CHAPTER XIX THE DOGMA OF IMMORTALITY "A man may believe in the immortality of the soul for twenty years, but only in the twenty-first, at some great moment, is he astonished at the rich substance of this belief, at the warmth of this naphtha-spring."-JEAN-PAUL RICHTER. The basis of Christian hope-Proofs of Immortality inadequate to give certainty-Future life of fame unsatisfactory-Future life desired by the suffering-It is a necessity of the soul-Because the soul cannot satisfy all its desires here-Because the capability of enjoyment is limited here-Contrast between what we have and what we hope forThe Christian heaven corresponds with the desire felt for it on earth— The blunting of the finer faculties incapacitates man for enjoymentdestroys his aspirations—and therefore limits his Heaven-The idea of Hell not necessarily one of pain but of low enjoyment-The idea of Purgatory one of gradual education-The idea of the Resurrection of the body necessarily part of the Christian's hope. E have seen what is Christian faith and Christian love; we come in order to Christian hope. As Gibbon has observed, Philosophy, notwithstanding its utmost efforts, has been unable to do more to satisfy the hope and desire instinctive in man, than feebly indicate the probability of a future life, and therefore it belongs to Revelation to affirm its existence, and to represent authoritatively the condition of the souls of men after their separation from the body. As I have shewn at some length in my former volume, the idea of immortality is inextinguishable in man. I said, "In order to form an idea of the destruction of the conscious self, an amount of exhaustion of impressions is required wholly beyond the powers of an uncultivated mind. Man's personality is so distinctly projected on the surface of his consciousness, that the idea of its obliteration is inconceivable without doing violence to his primary convictions." In a state of health, every man desires to live; he desires, because the instinct of self-conservation is one of the most primary and ineradicable and the strongest in his nature. This desire, at first negative, becomes on reflection, under the pressure of life and its cares and sorrows, a positive desire. But if he desires immortality, he desires to be certified of it, so as not to be left to conjecture alone. Reason cannot gratify this hope, and all the proofs of immortality that have been collected by philosophers have only served to make it probable, not certain. For reason, not being able to know future life, cannot demonstrate it. Reason can give general, abstract proofs; but the certainty of the eternal duration of one's personal existence cannot be furnished by it, and it is precisely this certainty which is demanded. To obtain it, a proof, an immediate witness, which may fall under the senses, is requisite. One who has died, of whose death we are well assured,-not any one, but one who is a type and model of all others,-must rise from his grave, as a guarantee to all of their resurrection. This is what the Resurrection of Christ supplies. The Incarnation was an accommodation of God to,all the wants of man's nature, and this, the most imperious of all, the demand for personal restoration to immortal life, is certified to man by the dogma of the Resurrection. The immortality of the soul is unquestionably one of those primordial beliefs proclaimed by universal instinct, forced into prominence by causes I have detailed in the first volume. It has survived all the convulsions of human beliefs, and although men have changed their modes of worship and ideas of God, their belief in an immortality awaiting them has never died out. Plato, convinced of this truth, reposes on ancient tradition as his authority. "This is certain," says he; "that which we call the soul lives. We do not believe that the mass of flesh we burn is the man, knowing that the son or brother whom we bury is really gone to another country, after having accomplished his task in this-one must believe these things on the faith of legislators or ancient traditions." "1 Socrates, who died a martyr to his convictions, is represented to us, the fatal cup in his hand, discussing the question of questions on the threshold of death. After having retraced his philosophic conceptions on this grand subject, he said to his interlocutor: "Doubtless you regard these stories as the dreams of a delirious crone, but you are mistaken. I would myself despise them, if in our researches we had found anything more salutary and more certain.” Such was the foundation of his faith: it was but a pis aller. He had the wisdom to see that reason could not establish the certainty of this most important doctrine; and he said touchingly: "One must pass the stormy sea of life on the fragments of truth that remain to us, as on a little boat, unless we be given some surer way, such as a divine promise, a revelation, which would be to us a vessel in which we might brave the tempests."2 1 Plato De Leg. xii. 2 Phædo. Cicero believed in the immortality of the soul. In his treatise on Old Age, he says: "Nature has not set us in this world to inhabit it for ever, but to lodge in it in passing. Oh the bright day in which I shall leave for that celestial assembly, for that divine council of souls!" But turn the page, and read, "If I am deceived in believing in the immortality of the soul, I am deceived with pleaIf I die altogether, as think some minute sure. Even if philosophers, I shall feel nothing. we are not immortal, it is nevertheless desirable to end our days," &c. And in his Epistles, he says, "Whilst I live, nothing shall distress me, so long as I am free from blame; and if I cease to be, I shall lose all consciousness."1 A makeshift to satisfy this desire for immortality is life in the memory of posterity, in the mouth of fame. It is this which Cicero expatiates on in his oration upon Archias, and which M. Comte holds out to his followers as the future for which they are to strive. But this is poor comfort to the dying man. When Bossuet was in his agony, a friend bade him rejoice, for his fame would be eternal. "Fame!" echoed the dying eagle, "what is that to me now? Pray for my soul." The reasoning of Jack Falstaff is true to nature; fame will never satisfy the want man feels. "Honour pricks me on, yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? How then? can honour set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. What is honour? He that died o' Wednesday, doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it insensible then? Yea, to the dead. living? No. Why? therefore I'll none of it." 1 Epist. vi. 3. But will it not live with the Detraction will not suffer it: 21 Part of Henry IV. Act. v. Sc. I. Y And Heine yet more coarsely expresses the same sentiment: "Graves they say are warm'd by glory, Foolish words and empty story! Better far the warmth we prove From the cow-girl deep in love, In the vilest, meanest den, 'Mongst the thieves and scum of men. דיי At best the Elysium of the ancients was a paradise for the great men of earth. "If there be any place for the manes of the virtuous; if, as it pleases sages, great souls are not extinguished with the body, then rest in peace!"2 Such is the address of Tacitus to the spirit of Agricola. The Norseman opened Valhalla only to the warrior who died in battle; the Indian chief who is the death of many foes alone triumphs in the happy hunting-fields, but to the simple, the feeble, and the poor heathenism offered no hope; nor can modern infidelity afford consolation. A French materialist relates the following incident. He visited an almshouse for old women, in which was an aged relation whom he had not seen for many years. He found her bowed down with pain and the weight of age, and nearly stone deaf. As he walked with her in the little court, he perplexed his mind with the question how he should console her. He could not promise her youth and health, or a prospect of recovered hearing; and the old woman's tears flowed, as the sight of her relative recalled 2 Tacit. Agricol. xlvi. 1 Latest Poems, 13, Epilogue. |