The “belief in immortality” is scientifically (_critically_) tenable only
as a _general_ proposition, and is in this case identical with the most
universal law of physics, the _conservation of energy_ (coincidently,
of course, the conservation of matter). On the other hand, the widely
disseminated _dogmatic_ belief in a _personal_ immortality, a belief
supported by the mass of the ecclesiastical religions, and of utmost
importance as the consciously or unconsciously assumed _base_-axiom of a
great number of philosophical systems, is, _scientifically_, absolutely
untenable. The “human soul” (i. e. the sum-total of the individual
life-activity: feeling, motion,—will,—and idea) is simply a transient
developmentary phenomenon—a very highly developed “vertebrate-soul.”