The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-09-16
Chicago Tribune.)


bridge university, England, says we all
have lived on earth before and are all
going to live on earth again.
Prof. McTaggart thinks there is
/ much better chance of proving immor-
tality with the addition of pre-exist-
ence than without it. There are two
ways in which a proof of immortality
may be attempted. The first he calls
| the directly metaphysical way. We
may attempt to show that the nature
Of man is such that he cannot cease to
exist while the universe continues to
exist; or that his nature is eternal and
that an eternal nature cannot have an
end in time; or pursue some similar
] line of thought.
In this case it seems to him that i'm
! mortality almost necessarily would
stand or fall with the theory of pre-
| existence. He does not see how exist
ence in future time can be shown to
be necessary in the case of any be-
| ing whose existence in past time is
admitted not to be necessary. IF the
| universe got on without me 100 years
/ ago, what reason could be given for
denying that II might get on without
me 100 years hence?"
| "Or, if my nature is compatible with
its temporal manifestation having be-
| gun at some point of time, could we
4
| inconsistent with that nature that its
temporal manifestation should cease
at some point in time?" His conclusion
then is that any demonstration of i'm
mortality is likely to show that each of
us exists through all time past, as well
| as future, whether time be held to be
| finite or infinite.
/ There are some considerations which
/ the Cambridge professor finds strongly
/ n ct I'd he
| formation of our present bodies. In the
| first place. even the best men are not
when they die in such a condition of
/ intellectual and moral perfection as
| would fit them to enter heaven imme-
/ diately, if heaven is to be taken as a
| state of perfection, which renders all
| further Improvement unnecessary and
| impossible. This fact generally is rec
! OgniZed. and one of two alternatives
! commonly, is adopted to meet it. The
| first is that some tremendous improve
ment out of proportion to that which
can be observed in life is effected at
! the moment of death, at any rate in
the case of those who die under certain
! conditions. For this view Prof. Nc
Taggart knows no arguments.
! The other more probable view is that
the process of gradual improvement
can go on in each of US after the death
]
view he finds it only reasonable to take
one more step, and to hold that this
/ life will be followed by other lives like
/ ii, each separated from its predecessor
and its successor by death and rebirth.
! For otherwise we should be limited to
| the hypothesis that a process begun in
| a single short earthly life then should
! be continued in one Indefinitely long
/ life not divided by death and birth at
Ill a.,
/ son such a sudden change from the or
der of our present experience seems
unjustifiable.
Our lives, too, the professor finds to
/ be not only incomplete in their results
| but fTagmentary in their nature. All
/ continually find that a process is cut
! short by death that one life holds a
! fault without retribution, a preparation
without an achievement, while in other
/ cases, where the life has lasted longer,
| the process is complete between birth
and death. The more probably conclu-
sion is that the process which is worked
out in an earthly life in the one case
viii be worked out in an earthly life
in the other case, also. even though
death has interviewed.
Such problems as these nevers have
been put with more force than by
Browning. Both in Rabbi Ben
| 81
at any rate for dramatic purposes, the
/ hypothesis of a number of earthly
| lives. If a number of earthly lives once
/ is granted it would be gratuitous to
| suppose that this was the first of the
/ long chain, and since even the lowest
man is high above many living beings
| there would be strong reason for be-
lieving that it was in previous lives
that he had gained this relative super
iority.
! Again, as a man grows up certain
! tendencies and qualities make them
selves manifest in him. They cannot
be due entirely to his environment, for
/ they often are different in people whose
environment has been similar. We call
! these the mans natural character and
assume that he came into existence
with it. Now, when we look at the
natural characters of men we find
/ that they have great resemblance to
| those differentiations which can be
| produced in the course of single life.
| One man seems to start with an i'm
potence to resist some particular temp
tatiOn which exactly resembles the i'm
| potence which has been produced in an
| other man by continued yielding to the
! same temptation.
One man again through life has a
calm and serene virtue which another
I man gains Only Dy years OF strenuous
effort. Others again have instructive
powers of judging nice and difficult
questions of quality, in pictures, for ex-
ample, or precious stones, which place
them soon after they have turned their
attention to the subject in a position
to which less fortunate men can at
tain, if at ALL only by the experience
of years.
A still more striking instance is to
be found in personal relations. Two
people who have seen but little of each
other often are drawn together by a
force equal to that which could be gen.
Grated only by years of mutual trust
and mutual assistance. The signifi-
canoe of this fact Professor Taggart
thinks has been much moderated. AS
a rule. the only case of it which is con-
sidered is the case where the attraction
is between people of different sexes,
and the inexplicability then hastily is
adjudged to be due to the irrational
ity Of sexual desire.
| Here then, are characteristic ties
which are born with us, which are not
acquired in our present lives, and
which are strikingly like characteristics