LUCRETIUS AND HAECKEL ' 1 29 



close by, thou didst turn to ashes on thy appalling funeral pile, and 

 no length of days shall pluck from our hearts our ever-during grief. ' 

 This question therefore should be asked of this speaker, what there 

 is in it so passing bitter, if it come in the end to sleep and rest, that 

 any one should pine in never-ending sorrow."^ 



In Haeckel we read: "The best and most plausible ground for 

 athanatism is found in the hope that immortality will reunite us to 

 the beloved friends who have been prematurely taken from us by some 

 grim mischance. But even this supposed good fortune proves to be 

 an illusion on closer inquiry; and in any case it would be greatly 

 marred by the prospect of meeting the less agreeable acquaintances 

 and the enemies who have troubled our existence here below. There 

 are plenty of men who would gladly sacrifice all the glories of Para- 

 dise if it meant the eternal companionship of their 'better half and 

 their mother-in-law. It is more than questionable whether Henry 

 the Eighth would Hke the prospect of Hving eternally with his six wives ; 

 or Augustus the Strong of Poland, who had a hundred mistresses and 

 three hundred and fifty-two children."^ 



If we turn now to the more direct arguments against the immor- 

 tahty of the soul, we shall find an even more obtrusive agreement 

 in their main features. 



I. The Physiological Argument 

 If the soul consists of very minute atoms contained within the mortal 

 vessel of this body, and that body be destroyed, the soul will dissolve 

 into its first bodies much more quickly than water will flow from a 

 shattered vase, or than mist and smoke pass into air.^ Similarly, 

 if your psychic activity depends on "albuminoid carbon combina- 

 tions," it will cease with the dissolution of these combinations by the 

 death of the body.-* This phase could be enlarged upon; but, although 

 it is fundamental, it is so simple as to need no further statement here.^ 



II. The Ontogenetic Argument 

 Lucretius: "Again we perceive that the mind is begotten along 

 with the body and grows up together with it and becomes old along 



' De R. N., Ill, 8g4-Qii. ■♦ WR., 91. 



'WR., 208. 5 See p. 124 of this article. 



J De R. N., Ill, 426-444. 



