtraction, or alteration of a +single word," so he may have intended to print this study in the same +way. At any rate it is now printed exactly as it was delivered, his +perfectly clear manuscript being carefully followed.</p> + +<p> +<span class="indent1 smcap">4 Park Street, Boston</span><br /> +<span class="indent1"><i>Autumn, 1901</i></span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/deco_008.png" width="400" height="114" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<h3>THE INGERSOLL LECTURESHIP</h3> + +<p class="center"><i>Extract from the will of Miss Caroline<br />Haskell Ingersoll, who died in<br /> +Keene, County of Cheshire,<br />New Hampshire, Jan.<br />26, 1893.</i></p> + + +<p><span class="smcap">First.</span> In carrying out the wishes of my late beloved father, George +Goldthwait Ingersoll, as declared by him in his last will and testament, +I give and bequeath to Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., where my +late father was graduated, and which he always held in love and honor, +the sum of Five thousand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> dollars ($5,000) as a fund for the +establishment of a Lectureship on a plan somewhat similar to that of the +Dudleian lecture, that is—one lecture to be delivered each year, on any +convenient day between the last day of May and the first day of +December, on this subject, "the Immortality of Man," said lecture not to +form a part of the usual college course, nor to be delivered by any +Professor or Tutor as part of his usual routine of instruction, though +any such Professor or Tutor may be appointed to such service. The choice +of said lecturer is not to be limited to any one religious denomination, +nor to any one profession, but may be that of either clergyman or +layman, the appointment to take place at least six months before the +delivery of said lecture. The above sum to be safely invested and three +fourths of the annual interest thereof to be paid to the lecturer for +his services<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> and the remaining fourth to be expended in the publishment +and gratuitous distribution of the lecture, a copy of which is always to +be furnished by the lecturer for such purpose. The same lecture to be +named and known as "the Ingersoll lecture on the Immortality of Man."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> +<h2>LIFE EVERLASTING</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/deco_014.png" width="400" height="105" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<h3>LIFE EVERLASTING</h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">Few</span> incidents in ancient history are more tragic than the death of +Pompey. The spectacle of the mighty warrior who had conquered the Orient +and contended with Cæsar for the mastery of the world, a defeated and +despairing fugitive, treacherously murdered and lying unburied on the +Egyptian strand, was one that drew tears from Cæsar himself and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> from +many another. Yet among the poets of the sixteenth century Renaissance +there was one who took a different view of the matter. In an epigram of +incomparable beauty Francesco Molsa exclaims:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Dux, Pharea quamvis jaceas inhumatus arena,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Non ideo fati est sævior ira tui:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Indignum fuerat tellus tibi victa sepulcrum;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Non decuit cœlo, te, nisi, Magne, tegi!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is almost impossible to preserve in a translation the peculiar charm +of these lines, but a friend of mine in one of the pleasant student days +of forty years ago produced this happy and fitting paraphrase:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We grieve not, Pompey, that to thee<br /></span> +<span class="i2">No earthly tomb was given;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All lands subdued, nought else was free<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To shelter thee but Heaven!<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>Here the art of the poet lies in the boldness with which he seizes upon +one of the most subtle and startling effects of contrast. In the very +circumstance which to the ancient mind was the acme of humiliation and +horror his genius discerns the occasion for most exalted panegyric, the +bitterness of death is lost in the abounding triumph of the soul +enlarged and set free, the attributes of woe are transformed into +crowning glories.</p> + +<p>It is just in this spirit of the Modenese poet that mankind has sought +to take away from death its sting, from the grave its victory. That +solemn moment in which, for those who have gone before and for us who +are to follow, the eye of sense beholds naught save the ending of the +world,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> the entrance upon a black and silent eternity, the eye of faith +declares to be the supreme moment of a new birth for the disenthralled +soul, the introduction to a new era of life compared with which the +present one is not worthy of the name. <span class="greek" title="Tis d' oiden">Τίς δ’ οἶδέν</span>, exclaims +Euripides,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0 greek" title="Tis d' oiden ei to zên men esti katthanein,">Τίς δ’ οἶδέν εἰ τὸ ζῇν μέν ἐστι κατθανεῖν,<br /></span> +<span class="i0 greek" title="To katthanein de zên?">Τὸ κατθανεῖν δὲ ζῇν;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Who can tell but that this which we call life is really death, from +which what we call death is an awakening? From this vantage ground of +thought the human soul comes to look without dread upon the termination +of this terrestrial existence. The failure of the bodily powers, the +stoppage of the fluttering pulse, the cold stillness upon the features +so lately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> wreathed in smiles of merriment, the corruption of the tomb, +the breaking of the ties of love, the loss of all that has given value +to existence, the dull blankness of irremediable sorrow, the knell of +everlasting farewells,—all this is seized upon by the sovereign +imagination of man and transformed into a scene of transcending glory, +such as in all the vast career of the universe is reserved for humanity +alone. In the highest of creatures the Divine immanence has acquired +sufficient concentration and steadiness to survive the dissolution of +the flesh and assert an individuality untrammelled by the limitations +which in the present life everywhere persistently surround it. Upon this +view death is not a calamity but a boon,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> not a punishment inflicted +upon Man, but the supreme manifestation of his exceptional prerogative +as chief among God's creatures. Thus the faith in immortal life is the +great poetic achievement of the human mind, it is all-pervasive, it is +concerned with every moment and every aspect of our existence as moral +individuals, and it is the one thing that makes this world inhabitable +for beings constructed like ourselves. The destruction of this sublime +poetic conception would be like depriving a planet of its atmosphere; it +would leave nothing but a moral desert as cold and dead as the savage +surface of the moon.</p> + +<p>We have now to consider this supreme poetic achievement of man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>—his +belief in his own Immortality—in the light of our modern studies of +evolution; we must notice some distinctions between its earlier and +later stages, and briefly examine some of the objections which have been +alleged in the name of science against the validity of the belief.</p> + +<p>Here, as in all departments of the efflorescence of the human mind, the +beginnings were lowly, and necessarily so. Nothing very lofty or +far-reaching could be expected from the kind of brain that was encased +in the Neanderthal skull. Among existing savages there are tribes +concerning which travellers have doubted whether they possess ideas that +can properly be called religious. But wherever untutored humanity exists +we find the con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>ception of a world of ghosts more or less distinctly +elaborated; the thronging simulacra of departed tribesmen linger near +their accustomed haunts, keenly sensitive to favour or neglect, and +quick to punish all infractions of the rules which the stern exigencies +of life in the wilderness have prescribed for the conduct of the tribe. +This crude primeval ghost-world is thus already closely associated with +the ethical side of life, and out of this association have grown some of +the most colossal governing agencies by which the development of human +society has been influenced. It is therefore not without reason that +modern students of anthropology devote so much time to animism and +fetishism and other crude workings of that savage intelli<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>gence of which +the primeval ghost-world is a product.</p> + +<p>It is not at all unlikely that the savage's notion of ghosts may have +originated chiefly in his experience of dreams, and this is the +explanation at present most in favour. The sleeping warrior ranges far +and wide over the country, while he chases the buffalo and joins in the +medicine dance with comrades known to have died yet now as active and as +voluble as himself, but suddenly the scene changes and he is back in his +familiar hut surrounded by his people who can testify that he has not +for a moment left them. It is not unlikely, I say, that the notion of +one's conscious self as something which can quit the material body and +return to it may have started in such often-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>repeated humble +experiences. It can hardly be doubted, however, that this savage +conception of the detachable conscious self is simply the primitive +phase of the Christian conception of the conscious soul which dwells +within the perishable body and quits it at death. Through many stages of +elaboration and refinement the sequence between the two conceptions is +unmistakable.</p> + +<p>At this point the materialist interposes with an argument which he +regards as crushing. He reminds us that if we would estimate the value +of an idea, as of a race-horse or a mastiff, it is well to take a look +at its pedigree. What, then, is to be said—he scornfully asks—of a +doctrine of personal immortality which when reduced to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> its lowest terms +is seen to have started in a savage's misinterpretation of his dreams? +What more is needed to prove it unworthy of the serious attention of a +scientific student of nature? On the other hand, the student whose mood +is truly scientific will feel that one of mankind's cardinal beliefs +must not be dismissed too lightly because of the crudeness and error in +that primitive stratum of human thought in which it first took root. In +his perceptions within certain limits the savage is eminently keen and +accurate, but when it comes to intellectual judgments that go at all +below the surface of things his mind is a mere farrago of grotesque +fancies, wherein, nevertheless, some kernels of truth are here and there +embedded. It is a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> long way from the dragon swallowing the sun to the +interposition of the moon's dark body between us and that luminary. The +dragon was a figment of fancy, but the eclipse was none the less a fact.</p> + +<p>Now if we may take an illustration from the workings of an infant's +mind, it is pretty clearly made out that as baby sits propped among his +pillows and turns his eyes hither and thither in following his mother's +movements to and fro in the room, she seems in coming toward him to +enlarge and in going away to diminish in size, like Alice in Wonderland. +It is only with the education of the eye and the small muscles which +adjust it that the larger area subtended on the retina instantly means +comparative nearness and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> smaller area comparative remoteness. At +first the sensations are interpreted directly, and the impression upon +baby's nascent intelligence is a gross error. The mother is not waxing +great and small by turns, but only approaching and receding. If, +however, we consider that in baby's mind the enlarged retinal spot means +more and the diminished spot less of the pleasurable feelings excited by +a familiar and gracious presence, the approach of which is greeted with +smiles and out-stretched arms, while its departure is bemoaned with +cries and tears, we see that as to the essentials of the situation the +dawning intelligence is entirely right, although its specific +interpretation is quite wrong. Mamma has not really dwindled and +vanished like the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> penny in a conjurer's palm, but has only flitted from +the field of vision.</p> + +<p>To come back now to our primeval savage, when he sees in a dream his +deceased comrade and mistakes the vision for a reality, his error is not +concerned with the most fundamental part of the matter. The +all-important fact is that this dreaming savage has somehow acquired a +mental attitude toward death which is totally different from that of all +other animals, and is therefore peculiarly human. Throughout the +half-dozen invertebrate branches or sub-kingdoms, where intelligence is +manifested only in its lower forms of reflex action and instinct, we +find no evidence that any creature has come to know of death. There is a +sense, no doubt, in which we may say that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> the love of life is +universal. As a rule, all animals shun danger, and natural selection +maintains this rule by the pitiless slaughter of all delinquents, of all +in whom the needful inherited tendencies are too weak. But in the lower +animal grades and in the vegetal world the courting of life and the +shrinking from death go on without conscious intelligence, as the blades +of grass in a meadow or the clustering leaves upon a tree compete with +one another for the maximum of exposure to sunshine until perhaps stout +boughs and stems are warped or twisted in the struggle. Among +invertebrates, even when we get so high as lobsters and cuttlefish, the +consciousness attendant upon the seizing of prey and the escape from +enemies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> probably does not extend beyond the facts within the immediate +sphere of vision. Even among those ants that have marshalled hosts and +grand tactics there is doubtless no such thing as meditation of death. +Passing to the vertebrates, it is not until we reach the warm-blooded +birds and mammals that we find what we are seeking. Among sundry birds +and mammals we see indications of a dawning recognition of the presence +of death. An early manifestation is the sense of bereavement when the +maternal instinct is rudely disturbed, as in the cow mourning for her +calf. This feeling goes a little way, but not a great way, beyond the +sense of physical discomfort, and is soon relieved by milking. Much more +intense and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> abiding is the feeling of bereavement among birds that mate +for life, and among the higher apes, and it reaches its culmination in +the dog whose intelligence and affections have been so profoundly +modified through his immensely long comradeship with man. Nowhere in +literature do we strike upon a deeper note of pathos than in Scott's +immortal lines on the dog who starved while watching his young master's +lifeless body, alone upon a Highland moor:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the wind stirred his garment, how oft didst thou start!