A mass of testimony is produced. ancient and modern, to show actual communieation between the dead and the living. Much of this testimony comes from persons bereaved of some relative or friend whose potent personality still occu pies the mind. In almost all instances the in itiative is taken by the living. and the communi cation is mediated through a third person. A critical sifting is often impossible. Where the manifestations through a medium have been watched and studied by scientifically trained ob servers, there is at best only a small residue of facts that cannot be accounted for by known laws of nature. In the present state of our knowledge of psychic phenomena, it is sometimes hazardous to pronounce a jthrment. The scientist is. as a rule, inclined to assume the operation of some low of nature not yet fully understood. The manifestations may thus furnish to our minds a presumption in favor of immortality, but they cannot prove it. With more effect an argument is founded upon the incompleteness of the present life. The largest part of the human race die in infancy, or before years of discretion have been reached, and it is natural to ask whether there is no outflowcring elsewhere of the human life that only buds here. Even the longest lifetime raises more intellectual problems than it solves, and leaves the mind curiously looking for their solu tions to the last. The moral imperfections, seen even in the best, painfully apparent in the masses of men, give the impression of something frag mentary, unfinished, partially realized. The in equalities of life as regards wealth, position, health, opportunity for self-realization, and the still more marked inequalities of character. seem to call for a readjustment, for compensations in another life. If these considerations strictly prove only a dissatisfaction with prevailing con ditions, and would to some extent lose their validity as arguments in a state of society better organized, more resourceful, and strong than the present, the shrinking from even a painless death, the sense of an inalienable per sonality, and the long and widespread prevalence of the hope of a future life are deemed by many to have evidential value. The fear of death may; indeed be a dread of extinction, and the fear of something after death the involuntary reflection of a belief long cherished by mankind. But it. is forcefully argued that a belief so strong and persistent is not likely to be a sheer delusion.
While manifestly it is not safe to conclude from the intensity and popularity of an idea that there must Ice an objective reality corresponding to it, and while it is especially to be considered that modern science has revolutionized that estimate of the universe. held throughout the ages, with which all eschatological speculations in antiquity were closely connected, it nevertheless seems plausible that some fact in nature's economy is reflected in the hope of immortality. That the elements composing man's body at death are im perishable and will forever continue to be inte gral parts of forms that manifest the eternal energy, is reasonably certain. That his psychical peculiarities survive in his offspring and in the human lives that directly or indirectly come into contact with him, is a matter of easy observation. this survival in the race is endless scents to some thinkers doubtful, on the ground that the earth itself will some day have run its course and ceased to he the bearer through spaco of organic life. But as it is quite inenneeivable that in an infinite universe, constituted, as spec tral analysis shows, of essentially the same sub stances, a single satellite of a single sun should have produced intelligenee like that of man, the secret. of the earth's life may become known, and
the influence of the human race, large or small, good or bad, may be felt elsewhere in the uni verse ere the final catastrophe comes, and even out of the death of this planet are likely to rise new forms of life.
That man will live forever in other forms of physical organization and of consciousness may therefore he regarded as exceedingly probable. Whether the consciousness of personal identity which cannot be stripped off or dissolved in the succession of fluctuating mental states and the accompanying sense of moral accountability can Ice fully explained as products of the brain due to the persistency of the physical type. in spite of incessant ehanges in the organism, may be gravely questioned. From the standpoint of idealistic philosophy this consciousness of self is interpret ed as betokening the presence of a spiritual monad reflected to human sense-perception only as though it possessed a material form. But even if the ul timate reality is conceived of as an infinite, eter nal, and inexhaustible energy, it does not seem to follow that each or any of its individualized ex pressions shares its everlasting persistence. Rather would it seem as if the reality that no longer is shadowed forth to our sense in the outward form of a man must have ceased to be what it was. The idea of a conditional immortality has re ceived some additional strength from the doctrine of a survival of the fittest. It encounters great difficulties, however, in attempting to define what constitutes fitness. The difference between a short life on earth and an endless existence is so infinitely great that the mind shrinks from ascribing the power to determine so momentous a fate to any conviction that has been formed, or disposition that has been developed, or line of conduct that had been adhered to, during a few years of earthly life, especially in view of the enormous influence of heredity and environ ment. ]f, therefore, scientific inquiry apparently leads to a non liquet, and assurance based on au thority can be preserved only until the authority itself is questioned, it is the more gratifying to note the important place the doctrine of im mortality has had in the education of the human race in enhancing the worth of the individual and emphasizing his higher spiritual interests, in maintaining his confidence in the inherent right ness of the universe, and in training him to regu late his present conduct by considerations of the future.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Alger, Doctrine of a. Future Bibliography. Alger, Doctrine of a. Future Life (New York, 1871) Atzberger, Dic christ liehe Eschatologie (Freiburg, 1890) ; Schwally, Des Leben nach dem Tode nach den Vorstellungen des alien Israel (Giessen, 1892) ; Jeremias, Die Forstellungen ram Leben 'tacit dem Todc (2d ed., Leipzig, 1897) ; Rohde, Psyche (2d ed., Freiburg, 1898) ; Dietrich, Nekyia (Leipzig, 1893) ; Soderblom, La rie fu ture d'apres le ilazdeisnie a la lumiere des croyanecs paralliles dans les mitres religions (Paris, 1901) ; B6klen, Die Vencandtschaft der mit der persischen Eschato logi (Gottingen, 1902) ; Tiele. Geseitiedenis van den godsdicnst in de oudheit (Amsterdam, 1902) ; Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums ins neutestamentlieben Zcitaltcr (Berlin, 1903) ; Gordon, Immortality and the New Theodiey (Boston, 1896) ; James, Human Immortality (Boston, MIS) ; Wheeler, Dionysos and Immor tality (Boston. 1899) ; Sahnond. Christian Doc trine of Immortality (3d ed., Edinburgh. 1897) ; Charles, Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life (London, 1897) ; Pluinptre, Spirits in Prison and Other Studies in the Life After Death (London, MG).