There is good reason to believe that the persistence of the mind-body puzzle has been due to two conditions, the lack of an adequate theory of knowledge, and an ultra-mechanical, or non-evolutionary, view of the physical world. Scientists and philosophers, alike, were possessed by an inertia which prevented them from taking the principle of evolution seriously. They refused to readjust their ideas so as to admit that organization of a high grade, such as characterizes the nervous system, has a synthetic way of acting of its own, not reducible to the mere chain-like action of externally related units. There are many signs pointing to the conclusion that a broader and more flexible naturalism is forming which will sweep away the artificial problems and stereotyped contrasts which have stood in the way of a candid inclusion of human thought and activity within nature. When that day comes, the hesitations which have encouraged the faith in immortality in the face of empirical difficulties of an ever-increasing weight will pass away. I am inclined to prophesy that psychology and physiology will reach an adjustment of their principles before many years have passed, and that consciousness and mind will take their places along with mass and energy in the scientific view of nature. The old dualism of soul and body will pass away and give place to a flexible naturalism.
The belief in immortality and the wish for it will die out very slowly. The vague appetite for another life will persist as an undercurrent of half-understood desire for a good whose nature has not been clearly thought out. What men really want is an eternal youth in an environment which gives opportunity for self-expression and pleasant companionship. It means rest to the weary, new horizons to those who wish to achieve, a release from fetters to those who have felt themselves oppressed. What a quiet charm there is in such an uncritical play of the fancy! But is it anything more than daydreaming? Can our musings become definite without revealing themselves as fancies? Alas! our souls are old and written upon, and we would no longer be the same were these marks removed. They have a meaning for us and we cannot wish them away. If, for a forgetful moment, we envy the smooth cheeks of a youth, the envy is but momentary. What we desire is his abundant energy and hopefulness with our own humorous and wiser self in command. How completely we are parts of life as it is lived upon this planet! Desires, affections, passions, ideas, habits, all, when analyzed, point to the human organism and its environment. Our personality is like a plant which draws its nourishment from what surrounds it. Remove the old peasant from his fields and plow-fellows, and he will lose interest in life. Remove the business man from the mart and counter, and he will become restless. How can we expect to revive a zest in life by cutting the grown personality loose from what it has fed upon? It is psychologically absurd and betrays that tendency to abstract thinking which is so widespread. The human personality is a function of this sub-lunar life, of this organism, of this sky, of this soil, of this restless struggle with nature. Immortality is an impossible surgery.
At certain stages of social development, false beliefs are simply inevitable. For example, the Ptolemaic view of the solar system was bound to precede the Copernican. And false beliefs do both good and harm before they are outgrown. How many of the down-trodden have looked to another world to right their wrongs! It gave them hope: but it made them passive and all too meek. Has not the idea of another life encouraged a false perspective in regard to this one? I cannot feel that the belief was ever a very healthy one for the human race. Yet, during the coming period of transition, many who have been trained to hold false expectations will experience grievous pain. People who become used to a narcotic recoil from the idea of giving it up. Their nervous system has been taught to depend upon it. Is there not something parallel to this in ethics? Religious romanticism is a spiritual narcotic which substitutes a dream world for the more humdrum world of every-day existence. It develops a taste for the meretricious and sentimental. In revenge, the enthusiast fails to achieve insight into the significance of common things. Life's real tragedies and triumphs are veiled from his untrained eye. Only a whole-hearted, even joyous, immersion in the sea of struggling human life gives the imagination that iron vigor it needs. The greatest saints have talked the least of heaven.
"Born into life!—who lists
May what is false hold dear,
And for himself make mists
Through which to see less clear;
The world is what it is, for all our dust and din.
"Is it so small a thing
To have enjoy'd the sun,
To have lived light in the spring,
To have loved, to have thought, to have done;
To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes—"
Let those who can meet life bravely and joyously. The stage has been planned by no master artist, and the actors are only amateurs compelled to improvise their parts; but the sunlight is sometimes golden and the spoken lines often surprise us with their beauty. What critic can pass assured judgment upon this continuous play?