VI HUMAN IMMORTALITY A WHOLE chapter is devoted by Professor Haeckel, as also by his English champion, to the subject of 'The Immortality of the Soul.' It were difficult to say which succeeds in pouring most scorn upon the notion that death does not end all for mortal men. For the 'uneducated persons' of whom Sir Oliver Lodge speaks, such methods of propagating Monism are doubtless effective, but for thoughtful students of modern science and philosophy it is equally the mark of weakness and of prejudice. If this type of scepticism were content to emphasize the mystery which must ever enwrap a theme confessedly beyond scientific demonstration, or to reaffirm, in the words of Professor Tyndall, that 'theologians must liberate and refine their conceptions, or must be prepared for the rejection of them by thoughtful minds,' it would be listened 1 v. p. 136 above. 2 Nineteenth Century, November, 1878. Or as Flugge, quoted by Curteis (Boyle Lecture for 1884, p. 156), 'Assuredly the Christian belief in a future state is capable of and urgently needs elevation, if it is to be regarded as anything more than a popular mythus, and to possess any interest or attraction for cultivated men.' to with respect. And even if, in the name of modern biology, it felt constrained to pronounce the verdict of 'not proven' in regard to some current reasons alleged for faith in immortality, a tone of regretful modesty in so doing would have been to its credit, seeing the enormity and pathos of the issues involved. But the exact opposite of this spirit is that which confronts us. So that before we set ourselves fairly to face whatever of serious fact or valid reasoning may be found in these hundreds of pages, it becomes once more painfully necessary to clear away the 'rubbish'-to borrow Mr. McCabe's own termwhich, in the form of dogmatisms, assumptions, misrepresentations, sneers, &c., blocks the way to a calm consideration of one of the greatest questions that can occupy a mature mind. Not that it is either our duty or intention here to summarize, let alone survey, all the manifold answers which through the ages have been attempted to the question 'If a man die, shall he live again?' Such a vast undertaking must be left to more competent hands.1 Our task now, especially on behalf of those unversed in controversy, is to see how much or how little. there is in this latest, most popular and most virulent assault upon one of the main elements of Christian belief. There may, indeed, be no serious objection to a 'The comprehensive volume of the late Dr. Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality, may well be commended to the attention of the ordinary reader, whilst the genuine student will require to acquaint himself with the literature mentioned in the Preface to the fourth edition of the same work. writer stating his conclusions strongly at the end of a chapter devoted to any theme. As when Haeckel says: If we take a comprehensive glance at all that modern anthropology, psychology, and cosmology teach in regard to athanatism, we are forced to this definite conclusion: the belief in the immortality of the human soul is a dogma which is in hopeless contradiction with the most solid empirical truths of modern science.1 Although even here the over-assertion is a typical fragment of the self-confident infallibility which exudes everywhere, but is flatly contradicted by fact. For in the present cases there are hundreds, not to say thousands, of students of modern science-a few of whom we will presently specify-who are the very opposite of 'hopeless' in this matter; whilst, as above pointed out, it belongs to the very essence of dogmatism so to state one's conclusions that for those who differ there is only left the option of being accounted fool or knave. The sweeping avowals which bedeck this setting forth of Haeckel's opinions and they are never anything more-upon this subject, make such an option absolute. In the scrutiny of a few moments we may gather quite a flaring collection of sentences which stand out conspicuously, like poppies in a cornfield, on these Monistic pages. Thus: We have to say the same of athanatism as of theism: both are creations of poetic mysticism and of transcendental faith, not of rational science." If any antiquated school of purely speculative psychology still continues to uphold this irrational dogma, the fact can only be regarded as a deplorable anachronism.' For philosophic modesty, in face alike of the facts and the literature of the subject, the following would be hard to surpass : We now know that the light of the flame is a sum of electric vibrations of the ether, and the soul a sum of plasma-movements in the ganglion cells. As compared with this scientific conception, the doctrine of immortality of scholastic psychology has about the same value as the materialistic conceptions of the Red Indian about a future life, in Schiller's Nadowessian death-song.' It is interesting to note, in his latest volume, that Professor Haeckel is convinced that With educated people of all classes, no other dogma is so firmly established and highly valued as athanatism, or the belief in personal immortality. 3 And yet so utterly childish, superstitious, and deluded are all these, that no word but 'fools' is left to describe them, in face of the alleged fact that— Modern psychology, physiology, ontogeny, and phylogeny, rigorously refuse an inch of ground for athanatism." To settle the matter for ever, beyond dispute, we are told in the concluding pages of this work, that— Modern science has not taught us a single fact that points to the existence of an immaterial world. On the contrary it has shown more and more clearly that the supposed world beyond is a pure fiction and only merits to be treated as a subject for poetry. Comparative anatomy and physiology have shown 1 Confession, p. 54. s Wonders, p. 112. 4 p. 113. that the mind of man is a function of the brain and his will not free, and that his soul, absolutely bound up with its material organ, passes away at death like the souls of other mammals. All that comes within the range of our knowledge is a part of the material world. 1 This style of statement will without doubt be impressive for those who do not know better; although even a schoolboy, if he read this page, might be supposed to ask himself what part of the material world' his knowledge of his own thought could be. But for those who do know better, it cannot but be accounted deplorable, if it does not, as Paulsen says, create feelings of 'burning shame,' that such words should, in the name of science or philosophy, be scattered abroad to-day. The plain truth is expressed by Schoeler when he says that not only as to theism, but equally as to the belief in immortality 'here also Haeckel's assertions are nothing more than empty rhodomontade.' 2 It goes without saying that these assertions will lose nothing when echoed in the special pleadings of his chief advocate in this country. Thus we are informed, with customary modesty of expression, that God has shrunk into an intangible cosmic principle. Man now sees in the universe at large no shadow of support for that promise of unending life he has entertained so long. . . . That, in whatever way, mind-force is an evolution of the general cosmic force, and that it therefore affords no more promise of immortality 1 Wonders, p. 454. ... 2. Ebensowenig wie der Theismus von der Naturwissenschaft widerlegt ist oder je widerlegt werden kann, ist es mit dem Unsterblichkeits der Fall. Auch hier sind Haeckel's Behauptungen leere Grossprechereien.'-Kant contra Haeckel, p. 92. |