THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
The Citadel of Superstition--Athanatism and Thanatism--Individual
Character of Death--Immortality of the Unicellular Organisms
(Protists)--Cosmic and Personal Immortality--Primary Thanatism (of
Uncivilized Peoples)--Secondary Thanatism (of Ancient and Recent
Philosophers)--Athanatism and Religion--Origin of the Belief
in Immortality--Christian Athanatism--Eternal Life--The Day of
Judgment--Metaphysical Athanatism--Substance of the Soul--Ether
Souls and Air Souls; Fluid Souls and Solid Souls--Immortality of
the Animal Soul--Arguments for and Against Athanatism--Athanatist
Illusions
When we turn from the genetic study of the soul to the great question
of its immortality, we come to that highest point of superstition which
is regarded as the impregnable citadel of all mystical and dualistic
notions. For in this crucial question, more than in any other problem,
philosophic thought is complicated by the selfish interest of the human
personality, who is determined to have a guarantee of his existence
beyond the grave at any price. This "higher necessity of feeling" is
so powerful that it sweeps aside all the logical arguments of critical
reason. Consciously or unconsciously, most men are influenced in all
their general views, and, therefore, in their theory of life, by the
dogma of personal immortality; and to this theoretical error must be
added practical consequences of the most far-reaching character. It is
our task, therefore, to submit every aspect of this important dogma to
a critical examination, and to prove its untenability in the light of
the empirical data of modern biology.
In order to have a short and convenient expression for the two opposed
opinions on the question, we shall call the belief in man's personal
immortality "athanatism" (from _athanes_ or _athanatos_ == immortal).
On the other hand, we give the name of "thanatism" (from _thanatos_
== death) to the opinion which holds that at a man's death not only
all the other physiological functions are arrested, but his "soul"
also disappears--that is, that sum of cerebral functions which psychic
dualism regards as a peculiar entity, independent of the other vital
processes in the living body.
In approaching this physiological problem of death we must point out
the _individual_ character of this organic phenomenon. By death we
understand simply the definitive cessation of the vital activity of
the _individual_ organism, no matter to which category or stage of
individuality the organism in question belongs. Man is dead when his
own personality ceases to exist, whether he has left offspring that
they may continue to propagate for many generations or not. In a
certain sense we often say that the minds of great men (in a dynasty
of eminent rulers, for instance, or a family of talented artists) live
for many generations; and in the same way we speak of the "soul" of
a noble woman living in her children and children's children. But in
these cases we are dealing with intricate phenomena of _heredity_,
in which a microscopic cell (the sperm-cell of the father or the
egg-cell of the mother) transmits certain features to offspring. The
particular personalities who produce those sexual cells in thousands
are mortal beings, and at their death their personal psychic activity
is extinguished like every other physiological function.
A number of eminent zoologists--Weismann being particularly
prominent--have recently defended the opinion that only the lowest
unicellular organisms, the protists, are immortal, in contradistinction
to the multicellular plants and animals, whose bodies are formed of
tissues. This curious theory is especially based on the fact that
most of the protists multiply without sexual means, by division or
the formation of spores. In such processes the whole body of the
unicellular organism breaks up into two or more equal parts (daughter
cells), and each of these portions completes itself by further growth
until it has the size and form of the mother cell. However, by the very
process of division the _individuality_ of the unicellular creature
has been destroyed; both its physiological and its morphological unity
have gone. The view of Weismann is logically inconsistent with the
very notion of _individual_--an "indivisible" entity; for it implies
a unity which cannot be divided without destroying its nature. In
this sense the unicellular protophyta and protozoa are throughout
life _physiological individuals_, just as much as the multicellular
tissue-plants and animals. A sexual propagation by simple division
is found in many of the multicellular species (for instance, in many
cnidaria, corals, medusæ, etc.); the mother animal, the division of
which gives birth to the two daughter animals, ceases to exist with
the segmentation. "The protozoa," says Weismann, "have no individuals
and no generations in the metazoic sense." I must entirely dissent
from his thesis. As I was the first to introduce the title of
_metazoa_, and oppose these multicellular, tissue-forming animals to
the unicellular _protozoa_ (infusoria, rhizopods, etc.), and as I was
the first to point out the essential difference in the development of
the two (the former from germinal layers, and the latter not), I must
protest that I consider the _protozoa_ to be just as mortal in the
physiological (and psychological) sense as the _metazoa_; neither body
nor soul is immortal in either group. The other erroneous consequences
of Weismann's notion have been refuted by Moebius (1884), who justly
remarks that "every event in the world is periodic," and that "there is
no source from which immortal organic individuals might have sprung."