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Yet even this devoted creature could have carried his thoughts but +little way toward the point reached by our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> dreaming savage with his +incipient ghost-world. More power of abstraction and generalization was +needed. While the sight of the killing of a fellow-creature may arouse +violent terror in the higher mammals below man, there is nothing to +indicate that the sight of the dead body awakens in the dumb spectator +any general conceptions in which his own ultimate doom is included. The +only feeling aroused seems to vary between utter indifference and faint +curiosity. Professor Shaler makes a statement of cardinal importance in +this connection when he says: "If we should seek some one mark which, in +the intellectual advance from the brutes to man, might denote the +passage to the human side, we might well find it in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> moment when it +dawned on the nascent man that death was a mystery which he had in his +turn to meet."<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>It is therefore interesting to note that the first approaches, albeit +remote ones, toward a realizing sense of death occur among those animals +in which the beginnings of family life have been made, and the habitual +exercise of altruistic emotions helps to widen the intelligence and +facilitate the appropriation to one's self of the experiences of one's +comrades and mates. Such is the case with permanently mated birds and +with the higher apes, while the case of the dog, exceptional as it is +through his acquired dependence upon man, has similar implications. Now +I have elsewhere proved<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> and repeatedly illustrated that the leading +peculiarity which distinguished man's apelike progenitors from all other +creatures was the progressive increase in the duration of infancy, which +was a direct consequence of expanding intelligence, and was moreover the +immediate cause of the genesis of the human family and of human society. +It appears now that the realizing sense of death, such as we find it in +untutored men of primitive habits of thought, has originated in the +selfsame circumstances which have wrought the mighty change from +gregariousness to sociality, from the general level of mammalian +existence to the unique level of humanity. I have elsewhere called +attention to the profoundly interesting fact that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> notion of an +Unseen World beyond that in which we lead our daily lives is coeval with +the earliest beginnings of Humanity upon our planet. We may now observe +that it adds greatly to the interest and to the significance of this +fact, when we find that the very circumstances which tended to single +out our progenitors, and raise them from the average mammalian level +into Manhood, tended also to make them realize the problem of death and +meet it with a solution. The grouping of facts now begins to make it +appear that this primeval solution was but the natural outcome of the +whole cosmic process that had gone before; that when nascent Humanity +first eluded the burden of the problem by rising above it, this was but +part<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> and parcel of the unprecedented cosmic operation through which +man's Humanity was developed and declared. The long and cumulative play +of cause and effect which wrought the lengthening of the period of +helpless babyhood and the correlative maternal care, and which thus +differentiated the non-human horde of primates into a group of human +clans, was attended by a strong development of the sympathetic feelings +as it vastly increased the mutual dependence among individuals. During +the same period the gradual acquirement of articulate speech was +accompanied by a great increase in the powers of abstraction and +generalization. These new capacities were applied to the interpretation +of death, just as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> they were applied to all other things; and thus, in +the very process of becoming human, our progenitors arose to the +consciousness of death as something with which humanity has always and +everywhere to reckon. From the earliest and most rudimentary stages of +the process, however, the conception of death was not of an event which +puts an end to human individuality, but of an event which human +individuality survives. If we look at the circumstances of the genesis +of mankind purely from the naturalist's point of view, it cannot fail to +be highly significant that the mental attitude toward death should from +the first have assumed this form, that the human soul should from the +start have felt itself encompassed not only by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> the endless multitude of +visible and tangible and audible things, but also by an Unseen World. In +view of this striking fact it is of small moment that the earliest +generalizations which in course of time developed into a world of ghosts +and demons were grotesquely erroneous. Primitive theorizing is sure to +be faulty and in the light of later knowledge comes to seem absurd and +bizarre. Such has been in modern days the fate of the savage's +ghost-world, along with the Ptolemaic astronomy, the doctrine of +signatures, and many another sample of the "wisdom of the ancients." But +the fact that primitive man mis-stated his relation to the Unseen World +in no wise militates against the truth of his assumption that such a +world exists for us.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> + +<p>To this question as to the truth of the assumption I shall return in the +sequel. We have very briefly sketched the manner of its origination, and +here we may leave this part of our subject with the remark that the +belief in a future life, in a world unseen to mortal eyes, is not only +coeval with the beginnings of the human race but is also coextensive +with it in all its subsequent stages of development. It is in short one +of the differential attributes of humanity. Man is not only the primate +who possesses articulate speech and the power of abstract reasoning, who +is characterized by a long period of plastic infancy and a corresponding +capacity for progress, who is grouped in societies of which the +primordial units were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> clans; he is not only all this, but he is the +creature who expects to survive the event of physical death. This +expectation was one of his acquisitions gained while attaining to the +human plane of existence, and the interesting question in the natural +history of man is whether it is to be regarded as a permanent +acquisition, or is rather analogous to the organ that subserves, perhaps +through long ages, an important but temporary purpose, after the +fulfilment of which it dwindles into a rudiment neglected and forgotten.</p> + +<p>I do not overlook the existence of divers theological systems in which +the attitude toward a future life is very different from that with which +our Christian education has made us familiar. We sometimes hear such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +systems cited as exceptions to the alleged universality of the human +belief in immortality. The Buddhist looks forward through myriads of +successive sentient existences to a culminating state of Nirwana, which +if not actual extinction is at least complete quiescence, the absolute +zero of being. It hardly needs saying, however, that Buddhistic +theology, though it may have arrived at such a zero through long flights +of metaphysical reasoning, is nevertheless based in all its foundations +upon the primitive belief in man's survival of death. Sometimes it is +said that the Jews of the Old Testament times had no proper conception +of immortality. It can hardly be maintained, however, that such stories +as that of the conversation at Endor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> between the living Saul and the +dead Samuel could emanate from a people destitute of belief in a life +after death. In point of fact ancient Jewish thought abounds in traces +of the primitive ghost-world. It is only by contrast with the glorious +and inspiring Christian development of the belief in immortality that +the earlier dispensation seems so jejune and meagre in its faith. There +was little to arouse religious emotion in the dismal world of flitting +shadows, the Sheol or Hades from which the Greek hero would so gladly +have escaped, even to take the most menial position in all the sunlit +world. Greek and Hebrew thought, in what we call the classic ages, stood +alike in need of religious revival. The mythic lore of the Greek mind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> +had flowered luxuriantly in æsthetic fancies, while the spiritual life +of Judaism languished amid strict obedience to forms and precepts. The +far-reaching thoughts of Greek philosophers and the lofty ethics of +Hebrew preachers were divorced from the primitive ghost-world, even as +the mental processes of the modern scholar are separated by a great gulf +from those of the woman who comes to scrub the floor. The advent of +Christianity fused together the various elements. The doctrine of a +future life was endowed with all the moral significance that Jewish +thought could give to it, and with all the mystic glory that Hellenic +speculation could contribute, so that the effect upon men was that of a +fresh revelation of life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> and immortality through the gospel. Grotesque +and hideous features also were brought in from the ghost-worlds of the +classic ages, as well as from that of the Teutonic barbarians, and the +result is seen in mediæval Christianity. At no other time, perhaps, has +the Unseen World played such a leading part in men's minds as in the +twelfth and thirteenth centuries of our Christian era, in the age that +witnessed the culmination of sublimity in church architecture, in the +society whose thought found comprehensive expression in the "Summa" of +St. Thomas, as the thought of our times is expressed in Spencer's "First +Principles," in an intellectual atmosphere, which just as it was about +passing away was depicted for all coming time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> in the poem of Dante. It +was a time of spiritual awakening such as mankind had never before +witnessed, but it was also an age of new problems, an age wherein the +seeds of revolt were thickly germinating. The nature and constitution of +the Unseen World had been too rashly and too elaborately set forth in +theorems born of the slender knowledge of primitive times, and the +growing tendency to interrogate Nature soon led to conclusions which +broke down the old edifice of thought. In the sixteenth century came +Copernicus and administered such a shock to the mind as even Luther's +defiance of the papacy scarcely equalled. In recent days, when Bishop +Wilberforce reckoned without his host in trying to twit Hux<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>ley with his +monkey ancestry, our minds were getting inured to all sorts of audacious +innovations, so that they did not greatly disturb us. For its unsettling +effects upon time-honoured beliefs and mental habits the Darwinian +theory is no more to be compared to the Copernican than the invention of +the steamboat is to be compared to the voyages of Columbus. We are in no +danger of overrating the bewilderment that was wrought by the discovery +that our earth is not the physical centre of things, and that the sun +apparently does not exist for the sole purpose of giving light and +warmth to man's terrestrial habitat. We need not wonder that in +conservative Spain scarcely a century ago the University of Salamanca +prohibited the teaching<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> of the Newtonian astronomy. We need not wonder +that Galileo should have been commanded to hold his tongue on a topic +that seemed to cast discredit upon the whole theology that assumes man +to be the central object of the Divine care.</p> + +<p>This unsettling of men's minds was of course indefinitely increased by +the revolt of Descartes against the scholastic philosophy, by Newton's +immense contributions to physics, and by such discoveries as those of +Harvey, Black, and Lavoisier, which showed by what methods truth could +be obtained concerning Nature's operations, and how different such +methods were from those by which the accepted systems of theology had +been built up. The result has been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> wholesale skepticism directed +against everything whatever that now exists or has ever existed in the +shape of an ancient belief. This result was first reached in France +about the middle of the eighteenth century, when the thoughts of Locke +and Newton were eagerly absorbed in a community irritated beyond +endurance by social injustice, and in which the church had done much to +forfeit respect. Thus came about that violent outbreak of materialistic +atheism which, in spite of its generous aims and many admirable +achievements, is surely one of the most mournful episodes in the history +of human thought. The French philosophers set an example to three +generations; the note struck by Diderot and Buffon and D'Alembert<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> +continued to resound until the scientific horizon had become radiant in +every quarter with the promise of a brighter day, and its echoes have +not yet died. It was but lately that the voice of Lamettrie was heard +again from the lips of Strauss and Buechner, and even to-day we may +sometimes be entertained by a belated eighteenth century naturalist who +is fully persuaded that his denial of human immortality is an inevitable +corollary from the doctrine of evolution. Indeed the progress of +scientific discovery has been so rapid since the time of Diderot, its +achievements have been so vast, its results so multifarious and so +dazzling, that it has well-nigh absorbed the attention of the foremost +minds. The dogmas of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> theology seem stale and empty, the speculations of +metaphysics vain and unprofitable, in comparison with the fascinating +marvels of chemistry and astronomy, of palæontology and spectrum +analysis; and it is natural that we should rejoice over the methods of +research that are enabling us thus to wrest from Nature a few of her +long guarded secrets, and to make up our minds to have nothing to do +with conclusions that are not obtained or at least verified by such +scientific methods. Daily we hear sounded the praises of observation, of +experiment, of comparison; we are warned against long deductions, since +the strength of any chain of arguments is measured by that of its +weakest link, and experience is perpetually teach<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>ing us, to our +vexation and chagrin, that what reason says must be so is not so, that +facts will not fit hypothesis. The more things we try to explain, the +better we realize that we live in a world of unexplained residua. Away, +then, with all so-called truths that cannot be tested by weights and +measures, or other direct appeals to the senses! Your modern philosopher +will have nothing of them. His system is composed, from start to finish, +of scientific theorems. As for the higher speculations, the deeper +generalizations, in which philosophy has been wont to indulge concerning +the aim and meaning of existence, he waves them away as profitless or +even mischievous. The world is full of questions as pressing as they are +baf<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>fling. As I once heard Herbert Spencer say, "You cannot take up any +problem in physics without being quickly led to some metaphysical +problem which you can neither solve nor evade." It was in order to +secure philosophic peace of mind that Auguste Comte undertook to build +up what he called Positive Philosophy, in which the existence of all +such problems was to be complacently ignored,—much as the ostrich seeks +escape from a dilemma by burying its head in the sand. In a far more +reverent and justifiable spirit the agnostic like Huxley or Spencer +acknowledges the limitations of the human mind and builds as far as he +may, leaving the rest to God.</p> + +<p>In the fervour of this modern reli<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>ance upon scientific methods, we are +warned with especial emphasis against all humours and predilections +which we may be in danger of cherishing as human beings. In a new sense +of the words we are reminded that "the heart of man is deceitful and +desperately wicked," and if any belief is especially pleasant or +consoling to us, forthwith does Science lay upon us her austere command +to mortify the flesh and treat the belief in question with exceptional +disfavour and suspicion. Thus there has grown up a kind of Puritanism in +the scientific temper which, while announcing its unalterable purpose to +follow Truth though she lead us to Hades, takes a kind of grim +satisfaction in emphasizing the place of destination.