Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1922-04-24
CONAN DoYLE's ANSWER TO
THE QUESTION, WHAK IS MAN?
The EnslIshman Insists That the Body
10 but Tool and Tenement, While
the Tenant 10 Immortal

no GUUUUnmau thSIStS tHaS tHe 0Voy
10 but Tool and . Tenement, While
the Tenant 10 Immortal
CIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE. who is
~ lecturing in this country on the proofs
of Immortality, is engaged in task which
has occupied the thoughts Of men ever since
they began to consider their origin and their
destiny.
He is confident that we are on the eve Of
a revelation 80 convincing that belief in
Immortality will cease to be a matter Of
faith and become transformed into a definite
and firm conviction founded on demonstrable
fact.
We do not speak of faith in the multi.
plication table or faith in the existence Of
the sun and the moon. We can see the sun
and the moon and the accuracy of the mul.
tiplication table can be proved mathemati.
cally. That the sun is can be proved to
every man with eyes, and that the multi.
plication table is correct can be demon
strated to every one with any conception Of
numbers.
But in spite of an almost universal in
stinct. mankind has always yearned for an
unmistakable demonstration that the soul
lives after the body dies. The Christian
Church has 1t in the revelation Of the Bible.
but the acceptance Of the authenticity of
that revelation requires the exercise of an
act Of faith. There is probably no Christian
who in his innermost heart does not long
for proof which would justify the faith
so that it could become a belief as firmly
based as that in the succession of the sea.
,cnN1I la 20 ,v;tI hic
eyes and hear with his own ears from those
who have gone before him to the grave.
Sir Arthur processes to have had such
proof. The dead have spoken to him. They
have appeared to him as Christ appeared to
His disciples after the crucfxion. And he
insists that the resurrected Christ was a
spiritual body and not n material one, and
that the ancient prophets who appeared to
the disciples were materializatiOns of the
dead similar to the materializations produced
by the spiritualistic mediums of the present
He is putting a new Interpretation on the
Eible to justify his belief. And he is insist.
ing that we do not have to accept the theory
Of immortality on the authority of the Bible,
but that we can demonstrate it for our.
selves. This view is regarded by those who
irreligous. Bnt it must be admitted that
Sir Arthur is a sincere and earnest seeker
after the truth.
Aside from the revelation in the Bible and
the naturalization Of departed spirits. the
theory Of Immortality is wrapped up with
the theory of personality. Who and what
is the real nun: Is there an ego independ-
Of bo bol, tknt 10 ;,b, ;, ,,-ho =
we call the ego merely the product of the
functions Of the brain. and does it cease to
exist when the brain ceases to function
The materalists insist that there is no ego
Independent of the brain. and the spiritual
ists-meaning not those who summon the
dead from their graves, but those who be.
lieve there is such thing as an immortal
soul--insist that the body is but the tenn
porary tenement Of the soul.
There is a school of philosophers which
insists that the ego existed before it entered
the body and that it will still exist after
the body perishes. 1t Is easy for any man
to test this theory with the material at his
command. He has only to examine his own
consciousness, and he will discover that the
real ego within him has no conception of
youth or age. If he will think back care.
fully to his boyhood he will find that the
his maturity. The only difference lies in a
greater command over the body and in the
accumulation Of a greater store of facts to
be used as the basis of conclusions. The
| ego of the adult has more tools to work with
than the ego Of the child, and If there is
| any other radical difference 1t has not yet
been disclosed. There is sense of immor
tality in this ego which it Is almost i'm
| possible to destroy.
Kant had this in mind when he wrote
"The death Of the body may indeed be the
| end Of the sensational use of our mind, but
| only the beginning of the intellectual use.
| The body would thus be not the cause of
our thinking, but merely a condition re-
strlctive thereof and, although essential to
| our sensual and animal consciousness, il
| may be regarded as an impeder Of our
| spiritual life
Now whence did this ego come and
whittier does it 60? Mankind for thousands
of years has been seeking an answer to this
question, the acceptance of which does not
require the exercise of faith But we know
little about the real ego that inhabits the
body. Experimental psychologists who have
been exploring the region below conscious.
ness have been finding evidence of forces oi
which the old psychologists had not dreamed
and they admit that they have merely
opened door into the unknown without
crossing the threshold. They have ceased
to dogmatize.
Likewise. men have ceased to dogmatz,
about the impossibility of communication
between the dead and the living. Whether
they take seriously or not such evidence al
has convinced Sir Arthur, they are Willing
to admit that anything Is possible, and they
would all like to know more than he tolt
his audience at the Academy Of Music tn,