When we take the idea of immortality in the widest sense, and extend
it to the totality of the knowable universe, it has a scientific
significance; it is then not merely acceptable, but self-evident,
to the monistic philosopher. In that sense the thesis of the
indestructibility and eternal duration of all that exists is equivalent
to our supreme law of nature, the _law of substance_ (see chap. xii).
As we intend to discuss this immortality of the cosmos fully later on,
in establishing the theory of the persistence of matter and force,
we shall not dilate on it at present. We pass on immediately to the
criticism of that belief in immortality which is the only sense usually
attached to the word, the immortality of the individual soul. We
shall first inquire into the extent and the origin of this mystic and
dualistic notion, and point out, in particular, the wide acceptance
of the contradictory thesis, our monistic, empirically established
_thanatism_. I must distinguish two essentially different forms of
thanatism--primary and secondary; primary thanatism is the original
absence of the dogma of immortality (in the primitive uncivilized
races); secondary thanatism is the later outcome of a rational
knowledge of nature in the civilized intelligence.
We still find it asserted in philosophic, and especially in theological,
works that belief in the personal immortality of the human soul was
originally shared by all men--or, at least, by all "rational" men. That
is not the case. This dogma is not an original idea of the human mind,
nor has it ever found universal acceptance. It has been absolutely
proved by modern comparative ethnology that many uncivilized races
of the earliest and most primitive stage had no notion either of
immortality or of God. That is true, for instance, of the Veddahs of
Ceylon, those primitive pygmies whom, on the authority of the able
studies of the Sarasins, we consider to be a relic of the earliest
inhabitants of India;[22] it is also the case in several of the
earliest groups of the nearly related Dravidas, the Indian Seelongs,
and some native Australian races. Similarly, several of the primitive
branches of the American race, in the interior of Brazil, on the upper
Amazon, etc., have no knowledge either of gods or immortality. This
_primary_ absence of belief in immortality and deity is an extremely
important fact; it is, obviously, easy to distinguish from the
_secondary_ absence of such belief, which has come about in the highest
civilized races as the result of laborious critico-philosophical study.
Differently from the primary thanatism which originally characterized
primitive man, and has always been widely spread, the _secondary_
absence of belief in immortality is only found at a late stage of
history: it is the ripe fruit of profound reflection on life and death,
the outcome of bold and independent philosophical speculation. We first
meet it in some of the Ionic philosophers of the sixth century B.C.,
then in the founders of the old materialistic philosophy, Democritus
and Empedocles, and also in Simonides and Epicurus, Seneca and Plinius,
and in an elaborate form in Lucretius Carus. With the spread of
Christianity at the decay of classical antiquity, athanatism, one of
its chief articles of faith, dominated the world, and so, amid other
forms of superstition, the myth of personal immortality came to be
invested with a high importance.
Naturally, through the long night of the Dark Ages it was rarely that
a brave free-thinker ventured to express an opinion to the contrary:
the examples of Galileo, Giordano Bruno, and other independent
philosophers, effectually destroyed all freedom of utterance. Heresy
only became possible when the Reformation and the Renaissance had
broken the power of the papacy. The history of modern philosophy tells
of the manifold methods by which the matured mind of man sought to
rid itself of the superstition of immortality. Still, the intimate
connection of the belief with the Christian dogma invested it with
such power, even in the more emancipated sphere of Protestantism,
that the majority of convinced free-thinkers kept their sentiments to
themselves. From time to time some distinguished scholar ventured to
make a frank declaration of his belief in the impossibility of the
continued life of the soul after death. This was done in France in the
second half of the eighteenth century by Voltaire, Danton, Mirabeau,
and others, and by the leaders of the materialistic school of those
days, Holbach, Lamettrie, etc. The same opinion was defended by the
able friend of the Materialists, the greatest of the Hohenzollerns, the
monistic "philosopher of Sans-souci." What would Frederick the Great,
the "crowned thanatist and atheist," say, could he compare his monistic
views with those of his successor of to-day?
