CONTINUITY APPLIED 179 



That the immortahty which is naturally craved for 

 by man is a physical, as well as a spiritual, immor- 

 tality, helps to explain the fact that, whereas physical 

 death brings no shadow upon the Hves of lower crea- 

 tures, it constitutes the nightmare of humanity — a 

 nightmare that no natural philosophy can dissipate, 

 and which is tolerable to the natural man only as 

 an escape from pain that seems otherwise incurable. 

 There is indeed an instinct of self-preservation from 

 violent death which is possessed by all members of 

 the animal kingdom. But natural death does not 

 reduce the happiness of the lower animals, nor does it 

 violate their natural instincts. Man alone shrinks 

 from physical dissolution as from something that stulti- 

 fies his natural instincts, until he learns that it is a 

 passing consequence of sin, which by redeeming grace 

 can be made to be its own remedy and the condition 

 of a restoration of the immortality for which he 

 craves. 



Assuming, as we may reasonably assume, that man 

 is made for immortahty, for an immortality of his 

 actual and composite individuahty, why should his 

 acquisition of this immortahty be deferred and con- 

 ditioned by its seeming nullification through physical 

 dissolution? Such a dissolution appears to mean a 

 step backward, an undoing which requires a remedy 

 and a resurrection from the dead. No reason can be 

 discovered on natural grounds for such an interruption 

 and reversal of human development. The only rea- 

 son available is that given by Christian doctrine, that 