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p> + +<p>Now there can be no sort of doubt that this rigid and vigorous +scientific temper is in the main eminently wholesome and commendable. In +the interests of intellectual honesty there is nothing which we need +more than to be put on our guard against allowing our reasoning +processes to be warped by our feelings. Nevertheless in steering clear +of Scylla it would be a pity to tumble straight into the maw of +Charybdis, and it behooves us to ask just how far the canons of +scientific method are competent to guide us in dealing with ultimate +questions. Science has given us so many surprises that our capacity for +being shocked or astounded is well-nigh exhausted, and our old +unregenerate human nature has been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> bullied and badgered into something +like humility; so that now, at the end of the greatest and most +bewildering of centuries, we may fitly pause for a moment and ask how +fares it, in these exacting days, with that Unseen World which man +brought with him when he was first making his appearance on our planet? +And what has science to say about that time-honoured belief that the +human soul survives the death of the human body?</p> + +<p>The position that science irrevocably condemns such a belief seems at +first sight a very strong one and has unquestionably had a good deal of +weight with many minds of the present generation. Throughout the animal +kingdom we never see sensation, perception, instinct, volition, +rea<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>soning, or any of the phenomena which we distinguish as mental, +manifested except in connection with nerve-matter arranged in systems of +various degrees of complexity. We can trace sundry relations of general +correspondence between the increasing manifestations of intelligence and +the increasing complications of the nervous system. Injuries to the +nervous structure entail failures of function, either in the mental +operations themselves or in the control which they exercise over the +actions of the body; there is either psychical aberration, or loss of +consciousness, or muscular paralysis. At the moment of death, as soon as +the current of arterial blood ceases to flow through the cerebral +vessels, all signs of consciousness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> cease for the looker-on; and after +the nervous system has been resolved into its elements, what reason have +we to suppose that consciousness survives, any more than that the +wetness of water should survive its separation into oxygen and hydrogen?</p> + +<p>So far as our terrestrial experience goes there can be but one answer to +such a question. We have no more warrant in experience for supposing +consciousness to exist without a nervous system than we have for +supposing the properties of water to exist in a world destitute of +hydrogen and oxygen. Our power of framing conceptions is narrowly +limited by experience, and when we try to figure to ourselves the +conditions of a future life we are either hopelessly baffled at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> the +start or else we fall back upon grossly materialistic imagery. The +savage's ghost-world is a mere repetition of the fights and hunts with +which he is familiar. The early Christians looked forward to a speedy +resurrection from Sheol, followed by an endless bodily existence upon a +renovated earth. Dante's pictures of the Unseen World are often so +intensely materialistic as to seem grotesque in our more truly spiritual +age. Popular conceptions of heaven to-day abound in symbolism that is +confessedly a mere reflection from the world of matter; insomuch that +persons of sufficient culture to realize the inadequacy of these popular +images are wont to avoid the difficulty by refraining from putting their +hopes and beliefs into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> any definite or describable form. Among such +minds there is a tacit agreement that the unseen world must be purely +spiritual in constitution, yet no mental image of such a world can be +formed. We are all agreed that life beyond the grave would be a delusion +and a cruel mockery without the continuance of the tender household +affections which alone make the present life worth living; but to +imagine the recognition of soul by soul apart from the material +structure in which we have known soul to be manifested, apart from the +look of the loved face, the tones of the loved voice, or the renewed +touch of the long vanished hand, is something quite beyond our power. +Even if you try to imagine your own psychical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> activity as continuing +without the aid of the physical machinery of sensation, you soon get +into unmanageable difficulties. The furniture of your mind consists in +great part of sensuous images, chiefly visual, and you cannot in thought +follow yourself into a world that does not announce itself to you +through sense impressions. From all this it plainly appears that our +notion of the survival of conscious activity apart from material +conditions is not only unsupported by any evidence that can be gathered +from the world of which we have experience but is utterly and hopelessly +inconceivable.</p> + +<p>The argument here summarized is in no way profound or abstruse; it is +extremely obvious, and as its proposi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>tions cannot well be controverted, +it has had great weight with many people. I dare say it may be held +responsible for the larger part of contemporary skepticism as to the +future life. People have grown accustomed to demanding scientific +support for doctrines, whereas this doctrine is not only destitute of +scientific support but lands us in inconceivabilities; is it not, then, +untenable and absurd? Such is the common argument. There are those who +seek to meet it with inductive evidence of the presence of disembodied +spirits or ghosts which hold direct communication only with certain +specially endowed persons known as mediums. Concerning such inductive +evidence it may be said that very little has as yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> been brought +forward which is likely to make much impression upon minds trained in +investigation. If its value as evidence were to be conceded, it would +seem to point to the conclusion that the grade of intelligence which +survives the grave is about on a par with that which in the present life +we are accustomed to shut up in asylums for idiots. On the whole the +mediumistic ideas and methods are frankly materialistic, their alleged +communications with the other world are through sights and sounds, and +if their pretensions could be sustained the result would be simply the +rehabilitation of the primitive ghost-world. Their theory of things +moves on so low a plane as hardly to merit notice in a serious +philosophic discussion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p> + +<p>To return to the argument that the doctrine of the survival of conscious +activity apart from material conditions is unsupported by experience and +is inconceivable, we may observe that it is inconceivable just because +it is entirely without foundation in experience. Our powers of +conception are narrowly determined by the limits of our experience, and +when that experience has never furnished us with the materials for +framing a conception we simply cannot frame it. Hence we cannot conceive +of the conscious soul as entirely dissociated from any material vehicle.</p> + +<p>Now we are prepared to ask, How much does this famous argument amount +to, as against the belief that the soul survives the body? The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> answer +is, Nothing! absolutely nothing. It not only fails to disprove the +validity of the belief, but it does not raise even the slightest <i>prima +facie</i> presumption against it. This will at once become apparent if we +remember that human experience is very far indeed from being infinite, +and that there are in all probability immense regions of existence in +every way as real as the region which we know, yet concerning which we +cannot form the faintest rudiment of a conception. Within the past +century the study of light and other radiant forces has furnished us +with a suggestive object-lesson. The luminiferous ether combines +properties which are inconceivable in connection. How curious to think +that we live and move in an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> ocean of ether in which the particles of +all material things are floating like islands! But how amazing to learn +that this ocean of ether is also an adamantine firmament! Is not this +sheer nonsense? an ocean firmament of ether-adamant! Yet such seems to +be the fact, and our philosophy must make the best of it. Now suppose +that all this world were crowded with disembodied souls, an infinite +throng most aptly called "the majority," a thousand or more on every +spot in space as broad as the point of a cambric needle, in what way +could we become aware of their existence? Clearly in no way, since we +have no organ or faculty for the perception of soul apart from the +material structure and activities in which it has been mani<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>fested +throughout the whole course of our experience. There we will suppose are +the countless millions, the existence of any one of whom, could we +detect it, would suffice to demonstrate the doctrine of a future life, +and yet, for lack of the requisite means of communication, all this +evidence is inaccessible. Such an illustration shows that "the entire +absence of testimony does not even raise a negative presumption except +in cases where testimony is accessible." The reason is obvious. Until we +can go wherever the testimony may be, we are not entitled to affirm that +there is an absence of testimony. So long as our knowledge is restricted +by the conditions of this terrestrial life, we are not in a position to +make negative asser<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>tions as to regions of existence outside of these +conditions. We may feel quite free, therefore, to give due weight to any +considerations which make it probable that consciousness survives the +wreck of the material body.</p> + +<p>We are now in a position to see the fallacy of Moleschott's often-quoted +aphorism, "No thought without phosphorus!" When this saying was a new +one, there were worthy people who felt that somehow it was all over with +man's immortal soul. With phosphorus you light your candle, and with +phosphorus you discover Neptune and write the Fifth Symphony; how +charmingly simple and convincing! And yet was anything save a bit of +rhetoric really<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> gained by singling out phosphorus among the chemical +constituents of brain tissue rather than nitrogen or carbon? Suppose the +dictum had been, "No thought without a brain." The obvious answer would +have been, "If you refer to the present life, most erudite professor, +your remark is true, but hardly novel or startling; if you refer to any +condition of things subsequent to death, pray where did you obtain your +knowledge?"</p> + +<p>Nevertheless this point cannot be disposed of simply by exhibiting the +flaw in Moleschott's rhetoric. His remark rests upon the assumption that +conscious mental phenomena are products of the organic tissues with +which they are associated. This is of course the central stronghold of +materialism.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> A century ago the case was very boldly put when we were +asked to believe that the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes +bile. Nobody to-day would think of making such a comparison, but it is +more cautiously stated that consciousness is a "function" of the brain, +or at all events of the nervous system, even as bile-making is a +function of the liver. Before we yield any modicum of assent to this +statement we may observe that "function" is a word with a wide range of +meaning, and we must insist upon some closer definition. Here +materialism calls to its aid the discovery of the correlation and +equivalence of forces, one of the most stupendous achievements of our +century. We now know that heat and light<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> and electricity and actinism +are not forces generically distinct and isolated each from the others. +All are specific modes of molecular motion, transformable one into +another at any moment as naturally as a cloud condenses into raindrops. +Any such molecular motion, moreover, may come from the arrested visible +motion of a mass, and may in turn be liberated so as to resume the form +of visible motion, as when an electric current is transformed into the +onward movement of the trolley car. The change in our conception of +Nature that has been wrought by this wonderful discovery is more +profound than all changes that went before. The balance in the hands of +the chemist had already proved that no matter is ever lost but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> only +transformed, and that every material form at any moment visible owes its +existence to the metamorphosis of some previous form. So now it was +further shown that the myriad properties or qualities of matter are +simply the expression of myriads of activities which are all in a final +analysis motions; that no motion is ever lost but only transformed, and +that every kind of motion at any moment perceptible—whether in the form +of movement through space, or of light, or heat, or electricity, or the +actinism that builds up the green stuff in the leaves of plants—owes +its existence to the metamorphosis of some previous kind of motion. +Every living organism is a marvellous aggregate of divers forms of +matter performing divers character<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>istic motions, and the sum total of +these motions is the whole of life, as regarded purely on its physical +side. When we take food we bring into the system sundry nitrogenous and +hydrocarbon compounds, each of which is alive with little energies or +latent capacities for certain kinds of motion. The oxygen of the air, +especially in its unstable form of ozone, is a powerful inciter of +chemical motions, and when we breathe it in, the little latent +capacities presently become actual motions. Some of them are realized in +the rhythmical movements of heart and lungs, some in the undulations +that sustain the animal temperature, some in the formation of the tiny +drops that collect in a secreting gland, some in the repair of tissue by +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> substitution of new complex molecules for old ones that are broken +down, some in the contraction of a group of muscles, some in the changes +within the substance of nerve that accompany conscious thought, +sensation, and volition. Ah, yes, here we come to it at last! We do not +doubt that all these myriad motions are members in a series of +transformations, wherein the appearance of each results from the +disappearance of its predecessors. We have neither the instruments nor +the calculus to prove this in the infinite multitude of details, but the +general theory has been so completely established wherever it is +accessible to instruments and calculus that we can have no hesitation in +granting its universality wherever matter and motion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> are concerned in +any shape or amount. No scientific man will for a moment doubt that the +little vibratory discharge between cerebral ganglia which accompanies a +thought is one member in a series of molecular motions that might be +measured and expressed in terms of quantity if we only possessed an +apparatus sufficiently delicate and subtle.