Human Immortality: Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine

1 8 Human Immortality I finally a brain stops acting altogether, or decays, that special stream of conscious- ness which it subserved will vanish entirely from this natural world. But the sphere of being that supplied the consciousness would still be intact ; and in that more real world with which, even whilst here, it was continuous, the consciousness might, in ways unknown to us, continue still. You see that, on all these suppositions, our soul's life, as we here know it, would none the less in literal strictness be the function of the brain. The brain would be the independent variable, the mind would vary dependency on it. But such dependence on the brain for this natural life would in no wise make immortal life impossible, — it might be quite compatible with supernatural life behind the veil here- after. As I said, then, the fatal consequence is not coercive, the conclusion which mate- rialism draws being due solely to its one- sided way of taking the word 'function.' Human Immortality ig And, whether we care or not for immortal- ity in itself, we ought, as mere critics doing police duty among the vagaries of man- kind, to insist on the illogicality of a denial based on the flat ignoring of a palpable alternative. How much more ought we to insist, as lovers of truth, when the denial is that of such a vital hope of mankind ! In strict logic, then, the fangs of cere- bralistic materialism are drawn. My words ought consequently already to exert a re- leasing function on your hopes. You may believe henceforward, whether you care to profit by the permission or not.…