Among thoughtful physicians the conviction that the existence of the
soul came to an end at death has been common for centuries: generally,
however, they refrained from giving it expression. Moreover, the
empirical science of the brain remained so imperfect during the last
century that the soul could continue to be regarded as its mysterious
inhabitant. It was the gigantic progress of biology in the present
century, and especially in the latter half of the century, that
finally destroyed the myth. The establishment of the theory of descent
and the cellular theory, the astounding discoveries of ontogeny and
experimental physiology--above all, the marvellous progress of the
microscopic anatomy of the brain, gradually deprived athanatism of
every basis; now, indeed, it is rarely that an informed and honorable
biologist is found to defend the immortality of the soul. All the
monistic philosophers of the century (Strauss, Feuerbach, Büchner,
Spencer, etc.) are thanatists.
The dogma of personal immortality owes its great popularity and its
high importance to its intimate connection with the teaching of
Christianity. This circumstance gave rise to the erroneous and still
prevalent belief that the myth is a fundamental element of all the
higher religions. That is by no means the case. The higher Oriental
religions include no belief whatever in the immortality of the soul;
it is not found in Buddhism, the religion that dominates thirty per
cent. of the entire human race; it is not found in the ancient popular
religion of the Chinese, nor in the reformed religion of Confucius
which succeeded it; and, what is still more significant, it is not
found in the earlier and purer religion of the Jews. Neither in the
"five Mosaic books," nor in any of the writings of the Old Testament
which were written before the Babylonian Exile, is there any trace of
the notion of individual persistence after death.
The mystic notion that the human soul will live forever after death has
had a polyphyletic origin. It was unknown to the earliest speaking man
(the hypothetical _homo primigenius_ of Asia), to his predecessors, of
course, the _pithecanthropus_ and _prothylobates_, and to the least
developed of his modern successors, the Veddahs of Ceylon, the Seelongs
of India, and other distant races. With the development of reason and
deeper reflection on life and death, sleep and dreams, mystic ideas of
a dualistic composition of our nature were evolved--independently of
each other--in a number of the earlier races. Very different influences
were at work in these polyphyletic creations--worship of ancestors,
love of relatives, love of life and desire of its prolongation, hope of
better conditions of life beyond the grave, hope of the reward of good
and punishment of evil deeds, and so forth. Comparative psychology has
recently brought to our knowledge a great variety of myths and legends
of that character; they are, for the most part, closely associated
with the oldest forms of theistic and religious belief. In most of the
modern religions athanatism is intimately connected with theism; the
majority of believers transfer their materialistic idea of a "personal
God" to their "immortal soul." That is particularly true of the
dominant religion of modern civilized states, Christianity.
As everybody knows, the dogma of the immortality of the soul has long
since assumed in the Christian religion that rigid form which it
has in the articles of faith: "I believe in the resurrection of the
body and in an eternal life." Man will arise on "the last day," as
Christ is alleged to have done on Easter morn, and receive a reward
according to the tenor of his earthly life. This typically Christian
idea is thoroughly materialistic and anthropomorphic; it is very little
superior to the corresponding crude legends of uncivilized peoples. The
impossibility of "the resurrection of the body" is clear to every man
who has some knowledge of anatomy and physiology. The resurrection of
Christ, which is celebrated every Easter by millions of Christians, is
as purely mythical as "the awakening of the dead," which he is alleged
to have taught. These mystic articles of faith are just as untenable in
the light of pure reason as the cognate hypothesis of "eternal life."
