336 HUMANISM 



XVIII 



unprejudiced. Even on our most modern principles of 

 evolutionist explanation, it means that the idea is some 

 how a response to a widely felt and persistent element in 

 our experience. Its very antiquity, therefore, gives it 

 an authority which may not be lightly set aside. 



Still I do not wish to argue this question of Immortality 

 on the basis of authority. There is another side also 

 to the influence of authority, when that authority is old. 

 It is probable in such cases that the idea supported by 

 authority will be disfigured by the dust of ages, overgrown 

 by all sorts of parasitic fungi of fancy, and rendered 

 ridiculous by the incrustations of fossil formulas, until its 

 best friends hardly know it and it becomes intellectually 

 contemptible, morally outrageous and aesthetically re 

 pulsive to its foes. As something of this sort has probably 

 happened to the idea of immortality, it will be the plan 

 of this paper to argue the question on the sole ground 

 of reason ; its only stipulation being that the appeal be 

 really made to the light of reason, shining without let or 

 hindrance, and so far as possible, freed from all coloured 

 spectacles of religious or scientific orthodoxy that might 

 check its transmission. 



The subject of Immortality is, however, too extensive 

 for me to attempt to discuss it as a whole, and my 

 efforts will be confined to a single aspect of it the 

 ethical. That is, I shall not try to determine whether 

 there is immortality as a fact, but only whether the 

 science of ethics needs this conception for its own 

 perfection. Putting the question more technically, I 

 propose to consider two things. First : Is Immortality 

 an ethical postulate ? Must a moral being, i.e. a 

 being that can be judged good or evil, as such be 

 deemed immortal ? Secondly : If so, what does an 

 ethical postulate prove ? What is its general significance 

 or logical status in the world of thought ? The first of 

 these questions is exclusively ethical. The second enters 

 upon the realm of metaphysics, and may be expected to 

 involve so much subtler and more difficult considerations 

 that I would gladly evade it altogether if possible. But, 



