xni THE DESIRE FOR IMMORTALITY 245 



(V) Can you say what elements in life (if any) are felt by you 

 to call for its perpetuity ? 



III. Can you state why you feel in this way, as regards Questions I. 



and II.? 



IV. Do you NOW feel the question of a future life to be of urgent 



importance to your mental comfort ? 

 V. Have your feelings on Questions I., II. and IV. undergone 



change ? If so, when and in what ways ? 



VI. (a) Would you like to know for certain about the future life, or 

 (b) would you prefer to leave it a matter of faith ? 



It will be evident, I think, to any one who reads this 

 questionnaire that if a sufficiently extensive collection of 

 answers can be made to be representative of the senti 

 ments of the educated classes in America and England, 

 the views expressed in this article will be thoroughly 

 tested, and the question of the actual nature of human 

 sentiment can no longer remain obscure. And in 

 addition a great mass of psychological material will have 

 been accumulated, the critical sifting of which cannot 

 fail to throw much light upon a number of most important 

 questions of a religious, philosophical, and moral character. 

 The results would be sure to be important and almost 

 sure to be surprising. For unless the argument of this 

 paper has been wholly mistaken, they would diverge very 

 widely from the literary tradition. 



Personally I shall be greatly surprised if the returns 

 do not show that active and intense preoccupation with 

 the question of a future life is an exceedingly rare state 

 of mind. And yet if I should be wrong in this estimate, 

 I should not be disappointed. For if it should turn out 

 that real and extensive interest in the question actually 

 exists, I should feel that the chief, and hitherto insuperable, 

 obstacle in the way of actual scientific investigation of 

 the question of fact was at length in a fair way to be 

 removed. 



I refer to the social taboo of any serious inquiry to 

 which at present the scattered individuals who at any 

 given time desire to know are compelled to submit. 

 This taboo seems to rest its appeal on the highest and 

 most respectable motives, religious and scientific. It is 