The fantastic notions which the Christian Church disseminates as to the
eternal life of the immortal soul after the dissolution of the body are
just as materialistic as the dogma of "the resurrection of the body."
In his interesting work on _Religion in the Light of the Darwinian
Theory_, Savage justly remarks: "It is one of the standing charges of
the Church against science that it is materialistic. I must say, in
passing, that the whole ecclesiastical doctrine of a future life has
always been, and still is, materialism of the purest type. It teaches
that the material body shall rise, and dwell in a material heaven." To
prove this one has only to read impartially some of the sermons and
ornate discourses in which the glory of the future life is extolled
as the highest good of the Christian, and belief in it is laid down to
be the foundation of morality. According to them, all the joys of the
most advanced modern civilization await the pious believer in Paradise,
while the "All-loving Father" reserves his eternal fires for the
godless materialist.
In opposition to the materialist athanatism, which is dominant in
the Christian and Mohammedan Churches, we have, apparently, a purer
and higher form of faith in the _metaphysical athanatism_, as taught
by most of our dualist and spiritualist philosophers. Plato must be
considered its chief creator: in the fourth century before Christ
he taught that complete dualism of body and soul which afterwards
became one of the most important, theoretically, and one of the most
influential, practically, of the Christian articles of faith. The
body is mortal, material, physical; the soul is immortal, immaterial,
metaphysical. They are only temporarily associated, for the course of
the individual life. As Plato postulated an eternal life before as well
as after this temporary association, he must be classed as an adherent
of "metempsychosis," or transmigration of souls; the soul existed as
such, or as an "eternal idea," before it entered into a human body.
When it quits one body it seeks such other as is most suited to its
character for its habitation. The souls of bloody tyrants pass into the
bodies of wolves and vultures, those of virtuous toilers migrate into
the bodies of bees and ants, and so forth. The childish naïvety of this
Platonic morality is obvious; on closer examination his views are found
to be absolutely incompatible with the scientific truth which we owe to
modern anatomy, physiology, histology, and ontogeny; we mention them
only because, in spite of their absurdity, they have had a profound
influence on thought and culture. On the one hand, the mysticism of the
Neo-Platonists, which penetrated into Christianity, attaches itself to
the psychology of Plato; on the other hand, it became subsequently one
of the chief supports of spiritualistic and idealistic philosophy. The
Platonic "idea" gave way in time to the notion of psychic "substance";
this is just as incomprehensible and metaphysical, though it often
assumed a physical appearance.
The conception of the soul as a "substance" is far from clear in many
psychologists; sometimes it is regarded as an "immaterial" entity of
a peculiar character in an abstract and idealistic sense, sometimes
in a concrete and realistic sense, and sometimes as a confused
_tertium quid_ between the two. If we adhere to the monistic idea of
substance, which we develop in chap. xii., and which takes it to be
the simplest element of our whole world-system, we find _energy_ and
_matter_ inseparably associated in it. We must, therefore, distinguish
in the "substance of the soul" the characteristic psychic _energy_
which is all we perceive (sensation, presentation, volition, etc.),
and the psychic _matter_, which is the inseparable basis of its
activity--that is, the living protoplasm. Thus, in the higher animals
the "matter" of the soul is a part of the nervous system; in the lower
nerveless animals and plants it is a part of their multicellular
protoplasmic body; and in the unicellular protists it is a part of
their protoplasmic cell-body. In this way we are brought once more
to the psychic organs, and to an appreciation of the fact that these
material organs are indispensable for the action of the soul; but the
soul itself is _actual_--it is the sum-total of their physiological
functions.
However, the idea of a specific "soul-substance" found in the
dualistic philosophers who admit such a thing is very different from
this. They conceive the immortal soul to be material, yet invisible,
and essentially different from the visible body which it inhabits.
Thus _invisibility_ comes to be regarded as a most important attribute
of the soul. Some, in fact, compare the soul with ether, and regard
it, like ether, as an extremely subtle, light, and highly elastic
material, an imponderable agency, that fills the intervals between the
ponderable particles of the living organism, others compare the soul
with the wind, and so give it a gaseous nature; and it is this simile
which first found favor with primitive peoples, and led in time to the
familiar dualistic conception. When a man died, the body remained as a
lifeless corpse, but the immortal soul "flew out of it with the last
breath."
