Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Ichthyology" to "Independence" / Volume 14, Slice 3

by Various

Adam Ferguson (Institutes of Moral Philosophy, p. 119, new ed., 1800) argues that “the desire for immortality is an instinct, and can reasonably be regarded as an indication of that which the author of this desire wills to do.” From the standpoint of modern science John Fiske confirms the validity of such an argument; for what he affirms in regard to belief in the divine is equally applicable to this belief in a future life. “If the relation thus established in the morning twilight of man’s existence between the human soul and a world invisible and immaterial is a relation of which only the subjective term is real and the objective term is non-existent; then I say it is something utterly without precedent in the whole history of creation” (Through Nature to God, 1899, p. 188, 189). Whatever may have been Hegel’s own belief in regard to personal immortality, the logical issue of his absolute idealism has been well stated by W. Windelband (History of Philosophy, p. 633). “It became clear that in the system of perpetual Becoming and of the dialectical passing over of all forms into one another, the finite personality could scarcely raise a plausible claim to the character of a substance and to immortality in the religious sense.” F. D. Schleiermacher applies the phrase “the immortality of religion” to the religious emotion of oneness, amid finitude, with the infinite and, amid time, with the eternal; denies any necessary connexion between the belief in the continuance of personal existence and the consciousness of God; and rests his faith on immortality altogether on Christ’s promise of living fellowship with His followers, as presupposing their as well as His personal immortality. A. Schopenhauer assigns immortality to the universal will to live; and Feuerbach declares spirit, consciousness eternal, but not any individual subject. R. H. Lotze for the decision of the question lays down the broad principle, “All that has once come to be will eternally continue so soon as for the organic unity of the world it has an unchangeable value, but it will obviously again cease to be, when that is not the case” (Gr. der Psy. p. 74).

Objections to the belief in immortality have been advanced from the standpoints of materialism, naturalism, pessimism and pantheism. Materialism argues that, as life depends on a material organism, thought is a function of the brain, and the soul is but the sum of mental states, to which, according to the theory of psychophysical parallelism, physical changes always correspond; therefore, the dissolution of the body carries with it necessarily the cessation of consciousness. That, as now constituted, mind does depend on brain, life on body, must be conceded, but that this dependence is so absolute that the function must cease with the organ has not been scientifically demonstrated; the connexion of the soul with the body is as yet too obscure to justify any such dogmatism. But against this inference the following considerations may be advanced: (1) Man does distinguish himself from his body; (2) he is conscious of his personal identity, through all the changes of his body; (3) in the exercise of his will he knows himself not controlled by but controlling his body; (4) his consciousness warrants his denying the absolute identification of himself and his body. It may further be added that materialism can be shown to be an inadequate philosophy in its attempts to account even for the physical universe, for this is inexplicable without the assumption of mind distinct from, and directive of, matter. The theory of psychophysical parallelism has been subjected to a rigorous examination in James Ward’s Naturalism and Agnosticism, part iii., in which the argument that mind cannot be derived from matter is convincingly presented. Sir Oliver Lodge in his reply to E. Haeckel’s Riddle of the Universe maintains that “life may be something not only ultra-terrestrial, but even immaterial, something outside our present categories of matter and energy; as real as they are, but different, and utilizing them for its own purpose” (Life and Matter, 1906, p. 198). He rejects the attempt to explain human personality as “generated by the material molecular aggregate of its own unaided latent power,” and affirms that the “universe where the human spirit is more at home than it is among these temporary collocations of matter” is “a universe capable of infinite development, of noble contemplation, and of lofty joy, long after this planet—nay the whole solar system—shall have fulfilled its present spire of destiny, and retired cold and lifeless upon its endless way” (pp. 199-200).

In his lecture on Human Immortality (3rd ed., 1906), Professor William James deals with “two supposed objections to the doctrine.” The first is “the law that thought is a function of the brain.” Accepting the law he distinguishes productive from permissive or transmissive function (p. 32), and, rejecting the view that brain produces thought, he recognizes that in our present condition brain transmits thought, thought needs brain for its organ of expression; but this does not exclude the possibility of a condition in which thought will be no longer so dependent on brain. He quotes (p. 57) with approval Kant’s words, “The death of the body may indeed be the end of the sensational use of our mind, but only the beginning of the intellectual use. The body would thus be not the cause of our thinking, but merely a condition restrictive thereof, and, although essential to our sensuous and animal consciousness, it may be regarded as an impeder of our pure spiritual life” (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 2nd ed., p. 809).

Further arguments in the same direction are derived from the modern school of psychical research (see especially F. W. H. Myers’ Human Personality, 1903).

Another objection is advanced from the standpoint of naturalism, which, whether it issues in materialism or not, seeks to explain man as but a product of the process of nature. The universe is so immeasurably vast in extension and duration, and man is so small, his home but a speck in space, and his history a span in time that it seems an arrogant assumption for him to claim exemption from the universal law of evolution and dissolution. This view ignores that man has ideals of absolute value, truth, beauty, goodness, that he consciously communes with the God who is in all, and through all, and over all, that it is his mind which recognizes the vastness of the universe and thinks its universal law, and that the mind which perceives and conceives cannot be less, but must be greater than the object of its knowledge and thought.

Pessimism suggests a third objection. The present life is so little worth living that its continuance is not to be desired. James Thomson (“B.V.”) speaks “of the restful rapture of the inviolate grave,” and sings the praises of death and of oblivion. We cannot admit that the history of mankind justifies his conclusion; for the great majority of men life is a good, and its continuance an object of hope.

For pantheism personal immortality appears a lesser good than reabsorption in the universal life; but against this objection we may confidently maintain that worthier of God and more blessed for man is the hope of a conscious communion in an eternal life of the Father of all with His whole family.

Lastly positivism teaches a corporate instead of an individual immortality; man should desire to live on as a beneficent influence in the race. This conception is expressed in George Eliot’s lines:

“O, may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence: live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge man’s search To vaster issues.”

But these possibilities are not mutually exclusive alternatives. A man may live on in the world by his teaching and example as a power for good, a factor of human progress, and he may also be continuing and completing his course under conditions still more favourable to all most worthy in him. Consciously to participate as a person in the progress of the race is surely a worthier hope than unconsciously to contribute to it as an influence; ultimately to share the triumph as well as the struggle is a more inspiring anticipation.