DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 17 



in the old doctrine of a physical resur- 

 rection. 



Another question is, whether this 

 ancient belief could disappear without 

 leaving traces in contemporary con- 

 sciousness. Can man have changed so 

 radically in a century, or rather in a 

 few decades, that the conviction of the 

 body's importance to the soul after 

 death will no longer find an echo in 

 his religious instincts? By no means. 

 We are the same human beings and 

 have the same human nature as our 

 forefathers. Forms of conception may 

 go, but not the instincts to which they 

 once gave a satisfactory expression. 



We may therefore rest assured that 

 the important change of attitude in 

 this question forcefully reacts on re- 

 ligious life in our day. The reaction 

 does not necessarily mean progress at 

 first. Evolution does not follow a 

 straight line; a step forward is gener- 

 ally immediately followed by phenom- 

 ena in the opposite direction. 



The religious instincts, underlying 



