198 THE BIDDLE OF THE UNIVEKSE. 



and by the leaders of the materialistic school of those 

 days, Holbach, Lamettrie, etc. The same opinion was 

 defended by the able friend of the Materialists, the 

 greatest of the Hohenzollerns, the monistic " philo- 

 sopher of Sans-souci." What would Frederick the 

 Great, the " crowned thanatist and atheist," say, could 

 he compare his monistic views with those of his suc- 

 cessor of to-day ? 



Among thoughtful physicians the conviction that 

 the existence of the soul came to an end at death has 

 been common for centuries : generally, however, they 

 refrained from giving it expression. Moreover, the 

 empirical science of the brain remained so imperfect 

 during the last century that the soul could continue 

 to be regarded as its mysterious inhabitant. It was 

 the gigantic progress of biology in the present century, 

 and especially in the latter half of the century, that 

 finally destroyed the myth. The establishment of the 

 theory of descent and the cellular theory, the astound- 

 ing discoveries of ontogeny and experimental physi- 

 ology — above all, the marvellous progress of the micro- 

 scopic anatomy of the brain, gradually deprived athan- 

 atism of every basis ; now, indeed, it is rarely that an 

 informed and honourable biologist is found to defend 

 the immortality of the soul. All the monistic philo- 

 sophers of the century (Strauss, Feuerbach, Buchner, 

 Spencer, etc.) are thanatists. 



The dogma of personal immortality owes its great 

 popularity and its high importance to its intimate 

 connection with the teaching of Christianity. This 

 circumstance gave rise to the erroneous and still 

 prevalent belief that the myth is a fundamental 

 element of all the higher religions. That is by no 

 means the case. The higher oriental religions include 



