(If you read this you will probably feel that you have wasted
time.)
If you travel back far enough you can see in your mind's eye a
primitive man with long, red hair, shivering in some icy pool.
He has taken refuge there from a pursuing bear or other foe. He
sees that he must die of cold or of the bear's teeth. His dark
mind--product of a brain primitive and poor in
convolutions--contemplates vaguely the prospect ahead of him. He
hopes that after death he may through some mysterious kindness be
permitted to meet again the red-haired women and the wolfish cave
children left behind.
There, in the cave man's mind, is the first craving for
immortality. Born in that poor brain long centuries ago, it has
steadily grown stronger with man's mental development. ----
No man looks at death without looking beyond it. None but has a
craving for a future life, with consciousness of his personality
AND WITH RECOLLECTION OF FRIENDS, FACES AND DEEDS HERE.
Say to a man, "You shall be immortal, but you shall not know that
you are you." He will not give you thanks for such immortality.
So strong is man's craving for personal, individual immortality
that hell with its fires would be preferred by many to
annihilation. The strongest argument against immortality--weak
and ignorant at best--is but a frantic attempt of the mind to
prove negatively the existence of what it covets.
Fortunately for human happiness in general, FAITH, covers the
requirements of millions. They live and die contented, the
instinct within them fortified by the teachings of a faith not to
be questioned. ----
But what of the men and women who ask for evidence, or at least
for plausible argument, proving the reasonableness of
immortality? What can be said to please them?
Not much, alas! Probably because we are still so undeveloped
that it would be, for many reasons, unsafe to let us know how
great a future is before us. Strongest in hope is the
argument of Charles Fourier, based on what he declared to be
a natural law.
"Attractions are proportionate to destinies."
By this Fourier meant that a universal longing among human
beings was certain proof that their ultimate destiny involved
the fulfilment of the longing. The little girl fondling a doll
foretells maternity. The hectoring boy foretells the soldier's
career. No universal attraction, save with a destiny
proportionate. ----
The human race since it began to think and believe has thought of
and believed in immortality. The half wise declare that belief
in immortality and a spirit world came to savage peoples through
dreams, that it has been kept alive through superstition and the
power of religion. Trivial, certainly, is such an explanation of
a phenomenon as wide as mankind's existence. ----
A very consoling fact for the doubter is this. The strongest
minds born on the earth have almost invariably, at some stage
of development, rejected belief in immortality--only to return
to the belief, or at least to the HOPE, with fuller age and riper
wisdom. That no great mind has seen any positive argument
against the hope of immortality is certainly comforting to all
of us. Intelligence can always refute improbability and
falsehood.
----
What about the nature of immortality? The Indian hopes for dogs
and hunting, the Turk for a life of which the least said the
better. The Christian, borrowing his ideas from the writings of
the old Hebrews, looks forward to what may be called a solid gold
existence--everything made of gold or of something more
expensive.
We do not think that religious docility demands implicit belief
in any of the published details of our future existence. Gold is
not comfortable; jasper would not well replace the green turf.
Is it not more reasonable to assume, since immortality is to be
ours, that it is ours now and always has been? We cannot imagine
creation of the indestructible. Is it not sensible to take
literally that most beautiful invocation: "Thy kingdom come ON
EARTH as it is in heaven"?
We know that heaven cannot be above us or hell below; because as
we whirl round in each twenty-four hour period those abodes would
have to whirl also--quite unreasonable. ----
This earth would make a very good heaven--properly improved and
managed. Wipe out human selfishness, and the Sahara and other
deserts. Establish universal philanthropy, regulate the climate,
confine human manual labor to the pushing of an electric
button--all quite possible--and you have the sort of heaven that
man would select if left to choose.
Why should we not come back here again and again, taking varying
human forms, doing our duty well or badly each time
according to our start in life, and finally enjoying perfect
terrestrial happiness here as a finished race of immortal
beings--immortal in the sense of being indestructible and of
possessing the gift of perpetual reincarnation? ----
Now, this earthly reincarnation idea is what we have been driving
at since the beginning of this particular article. What is the
argument against prior and subsequent existence here? It is
this:
"If I am to live here again, I must have lived here before. If I
have lived here before I do not know it, and I do not look
forward with pleasure to future existence here in which I shall
not know myself."
This is a reasonable objection, certainly. Reincarnation without
consciousness of former existences would miss half the fun. ----
But it is possible to be in too much of a hurry. Let us suppose
that as yet we are not sufficiently developed to carry from
one existence to another the memory of former existence. Suppose
the time is to come when we shall suddenly advance as far beyond
this intellectual stage as this stage of intellect is beyond that
of the Bushman. Is it not conceivable that we may suddenly be
enabled to recall all former existences and to remember all the
various happenings of our former lives? May we not say, "There
is Mrs. Jones. I was married to her six million years ago, and
we quarrelled"? It seems quite hopeable.
You cannot deny that it is possible. For instance: You now
lead a continuous existence. You know that you were alive three
days ago and you remember what you did then. But a baby four
weeks old does NOT know that he was alive three days ago and he
does not know what he did then. He has not reached a stage where
his mind can grasp even the fact of continuous existence. We may
not have reached a stage enabling us to grasp continuous
reincarnation.
Think of this, and see if you cannot get some comfort, or at
least some amusing speculation out of it. ----
Science admits and thinks it proves that the inorganic atom of
matter is indestructible--that it persists forever. Why should
we not admit--and ultimately prove--that the atom of organic
force called a soul is indestructible and exists forever?
Every atom of matter, every particle of force, existing in the
visible universe will continue to exist billions of centuries
after the universe shall have melted and lost its present shape.
The nail on your finger will exist as separate atoms when the
Milky Way shall have faded from the heavens. How does that
strike you for immortality?
We predict that the mysterious force-atom called your soul will
exist AND KNOW ITSELF AND ITS FRIENDS ten thousand billions of
centuries from now and be as young as ever.