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14

[Science and Immortality]

7 April 1887

The Christian Register

What is the bearing of positively ascertained facts upon the doctrine of a future life?

By the doctrine of a future life, I understand the proposition that after death we shall retain or recover our individual consciousness, feeling, volition, memory, and, in short (barring an unhappy contingency), all our mental powers unimpaired. The question is, laying aside all higher aspects of this doctrine, its sacredness and sentiment,—concerning which a scientific man is not, as such, entitled to an opinion,—and judging it in the same cold way in which a proposition in physics would have to be judged, what facts are there leading us to believe or to disbelieve it?

Under the head of direct positive evidence to the affirmative would be placed that of religious miracles, of spiritualistic marvels, and of ghosts, etc. I have little to say to all this. I take the modern Catholic miracles to be the best attested. Three members of the English Psychical Research Society have lately published a vast book of fourteen hundred pages, large octavo, under the title of Phantasms of the Living. This work gives some seven hundred cases of apparitions, etc., of a dying person to another person at a distance. The phenomenon of telepathy, or perception under conditions which forbid ordinary perception, though not fully established, is supported by some remarkable observations. But the authors of the book I am speaking of—Messrs. Gurney, Myers, and Podmore—think they have proved a kind of telepathy by which dying persons appear to others at great distances. Their most imposing arguments are based upon the doctrine of probabilities, and these I have examined with care. I am fully satisfied that these arguments are worthless, partly because of the uncertainty and error of the numerical data, and partly because the authors have been astonishingly careless in the admission of cases ruled out by the conditions of the argumentation.

But, granting all the ghost stories that ever were told, and the reality of all spiritual manifestations, what would it prove? These ghosts and spirits exhibit but a remnant of mind. Their stupidity is remarkable. They seem like the lower animals. If I believed in them, I should conclude that, while the soul was not always at once extinguished on the death of the body, yet it was reduced to a pitiable shade, a mere ghost, as we say, of its former self. Then these spirits and apparitions are so painfully solemn. I fancy that, were I suddenly to find myself liberated from all the trials and responsibilities of this life, my probation over, and my destiny put beyond marring or making, I should feel as I do when I find myself on an ocean steamer, and know that for ten days no business can turn up, and nothing can happen. I should regard the situation as a stupendous frolic, should be at the summit of gayety, and should only be too glad to leave the vale of tears behind. Instead of that, these starveling souls come mooning back to their former haunts, to cry over spilled milk.

Under the head of positive evidence apparently unfavorable to the doctrine, we may reckon ordinary observations of the dependence of healthy mind-action upon the state of the body. There are, also, those rare cases of double consciousness where personal identity is utterly destroyed or changed, even in this life. If a man or woman, who is one day one person, another day another, is to live hereafter, pray tell me which of the two persons that inhabit the one body is destined to survive?

There is certainly a large and formidable mass of facts, which, though not bearing directly upon the question of a future life, yet inclines us to a general conception of the universe which does not harmonize with that belief. We judge of the possibility of the unseen by its analogy with the seen. We smile at Aladdin’s lamp or the elixir of life, because they are extremely unlike all that has come under our observation. Those of us who have never met with spirits or any fact at all analogous to immortality among the things that we indubitably know must be excused if we smile at that doctrine. As far as we see, forms of beauty, of sentiment, and of intelligence are the most evanescent of phenomena.

“The flower that once has bloomed forever dies.”

Besides, scientific studies have taught us that human testimony, when not hedged about with elaborate checks, is a weak kind of evidence. In short, the utter unlikeness of an immortal soul to anything we cannot doubt, and the slightness of all the old arguments of its existence, appear to me to have tremendous weight.

On the other hand, the theory of another life is very likely to be strengthened, along with spiritualistic views generally, when the palpable falsity of that mechanical philosophy of the universe which dominates the modern world shall be recognized. It is sufficient to go out into the air and open one’s eyes to see that the world is not governed altogether by mechanism, as Spencer, in accord with greater minds, would have us believe. The endless variety in the world has not been created by law. It is not of the nature of uniformity to originate variation, nor of law to beget circumstance. When we gaze upon the multifariousness of nature, we are looking straight into the face of a living spontaneity. A day’s ramble in the country ought to bring that home to us.

Then there is the great fact of growth, of evolution. I know that Herbert Spencer endeavors to show that evolution is a consequence of the mechanical principle of the conservation of energy. But his chapter on the subject is mathematically absurd, and convicts him of being a man who will talk pretentiously of what he knows nothing about. The principle of the conservation of energy may, as is well known, be stated in this form: whatever changes can be brought about by forces can equally happen in the reverse order (all the movements taking place with the same velocities, but in the reverse directions), under the government of the same forces. Now, the essential of growth is that it takes place in one determinate direction, which is not reversed. Boys grow into men, but not men into boys. It is thus an immediate corollary from the doctrine of the conservation of energy that growth is not the effect of force alone.

The world, then, is evidently not governed by blind law. Its leading characteristics are absolutely irreconcilable with that view. When scientific men first began to understand dynamics, and had applied it with great success to the explanation of some phenomena, they jumped to the anticipation that the universe could be explained in that way; and thus what was called the Mechanical Philosophy was set up. But a further study of the nature of force has shown that it has this conservative character, which absolutely refutes that mechanical notion of the universe. As well as I can read the signs of the times, the doom of necessitarian metaphysics is sealed. The world has done with it. It must now give place to more spiritualistic views, and it is very natural now to anticipate that a further study of nature may establish the reality of a future life.

For my part, I cannot admit the proposition of Kant,—that there are certain impassable bounds to human knowledge; and, even if there are such bounds in regard to the infinite and absolute, the question of a future life, as distinct from the question of immortality, does not transcend them. The history of science affords illustrations enough of the folly of saying that this, that, or the other can never be found out. Auguste Comte said that it was clearly impossible for man ever to learn anything of the chemical constitution of the fixed stars, but before his book had reached its readers the discovery which he announced as impossible had been made. Legendre said of a certain proposition in the theory of numbers that, while it appeared to be true, it was most likely beyond the powers of the human mind to prove it; yet the next writer on the subject gave six independent demonstrations of the theorem. I really cannot see why the dwellers upon earth should not, in some future day, find out for certain whether there is a future life or not. But at present I apprehend that there are not facts enough in our possession to warrant our building any practical conclusion upon them. If any one likes to believe in a future life, either out of affection for the venerable creed of Christendom or for his private consolation, he does well. But I do not think it would be wise to draw from that religious or sentimental proposition any practical deduction whatever,—as, for instance, that human happiness and human rights are of little account, that all our thoughts ought to be turned away from the things of this world, etc.,—unless such deduction has the independent sanction of good sense.