Thoughts on Life and Religion / An Aftermath from the Writings of The Right Honourable Professor Max Müller

by F. Max Müller

Truly those who die young are blest. And shall we find them again such as they left us? Why not? It is really here on earth that those whom we love change, it is here that they die every day.... Where are all those bright joyous faces which we look at when we open our photograph books from year to year? On earth they are lost, but are they not treasured up for another life, where we shall be not only what we are from day to day, never the same to-morrow as we were yesterday, but where we are at once all that we can be—where memory is not different from perception, nor our wills different from our acts? We shall soon know—till then surely we have a right to be what we are, and to cling to our human hopes. The more human they are, the nearer the truth they are likely to be.

Life.

I believe in all our hopes we cannot be human enough. Let us be what we are—men, feel as men, sorrow as men, hope as men. It is true our hopes are human, but what are the doubts and difficulties? Are they not human too? Shall we meet again as we left? Why not? We do not know how it will be so, but who has a right to say it cannot be so? Let us imagine and hope for the best that, as men, we can conceive, and then rest convinced that it will be a thousand times better.

Life.

The inward voice never suggested or allowed me the slightest doubt or misgiving about the reality of a future life. If there is continuity in the world everywhere, why should there be a wrench and annihilation only with us? It will be as it has been—that is the lesson we learn from nature—how it will be we are not meant to know. There is an old Greek saying to the effect, to try to know what the gods did not tell us is not piety. If God wished us to know what is to be, He would tell us. Darwin has shown us that there is continuity from beginning to end.

Life.

I believe in the continuity of Self. If there were an annihilation or complete change of our individual self-consciousness, we might become somebody else, but we should not be ourselves. Personally, I have no doubt of the persistence of the individual after death, as we call it. I cannot imagine the very crown and flower of creation being destroyed by its author. I do not say it is impossible, it is not for us to say either yes or no; we have simply to trust, but that trust or faith is implanted in us, and is strengthened by everything around us.

Life.