vi] Immortality \ 89 



a school of thought really believe in human immortality, 

 once he has begun to question it. He is soaked to the 

 core in a teaching that makes man different from God; 

 he is then ordered to believe that because God is eternal, 

 because Christ was God and was raised from the dead, 

 because death had no dominion over His Godhead, man 

 too must be immortal. Can we wonder that his intellect 

 takes up arms against such logic? Can we blame him if 

 he doubts? One thing is clear. If we are to give any intel- 

 lectual, as opposed to authoritative, ground for belief in 

 human immortality, we must start from the likeness of 

 men to God, not the unlikeness. Authority of church 

 and tradition is invaluable in its right place, but it will 

 not help the man who questions all authority but that 

 of his own intellect, and that of everyday pragmatism. 

 No doubt he is mistaken in so questioning; but there is 

 no use in simply telling him he is wrong. We must meet 

 him on his own ground and give him intellectual and 

 pragmatic reasons for accepting authority in the very 

 matter of which he is in doubt. Let us begin, then, by 

 summarising very briefly such a priori arguments for 

 immortality as are germane to our general treatment of 

 the Christian religion from the standpoint of evolution. 

 After that we shall be ready to attempt to show that 

 the harmony of the universe appeals to man as harmony 

 just because it does interpret all the longings of his heart, 

 just because he is himself attuned to it. It is because 

 man is like God, not because he is unlike, that his im- 

 mortality is certain. Even among a priori arguments 

 we may not admit any but those which are founded on 

 experience, if we are going to argue from an evolution- 

 ary standpoint. If we thus limit our scope we are de- 

 barred from using the perfectly valid arguments of 

 idealism pressed to its logical issue 1 ; we are debarred 

 from using the arguments from revealed religion ; we are 

 1 See McTaggart, Human Immortality and Prttxi&Unct, 



