I. A survey of human history discovers some candle lights on the
problem of survival. These lights are certain well-established facts.
1.--All peoples and tribes, in all ages and of all grades of
intelligence have conceived a life beyond death. Isolated exceptions
are so rare that they may be accounted for by the loss, through
degeneration, of an instinctive idea. This belief built the Pyramids
of Egypt, reared the great Etruscan tombs, led men to embalm their
dead, placed food and utensils within the tomb for use beyond,
slaughtered the horses of the dead warrior and burned the widow on the
husband's pyre. There is a deep-rooted and universal feeling that the
spirit of man is distinct from, and superior to, the body, and survives
the body. The universal fact of mortality has suggested the universal
belief in immortality. This is all the more remarkable in face of the
lack of immortality in nature. Nature presents the aspect of an
indefinite series of things succeeding one another. It would seem that
the human mind is so constructed that it tends in the direction of
belief in the survival of personality. This may be but a _candle_
light; yet it is a _light_.
2.--This belief in immortality persists. Various fancies and
superstitions have been outgrown and cast aside in the progress of the
ages. Many conceptions of the past have proved unworthy to survive.
But this belief has a stronger grip on the modern world than it ever
had in the past. While advance in knowledge reveals an interdependence
of soul and body, it accentuates their distinction. To-day progress is
interpreted to mean the triumph of the spirit and is marked by an
increasing consciousness of the reality of the self which knows and
wills and feels. A belief which thus survives must surely have in it
something of the vitality of truth.
3.--This belief develops and waxes strong as life itself develops and
climbs higher. The higher a man is in the scale of being, the wider
his thoughts, the deeper his affections, the nobler his life; the more
likely is he to believe that the soul lives on. The more fleshly,
selfish and materialistic is the life, the harder it is to be sure of
immortality. Thousands may live in the slime, with the beasts, and may
not have a steadfast hope in a life beyond; but the great-minded and
great-hearted men of the race are surest of life everlasting. Tennyson
once said to Bishop Lightfoot: "The cardinal point of Christianity is
the life after death." Tennyson is supremely the poet of immortality.
It is his master thought; and herein he is typical of the greatest
minds in human history. This belief, universal and persistent, is most
vigorous in the hearts of the supreme men of our civilization.
4.--This belief, however vague may be the ideas in its context,
exercises a real influence on life. It energises men. It nerves them
to struggle and achieve. It enlarges their view. It inspires them for
vaster enterprises. It enables them to do hard things and to persevere
to the end.