</p> + +<p>Now if such is the case with the little physical motion within the +brain, how is it with the accompanying thought? Does the correlation +obtain between physical motions and conscious feelings? Are states of +consciousness links in the Protean series of motions, in such wise that +the vibration within the brain produces the thought or feeling? In other +words<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> is the thought or feeling merely a transformed vibration? Does a +certain amount of vibration perish to be replaced by an exact equivalent +in the shape of thought? and then does the thought perish in the act of +giving place to other vibrations which end in a visible motion of +muscles? as when, for example, you hear the sound of a bell and start +toward the door.</p> + +<p>On this point there has been much confusion of ideas. When I put the +question to Tyndall in conversation, nearly thirty years ago, he seemed +to think that there must be some such completeness of correlation +between the physical and the psychical; but his mind was not at ease on +the subject. Herbert Spencer, in his "First Principles," rather +cautiously took the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> same direction and tried to show how a certain +amount of motion might be transformable into a certain amount of +feeling. He observed that the consciousness of effort or muscular strain +in lifting a heavy weight is more intense than in lifting a light +weight, and that when a loud sound sets up atmospheric vibrations of +great amplitude the shock to our auditory consciousness is +correspondingly greater than in the case of a gentle sound which sets up +vibrations of small amplitude. But when he comes to the inner regions of +thought and emotion which are not reached by percussion and strain, he +is less successful in finding illustrations. It is especially worthy of +note that in the final edition of "First Principles," published<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> in this +year 1900 and in Spencer's eighty-first, he goes very far toward +withdrawing from his original position, while in his Preface he calls +attention to this change as one of the most important in the book. In my +"Cosmic Philosophy," published in 1874, I maintained that to prove the +transformation of motion into feeling or of feeling into motion is in +the very nature of things impossible. In order to be convinced of this, +let us go back a few years and ask how the great doctrine of the +correlation of forces became established. Its first absolute +verification occurred about 1846, when Dr. Joule showed "that the fall +of 772 lbs. through one foot will raise the temperature of a pound of +water one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> degree of Fahrenheit."<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> When this was proved it gave us the +mechanical equivalent of heat, and the theory acquired a truly +scientific character. Similar quantitative correlations were established +in the case of heat and chemical action by Dulong and Petit, and in the +case of chemical action and electricity by Faraday. The truth of the +theory is wholly a question of quantitative measurement. Now you can +measure heat, you can measure electricity, and since the action of +nerves in all probability consists of undulatory motions it is to some +extent measurable, and doubtless would be completely measurable had we +the means. But when you come to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>thoughts and emotions, I beg to know +how you are going to work to give an account of them in foot-pounds! It +is not simply that we have no means at hand, no calculus equal to the +occasion; the thing is absurd on its face. It is as true to-day as it +was in the time of Descartes that thought is devoid of extension and +cannot be submitted to mechanical measurement.</p> + +<p>It appears to me, therefore, that what we should really find, if we +could trace in detail the metamorphosis of motions within the body, from +the sense-organs to the brain, and thence outward to the muscular +system, would be somewhat as follows: the inward motion, carrying the +message into the brain, would perish in giving place to the vibration +which accom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>panies the conscious state; and this vibration in turn would +perish in giving place to the outward motion, carrying the mandate out +to the muscles. If we had the means of measurement we could prove the +equivalence from step to step. But where would the conscious state, the +thought or feeling, come into this circuit? Why, nowhere. The physical +circuit of motions is complete in itself; the state of consciousness is +accessible only to its possessor. To him it is the subjective equivalent +of the vibration within the brain, whereof it is neither the cause nor +the effect, neither the producer nor the offspring, but simply the +concomitant. In other words the natural history of the mass of +activities that are perpetually being concentrated within<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> our bodies, +to be presently once more disintegrated and diffused, shows us a closed +circle which is entirely physical, and in which one segment belongs to +the nervous system. As for our conscious life, that forms no part of the +closed circle but stands entirely outside of it, concentric with the +segment which belongs to the nervous system.</p> + +<p>These conclusions are not at all in harmony with the materialistic view +of the case. If consciousness is a product of molecular motion, it is a +natural inference that it must lapse when the motion ceases. But if +consciousness is a kind of existence which within our experience +accompanies a certain phase of molecular motion, then the case is +entirely altered, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> the possibility or probability of the continuance +of the one without the other becomes a subject for further inquiry. +Materialists sometimes declare that the relation of conscious +intelligence to the brain is like that of music to the harp, and when +the harp is broken there can be no more music. An opposite view, long +familiar to us, is that the conscious soul is an emanation from the +Divine Intelligence that shapes and sustains the world, and during its +temporary imprisonment in material forms the brain is its instrument of +expression. Thus the soul is not the music, but the harper; and +obviously this view is in harmony with the conclusions which I have +deduced from the correlation of forces.</p> + +<p>Upon these conclusions we cannot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> directly base an argument sustaining +man's immortality, but we certainly remove the only serious objection +that has ever been alleged against it. We leave the field clear for +those general considerations of philosophic analogy and moral +probability which are all the guides upon which we can call for help in +this arduous inquiry. But it may be suggested at this point that perhaps +our argument has acquired a wider scope than was at first contemplated. +Consciousness is not peculiar to man, but is possessed in some degree by +the greater portion of the animal kingdom. Among the higher birds and +mammals the amount of conscious life is very considerable, and here too +it must be argued that consciousness is not a product of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> molecular +motion in the nervous system but its concomitant. The same argument +which removes the objection to immortality for man removes it also for +an indefinite number of animal species. What, then, is to be said of the +reasonableness of supposing a future life for sundry lower animals? and +if we were to reach a negative conclusion in their case, while reaching +a positive conclusion in the case of man, on what principle are we to +draw the line? Sometimes we hear this question propounded as a +difficulty in the Darwinian theory of man's origin. How could immortal +man have been produced through heredity from an ephemeral brute?</p> + +<p>The difficulty is one of the sort which we are apt to encounter when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> we +try to designate absolute beginnings and to mark off hard and fast +lines, for in Nature there are no such things. Voltaire asked the same +kind of question more than a hundred years before Darwinism had been +heard of. When does the immortal soul of the human individual come into +existence? Is it at the moment of conception, or when the new-born babe +begins to breathe, or at some moment between, or even perhaps at some +era of early childhood when moral responsibility can be said to have +begun? Some of the answers to these questions would transform an +ephemeral creature into an immortal one in the same person. The most +proper answer is a frank confession of ignorance. Whether it be in the +individual or in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> the race, we cannot tell just where the soul comes in. +A due heed to Nature's analogies, however, is helpful in this +connection. The maxim that Nature makes no leaps is far from true. +Nature's habit is to make prodigious leaps, but only after long +preparation. Slowly rises the water in the tank, inch by inch through +many a weary hour, until at length it over-flows and straightway vast +systems of machinery are awakened into rumbling life. Slowly grows the +eccentricity of the ellipse as you shift its position in the cone, and +still the nature of the curve is not essentially varied, when suddenly, +presto! one more little shift, and the finite ellipse becomes an +infinite hyperbola mocking our feeble powers of conception as it speeds<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> +away on its everlasting career. Perhaps in our ignorance such analogies +may help us to realize the possibility that steadily developing +ephemeral conscious life may reach a critical point where it suddenly +puts on immortality.</p> + +<p>If this suggestion is a sound one, we must probably regard the conscious +life of animals as only the ephemeral adumbration of that which comes to +maturity in man. The considerations adduced this evening must convince +us that we are at perfect liberty to treat the question of man's +immortality in the disinterested spirit of the naturalist. In the course +of evolution there is no more philosophical difficulty in man's +acquiring immortal life than in his acquiring the erect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> posture and +articulate speech. In my little book "The Destiny of Man" I insisted +upon the dramatic tendency or divine purpose indicated in the long +cosmic process which has manifestly from the outset aimed at the +production and perfection of the higher spiritual attributes of +humanity. In another little book, "Through Nature to God," I called +attention to the fact that belief in an Unseen World, especially +associated with the moral significance of life, was coeval with the +genesis of Man, and had played a predominating part in his development +ever since, and I argued that under such circumstances the belief must +be based upon an eternal reality, since a contrary supposition is +negatived by all that we know<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> of the habits and methods of the cosmic +process of Evolution. No time is left here to repeat these arguments, +but I hope enough has been said to indicate the probability that the +patient study of evolution is likely soon to supply the basis for a +Natural Theology more comprehensive, more profound, and more hopeful +than could formerly have been imagined. The Nineteenth Century has borne +the brunt, the Twentieth will reap the fruition.</p> + + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3><a name="FOOTNOTES" id="FOOTNOTES"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Shaler, <i>The Individual</i>, p. 194.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Herbert Spencer, <i>First Principles</i> (final ed.), p. 185.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>WRITINGS OF JOHN FISKE</h2> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 40px;"> +<img src="images/deco_090.png" width="40" height="43" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<h3><span class="old">Historical</span></h3> + +<h4>THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>With some Account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest. With +a Steel Portrait of Mr. Fiske, many maps, facsimiles, etc. 2 vols. +crown 8vo, gilt top, $3.60.</i></p></div> + +<p>The book brings together a great deal of information hitherto accessible +only in special treatises, and elucidates with care and judgment some of +the most perplexing problems in the history of discovery.—<i>The Speaker</i> +(London).</p> + + +<h4>OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center"><i>2 vols. crown 8vo, gilt top, $3.60.<br />Illustrated Edition, 2 vols. +8vo, $8.00.</i></p></div> + +<p>History has rarely been invested with such interest and charm as in +these volumes.—<i>The Outlook</i> (New York).</p> + + +<h4>THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW ENGLAND</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Or, the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious +Liberty. Crown 8vo, $1.80. Illustrated Edition. Containing +Portraits, Maps, Facsimiles, Contemporary Views, Prints, and other +Historic Materials. 8vo, gilt top, $4.00.</i></p></div> + +<p>Having in the first chapters strikingly and convincingly shown that New +England's history was the birth of centuries of travail, and having +prepared his readers to estimate at their true importance the events of +our early colonial life, Mr. Fiske is ready to take up his task as the +historian of the New England of the Puritans.—<i>Advertiser</i> (Boston).</p> + + +<h4>THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES IN AMERICA</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center"><i>With 8 Maps. 2 vols. crown 8vo, gilt top, $3.60.<br />Illustrated +Edition, 2 vols. 8vo, $8.00.</i></p></div> + +<p>The work is a lucid summary of the events of a changeful and important +time, carefully examined by a conscientious scholar, who is master of +his subject.—<i>Daily News</i> (London).</p> + + +<p class="center"><i>All prices are net.</i></p> + + +<h4>NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center"><i>With Maps. 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Containing about 170 Illustrations. 8vo, gilt top, $4.00.</i></p></div> +<hr class="small" /> +<p><i>The foregoing historical works also in the Riverside Pocket Edition, in +12 vols. Each with a frontispiece. Narrow 16mo, limp leather, $2.00 +each. The set, $24.00.</i></p> +<hr class="small" /> + +<h4>THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center"><i>In Riverside Library for Young People. With Maps. 16mo, 75 cents.</i></p></div> + + +<h4>THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY IN THE CIVIL WAR</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center"><i>With 23 Maps and Plans. 1 vol. crown 8vo, $1.80.</i></p></div> + + +<h4>A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES FOR SCHOOLS</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>With Topical Analysis, Suggestive Questions, and Directions for +Teachers, by F. A. Hill, and Illustrations and Maps. 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He is a scholar, a +critic, and a thinker of the first order.—<i>Christian Register</i> +(Boston).</p> + + +<h4>THROUGH NATURE TO GOD</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center"><i>16mo, gilt top, $1.00.</i></p></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Contents.</span>—<i>The Mystery of Evil; The Cosmic Roots of Love and +Self-Sacrifice; The Everlasting Reality of Religion.</i></p></div> + +<p>The little volume has a reasonableness and a persuasiveness that cannot +fail to commend its arguments to all.—<i>Public Ledger</i> (Philadelphia).</p> + + +<h4>LIFE EVERLASTING</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center"><i>16mo, gilt top, $1.00 net.</i></p></div> + +<p>This brief work is a contribution to the evolution of the theory of +evolution on lines which are full of the deepest suggestiveness to +Christian thinkers.—<i>The Congregationalist.</i></p> + + +<h4>OUTLINES OF COSMIC PHILOSOPHY</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center"><i>Based on the Doctrine of Evolution, with Criticisms on the Positive +Philosophy. In 4 volumes, 8vo, $7.20.</i></p></div> + +<p>You must allow me to thank you for the very great interest with which I +have at last slowly read the whole of your work.... I never in my life +read so lucid an expositor (and therefore thinker) as you are.