The comparison of the human soul with physical ether as a qualitatively
similar idea has assumed a more concrete shape in recent times through
the great progress of optics and electricity (especially in the last
decade); for these sciences have taught us a good deal about the
energy of ether, and enabled us to formulate certain conclusions as
to the material character of this all-pervading agency. As I intend
to describe these important discoveries later on (in chap. xii.), I
shall do no more at present than briefly point out that they render
the notion of an "etheric soul" absolutely untenable. Such an etheric
soul--that is a psychic substance--which is similar to physical ether,
and which, like ether, passes between the ponderable elements of the
living protoplasm or the molecules of the brain, cannot possibly
account for the individual life of the soul. Neither the mystic
notions of that kind which were warmly discussed about the middle
of the century, nor the attempts of modern "Neovitalists" to put
their mystical "vital force" on a line with physical ether, call for
refutation any longer.
Much more widespread, and still much respected, is the view which
ascribes a gaseous nature to the substance of the soul. The comparison
of human breath with the wind is a very old one; they were originally
considered to be identical, and were both given the same name. The
_anemos_ and _psyche_ of the Greeks, and the _anima_ and _spiritus_
of the Romans, were originally all names for "a breath of wind"; they
were transferred from this to the breath of man. After a time this
"living breath" was identified with the "vital force," and finally it
came to be regarded as the soul itself, or, in a narrower sense, as its
highest manifestation, the "spirit." From that the imagination went on
to derive the mystic notion of individual "spirits"; these, also, are
still usually conceived as "aëriform beings"--though they are credited
with the physiological functions of an organism, and they have been
photographed in certain well-known spiritist circles.
Experimental physics has succeeded, during the last decade of the
century, in reducing all gaseous bodies to a liquid--most of them,
also, to a solid--condition. Nothing more is needed than special
apparatus, which exerts a violent pressure on the gases at a very low
temperature. By this process not only the atmospheric elements, oxygen,
hydrogen, and nitrogen, but even compound gases (such as carbonic-acid
gas) and gaseous aggregates (like the atmosphere) have been changed
from gaseous to liquid form. In this way the "invisible" substances
have become "visible" to all, and in a certain sense "tangible."
With this transformation the mystic nimbus which formerly veiled
the character of the gas in popular estimation--as an invisible body
that wrought visible effects--has entirely disappeared. If, then, the
substance of the soul were really gaseous, it should be possible to
liquefy it by the application of a high pressure at a low temperature.
We could then catch the soul as it is "breathed out" at the moment of
death, condense it, and exhibit it in a bottle as "immortal fluid"
(_Fluidum animae immortale_). By a further lowering of temperature and
increase of pressure it might be possible to solidify it--to produce
"soul-snow." The experiment has not yet succeeded.
If athanatism were true, if, indeed, the human soul were to live for
all eternity, we should have to grant the same privilege to the souls
of the higher animals, at least to those of the nearest related mammals
(apes, dogs, etc.). For man is not distinguished from them by a special
_kind_ of soul, or by any peculiar and exclusive psychic function,
but only by a higher _degree_ of psychic activity, a superior stage
of development. In particular, consciousness--the function of the
association of ideas, thought, and reason--has reached a higher level
in many men (by no means in all) than in most of the animals. Yet this
difference is far from being so great as is popularly supposed; and it
is much slighter in every respect than the corresponding difference
between the higher and the lower animal souls, or even the difference
between the highest and the lowest stages of the human soul itself. If
we ascribe "personal immortality" to man, we are bound to grant it also
to the higher animals.
