THE KNICKERBOCKER.
Vol. XXII. NOVEMBER, 1843. No. 5.
[THOUGHTS ON IMMORTALITY.]
BY A NEW CONTRIBUTOR.
There are those who reject the idea of a future state; or, at least, who deny that they ought to be convinced of its reality, because reasoning, in the method of the sciences, does not appear to prove it to them; although they acknowledge how natural it is for man to anticipate a future existence. I have thought that such persons might be included in a similitude like the following. Let us suppose a young bee, just returning from his first excursion abroad, bearing his load of honey. He has been in a labyrinth of various directions, and far from his native home; winding among trees and their branches, and stopping to sip from numerous flowers. He has even been taken, by one bearing no good-will to the little community of which he is a member, and carried onward, without being permitted a sight of the objects which he passed, that he might estimate aright his new direction. Notwithstanding, he is winging his way with unerring precision to the place where his little load is to be deposited. Not more exactly does the needle tend to the pole, than the line he is drawing points toward his store-house. But in this he is governed by no such considerations of distance and direction as enable the skilful navigator so beautifully to select his way along the pathless ocean. He has no data, by reasoning from which, as the geometrician reasons, he may determine that his course bears so many degrees to the right or so many to the left. He has never been taught to mark the right ascension of hill-tops, nor to estimate latitude and longitude from the trees. He is governed in his progress by that indescribable and mysterious principle of instinct alone, which, although developed in man, produces its most surprising effects in the brute creation. But here, as he is going onward thus swiftly and surely, by some creative power a vast addition is made to his previous character. All at once he becomes a reasoning being, possessed of all the faculties which are found in the philosopher. He is endowed with judgment, that he may compare, and consciousness and reflection, to make him a metaphysician. Nor is he slow to exercise these newly-acquired faculties.
Among other things, his consciousness tells him that he is impressed with a deep presentiment of something greatly desirable in the far distance toward which he supposes his course to be fast and directly tending. Perhaps he has a memory of the place he left, of the business there going on, and of the part which he is taking in it. Probably his strong impression is, that he is fast advancing toward that place; that he expects the greeting of his friends of the swarm. Possibly he finds his bosom even now beginning to swell in anticipation of the praise which shall be bestowed on his early manifestation of industry and virtue. Perhaps his recollections are more vague; and accordingly his consciousness only tells him that he thinks of something requiring him to urge onward in that particular direction, but of which he realizes no very definite idea.
But here Reason interrupts him: 'Why are you pursuing this course so fast? I see nothing to attract your attention so strongly.' 'I am going to a place lying this way,' says the bee, 'where I can deposite my load in safety, which I am anxious to do quickly, that I may return for another.' 'But,' says Reason, 'what evidence have you that the place lies this way?' Here Philosophy whispers: 'You should not act without evidence; it becomes no reasonable creature to do so;' but Reason continues: 'There are many points in the horizon beside that you are making for; and I see not why one of them is not as likely to be the place as another.'
This rather staggered the bee at first; for he had no recollection of courses and distances taken, by a comparison of which he could prove his true direction; but suddenly he said: 'Why, I am so strongly impressed that this is the course, that I cannot doubt it.' 'But what signify your strong impressions,' says Reason, 'if they are not founded on any evidence? Were you ever led to such a place as you seek by the aid of impression alone?' 'I never was,' said the bee; for in fact he had never before been out of sight of the place where he was born. 'Then again,' says Reason, 'I ask what is your evidence?' And Philosophy again, as a faithful monitor, replies: 'Bee, you must not act without evidence.'
The bee could hardly add any thing more. Had his experience been greater, and his reflection deeper, he might have answered, that there are principles in the mind pointing to certain conclusions, and seeking to establish certain beliefs, of which those principles are at once the evidence and the source; and that the impression which now seemed so clearly to point out his course was one of this class. But in the exercise of his young faculties he had not yet arrived at that height of philosophy which could lead him to recur to such principles. He had never come to distinguish between those impressions which have taken possession of the mind by chance, and those which Nature herself has prepared to aid the very weakness of reason. No wonder then, that thus sore pressed by Reason, he seemed to find himself at fault.
Whether these mental conflicts were sufficient to suspend his course entirely, or whether, like a prudent bee, he resolved to act as if nature were right and reason were wrong until he knew nature to be wrong and reason to be right, I am not able to say. But I could not fail to reflect, that if he did finally arrive at the place whither he had been directing his course, he would probably quarrel with all the arrangements in the tree.
It would not occur to him, for instance, why such particular art should be observed in constructing the cells of the comb as the bee has ever been known to observe. Why must they always be made with just six sides to them, and no more? Why could they not, upon occasion, be constructed with three or four sides, or even round, equally as well? Surely a curve is more beautiful than a combination of straight lines, with angular points to disturb the mind; and variety is undoubtedly essential to all harmony. But if six sides are to be preferred, why not have the same number for the roof and floor? and why should they be always constructed with one particular inclination? These and other rules, which the bee has hitherto followed with such admirable but unconscious wisdom, his uninstructed reason would be slow to deduce from obvious first principles. He would perhaps be no better a mathematician than man himself, with whom centuries succeeded one another before he had followed the discursive and mazy track to the point whence is seen the just and convenient architecture of the bee.
We can hardly suppose that under such circumstances he would not become a confirmed skeptic; rejecting all truths which his peculiar reasonings would not demonstrate; and failing by reason to demonstrate those truths which to him are of the greatest consequence. All this would not be because he had reason, nor because he exercised it, but because he exercised it imperfectly. And yet he would seem to use it very much as some modern philosophers recommend.