—<span class="smcap">Charles +Darwin.</span></p> + + +<h4>DARWINISM, AND OTHER ESSAYS</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center"><i>Crown 8vo, gilt top, $1.80.</i></p></div> + + +<h4>MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center"><i>Old Tales and Superstitions interpreted by Comparative Mythology. +Crown 8vo, gilt top, $1.80.</i></p></div> + + +<h4>THE UNSEEN WORLD</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center"><i>And Other Essays. 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Hill, and Bibliographical Notes by Mr. Fiske. +Crown 8vo, $1.00, net.</i></p></div> + +<p>It is most admirable, alike in plan and execution, and will do a vast +amount of good in teaching our people the principles and forms of our +civil institutions.—<span class="smcap">Moses Coit Tyler</span>, <i>Professor of American +Constitutional History and Law, Cornell University</i>.</p> + +<p class="space"> </p> +<h4>HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY</h4> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Boston: 4 Park St.; New York: 16 East 40th St.</span></p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Life Everlasting, by John Fiske + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE EVERLASTING *** + +***** This file should be named 34569-h.htm or 34569-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/5/6/34569/ + +Produced by Larry B. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Life Everlasting + +Author: John Fiske + +Release Date: December 5, 2010 [EBook #34569] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE EVERLASTING *** + + + + +Produced by Larry B. Harrison, Louise Pattison and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +By John Fiske + +ESSAYS AND PHILOSOPHY + + +A CENTURY OF SCIENCE, and other Essays. + +MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS: Old Tales and Superstitions interpreted by +Comparative Mythology. + +OUTLINES OF COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. New Edition. With introduction by Josiah +Royce, and index. 4 vols. + +THE UNSEEN WORLD, and other Essays. + +EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST. + +DARWINISM, and other Essays. + +THE DESTINY OF MAN, viewed in the Light of His Origin. + +THE IDEA OF GOD, as affected by Modern Knowledge. + +THROUGH NATURE TO GOD. + +LIFE EVERLASTING. + +_For complete list of Mr. Fiske's Historical and Philosophical Works, +and Essays, see pages at the back of this work._ + + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON AND NEW YORK + + + + +LIFE EVERLASTING + + + + + [Illustration] + + + LIFE EVERLASTING + + BY + + JOHN FISKE + + + [Illustration] + + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + + The Riverside Press Cambridge + + + COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY ABBY M. FISKE, + EXECUTRIX + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + _Published September, 1901_ + + + + +[Illustration] + + +NOTE + + +On the evening of December 19, 1900, Mr. Fiske delivered in Sanders +Theatre, Cambridge, the address here printed. It was given at the +request of Harvard University, in accordance with the terms of the +Ingersoll lectureship, but it stood clearly in Mr. Fiske's mind as a +continuation, and in a sense the completion, of that series of +philosophic studies successively issued under the titles, "The Destiny +of Man viewed in the Light of his Origin," "The Idea of God as affected +by Modern Knowledge," and "Through Nature to God." Mr. Fiske delayed the +publication of "Life Everlasting," and it is possible that he designed +amplifying it. Yet, as he stated in his Preface to "The Idea of God," +that both that book and "The Destiny of Man" were printed exactly as +delivered, "without the addition, or subtraction, or alteration of a +single word," so he may have intended to print this study in the same +way. At any rate it is now printed exactly as it was delivered, his +perfectly clear manuscript being carefully followed. + + 4 PARK STREET, BOSTON + _Autumn, 1901_ + + + + +[Illustration] + + +THE INGERSOLL LECTURESHIP + +_Extract from the will of Miss Caroline Haskell Ingersoll, who died in +Keene, County of Cheshire, New Hampshire, Jan. 26, 1893._ + + +First. In carrying out the wishes of my late beloved father, George +Goldthwait Ingersoll, as declared by him in his last will and testament, +I give and bequeath to Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., where my +late father was graduated, and which he always held in love and honor, +the sum of Five thousand dollars ($5,000) as a fund for the +establishment of a Lectureship on a plan somewhat similar to that of the +Dudleian lecture, that is--one lecture to be delivered each year, on any +convenient day between the last day of May and the first day of +December, on this subject, "the Immortality of Man," said lecture not to +form a part of the usual college course, nor to be delivered by any +Professor or Tutor as part of his usual routine of instruction, though +any such Professor or Tutor may be appointed to such service. The choice +of said lecturer is not to be limited to any one religious denomination, +nor to any one profession, but may be that of either clergyman or +layman, the appointment to take place at least six months before the +delivery of said lecture. The above sum to be safely invested and three +fourths of the annual interest thereof to be paid to the lecturer for +his services and the remaining fourth to be expended in the publishment +and gratuitous distribution of the lecture, a copy of which is always to +be furnished by the lecturer for such purpose. The same lecture to be +named and known as "the Ingersoll lecture on the Immortality of Man." + + + + +LIFE EVERLASTING + + + + +[Illustration] + + +LIFE EVERLASTING + + +Few incidents in ancient history are more tragic than the death of +Pompey. The spectacle of the mighty warrior who had conquered the Orient +and contended with Caesar for the mastery of the world, a defeated and +despairing fugitive, treacherously murdered and lying unburied on the +Egyptian strand, was one that drew tears from Caesar himself and from +many another. Yet among the poets of the sixteenth century Renaissance +there was one who took a different view of the matter. In an epigram of +incomparable beauty Francesco Molsa exclaims:-- + + Dux, Pharea quamvis jaceas inhumatus arena, + Non ideo fati est saevior ira tui: + Indignum fuerat tellus tibi victa sepulcrum; + Non decuit coelo, te, nisi, Magne, tegi! + +It is almost impossible to preserve in a translation the peculiar charm +of these lines, but a friend of mine in one of the pleasant student days +of forty years ago produced this happy and fitting paraphrase:-- + + We grieve not, Pompey, that to thee + No earthly tomb was given; + All lands subdued, nought else was free + To shelter thee but Heaven! + +Here the art of the poet lies in the boldness with which he seizes upon +one of the most subtle and startling effects of contrast. In the very +circumstance which to the ancient mind was the acme of humiliation and +horror his genius discerns the occasion for most exalted panegyric, the +bitterness of death is lost in the abounding triumph of the soul +enlarged and set free, the attributes of woe are transformed into +crowning glories. + +It is just in this spirit of the Modenese poet that mankind has sought +to take away from death its sting, from the grave its victory. That +solemn moment in which, for those who have gone before and for us who +are to follow, the eye of sense beholds naught save the ending of the +world, the entrance upon a black and silent eternity, the eye of faith +declares to be the supreme moment of a new birth for the disenthralled +soul, the introduction to a new era of life compared with which the +present one is not worthy of the name. [Greek: Tis d' oiden], exclaims +Euripides, + + [Greek: Tis d' oiden ei to zen men esti katthanein, + To katthanein de zen?] + +Who can tell but that this which we call life is really death, from +which what we call death is an awakening? From this vantage ground of +thought the human soul comes to look without dread upon the termination +of this terrestrial existence. The failure of the bodily powers, the +stoppage of the fluttering pulse, the cold stillness upon the features +so lately wreathed in smiles of merriment, the corruption of the tomb, +the breaking of the ties of love, the loss of all that has given value +to existence, the dull blankness of irremediable sorrow, the knell of +everlasting farewells,--all this is seized upon by the sovereign +imagination of man and transformed into a scene of transcending glory, +such as in all the vast career of the universe is reserved for humanity +alone. In the highest of creatures the Divine immanence has acquired +sufficient concentration and steadiness to survive the dissolution of +the flesh and assert an individuality untrammelled by the limitations +which in the present life everywhere persistently surround it. Upon this +view death is not a calamity but a boon, not a punishment inflicted +upon Man, but the supreme manifestation of his exceptional prerogative +as chief among God's creatures. Thus the faith in immortal life is the +great poetic achievement of the human mind, it is all-pervasive, it is +concerned with every moment and every aspect of our existence as moral +individuals, and it is the one thing that makes this world inhabitable +for beings constructed like ourselves. The destruction of this sublime +poetic conception would be like depriving a planet of its atmosphere; it +would leave nothing but a moral desert as cold and dead as the savage +surface of the moon. + +We have now to consider this supreme poetic achievement of man--his +belief in his own Immortality--in the light of our modern studies of +evolution; we must notice some distinctions between its earlier and +later stages, and briefly examine some of the objections which have been +alleged in the name of science against the validity of the belief. + +Here, as in all departments of the efflorescence of the human mind, the +beginnings were lowly, and necessarily so. Nothing very lofty or +far-reaching could be expected from the kind of brain that was encased +in the Neanderthal skull. Among existing savages there are tribes +concerning which travellers have doubted whether they possess ideas that +can properly be called religious. But wherever untutored humanity exists +we find the conception of a world of ghosts more or less distinctly +elaborated; the thronging simulacra of departed tribesmen linger near +their accustomed haunts, keenly sensitive to favour or neglect, and +quick to punish all infractions of the rules which the stern exigencies +of life in the wilderness have prescribed for the conduct of the tribe. +This crude primeval ghost-world is thus already closely associated with +the ethical side of life, and out of this association have grown some of +the most colossal governing agencies by which the development of human +society has been influenced. It is therefore not without reason that +modern students of anthropology devote so much time to animism and +fetishism and other crude workings of that savage intelligence of which +the primeval ghost-world is a product. + +It is not at all unlikely that the savage's notion of ghosts may have +originated chiefly in his experience of dreams, and this is the +explanation at present most in favour. The sleeping warrior ranges far +and wide over the country, while he chases the buffalo and joins in the +medicine dance with comrades known to have died yet now as active and as +voluble as himself, but suddenly the scene changes and he is back in his +familiar hut surrounded by his people who can testify that he has not +for a moment left them. It is not unlikely, I say, that the notion of +one's conscious self as something which can quit the material body and +return to it may have started in such often-repeated humble +experiences. It can hardly be doubted, however, that this savage +conception of the detachable conscious self is simply the primitive +phase of the Christian conception of the conscious soul which dwells +within the perishable body and quits it at death. Through many stages of +elaboration and refinement the sequence between the two conceptions is +unmistakable. + +At this point the materialist interposes with an argument which he +regards as crushing. He reminds us that if we would estimate the value +of an idea, as of a race-horse or a mastiff, it is well to take a look +at its pedigree. What, then, is to be said--he scornfully asks--of a +doctrine of personal immortality which when reduced to its lowest terms +is seen to have started in a savage's misinterpretation of his dreams? +What more is needed to prove it unworthy of the serious attention of a +scientific student of nature? On the other hand, the student whose mood +is truly scientific will feel that one of mankind's cardinal beliefs +must not be dismissed too lightly because of the crudeness and error in +that primitive stratum of human thought in which it first took root. In +his perceptions within certain limits the savage is eminently keen and +accurate, but when it comes to intellectual judgments that go at all +below the surface of things his mind is a mere farrago of grotesque +fancies, wherein, nevertheless, some kernels of truth are here and there +embedded. It is a long way from the dragon swallowing the sun to the +interposition of the moon's dark body between us and that luminary. The +dragon was a figment of fancy, but the eclipse was none the less a fact. + +Now if we may take an illustration from the workings of an infant's +mind, it is pretty clearly made out that as baby sits propped among his +pillows and turns his eyes hither and thither in following his mother's +movements to and fro in the room, she seems in coming toward him to +enlarge and in going away to diminish in size, like Alice in Wonderland. +It is only with the education of the eye and the small muscles which +adjust it that the larger area subtended on the retina instantly means +comparative nearness and the smaller area comparative remoteness. At +first the sensations are interpreted directly, and the impression upon +baby's nascent intelligence is a gross error. The mother is not waxing +great and small by turns, but only approaching and receding. If, +however, we consider that in baby's mind the enlarged retinal spot means +more and the diminished spot less of the pleasurable feelings excited by +a familiar and gracious presence, the approach of which is greeted with +smiles and out-stretched arms, while its departure is bemoaned with +cries and tears, we see that as to the essentials of the situation the +dawning intelligence is entirely right, although its specific +interpretation is quite wrong. Mamma has not really dwindled and +vanished like the penny in a conjurer's palm, but has only flitted from +the field of vision. + +To come back now to our primeval savage, when he sees in a dream his +deceased comrade and mistakes the vision for a reality, his error is not +concerned with the most fundamental part of the matter. The +all-important fact is that this dreaming savage has somehow acquired a +mental attitude toward death which is totally different from that of all +other animals, and is therefore peculiarly human. Throughout the +half-dozen invertebrate branches or sub-kingdoms, where intelligence is +manifested only in its lower forms of reflex action and instinct, we +find no evidence that any creature has come to know of death. There is a +sense, no doubt, in which we may say that the love of life is +universal. As a rule, all animals shun danger, and natural selection +maintains this rule by the pitiless slaughter of all delinquents, of all +in whom the needful inherited tendencies are too weak. But in the lower +animal grades and in the vegetal world the courting of life and the +shrinking from death go on without conscious intelligence, as the blades +of grass in a meadow or the clustering leaves upon a tree compete with +one another for the maximum of exposure to sunshine until perhaps stout +boughs and stems are warped or twisted in the struggle. Among +invertebrates, even when we get so high as lobsters and cuttlefish, the +consciousness attendant upon the seizing of prey and the escape from +enemies probably does not extend beyond the facts within the immediate +sphere of vision. Even among those ants that have marshalled hosts and +grand tactics there is doubtless no such thing as meditation of death. +Passing to the vertebrates, it is not until we reach the warm-blooded +birds and mammals that we find what we are seeking. Among sundry birds +and mammals we see indications of a dawning recognition of the presence +of death. An early manifestation is the sense of bereavement when the +maternal instinct is rudely disturbed, as in the cow mourning for her +calf. This feeling goes a little way, but not a great way, beyond the +sense of physical discomfort, and is soon relieved by milking. Much more +intense and abiding is the feeling of bereavement among birds that mate +for life, and among the higher apes, and it reaches its culmination in +the dog whose intelligence and affections have been so profoundly +modified through his immensely long comradeship with man. Nowhere in +literature do we strike upon a deeper note of pathos than in Scott's +immortal lines on the dog who starved while watching his young master's +lifeless body, alone upon a Highland moor:-- + + "How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber? + When the wind stirred his garment, how oft didst thou start!" + +Yet even this devoted creature could have carried his thoughts but +little way toward the point reached by our dreaming savage with his +incipient ghost-world. More power of abstraction and generalization was +needed. While the sight of the killing of a fellow-creature may arouse +violent terror in the higher mammals below man, there is nothing to +indicate that the sight of the dead body awakens in the dumb spectator +any general conceptions in which his own ultimate doom is included. The +only feeling aroused seems to vary between utter indifference and faint +curiosity. Professor Shaler makes a statement of cardinal importance in +this connection when he says: "If we should seek some one mark which, in +the intellectual advance from the brutes to man, might denote the +passage to the human side, we might well find it in the moment when it +dawned on the nascent man that death was a mystery which he had in his +turn to meet."