It is, therefore, quite natural that we should find this belief in
the immortality of the animal soul among many ancient and modern
peoples; we even meet it sometimes to-day in many thoughtful men
who postulate an "immortal life" for themselves, and have, at the
same time, a thorough empirical knowledge of the psychic life of the
animals. I once knew an old head-forester, who, being left a widower
and without children at an early age, had lived alone for more than
thirty years in a noble forest of East Prussia. His only companions
were one or two servants, with whom he exchanged merely a few necessary
words, and a great pack of different kinds of dogs, with which he
lived in perfect psychic communion. Through many years of training
this keen observer and friend of nature had penetrated deep into the
individual souls of his dogs, and he was as convinced of their personal
immortality as he was of his own. Some of his most intelligent dogs
were, in his impartial and objective estimation, at a higher stage of
psychic development than his old, stupid maid and the rough, wrinkled
manservant. Any unprejudiced observer, who will study the conscious
and intelligent psychic activity of a fine dog for a year, and follow
attentively the physiological processes of its thought, judgment,
and reason, will have to admit that it has just as valid a claim to
immortality as man himself.
The proofs of the immortality of the soul, which have been adduced for
the last two thousand years, and are, indeed, still credited with some
validity, have their origin, for the most part, not in an effort to
discover the truth, but in an alleged "necessity of emotion"--that is,
in imagination and poetic conceit. As Kant puts it, the immortality of
the soul is not an object of pure reason, but a "postulate of practical
reason." But we must set "practical reason" entirely aside, together
with all the "exigencies of emotion, or of moral education, etc.," when
we enter upon an honest and impartial pursuit of truth; for we shall
only attain it by the work of pure reason, starting from empirical
data and capable of logical analysis. We have to say the same of
athanatism as of theism; both are creations of poetic mysticism and of
transcendental "faith," not of rational science.
When we come to analyze all the different proofs that have been urged
for the immortality of the soul, we find that not a single one of them
is of a scientific character; not a single one is consistent with the
truths we have learned in the last few decades from physiological
psychology and the theory of descent. The _theological_ proof--that
a personal creator has breathed an immortal soul (generally regarded
as a portion of the divine soul) into man--is a pure myth. The
_cosmological_ proof--that the "moral order of the world" demands
the eternal duration of the human soul--is a baseless dogma. The
_teleological_ proof--that the "higher destiny" of man involves the
perfecting of his defective, earthly soul beyond the grave--rests
on a false anthropism. The _moral_ proof--that the defects and
the unsatisfied desires of earthly existence must be fulfilled by
"compensative justice" on the other side of eternity--is nothing
more than a pious wish. The _ethnological_ proof--that the belief in
immortality, like the belief in God, is an innate truth, common to
all humanity--is an error in fact. The _ontological_ proof--that the
soul, being a "simple, immaterial, and indivisible entity," cannot be
involved in the corruption of death--is based on an entirely erroneous
view of the psychic phenomena; it is a spiritualistic fallacy. All
these and similar "proofs of athanatism" are in a parlous condition;
they are definitely annulled by the scientific criticism of the last
few decades.
The extreme importance of the subject leads us to oppose to these
untenable "proofs of immortality" a brief exposition of the sound
scientific arguments against it. The _physiological_ argument shows
that the human soul is not an independent, immaterial substance, but,
like the soul of all the higher animals, merely a collective title
for the sum-total of man's cerebral functions; and these are just
as much determined by physical and chemical processes as any of the
other vital functions, and just as amenable to the law of substance.
The _histological_ argument is based on the extremely complicated
microscopic structure of the brain; it shows us the true "elementary
organs of the soul" in the ganglionic cells. The _experimental_
argument proves that the various functions of the soul are bound up
with certain special parts of the brain, and cannot be exercised unless
these are in a normal condition; if the areas are destroyed, their
function is extinguished; and this is especially applicable to the
"organs of thought," the four central instruments of mental activity.
