The Hope of Immortality

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II HISTORY OF THE BELIEF The prevalent doctrine of Immortality has been largely determined by the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. But it is a belief which reaches beyond and behind those Scriptures. It is one of those world-thoughts (if they may be fso called) which...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II HISTORY OF THE BELIEF The prevalent doctrine of Immortality has been largely determined by the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. But it is a belief which reaches beyond and behind those Scriptures. It is one of those world-thoughts (if they may be fso called) which are not of one place or time, but of all places and all times, and may be said to be the common heritage of mankind. Ut decs esse natura opinamur, says Cicero, qualesque sint ratione cognoscimus, sic permanere animos arbitramur consensu omnium nationum. l Modern research has been largely successful in tracing the phenomena of human life and thoughtback to their origin. It has laid bare the beginnings of things. The sciences of Anatomy and Embryology have demonstrated the close connexion between the human and even the lowest animal forms. Comparative Philology has revealed, by the intimate study of language, national and social relations which were scarcely imagined a century ago; it has followed the many diverging currents of human speech to their source. Comparative Mythology has shown the evolution of refined and disciplined beliefs from a few crude and simple apprehensions. Sociology has discovered the germs of modern institutions in the usages of primitive society. Everywhere it is the sense of history ? the sense of development ? which is men's guide in judging the present by the past. 1 As it is by nature that we believe in the being of the Gods and by reason that we apprehend their nature, so it is by the unanimous opinion of all nations that we hold the doctrine of the permanent existence of the soul.? Tusc. Disp. i. 16, 36. But while primitive ideas, beliefs and usages have been thus brought prominently into light, the actual speculative value whi...