[1] + +[1] Shaler, _The Individual_, p. 194. + +It is therefore interesting to note that the first approaches, albeit +remote ones, toward a realizing sense of death occur among those animals +in which the beginnings of family life have been made, and the habitual +exercise of altruistic emotions helps to widen the intelligence and +facilitate the appropriation to one's self of the experiences of one's +comrades and mates. Such is the case with permanently mated birds and +with the higher apes, while the case of the dog, exceptional as it is +through his acquired dependence upon man, has similar implications. Now +I have elsewhere proved and repeatedly illustrated that the leading +peculiarity which distinguished man's apelike progenitors from all other +creatures was the progressive increase in the duration of infancy, which +was a direct consequence of expanding intelligence, and was moreover the +immediate cause of the genesis of the human family and of human society. +It appears now that the realizing sense of death, such as we find it in +untutored men of primitive habits of thought, has originated in the +selfsame circumstances which have wrought the mighty change from +gregariousness to sociality, from the general level of mammalian +existence to the unique level of humanity. I have elsewhere called +attention to the profoundly interesting fact that the notion of an +Unseen World beyond that in which we lead our daily lives is coeval with +the earliest beginnings of Humanity upon our planet. We may now observe +that it adds greatly to the interest and to the significance of this +fact, when we find that the very circumstances which tended to single +out our progenitors, and raise them from the average mammalian level +into Manhood, tended also to make them realize the problem of death and +meet it with a solution. The grouping of facts now begins to make it +appear that this primeval solution was but the natural outcome of the +whole cosmic process that had gone before; that when nascent Humanity +first eluded the burden of the problem by rising above it, this was but +part and parcel of the unprecedented cosmic operation through which +man's Humanity was developed and declared. The long and cumulative play +of cause and effect which wrought the lengthening of the period of +helpless babyhood and the correlative maternal care, and which thus +differentiated the non-human horde of primates into a group of human +clans, was attended by a strong development of the sympathetic feelings +as it vastly increased the mutual dependence among individuals. During +the same period the gradual acquirement of articulate speech was +accompanied by a great increase in the powers of abstraction and +generalization. These new capacities were applied to the interpretation +of death, just as they were applied to all other things; and thus, in +the very process of becoming human, our progenitors arose to the +consciousness of death as something with which humanity has always and +everywhere to reckon. From the earliest and most rudimentary stages of +the process, however, the conception of death was not of an event which +puts an end to human individuality, but of an event which human +individuality survives. If we look at the circumstances of the genesis +of mankind purely from the naturalist's point of view, it cannot fail to +be highly significant that the mental attitude toward death should from +the first have assumed this form, that the human soul should from the +start have felt itself encompassed not only by the endless multitude of +visible and tangible and audible things, but also by an Unseen World. In +view of this striking fact it is of small moment that the earliest +generalizations which in course of time developed into a world of ghosts +and demons were grotesquely erroneous. Primitive theorizing is sure to +be faulty and in the light of later knowledge comes to seem absurd and +bizarre. Such has been in modern days the fate of the savage's +ghost-world, along with the Ptolemaic astronomy, the doctrine of +signatures, and many another sample of the "wisdom of the ancients." But +the fact that primitive man mis-stated his relation to the Unseen World +in no wise militates against the truth of his assumption that such a +world exists for us. + +To this question as to the truth of the assumption I shall return in the +sequel. We have very briefly sketched the manner of its origination, and +here we may leave this part of our subject with the remark that the +belief in a future life, in a world unseen to mortal eyes, is not only +coeval with the beginnings of the human race but is also coextensive +with it in all its subsequent stages of development. It is in short one +of the differential attributes of humanity. Man is not only the primate +who possesses articulate speech and the power of abstract reasoning, who +is characterized by a long period of plastic infancy and a corresponding +capacity for progress, who is grouped in societies of which the +primordial units were clans; he is not only all this, but he is the +creature who expects to survive the event of physical death. This +expectation was one of his acquisitions gained while attaining to the +human plane of existence, and the interesting question in the natural +history of man is whether it is to be regarded as a permanent +acquisition, or is rather analogous to the organ that subserves, perhaps +through long ages, an important but temporary purpose, after the +fulfilment of which it dwindles into a rudiment neglected and forgotten. + +I do not overlook the existence of divers theological systems in which +the attitude toward a future life is very different from that with which +our Christian education has made us familiar. We sometimes hear such +systems cited as exceptions to the alleged universality of the human +belief in immortality. The Buddhist looks forward through myriads of +successive sentient existences to a culminating state of Nirwana, which +if not actual extinction is at least complete quiescence, the absolute +zero of being. It hardly needs saying, however, that Buddhistic +theology, though it may have arrived at such a zero through long flights +of metaphysical reasoning, is nevertheless based in all its foundations +upon the primitive belief in man's survival of death. Sometimes it is +said that the Jews of the Old Testament times had no proper conception +of immortality. It can hardly be maintained, however, that such stories +as that of the conversation at Endor between the living Saul and the +dead Samuel could emanate from a people destitute of belief in a life +after death. In point of fact ancient Jewish thought abounds in traces +of the primitive ghost-world. It is only by contrast with the glorious +and inspiring Christian development of the belief in immortality that +the earlier dispensation seems so jejune and meagre in its faith. There +was little to arouse religious emotion in the dismal world of flitting +shadows, the Sheol or Hades from which the Greek hero would so gladly +have escaped, even to take the most menial position in all the sunlit +world. Greek and Hebrew thought, in what we call the classic ages, stood +alike in need of religious revival. The mythic lore of the Greek mind +had flowered luxuriantly in aesthetic fancies, while the spiritual life +of Judaism languished amid strict obedience to forms and precepts. The +far-reaching thoughts of Greek philosophers and the lofty ethics of +Hebrew preachers were divorced from the primitive ghost-world, even as +the mental processes of the modern scholar are separated by a great gulf +from those of the woman who comes to scrub the floor. The advent of +Christianity fused together the various elements. The doctrine of a +future life was endowed with all the moral significance that Jewish +thought could give to it, and with all the mystic glory that Hellenic +speculation could contribute, so that the effect upon men was that of a +fresh revelation of life and immortality through the gospel. Grotesque +and hideous features also were brought in from the ghost-worlds of the +classic ages, as well as from that of the Teutonic barbarians, and the +result is seen in mediaeval Christianity. At no other time, perhaps, has +the Unseen World played such a leading part in men's minds as in the +twelfth and thirteenth centuries of our Christian era, in the age that +witnessed the culmination of sublimity in church architecture, in the +society whose thought found comprehensive expression in the "Summa" of +St. Thomas, as the thought of our times is expressed in Spencer's "First +Principles," in an intellectual atmosphere, which just as it was about +passing away was depicted for all coming time in the poem of Dante. It +was a time of spiritual awakening such as mankind had never before +witnessed, but it was also an age of new problems, an age wherein the +seeds of revolt were thickly germinating. The nature and constitution of +the Unseen World had been too rashly and too elaborately set forth in +theorems born of the slender knowledge of primitive times, and the +growing tendency to interrogate Nature soon led to conclusions which +broke down the old edifice of thought. In the sixteenth century came +Copernicus and administered such a shock to the mind as even Luther's +defiance of the papacy scarcely equalled. In recent days, when Bishop +Wilberforce reckoned without his host in trying to twit Huxley with his +monkey ancestry, our minds were getting inured to all sorts of audacious +innovations, so that they did not greatly disturb us. For its unsettling +effects upon time-honoured beliefs and mental habits the Darwinian +theory is no more to be compared to the Copernican than the invention of +the steamboat is to be compared to the voyages of Columbus. We are in no +danger of overrating the bewilderment that was wrought by the discovery +that our earth is not the physical centre of things, and that the sun +apparently does not exist for the sole purpose of giving light and +warmth to man's terrestrial habitat. We need not wonder that in +conservative Spain scarcely a century ago the University of Salamanca +prohibited the teaching of the Newtonian astronomy. We need not wonder +that Galileo should have been commanded to hold his tongue on a topic +that seemed to cast discredit upon the whole theology that assumes man +to be the central object of the Divine care. + +This unsettling of men's minds was of course indefinitely increased by +the revolt of Descartes against the scholastic philosophy, by Newton's +immense contributions to physics, and by such discoveries as those of +Harvey, Black, and Lavoisier, which showed by what methods truth could +be obtained concerning Nature's operations, and how different such +methods were from those by which the accepted systems of theology had +been built up. The result has been wholesale skepticism directed +against everything whatever that now exists or has ever existed in the +shape of an ancient belief. This result was first reached in France +about the middle of the eighteenth century, when the thoughts of Locke +and Newton were eagerly absorbed in a community irritated beyond +endurance by social injustice, and in which the church had done much to +forfeit respect. Thus came about that violent outbreak of materialistic +atheism which, in spite of its generous aims and many admirable +achievements, is surely one of the most mournful episodes in the history +of human thought. The French philosophers set an example to three +generations; the note struck by Diderot and Buffon and D'Alembert +continued to resound until the scientific horizon had become radiant in +every quarter with the promise of a brighter day, and its echoes have +not yet died. It was but lately that the voice of Lamettrie was heard +again from the lips of Strauss and Buechner, and even to-day we may +sometimes be entertained by a belated eighteenth century naturalist who +is fully persuaded that his denial of human immortality is an inevitable +corollary from the doctrine of evolution. Indeed the progress of +scientific discovery has been so rapid since the time of Diderot, its +achievements have been so vast, its results so multifarious and so +dazzling, that it has well-nigh absorbed the attention of the foremost +minds. The dogmas of theology seem stale and empty, the speculations of +metaphysics vain and unprofitable, in comparison with the fascinating +marvels of chemistry and astronomy, of palaeontology and spectrum +analysis; and it is natural that we should rejoice over the methods of +research that are enabling us thus to wrest from Nature a few of her +long guarded secrets, and to make up our minds to have nothing to do +with conclusions that are not obtained or at least verified by such +scientific methods. Daily we hear sounded the praises of observation, of +experiment, of comparison; we are warned against long deductions, since +the strength of any chain of arguments is measured by that of its +weakest link, and experience is perpetually teaching us, to our +vexation and chagrin, that what reason says must be so is not so, that +facts will not fit hypothesis. The more things we try to explain, the +better we realize that we live in a world of unexplained residua. Away, +then, with all so-called truths that cannot be tested by weights and +measures, or other direct appeals to the senses! Your modern philosopher +will have nothing of them. His system is composed, from start to finish, +of scientific theorems. As for the higher speculations, the deeper +generalizations, in which philosophy has been wont to indulge concerning +the aim and meaning of existence, he waves them away as profitless or +even mischievous. The world is full of questions as pressing as they are +baffling. As I once heard Herbert Spencer say, "You cannot take up any +problem in physics without being quickly led to some metaphysical +problem which you can neither solve nor evade." It was in order to +secure philosophic peace of mind that Auguste Comte undertook to build +up what he called Positive Philosophy, in which the existence of all +such problems was to be complacently ignored,--much as the ostrich seeks +escape from a dilemma by burying its head in the sand. In a far more +reverent and justifiable spirit the agnostic like Huxley or Spencer +acknowledges the limitations of the human mind and builds as far as he +may, leaving the rest to God. + +In the fervour of this modern