The _pathological_ argument is the complement of the physiological;
when certain parts of the brain (the centres of speech, sight,
hearing, etc.) are destroyed by sickness, their activity (speech,
vision, hearing, etc.) disappears; in this way nature herself makes
the decisive physiological experiment. The _ontogenetic_ argument
puts before us the facts of the development of the soul in the
individual; we see how the child-soul gradually unfolds its various
powers; the youth presents them in full bloom, the mature man shows
their ripe fruit; in old age we see the gradual decay of the psychic
powers, corresponding to the senile degeneration of the brain. The
_phylogenetic_ argument derives its strength from palæontology, and the
comparative anatomy and physiology of the brain; co-operating with and
completing each other, these sciences prove to the hilt that the human
brain (and, consequently, its function--the soul) has been evolved step
by step from that of the mammal, and, still further back, from that of
the lower vertebrate.
These inquiries, which might be supplemented by many other results of
modern science, prove the old dogma of the immortality of the soul
to be absolutely untenable; in the twentieth century it will not be
regarded as a subject of serious scientific research, but will be left
wholly to transcendental "faith." The "critique of pure reason" shows
this treasured faith to be a mere _superstition_, like the belief in a
personal God which generally accompanies it. Yet even to-day millions
of "believers"--not only of the lower, uneducated masses, but even of
the most cultured classes--look on this superstition as their dearest
possession and their most "priceless treasure." It is, therefore,
necessary to enter more deeply into the subject, and--assuming it to
be true--to make a critical inquiry into its practical value. It soon
becomes apparent to the impartial critic that this value rests, for
the most part, on fancy, on the want of clear judgment and consecutive
thought. It is my firm and honest conviction that a definitive
abandonment of these "athanatist illusions" would involve no painful
loss, but an inestimable positive gain for humanity.
Man's "emotional craving" clings to the belief on immortality for two
main reasons: firstly, in the hope of better conditions of life beyond
the grave; and, secondly, in the hope of seeing once more the dear
and loved ones whom death has torn from us. As for the first hope,
it corresponds to a natural feeling of the justice of compensation,
which is quite correct subjectively, but has no objective validity
whatever. We make our claim for an indemnity for the unnumbered defects
and sorrows of our earthly existence, without the slightest real
prospect or guarantee of receiving it. We long for an eternal life in
which we shall meet no sadness and no pain, but an unbounded peace
and joy. The pictures that most men form of this blissful existence
are extremely curious; the immaterial soul is placed in the midst of
grossly material pleasures. The imagination of each believer paints
the enduring splendor according to his personal taste. The American
Indian, whose athanatism Schiller has so well depicted, trusts to
find in his Paradise the finest hunting-grounds with innumerable
hordes of buffaloes and bears; the Eskimo looks forward to sun-tipped
icebergs with an inexhaustible supply of bears, seals, and other polar
animals; the effeminate Cingalese frames his Paradise on the wonderful
island-paradise of Ceylon with its noble gardens and forests--adding
that there will be unlimited supplies of rice and curry, of cocoanuts
and other fruit, always at hand; the Mohammedan Arab believes it will
be a place of shady gardens of flowers, watered by cool springs, and
filled with lovely maidens; the Catholic fisherman of Sicily looks
forward to a daily superabundance of the most valuable fishes and the
finest macaroni, and eternal absolution for all his sins, which he
can go on committing in his eternal home; the evangelical of North
Europe longs for an immense Gothic cathedral, in which he can chant
the praises of the Lord of Hosts for all eternity. In a word, each
believer really expects his eternal life to be a direct continuation
of his individual life on earth, only in a "much improved and enlarged
edition."
We must lay special stress on the thoroughly materialistic character
of _Christian_ athanatism, which is closely connected with the absurd
dogma of the "resurrection of the body." As thousands of paintings of
famous masters inform us, the bodies that have risen again, with the
souls that have been born again, walk about in heaven just as they did
in this vale of tears; they see God with their eyes, they hear His
voice with their ears, they sing hymns to His praise with their larynx,
and so forth. In fine, the modern inhabitants of the Christian Paradise
have the same dual character of body and soul, the same organs of an
earthly body, as our ancient ancestors had in Odin's Hall in Walhalla,
as the "immortal" Turks and Arabs have in Mohammed's lovely gardens, as
the old Greek demi-gods and heroes had in the enjoyment of nectar and
ambrosia at the table of Zeus.
