258 HUMANISM xiv 



II 



By thus replying to these three objections I hope to 

 have sufficiently established the first part of my thesis, 

 that immortality is in truth an ethical postulate. But 

 the second part still remains to be answered, namely, the 

 question, What is an ethical postulate really worth? 

 What is its value metaphysically ? Is it more than an 

 impulse of ethical emotion which shrinks into nothingness 

 under the calm gaze of scientific truth ? Does it amount 

 to demonstration ? 



One often hears it said that immortality is an emo 

 tional postulate, unreasoning if not unreasonable ; and 

 that hackneyed phrase, the hope of immortality, bears 

 involuntary witness to the fact that the argument is not 

 supposed to amount to demonstration. Now this is just 

 the mental attitude towards the subject which I deprecate 

 and wish to controvert. The people who cherish the 

 hope of immortality I regard as people who, for the reasons 

 given above, sometimes hope there is no immortality, or at 

 least have not much faith in their own argument. It is 

 more especially for the benefit of such weak-kneed 

 brethren that I would maintain the following doctrine : 



The ethical postulate of immortality is not an emo 

 tional postulate, but as rational as any postulate, and 

 with as good a claim for recognition in our ultimate 

 metaphysic. Or, if they still prefer to regard it as emo 

 tional, and quote Von Hartmann s remark on the subject 

 that metaphysical truths cannot be based on emotional 

 postulates, I shall reply that, ultimately, truths will no 

 where be found to rest on any other grounds. 



(1) Hence immortality, as an ethical postulate, is of 

 the same nature as certain other postulates without which 

 we cannot harmonise our experience. 



(2) It is bound up with those other postulates. 



(3) Its assumption is justified in precisely the same 

 way as that of the other postulates. 



(4) If they cannot accept this as demonstration they 

 will get no better anywhere in the world. 