reliance upon scientific methods, we are +warned with especial emphasis against all humours and predilections +which we may be in danger of cherishing as human beings. In a new sense +of the words we are reminded that "the heart of man is deceitful and +desperately wicked," and if any belief is especially pleasant or +consoling to us, forthwith does Science lay upon us her austere command +to mortify the flesh and treat the belief in question with exceptional +disfavour and suspicion. Thus there has grown up a kind of Puritanism in +the scientific temper which, while announcing its unalterable purpose to +follow Truth though she lead us to Hades, takes a kind of grim +satisfaction in emphasizing the place of destination. + +Now there can be no sort of doubt that this rigid and vigorous +scientific temper is in the main eminently wholesome and commendable. In +the interests of intellectual honesty there is nothing which we need +more than to be put on our guard against allowing our reasoning +processes to be warped by our feelings. Nevertheless in steering clear +of Scylla it would be a pity to tumble straight into the maw of +Charybdis, and it behooves us to ask just how far the canons of +scientific method are competent to guide us in dealing with ultimate +questions. Science has given us so many surprises that our capacity for +being shocked or astounded is well-nigh exhausted, and our old +unregenerate human nature has been bullied and badgered into something +like humility; so that now, at the end of the greatest and most +bewildering of centuries, we may fitly pause for a moment and ask how +fares it, in these exacting days, with that Unseen World which man +brought with him when he was first making his appearance on our planet? +And what has science to say about that time-honoured belief that the +human soul survives the death of the human body? + +The position that science irrevocably condemns such a belief seems at +first sight a very strong one and has unquestionably had a good deal of +weight with many minds of the present generation. Throughout the animal +kingdom we never see sensation, perception, instinct, volition, +reasoning, or any of the phenomena which we distinguish as mental, +manifested except in connection with nerve-matter arranged in systems of +various degrees of complexity. We can trace sundry relations of general +correspondence between the increasing manifestations of intelligence and +the increasing complications of the nervous system. Injuries to the +nervous structure entail failures of function, either in the mental +operations themselves or in the control which they exercise over the +actions of the body; there is either psychical aberration, or loss of +consciousness, or muscular paralysis. At the moment of death, as soon as +the current of arterial blood ceases to flow through the cerebral +vessels, all signs of consciousness cease for the looker-on; and after +the nervous system has been resolved into its elements, what reason have +we to suppose that consciousness survives, any more than that the +wetness of water should survive its separation into oxygen and hydrogen? + +So far as our terrestrial experience goes there can be but one answer to +such a question. We have no more warrant in experience for supposing +consciousness to exist without a nervous system than we have for +supposing the properties of water to exist in a world destitute of +hydrogen and oxygen. Our power of framing conceptions is narrowly +limited by experience, and when we try to figure to ourselves the +conditions of a future life we are either hopelessly baffled at the +start or else we fall back upon grossly materialistic imagery. The +savage's ghost-world is a mere repetition of the fights and hunts with +which he is familiar. The early Christians looked forward to a speedy +resurrection from Sheol, followed by an endless bodily existence upon a +renovated earth. Dante's pictures of the Unseen World are often so +intensely materialistic as to seem grotesque in our more truly spiritual +age. Popular conceptions of heaven to-day abound in symbolism that is +confessedly a mere reflection from the world of matter; insomuch that +persons of sufficient culture to realize the inadequacy of these popular +images are wont to avoid the difficulty by refraining from putting their +hopes and beliefs into any definite or describable form. Among such +minds there is a tacit agreement that the unseen world must be purely +spiritual in constitution, yet no mental image of such a world can be +formed. We are all agreed that life beyond the grave would be a delusion +and a cruel mockery without the continuance of the tender household +affections which alone make the present life worth living; but to +imagine the recognition of soul by soul apart from the material +structure in which we have known soul to be manifested, apart from the +look of the loved face, the tones of the loved voice, or the renewed +touch of the long vanished hand, is something quite beyond our power. +Even if you try to imagine your own psychical activity as continuing +without the aid of the physical machinery of sensation, you soon get +into unmanageable difficulties. The furniture of your mind consists in +great part of sensuous images, chiefly visual, and you cannot in thought +follow yourself into a world that does not announce itself to you +through sense impressions. From all this it plainly appears that our +notion of the survival of conscious activity apart from material +conditions is not only unsupported by any evidence that can be gathered +from the world of which we have experience but is utterly and hopelessly +inconceivable. + +The argument here summarized is in no way profound or abstruse; it is +extremely obvious, and as its propositions cannot well be controverted, +it has had great weight with many people. I dare say it may be held +responsible for the larger part of contemporary skepticism as to the +future life. People have grown accustomed to demanding scientific +support for doctrines, whereas this doctrine is not only destitute of +scientific support but lands us in inconceivabilities; is it not, then, +untenable and absurd? Such is the common argument. There are those who +seek to meet it with inductive evidence of the presence of disembodied +spirits or ghosts which hold direct communication only with certain +specially endowed persons known as mediums. Concerning such inductive +evidence it may be said that very little has as yet been brought +forward which is likely to make much impression upon minds trained in +investigation. If its value as evidence were to be conceded, it would +seem to point to the conclusion that the grade of intelligence which +survives the grave is about on a par with that which in the present life +we are accustomed to shut up in asylums for idiots. On the whole the +mediumistic ideas and methods are frankly materialistic, their alleged +communications with the other world are through sights and sounds, and +if their pretensions could be sustained the result would be simply the +rehabilitation of the primitive ghost-world. Their theory of things +moves on so low a plane as hardly to merit notice in a serious +philosophic discussion. + +To return to the argument that the doctrine of the survival of conscious +activity apart from material conditions is unsupported by experience and +is inconceivable, we may observe that it is inconceivable just because +it is entirely without foundation in experience. Our powers of +conception are narrowly determined by the limits of our experience, and +when that experience has never furnished us with the materials for +framing a conception we simply cannot frame it. Hence we cannot conceive +of the conscious soul as entirely dissociated from any material vehicle. + +Now we are prepared to ask, How much does this famous argument amount +to, as against the belief that the soul survives the body? The answer +is, Nothing! absolutely nothing. It not only fails to disprove the +validity of the belief, but it does not raise even the slightest _prima +facie_ presumption against it. This will at once become apparent if we +remember that human experience is very far indeed from being infinite, +and that there are in all probability immense regions of existence in +every way as real as the region which we know, yet concerning which we +cannot form the faintest rudiment of a conception. Within the past +century the study of light and other radiant forces has furnished us +with a suggestive object-lesson. The luminiferous ether combines +properties which are inconceivable in connection. How curious to think +that we live and move in an ocean of ether in which the particles of +all material things are floating like islands! But how amazing to learn +that this ocean of ether is also an adamantine firmament! Is not this +sheer nonsense? an ocean firmament of ether-adamant! Yet such seems to +be the fact, and our philosophy must make the best of it. Now suppose +that all this world were crowded with disembodied souls, an infinite +throng most aptly called "the majority," a thousand or more on every +spot in space as broad as the point of a cambric needle, in what way +could we become aware of their existence? Clearly in no way, since we +have no organ or faculty for the perception of soul apart from the +material structure and activities in which it has been manifested +throughout the whole course of our experience. There we will suppose are +the countless millions, the existence of any one of whom, could we +detect it, would suffice to demonstrate the doctrine of a future life, +and yet, for lack of the requisite means of communication, all this +evidence is inaccessible. Such an illustration shows that "the entire +absence of testimony does not even raise a negative presumption except +in cases where testimony is accessible." The reason is obvious. Until we +can go wherever the testimony may be, we are not entitled to affirm that +there is an absence of testimony. So long as our knowledge is restricted +by the conditions of this terrestrial life, we are not in a position to +make negative assertions as to regions of existence outside of these +conditions. We may feel quite free, therefore, to give due weight to any +considerations which make it probable that consciousness survives the +wreck of the material body. + +We are now in a position to see the fallacy of Moleschott's often-quoted +aphorism, "No thought without phosphorus!" When this saying was a new +one, there were worthy people who felt that somehow it was all over with +man's immortal soul. With phosphorus you light your candle, and with +phosphorus you discover Neptune and write the Fifth Symphony; how +charmingly simple and convincing! And yet was anything save a bit of +rhetoric really gained by singling out phosphorus among the chemical +constituents of brain tissue rather than nitrogen or carbon? Suppose the +dictum had been, "No thought without a brain." The obvious answer would +have been, "If you refer to the present life, most erudite professor, +your remark is true, but hardly novel or startling; if you refer to any +condition of things subsequent to death, pray where did you obtain your +knowledge?" + +Nevertheless this point cannot be disposed of simply by exhibiting the +flaw in Moleschott's rhetoric. His remark rests upon the assumption that +conscious mental phenomena are products of the organic tissues with +which they are associated. This is of course the central stronghold of +materialism. A century ago the case was very boldly put when we were +asked to believe that the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes +bile. Nobody to-day would think of making such a comparison, but it is +more cautiously stated that consciousness is a "function" of the brain, +or at all events of the nervous system, even as bile-making is a +function of the liver. Before we yield any modicum of assent to this +statement we may observe that "function" is a word with a wide range of +meaning, and we must insist upon some closer definition. Here +materialism calls to its aid the discovery of the correlation and +equivalence of forces, one of the most stupendous achievements of our +century. We now know that heat and light and electricity and actinism +are not forces generically distinct and isolated each from the others. +All are specific modes of molecular motion, transformable one into +another at any moment as naturally as a cloud condenses into raindrops. +Any such molecular motion, moreover, may come from the arrested visible +motion of a mass, and may in turn be liberated so as to resume the form +of visible motion, as when an electric current is transformed into the +onward movement of the trolley car. The change in our conception of +Nature that has been wrought by this wonderful discovery is more +profound than all changes that went before. The balance in the hands of +the chemist had already proved that no matter is ever lost but only +transformed, and that every material form at any moment visible owes its +existence to the metamorphosis of some previous form. So now it was +further shown that the myriad properties or qualities of matter are +simply the expression of myriads of activities which are all in a final +analysis motions; that no motion is ever lost but only transformed, and +that every kind of motion at any moment perceptible--whether in the form +of movement through space, or of light, or heat, or electricity, or the +actinism that builds up the green stuff in the leaves of plants--owes +its existence to the metamorphosis of some previous kind of motion. +Every living organism is a marvellous aggregate of divers forms of +matter performing divers characteristic motions, and the sum total of +these motions is the whole of life, as regarded purely on its physical +side. When we take food we bring into the system sundry nitrogenous and +hydrocarbon compounds, each of which is alive with little energies or +latent capacities for certain kinds of motion. The oxygen of the air, +especially in its unstable form of ozone, is a powerful inciter of +chemical motions, and when we breathe it in, the little latent +capacities presently become actual motions. Some of them are realized in +the rhythmical movements of heart and lungs, some in the undulations +that sustain the animal temperature, some in the formation of the tiny +drops that collect in a secreting gland, some in the repair of tissue by +the substitution of new complex molecules for old ones that are broken +down, some in the contraction of a group of muscles, some in the changes +within the substance of nerve that accompany conscious thought, +sensation, and volition. Ah, yes, here we come to it at last! We do not +doubt that all these myriad motions are members in a series of +transformations, wherein the appearance of each results from the +disappearance of its predecessors. We have neither the instruments nor +the calculus to prove this in the infinite multitude of details, but the +general theory has been so completely established wherever it is +accessible to instruments and calculus that we can have no hesitation in +granting its universality wherever matter and motion are concerned in +any shape or amount. No scientific man will for a moment doubt that the +little vibratory discharge between cerebral ganglia which accompanies a +thought is one member in a series of molecular motions that might be +measured and expressed in terms of quantity if we only possessed an +apparatus sufficiently delicate and subtle. + +Now if such is the case with the little physical motion within the +brain, how is it with the accompanying thought? Does the correlation +obtain between physical motions and conscious feelings? Are states of +consciousness links in the Protean series of motions, in such wise that +the vibration within the brain produces the thought or feeling? In other +words is the thought or feeling merely a transformed vibration? Does a +certain amount of vibration perish to be replaced by an exact equivalent +in the shape of thought? and then does the thought perish in the act of +giving place to other vibrations which end in a visible motion of +muscles? as when, for example, you hear the sound of a bell and start +toward the door. + +On this point there has been much confusion of ideas. When I put the +question to Tyndall in conversation, nearly thirty years ago, he seemed +to think that there must be some such completeness of correlation +between the physical and the psychical; but his mind was not at ease on +the subject. Herbert Spencer, in his "First Principles," rather +cautiously took the same direction and tried to show how a certain +amount of motion might be transformable into a certain amount of +feeling. He observed that the consciousness of effort or muscular strain +in lifting a heavy weight is more intense than in lifting a light +weight, and that when a loud sound sets up atmospheric vibrations of +great amplitude the shock to our auditory consciousness is +correspondingly greater than in the case of a gentle sound which sets up +vibrations of small amplitude. But when he comes to the inner regions of +thought and emotion which are not reached by percussion and strain, he +is less successful in finding illustrations. It is especially worthy of +note that in the final edition of "First Principles," published in this +year 1900 and in Spencer's eighty-first, he goes very far toward +withdrawing from his original position, while in his Preface he calls +attention to this change as one of the most important in the book. In my +"Cosmic Philosophy," published in 1874, I maintained that to prove the +transformation of motion into feeling or of feeling into motion is in +the very nature of things impossible. In order to be convinced of this, +let us go back a few years and ask how the great doctrine of the +correlation of forces became established. Its first absolute +verification occurred about 1846, when Dr. Joule showed "that the fall +of 772 lbs. through one foot will raise the temperature of a pound of +water one degree of Fahrenheit."