But, however gloriously we may depict this eternal life in Paradise,
it remains _endless_ in duration. Do we realize what "eternity"
means?--the uninterrupted continuance of our individual life forever!
The profound legend of the "wandering Jew," the fruitless search for
rest of the unhappy Ahasuerus, should teach us to appreciate such
an "eternal life" at its true value. The best we can desire after a
courageous life, spent in doing good according to our light, is the
eternal peace of the grave. "Lord, give them an eternal rest."
Any impartial scholar who is acquainted with geological calculations
of time, and has reflected on the long series of millions of years the
organic history of the earth has occupied, must admit that the crude
notion of an eternal life is not a _comfort_, but a fearful _menace_,
to the best of men. Only want of clear judgment and consecutive thought
can dispute it.
The best and most plausible ground for athanatism is found in the
hope that immortality will reunite us to the beloved friends who have
been prematurely taken from us by some grim mischance. But even this
supposed good fortune proves to be an illusion on closer inquiry; and
in any case it would be greatly marred by the prospect of meeting the
less agreeable acquaintances and the enemies who have troubled our
existence here below. Even the closest family ties would involve many
a difficulty. There are plenty of men who would gladly sacrifice all
the glories of Paradise if it meant the eternal companionship of their
"better half" and their mother-in-law. It is more than questionable
whether Henry VIII. would like the prospect of living eternally with
his six wives; or Augustus the Strong of Poland, who had a hundred
mistresses and three hundred and fifty-two children. As he was on good
terms with the Vicar of Christ, he must be assumed to be in Paradise,
in spite of his sins, and in spite of the fact that his mad military
ventures cost the lives of more than a hundred thousand Saxons.
Another insoluble difficulty faces the athanatist when he asks _in what
stage of their individual development_ the disembodied souls will spend
their eternal life. Will the new-born infant develop its psychic powers
in heaven under the same hard conditions of the "struggle for life"
which educate man here on earth? Will the talented youth who has fallen
in the wholesale murder of war unfold his rich, unused mental powers in
Walhalla? Will the feeble, childish old man, who has filled the world
with the fame of his deeds in the ripeness of his age, live forever in
mental decay? Or will he return to an earlier stage of development?
If the immortal souls in Olympus are to live in a condition of
rejuvenescence and perfectness, then both the stimulus to the formation
of, and the interest in, personality disappear for them.
Not less impossible, in the light of pure reason, do we find the
anthropistic myth of the "last judgment," and the separation of the
souls of men into two great groups, of which one is destined for
the eternal joys of Paradise and the other for the eternal torments
of hell--and that from a personal God who is called the "Father of
Love"! And it is this "Universal Father" who has himself created the
conditions of heredity and adaptation, in virtue of which the elect, on
the one side, were _bound_ to pursue the path towards eternal bliss,
and the luckless poor and miserable, on the other hand, were _driven_
into the paths of the damned?
A critical comparison of the countless and manifold fantasies which
belief in immortality has produced during the last few thousand years
in the different races and religions yields a most remarkable picture.
An intensely interesting presentation of it, based on most extensive
original research, may be found in Adalbert Svoboda's distinguished
works, _The Illusion of the Soul_ and _Forms of Faith_. However absurd
and inconsistent with modern knowledge most of these myths seem to be,
they still play an important part, and, as "postulates of practical
reason," they exercise a powerful influence on the opinions of
individuals and on the destiny of races.
The idealist and spiritualist philosophy of the day will freely grant
that these prevalent materialistic forms of belief in immortality are
untenable; it will say that the refined idea of an immaterial soul,
a Platonic "idea" or a transcendental psychic substance, must be
substituted for them. But modern realism can have nothing whatever to
do with these incomprehensible notions; they satisfy neither the mind's
feeling of causality nor the yearning of our emotions. If we take a
comprehensive glance at all that modern anthropology, psychology,
and cosmology teach with regard to athanatism, we are forced to this
definite conclusion: "The belief in the immortality of the human soul
is a dogma which is in hopeless contradiction with the most solid
empirical truths of modern science."