The question of the pre-existence or sur vival of the soul is not a scientific problem. Positive science is impotent either to ptove or disprove the dogma. It is a problem for re ligion, and its ultimate appeal is to faith. So long as science keeps within its borders, it is neither philosophy nor religion, and has no verdict to pronounce upon ultimate reality. The dogma of immortality in the higher civi lizations is largely based on the philosophical theory of the ideality of human life and on the demand for an ideal completion of experience which involves a transexperiential world. It is a postulate of purposiveness, of teleology in the ethical realm.
The general tendency of modern biological science and cerebral physiology has been to discard the doctrine of immortality, although the relations between molecular movements of the brain, on the one hand, and thoughts and feelings, on the other, are known to science merely as concomitants, and in no case as products or effects. James ((Human Immor tality,' 1898) has endeavored to °draw the fangs of cerebralistic materialism° by ascribing to the brain a °transmissive° function, instead of a °productive° function. Tait and Stewart Unseen Universe,' London 1894) postulate an unseen world, from which the known visible world has arisen and to which we must resort for the origin of molecules as well as for an explanation of the forces that animate these molecules; and it is reasonable to suppose, as these physicists say, that the ultimate unseen i universe is connected by bonds of energy with the visible universe and is capable of receiving energy from it and of transforming the energy thus received. To say that the visible world is either eternal or has the power of originat ing life contradicts the result of observation and experiment (op. cit. p. 246). Therefore, the hypothesis of an eternal unseen universe is necessary to explain the evolution of the mat ter and life of the visible world and the only method of avoiding a break in the continuity of reality. The law of the conservation of mass and of energy, the law of biogenesis (every living being presupposes an antecedent life), and the law of continuity (there is no break in reality, the universe is of a piece) make the assumption of an unseen universe the easiest mode of explaining the empirical. Fur ther, the postulate of a rational cosmic energy is necessitated by the ordered character and inherent teleology of reality. The law of con tinuity and conservation of energy necessitate the further conclusion that the psychic energy of the individual is not lost, but transmuted into the unseen world.
During the 18th century and the early part of the 19th, the dogma of immortality was widely discussed. The French materialists de nied the doctrine in every form, regarding the psychic life purely as an organic function. In the system of Identity (Schelling) and Spinozism no place for the doctrine is found. In Fichte's idealism the creative Ego is not the individual, but the absolute Ego; the individual Ego realizes itself only by negating its individ uality, by universalizing itself, and the Ego thus exemplifying the conceptual life of truth, con tinues to all eternity, as an indestructible part .of the reality of the Absolute Ego. Hegel paid little attention to the problem, but the early Hegelians split into two factions, the one af firming and the other denying the doctrine (cf. Feuerbach, Richter, Weisse, Goschel, Conradi). In Lotze's teleological idealism the immortality of the soul (which is hardly more than casually mentioned) is based on the principle of value; that thing will continue forever which by reason of its excellence should be an abiding constitu tive part of the Cosmical Order, but one can not say. that all human souls are immortal. This idea of a conditional immortality, deter mined by ethical value, reappears in later dis cussions (cf. McConnell, 'The Evolution of i.e., immortality is simply a moral achievement.
According to Kant, scientific demonstration is not applicable to these three truths: the Ex istence of God, the Freedom of the Will and Immortality. Whey postulates of morality. The work of man as a moral being, with in finite potentialities, i.e. infinite perfectibility, necessitates an infinite time for their realization. The laws of the moral life are drawn from a transcendental sphere, free from conditions of time and space, and so the very essence of man's moral being is invested with the eternal. Man is infinitely progressive and perfectible in his i moral and intellectual evolution, and this fact points indubitably to a further existence. If death were the end, the moral ideal would be illusory, and man would perish a fragment. An infinite moral imperative implies an infinite moral ability. Duty demands moral perfection. Further, the moral ideal is a character-ideal, an ideal of personal aim, which implies a per sonal destiny, and the non-illusoriness of the moral life implies the possibility of realizing its ideal.