The desire for life everlasting has commonly been affirmed to be
universal--at least that is the view taken by those unacquainted with
Oriental faiths and with Oriental character. Those of us whose knowledge
is a trifle wider are not prepared to say that the desire is universal
nor even general.
If the devout Buddhist, for example, wishes to "live always," he has not
succeeded in very clearly formulating the desire. The sort of thing that
he is pleased to hope for is not what we should call life, and not what
many of us would care for.
When a man says that everybody has "a horror of annihilation," we may
be very sure that he has not many opportunities for observation, or that
he has not availed himself of all that he has. Most persons go to sleep
rather gladly, yet sleep is virtual annihilation while it lasts; and if
it should last forever the sleeper would be no worse off after a million
years of it than after an hour of it. There are minds sufficiently
logical to think of it that way, and to them annihilation is not a
disagreeable thing to contemplate and expect.
In this matter of immortality, people's beliefs appear to go along with
their wishes. The man who is content with annihilation thinks he will
get it; those that want immortality are pretty sure they are immortal;
and that is a very comfortable allotment of faiths. The few of us that
are left unprovided for are those who do not bother themselves much
about the matter, one way or another.
The question of human immortality is the most momentous that the mind is
capable of conceiving. If it is a fact that the dead live all other
facts are in comparison trivial and without interest. The prospect of
obtaining certain knowledge with regard to this stupendous matter is not
encouraging. In all countries but those in barbarism the powers of the
profoundest and most penetrating intelligences have been ceaselessly
addressed to the task of glimpsing a life beyond this life; yet today no
one can truly say that he knows. It is as much a matter of faith as ever
it was.
Our modern Christian nations profess a passionate hope and belief in
another world, yet the most popular writer and speaker of his time, the
man whose lectures drew the largest audiences, the work of whose pen
brought him the highest rewards, was he who most strenuously strove to
destroy the ground of that hope and unsettle the foundations of that
belief.
The famous and popular Frenchman, Professor of Spectacular Astronomy,
Camille Flammarion, affirms immortality because he has talked with
departed souls who said that it was true. Yes, monsieur, but surely you
know the rule about hearsay evidence. We Anglo-Saxons are very
particular about that.