Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1905-04-06
The ObSerVer.

4 short time before DIR. Oser's name
came to be on all our tongues as re-
suit of his views regarding the forty
year and sixty year way-marks in
human life, there fell into the Observ-
er's hands little volume by this dis
tinguished physician, entitled Science
and Immortality" Last year DIR.
Osler delivered the lecture at Harvard
on the George Goldthwaite Ingersoll
foundation, and il is this lecture that
forms the content of this little volume.
Last summer when it was first an
nounced that Dr. Osler was preparing
a lecture on the subject of Immortality,
the Observer mentioned the fact to
local physician. The latter remarked
in effect that physician's sphere is
medicine and surgery and that he had
better leave the handling of theologi-
cal and philosophical questions to
those competent to deal with them.
This is no doubt saying too much,
but, DIR. Osler himself in his
Introductory remarks betrays similar
misgivings, and the Observer is
strongly tempted to conclude that the
misgivings are justified by the result.
Nevertheless it is instructive to learn
the attitude towards the question of
Immortality of men whose habits of
thought have been formed chiefly in
the domain of physical sciences. 1t is
instructive, but not very inspiring.
One seems to read beween the lines
that the intellectual atmosphere and
associations in the midst of which Dr.
Osler has been spending his life have
been hostile or Indifferent to faith in
immortality. Perhaps if the author
were less than forty years of age, he
might be aware of the fact that scien-
tific thought is very far from being en-
tirely materialistic and agnostic, and
that it is becoming less 30 every year.
1t must not be inferred from what
has been said that Dr. Osler's personal
attitude towards immortality is hostile
or even Indifferent 1t is indeed frankly
agnostic, so far as the standpoint of
mere reason is concerned; but the
author recognizes logic of the heart
which for purposes of life possesses an
authority greater than does the logic
of the head. His personal attitude is
expressed in mis- approving quotation
of Cicero's remark that he would
rather be mistaken with Plato than be
in the right with those who deny alto
gether the life after death.
To sum up DIR. Osler's lecture in
paragraph, he says that the vast ma
jority of people, while outwardly pro-
Tossing to believe in the life after death,
are really without much thought or
concern for it. This class he calls the
Laodiceans REV. 3:15). Another class
frankly dismisses the subject as one
about which we can know nothing and
need to know nothing. These are the
Gallionians (Acts 1917. In present
49,. I, <NFN Nl,Nn no1Is L.
author states the negative arguments
of physical science affecting the ques
ton of Immortality. Opposed to the
two foregoing classes are the small and
select few, the Teresians manned from
ST. Theresa, who feel that to them it is
given to knotU the mysteries This
class, says DR.. Osler, has ever formed
moral leaven of humanity. "They are
the salt of the earth, so far as preserv-
ing for us firm conviction of the exist
enCe Of another and better world.n
The authors sympathies are with the
Teresians, and he prefers to be wrong
with them than to be right with the
Gallionians.
While one must admire the heroic
spirit which leads the author to align
himself with those who believe in
spiritual realities, in the face of oppos-
ing intellectual currents, with which
alone he has come into closest contact;
it must nevertheless be said that the
lecture on the whole is depressing
and disappointing. He conceives
the intellect and the emotions
as standing in such separation
from each other, and even in such
opposition to each other, that his pure
ly emotional vindication of the belietin
Immortality reminds one of the boys
definition of faith: "Faith is believ-
ing something that you know amt
So" The Observer believes that the
head and the heart, reason and faith,
cannot he in substantial separation, but
that whittier one of these truly leads,
thither the other will surely follow.