In I. Corinthians xv. the thought is expressed that if Jesus was not risen His disciples are not raised, and that it does not matter how life is lived, if that is the case. It was felt that through Ilis resurrection He had thrown light upon life and immortality. Much of the success of Chris tianity was no doubt due to the prospect that it held out for a future life. It offered to all men, even slaves and barbarians not permitted to participate in the official cult and not invited to take the holy vows of the secret cult-societies, the same blessed immortality that was promised to those initiated in the Orphic, Dionysiae, and Mithraie mysteries, and it was itself influenced by the thoughts that had prevailed in these reli gious societies. (See HEAVEN ; HELL.) The Greek idea that the soul is immortal by virtue of its own nature became dominant in Christian theology. The controversies within the Church have not affected this fundamental position, but have had reference to the character of the future life.
Through Maimonides the Greek conception of immortality found its way into the synagogue. At first it had a tendency to exclude the doctrine of a resurrection ; subsequently it was made the philosophical basis of this doctrine as in the Church. With the renascence of learning and the development of natural science doubts as to the immortality of the soul began to be expressed. Oriel Acosta (q.v.) was persecuted for rejecting this doctrine, and he had sympathizers among the deists. The growth of evolutionary phi losophy in the nineteenth century led many minds to question the survival of the human soul after death, and the possibility of a continued life of the spirit apart from the bodily organism is to day widely denied in scientific circles. Various reasons are given for this negative position. It is maintained that the mental life of man is so closely connected with and invariably dependent upon the brain that a continuance of any intel lectual functions after the dissolution of the body is inconceivable. As the mentality of man appears to differ from that of the animal only in degree, and not in kind, any argument from the peculiarities of the human mind is held to imply also the immortality of the lower organisms.
Still greater difficulties are thought to arise from man's embryological development. The lack of any convincing evidence oreommunication between the dead and the living is pointed out, and it is urged that the origin of the belief can be naturally accounted for, and that its per sistence is largely due to the social conditions in which man is placed. On the other hand, the doctrine is defended not only from the stand point of belief in an infallible revelation. but also by thinkers who claim the right of free inquiry, and base their views solely upon what appears to them to be sufficient evidence. As a
more careful exegesis renders it increasingly dif ficult to appeal to the Old Testament on that subject. it is generally the New Testament, and particularly the words ascribed to Jesus himself, that the authority. Even from an inde pendent point of view, great weight is often ac corded to the conception of Jesus and the New Testament writers, on the ground of the deeper intuition into religious truth possessed by them. The uncertainty, however, as to the actual words of Jesus and the growing impression that some at least of the writers of the New Testament did not believe in a natural immortality, but in an endless life bestowed as a free gift of God upon His children in au especial sense, have led many scholars who attach much importance to these spiritual authorities to accept the theory of a immortality. The good will continue to exist; the wicked are destined for final anni hilation.
Where the question of man's survival is de cided in the affirmative without an appeal to authority, the reasons given are such as the inadequacy of the objections, the •iffieulty of ac counting for certain phenomena except as mani festations of spirits. the incompleteness of the present life, and the 'intimations of immortality' to which it is felt that an objective reality must correspond. Facts are quoted that tend to show the independence of man's mind operating with great clearness, precision, and strength even in wholly abnormal physical conditions; and though, to render the arpiment strictly cogent, it would be necc-sary to prove that in these instances the brain was also affected, and that the mental power would not have been enhanced if the physical conditions had been more normal, im portance stems to be rightly attached to this con sideratinn. That the relation between mental activities and cerebral changes is very intimate is not denied; but it is thought that a distinct and separable spirit using the brain as its organ might act upon it in such a manner as to ex press difTerent perceptions through different cerebral centres. The argument based on the evolution of mental life in animal and man, and the transmission of psychical as well as physical characteristics from man to man, is met by the observation that the consciousness of self, what ' ver its origin, is so distinguishing a mark of human nature and so intrinsically significant that a greater permanence and a loftier destiny may well be associated with it. Instead of mak ing self-consciousness the basis of immortality, others prefer to think of the possession of a sense of right or a peculiarly high development of the moral nature as furnishing the ground for sur vival.