Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-01-10
IMMORTAL LIFE.
Interest in Problem-Difficulties in
Way of Demonstrating Its Reality.


From the New York Evening Post.
Interest in the problem of Immortality
seems to be endemic in university
faculties. a few years ago the subject was
discussed In an intestering book of Prof.
JGnes, though he could express little more
than a pious hope that the soul will sur
vive the body. DIR. Osler has been appar-
emily anxious to lift the veil which divides
the present from the future, and a con-
vic ton that the soul IS immortal may have
quickeued his belief in the defects Of old
age, and I'm the use of Chloroform as a
means of banishing senllity to the uudis-
covered country. More recently. Prof. Nun
sterburg has argued that there Is eternal
life" maintaining that the self does not
exist in space or time, but that there is
an immortality of moral value-a doctrine
not very consoling to those who wish to
preserve their personal identity. Profess
sor HySolp and other enthusiastic inqurers
find evidence of Immortality In phenomena
of spiritualism. They hear not the philoso-
piers and evangelists, but are persuaded
by Mrs Piper
Interest in the problem is as natural as
perennial. The questions about immortali-
ty were not sufficiently answered in the
eloquent poetry of Lucretius. nor by the
Er glsh deists, nor by the French philoso-
pliers of the ante-revolutionary period. We
have outgrown Bishop Buffers argument
from analogy, even are no longer
convinced by the dialectic of Plato. The
ethical argument of Kant is rejected by
the pessimist. while the agnostic turns his
back indiTerently upon the whole discus
sion. All this has encouraged those WHO
seek to demonstrate Immortality by an
appeal TO the medium. People are impa-
tient when the old metaphysical and moral
arguments are presented to them. They are
not interested in hearing that the soul IS
simple and therefore indeStructlDle. They
are not much impressed by the doctrine
that a moral life has an eternal value. But
al all I,,
sons, believing that messages have been re-
Ceived from departed spirits, have become
convinced that the soul is immortal Such
a conviction has been entertained when
there has been fraud and chicanery, as well
as when the medium and his encourage
have acted In good faith.
Yet even if fraud were never practiced,
and if the medium and his auditors were
always sincere, spiritualism could never
prove that there is a life beyond the grave
1t Is very easy to challenge the man of
science to explain table turning, clairvoy-
Rnce and other familiar Phenomena which
are accounted supernatural. Unless a &C en-
tiflc explanation Of the facts is fOrthcom-
ing it is triumphantly concluded that the
spiritualistiC explanation must be accepted.
After due allowance for the instances Of
fraud and self-deception which have tended
to disCredit spiritualism in the eyes or
honest men there remains still great deal
of UNEMPLOYED territory. But many of
the phenomena once regarded as myste lous
have been adequately explained by psychol-
ogistS ii is TeaS enable to believe that further
Investigations may be followed by still
wider results. The pretended MESA ges
from the world of spirits must originate
either with the medium or beyond him. In
either case the data for psychological ex-
PLANTATION are incomplete: for in most ca ses
the details Of the MEDIUMS character and
life are unknown. and the supposed realm
Of spirits is iUHCCess ible. The man of
science is not a Dante, and he cannot cross
the StyX in order 10 learn whether mes
sageS have really been sent by any of the
great company OF the departed This eX-
plains in part why ii is that science has
not yet wholly dissipated belief in spiritual
ism.
But If the aggressive argument Is an ap-
peal to ignorance the spirtualsts defense