Life Everlasting

If this suggestion is a sound one, we must probably regard the conscious life of animals as only the ephemeral adumbration of that which comes to maturity in man. The considerations adduced this evening must convince us that we are at perfect liberty to treat the question of man's immortality in the disinterested spirit of the naturalist. In the course of evolution there is no more philosophical difficulty in man's acquiring immortal life than in his acquiring the erect posture and articulate speech. In my little book "The Destiny of Man" I insisted upon the dramatic tendency or divine purpose indicated in the long cosmic process which has manifestly from the outset aimed at the production and perfection of the higher spiritual attributes of humanity. In another little book, "Through Nature to God," I called attention to the fact that belief in an Unseen World, especially associated with the moral significance of life, was coeval with the genesis of Man, and had played a predominating part in his development ever since, and I argued that under such circumstances the belief must be based upon an eternal reality, since a contrary supposition is negatived by all that we know of the habits and methods of the cosmic process of Evolution. No time is left here to repeat these arguments, but I hope enough has been said to indicate the probability that the patient study of evolution is likely soon to supply the basis for a Natural Theology more comprehensive, more profound, and more hopeful than could formerly have been imagined. The Nineteenth Century has borne the brunt, the Twentieth will reap the fruition.

notes

1

Shaler, The Individual, p. 194.

2

Herbert Spencer, First Principles (final ed.), p. 185.