At the present time, when theologians and those who have most aptitude
for such discussions are arguing "in thoughts more elevate" of the
soul's future life, and its rewards and punishments therein, the
pre-historic student is tempted to let _his_ thoughts wander backwards
over a different aspect of the same subject, in an effort to link again
the chain of belief concerning heaven and hell, which joins this present
with a long-forgotten past. The difficulty which we feel in uniting
ourselves in thought with past ages, arises surely more often from the
imperfection of our sympathies than from the deficiency of our positive
knowledge. So many questions which were once new have long been settled,
so many experiments have been tried, such experiences have been lived
through since then; it is so impossible that the earlier conditions of
life and society should return; and we cannot bring ourselves to make
the effort of imagination necessary to place us in harmony with bygone
times. But there are some few questions which seem as far from
settlement now as they ever were; one of these is the question
concerning the destiny of man after death, the character of his journey
into that undiscovered country, and the sort of life he will lead when
there.
"A riddle which one shrinks
To challenge from the scornful sphinx."
Some would dissuade us from the continuance of these (so they say)
unfruitful speculations; but it is very certain that man must change his
nature before they will lose their fascination for him; and until he
does so, he cannot read without sympathy the guesses which past
generations of men have made towards the solution of the same problems.
For them, indeed, these solutions have lost their interest, as ours will
soon do for us. Whatever lot that new condition may hold in store,
eternal pleasure or eternal pain, they have tried it now; whatever
scene the dark curtain hides, they have passed behind it. This is very
certain: as that we soon must. But so long as we remain here upon this
upper earth, we must be something above or below humanity if we refuse
ever to let our thoughts wander toward the changes and chances of
another life.
Not, indeed, that questions of this sort have ever had for the majority
of men in one age, or for the collective mass of human kind, an
all-absorbing interest. If we choose to look closely into the matter,
and to test men's opinion as it is displayed in their actions (the only
real opinion), we shall at first perhaps be struck by the slight belief
which they possess in a future state. For it is slight compared to their
"notional assent," that which they think they believe concerning it.
With the majority, faith upon this point is at best but shadowy, of an
otiose character suitable for soothing the lots of others, and
sometimes, alas! called into requisition to relieve us from the stings
of conscience on account of the pain which our own misconduct or neglect
has introduced therein. And as it is with us, so, save under exceptional
conditions, it has always been with men in the full vigour and enjoyment
of life. There have been times when one aspect of the future--its
terror--has been realized with an intensity, and has exercised an
influence upon life and conduct, such as is unknown in our days. But
these times have not been ordinary ones, and we are apt, I think, even
to over-estimate the force of faith during the Middle Ages. That term,
"dark ages," overrides our fancy; "we can never hear mention of them
without an accompanying feeling as though a palpable obscure had dimmed
the face of things, and that our ancestors wandered to and fro
groping."[5] But, then, neither have the most light-hearted and
sceptical of people been able to shut their eyes utterly to the warnings
of death. We are wont to think of the Greeks as of just such a
light-hearted, and in a fashion sceptical, temperament, and to contrast
the spirit of Hellas with the spirit of mediæval Europe. Scarcely any
thought of death, or of judgment after death, disturbs the serenity of
Greek art, such as it has come down to us. Thanatos is not to be
found;[6] even the tombs are adorned with representations of war and of
the chase, or with figures of the dancing Hours. And yet Greek art was
not without its darker side. It had, like mediæval poetry, its
Dante--Polygnotus, namely--who adorned the pilgrims' house at Delphi
with frescoes representing the judgment and the tortures of the
damned,--a Greek Campo Santo. He would have given us a different
impression of the Greek mind in presence of the fact of mortality, and
shown us how easily we are led to exaggerate the divergence in thought
between different nations and different times.
So we find as far back as we can test the belief of men, certain
theories touching the fate of the soul after death, which represent, in
the germ at least, the prevalent opinions of our own day; and out of
some of which these opinions have sprung. First among these, probably in
point of time, stands the purely sceptical theory which takes its rise
from the earliest efforts of language to give expression to the unseen.
Casting about for a name for the essential part of man, the life or soul
of him, language finds at first that it has no suitable word, and then
supplies its want by using the breath--the =psychê=, _spiritus_--in this
sense. Like the vital spark itself, the breath is seen to depart when
the man dies. Whither has it gone? The purely negative, the purely
sceptical answer would be, "It has disappeared." The answer actually
given in most religious creeds is, "It has gone to the unseen _place_,"
or the concealed _place_; as the Greeks said, to Hades (=A-idês=); or,
as our Northern ancestors said, to Hel.[7] Thus, out of pure negation we
have the beginning of a myth: the _spirit_ becomes something definite,
and the place it has gone to is partly realized. The unseen place is
underground, gained by a dark valley which stretches there from the
upper earth. Enough of the old belief remains to keep this home of the
dead itself dark and shadowy and lifeless. "The senseless dead, the
simulacra of mortals," as Homer says. And we remember how even a hero
like Achilles "would rather be on earth and serve for hire to a man of
mean estate, than rule a king among the dead."