Probable Future Advances in Evolution 841 



But the above questions cause us to turn now to a very 

 different though much debated and far-reaching issue. For 

 man's "future" has been widely and distantly proenvironed 

 by theologians during the past 3000 years, and "the future 

 state," "immortality," "an undying soul," as well as akin 

 but differently phrased ideas, have been expressed. These 

 views also ha,ve been put forth by many of the grandest souls 

 this world has entertained. 



It may at once be conceded that the doctrine of immor- 

 tality has had a powerful hold on the civilized mind for the 

 past three millennia and even longer. Renan voices the senti- 

 ments of millions when he says: "There is no lever capable 

 of raising an entire people if once they have lost their faith 

 in the immortality of the soul." If this opinion be correct 

 neither a nation nor humanity as a whole can advance without 

 belief in, and a molding of the life in view of, individual immor- 

 tality. That this view is entirely incorrect is demonstrated 

 by the steady or even marked advance made by nations at 

 times when there is not a tittle of evidence that they enter- 

 tained such views. Thus, no writer on Eschatology or on 

 primitive views of immortality has ever claimed for the earliest 

 elements of the Persian, the Jewish, the Greek, the Roman, 

 and the Peruvian nations that they had even a faint con- 

 ception of immortality, not to say an established faith in it. 

 Yet no one will assert surely that in the virile growth and 

 establishment of power by these nations, up to the time when 

 we trace a feeble or evolving belief in immortality amongst 

 them, that they did not rise, that they were not rapidly evolving. 



Here therefore, as for every question connected with human 

 development or the human mind, the evolutionary history 

 must be traced, if we are to reach a correct standpoint. Fur- 

 thermore, since immortality has bound up in it the thought 

 of continuity of body or matter, and of spirit or energy to- 

 gether, or of at least one apart from the other, all related ques- 

 tions such as thought transfer, spiritualism, hypnotic sugges- 

 tion and action, second sight, spirit rapping, and like phenomena 

 deserve candid examination. 



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