[2] When this was proved it gave us the +mechanical equivalent of heat, and the theory acquired a truly +scientific character. Similar quantitative correlations were established +in the case of heat and chemical action by Dulong and Petit, and in the +case of chemical action and electricity by Faraday. The truth of the +theory is wholly a question of quantitative measurement. Now you can +measure heat, you can measure electricity, and since the action of +nerves in all probability consists of undulatory motions it is to some +extent measurable, and doubtless would be completely measurable had we +the means. But when you come to thoughts and emotions, I beg to know +how you are going to work to give an account of them in foot-pounds! It +is not simply that we have no means at hand, no calculus equal to the +occasion; the thing is absurd on its face. It is as true to-day as it +was in the time of Descartes that thought is devoid of extension and +cannot be submitted to mechanical measurement. + +[2] Herbert Spencer, _First Principles_ (final ed.), p. 185. + +It appears to me, therefore, that what we should really find, if we +could trace in detail the metamorphosis of motions within the body, from +the sense-organs to the brain, and thence outward to the muscular +system, would be somewhat as follows: the inward motion, carrying the +message into the brain, would perish in giving place to the vibration +which accompanies the conscious state; and this vibration in turn would +perish in giving place to the outward motion, carrying the mandate out +to the muscles. If we had the means of measurement we could prove the +equivalence from step to step. But where would the conscious state, the +thought or feeling, come into this circuit? Why, nowhere. The physical +circuit of motions is complete in itself; the state of consciousness is +accessible only to its possessor. To him it is the subjective equivalent +of the vibration within the brain, whereof it is neither the cause nor +the effect, neither the producer nor the offspring, but simply the +concomitant. In other words the natural history of the mass of +activities that are perpetually being concentrated within our bodies, +to be presently once more disintegrated and diffused, shows us a closed +circle which is entirely physical, and in which one segment belongs to +the nervous system. As for our conscious life, that forms no part of the +closed circle but stands entirely outside of it, concentric with the +segment which belongs to the nervous system. + +These conclusions are not at all in harmony with the materialistic view +of the case. If consciousness is a product of molecular motion, it is a +natural inference that it must lapse when the motion ceases. But if +consciousness is a kind of existence which within our experience +accompanies a certain phase of molecular motion, then the case is +entirely altered, and the possibility or probability of the continuance +of the one without the other becomes a subject for further inquiry. +Materialists sometimes declare that the relation of conscious +intelligence to the brain is like that of music to the harp, and when +the harp is broken there can be no more music. An opposite view, long +familiar to us, is that the conscious soul is an emanation from the +Divine Intelligence that shapes and sustains the world, and during its +temporary imprisonment in material forms the brain is its instrument of +expression. Thus the soul is not the music, but the harper; and +obviously this view is in harmony with the conclusions which I have +deduced from the correlation of forces. + +Upon these conclusions we cannot directly base an argument sustaining +man's immortality, but we certainly remove the only serious objection +that has ever been alleged against it. We leave the field clear for +those general considerations of philosophic analogy and moral +probability which are all the guides upon which we can call for help in +this arduous inquiry. But it may be suggested at this point that perhaps +our argument has acquired a wider scope than was at first contemplated. +Consciousness is not peculiar to man, but is possessed in some degree by +the greater portion of the animal kingdom. Among the higher birds and +mammals the amount of conscious life is very considerable, and here too +it must be argued that consciousness is not a product of molecular +motion in the nervous system but its concomitant. The same argument +which removes the objection to immortality for man removes it also for +an indefinite number of animal species. What, then, is to be said of the +reasonableness of supposing a future life for sundry lower animals? and +if we were to reach a negative conclusion in their case, while reaching +a positive conclusion in the case of man, on what principle are we to +draw the line? Sometimes we hear this question propounded as a +difficulty in the Darwinian theory of man's origin. How could immortal +man have been produced through heredity from an ephemeral brute? + +The difficulty is one of the sort which we are apt to encounter when we +try to designate absolute beginnings and to mark off hard and fast +lines, for in Nature there are no such things. Voltaire asked the same +kind of question more than a hundred years before Darwinism had been +heard of. When does the immortal soul of the human individual come into +existence? Is it at the moment of conception, or when the new-born babe +begins to breathe, or at some moment between, or even perhaps at some +era of early childhood when moral responsibility can be said to have +begun? Some of the answers to these questions would transform an +ephemeral creature into an immortal one in the same person. The most +proper answer is a frank confession of ignorance. Whether it be in the +individual or in the race, we cannot tell just where the soul comes in. +A due heed to Nature's analogies, however, is helpful in this +connection. The maxim that Nature makes no leaps is far from true. +Nature's habit is to make prodigious leaps, but only after long +preparation. Slowly rises the water in the tank, inch by inch through +many a weary hour, until at length it over-flows and straightway vast +systems of machinery are awakened into rumbling life. Slowly grows the +eccentricity of the ellipse as you shift its position in the cone, and +still the nature of the curve is not essentially varied, when suddenly, +presto! one more little shift, and the finite ellipse becomes an +infinite hyperbola mocking our feeble powers of conception as it speeds +away on its everlasting career. Perhaps in our ignorance such analogies +may help us to realize the possibility that steadily developing +ephemeral conscious life may reach a critical point where it suddenly +puts on immortality. + +If this suggestion is a sound one, we must probably regard the conscious +life of animals as only the ephemeral adumbration of that which comes to +maturity in man. The considerations adduced this evening must convince +us that we are at perfect liberty to treat the question of man's +immortality in the disinterested spirit of the naturalist. In the course +of evolution there is no more philosophical difficulty in man's +acquiring immortal life than in his acquiring the erect posture and +articulate speech. In my little book "The Destiny of Man" I insisted +upon the dramatic tendency or divine purpose indicated in the long +cosmic process which has manifestly from the outset aimed at the +production and perfection of the higher spiritual attributes of +humanity. In another little book, "Through Nature to God," I called +attention to the fact that belief in an Unseen World, especially +associated with the moral significance of life, was coeval with the +genesis of Man, and had played a predominating part in his development +ever since, and I argued that under such circumstances the belief must +be based upon an eternal reality, since a contrary supposition is +negatived by all that we know of the habits and methods of the cosmic +process of Evolution. No time is left here to repeat these arguments, +but I hope enough has been said to indicate the probability that the +patient study of evolution is likely soon to supply the basis for a +Natural Theology more comprehensive, more profound, and more hopeful +than could formerly have been imagined. The Nineteenth Century has borne +the brunt, the Twentieth will reap the fruition. + + + + +WRITINGS OF JOHN FISKE + +[Illustration] + + +Historical + + +THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA + + _With some Account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest. With + a Steel Portrait of Mr. Fiske, many maps, facsimiles, etc. 2 vols. + crown 8vo, gilt top, $3.60._ + +The book brings together a great deal of information hitherto accessible +only in special treatises, and elucidates with care and judgment some of +the most perplexing problems in the history of discovery.--_The Speaker_ +(London). + + +OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS + + _2 vols. crown 8vo, gilt top, $3.60. Illustrated Edition, 2 vols. + 8vo, $8.00._ + +History has rarely been invested with such interest and charm as in +these volumes.--_The Outlook_ (New York). + + +THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW ENGLAND + + _Or, the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious + Liberty. Crown 8vo, $1.80. Illustrated Edition. Containing + Portraits, Maps, Facsimiles, Contemporary Views, Prints, and other + Historic Materials. 8vo, gilt top, $4.00._ + +Having in the first chapters strikingly and convincingly shown that New +England's history was the birth of centuries of travail, and having +prepared his readers to estimate at their true importance the events of +our early colonial life, Mr. Fiske is ready to take up his task as the +historian of the New England of the Puritans.--_Advertiser_ (Boston). + + +THE DUTCH AND QUAKER COLONIES IN AMERICA + + _With 8 Maps. 2 vols. crown 8vo, gilt top, $3.60. Illustrated + Edition, 2 vols. 8vo, $8.00._ + +The work is a lucid summary of the events of a changeful and important +time, carefully examined by a conscientious scholar, who is master of +his subject.--_Daily News_ (London). + + +_All prices are net._ + + +NEW FRANCE AND NEW ENGLAND + + _With Maps. Crown 8vo, $1.80._ + +Illustrated Edition. _Containing about 200 Illustrations. 8vo, gilt top, +$4.00._ + +This volume presents in broad and philosophic manner the causes and +events which marked the victory on this continent of the English +civilization over the French. + + +THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION + + _With Plans of Battles, and a Steel Portrait of Washington. 2 vols. + crown 8vo, gilt top, $3.60. Illustrated Edition. Containing about + 300 Illustrations. 2 vols. 8vo, gilt top, $8.00._ + +Beneath his sympathetic and illuminating touch the familiar story comes +out in fresh and vivid colors.--_New Orleans Times-Democrat._ + + +THE CRITICAL PERIOD OF AMERICAN HISTORY, 1783-1789 + + _With Map, Notes, etc. Crown 8vo, gilt top, $1.80. Illustrated + Edition. Containing about 170 Illustrations. 8vo, gilt top, $4.00._ + +_The foregoing historical works also in the Riverside Pocket Edition, in +12 vols. Each with a frontispiece. Narrow 16mo, limp leather, $2.00 +each. The set, $24.00._ + + +THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE + + _In Riverside Library for Young People. With Maps. 16mo, 75 cents._ + + +THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY IN THE CIVIL WAR + + _With 23 Maps and Plans. 1 vol. crown 8vo, $1.80._ + + +A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES FOR SCHOOLS + + _With Topical Analysis, Suggestive Questions, and Directions for + Teachers, by F. A. Hill, and Illustrations and Maps. Crown 8vo, + $1.00, net._ + + +AMERICAN POLITICAL IDEAS + + _Crown 8vo, $1.50._ + + +Religious and Philosophical + + +THE DESTINY OF MAN + + _Viewed in the Light of His Origin. 16mo, gilt top, $1.00._ + +Of one thing we may be sure: that none are leading us more surely or +rapidly to the full truth than men like the author of this little book, +who reverently study the works of God for the lessons which He would +teach his children.--_Christian Union_ (New York). + + +THE IDEA OF GOD + + _As Affected by Modern Knowledge. 16mo, gilt top, $1.00._ + +The vigor, the earnestness, the honesty, and the freedom from cant and +subtlety in his writings are exceedingly refreshing. He is a scholar, a +critic, and a thinker of the first order.--_Christian Register_ +(Boston). + + +THROUGH NATURE TO GOD + + _16mo, gilt top, $1.00._ + + CONTENTS.--_The Mystery of Evil; The Cosmic Roots of Love and + Self-Sacrifice; The Everlasting Reality of Religion._ + +The little volume has a reasonableness and a persuasiveness that cannot +fail to commend its arguments to all.--_Public Ledger_ (Philadelphia). + + +LIFE EVERLASTING + + _16mo, gilt top, $1.00 net._ + +This brief work is a contribution to the evolution of the theory of +evolution on lines which are full of the deepest suggestiveness to +Christian thinkers.--_The Congregationalist._ + + +OUTLINES OF COSMIC PHILOSOPHY + + _Based on the Doctrine of Evolution, with Criticisms on the Positive + Philosophy. In 4 volumes, 8vo, $7.20._ + +You must allow me to thank you for the very great interest with which I +have at last slowly read the whole of your work.... I never in my life +read so lucid an expositor (and therefore thinker) as you are.--CHARLES +DARWIN. + + +DARWINISM, AND OTHER ESSAYS + + _Crown 8vo, gilt top, $1.80._ + + +MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS + + _Old Tales and Superstitions interpreted by Comparative Mythology. + Crown 8vo, gilt top, $1.80._ + + +THE UNSEEN WORLD + + _And Other Essays. Crown 8vo, gilt top, $1.80._ + + +EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST + + _Crown 8vo, gilt top, $1.80._ + + +Miscellaneous + + +A CENTURY OF SCIENCE + + _And Other Essays. Crown 8vo, $1.80._ + +Among our thoughtful essayists there are none more brilliant than Mr. +John Fiske. His pure style suits his clear thought.--_The Nation_ (New +York). + + +CIVIL GOVERNMENT IN THE UNITED STATES + + _Considered with some Reference to its Origins. With Questions on + the Text by Frank A. Hill, and Bibliographical Notes by Mr. Fiske. + Crown 8vo, $1.00, net._ + +It is most admirable, alike in plan and execution, and will do a vast +amount of good in teaching our people the principles and forms of our +civil institutions.--MOSES COIT TYLER, _Professor of American +Constitutional History and Law, Cornell University_. + + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +BOSTON: 4 PARK ST.; NEW YORK: 16 EAST 40TH ST. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Life Everlasting, by John Fiske + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE EVERLASTING *** + +***** This file should be named 34569.txt or 34569.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/5/6/34569/ + +Produced by Larry B. 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