CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY SKETCH.
Table of Contents 'L'immortalité de l'âme est une chose qui nous importe si fort, et qui nous touche si profondément, qu'il faut avoir perdu tout sentiment pour être dans l'indifférence de savoir ce qui en est.'-Pascal.
'For he should persevere until he has attained one of two things; either he should discover or learn the truth about them, or, if this is impossible, I would have him take the best and most irrefragable of human notions, and let this be the raft upon which he sails through life-not without risk, as I admit, if he cannot find some word of God which will more surely and safely carry him.'-Plato's Phædo; translated by Jowett.
1. The great majority of mankind have always believed in some fashion in a life after death; many in the essential immortality of the soul; but it is certain that we find many disbelievers in such doctrines who yet retain the nobler attributes of humanity. It may, however, be questioned whether it be possible even to imagine the great bulk of our race to have lost their belief in a future state of existence, and yet to have retained the virtues of civilised and well-ordered communities.
We have said that the disbelievers in such doctrines form a minority of the race; but at the same time it must be acknowledged that the strength of this minority has of late years greatly increased, so much so that at the present moment it numbers in its ranks not a few of the most intelligent, the most earnest, and the most virtuous of men.
It is, however, possible that, could we examine these, we should find them to be unwilling disbelievers, compelled by the working of their intellects to abandon the desire of their hearts, only after many struggles, and with much bitterness of spirit.
Others, again, without absolutely abandoning all hope of a future existence, are yet full of doubt regarding it, and have settled down into the belief that we cannot come to any reasonable conclusion upon the subject. Now, these men can have had nothing to gain, but rather much to lose, in arriving at this result. It has been reached by them with reluctance, with misgivings, not without a certain kind of persecution, nor without the loss of friends and the stirring up of strife; still they have fearlessly looked things in the face, and have followed whithersoever they imagined they were led by facts, even to the brink of an abyss.
It is the object of the present volume to examine the intellectual process which has brought about such results, and we hope to be able to show not only that the conclusion at which these men have arrived is not justified by what we know of the physical universe, but that on the other hand there are many lines of thought which point very strongly towards an opposite conclusion.
2. A division as old as Aristotle separates[3] speculators into two great classes,-those who study the How of the Universe, and those who study the Why. All men of science are embraced in the former of these, all men of religion in the latter. The former regard the Universe as a huge machine, and their object is to study the laws which regulate its working; the latter again speculate about the object of the machine, and what sort of work it is intended to produce. The disciples of How are accused by their adversaries of being willing to sacrifice the individual to the system; while the disciples of Why are accused by their adversaries of being willing to sacrifice the system to the individual.
We may compare the Universe to a great steamer plying between two well-known ports, and carrying two sets of passengers. The one set remain on deck and try to make out, as well as they can, the mind of the Captain regarding the future of their voyage after they have reached the port to which they know they are all fast hastening, while the other set remain below and examine the engines. Occasionally there is much wrangling at the top of the ladder where the two sets meet, some of those who have examined the engines and the ship asserting that the passengers will all be inevitably wrecked at the next port, it being physically impossible that the good ship can carry them further. To whom those on deck reply, that they have perfect confidence in the Captain, who has informed some of those nearest him that the passengers will not be wrecked, but will be carried in safety past the port to an unknown land of felicity. And so the altercation goes on; some who have been on deck being unwilling or unable to examine the engines, and some who have examined the engines preferring to remain below.
3. Our readers will perceive from what we have said, that difficulties regarding the possibility of a future state of existence are most likely to arise amidst the disciples of How or those who study the machinery of the Universe, and inasmuch as this class has greatly increased of late, it follows that the disbelievers in or doubters of the future state have increased likewise. The disciples of Why have, on the other hand, existed from time immemorial, and have, in the plenitude of their power, frequently carried themselves with much violence towards the disciples of How, who are of comparatively modern origin. It must not, however, be inferred that this old and venerable family have always been at peace amongst themselves, for there have been numerous contentions among their various sections, not the less acrimonious because the contending members have been to some extent supporters of a common cause, believing in some fashion in the reality of a world to come. We shall therefore begin by giving our readers a sketch, necessarily and purposely a very meagre one, of the various beliefs on these subjects held by the different branches of this great family.
4. Let us begin with the Egyptians, who are perhaps the most antient people of whom we have historical records. The manners and customs of this nation have been very minutely described by Sir Gardner Wilkinson, to whose work we are chiefly indebted for the following account. In the first place it appears that we must separate between what the priests believed and what was held by the great body of the people. The bulk of the nation were left by the priests to believe in a multiplicity of deities, and even to reverence animals as divine, while on the other hand the higher orders of the priesthood, who were initiated into the greater mysteries of their religion, appear to have acknowledged the unity of God. These believed in one Eternal God, from whom all other deities were produced, and whom they did not permit themselves even to name, far less to represent under any visible form. The Egyptians likewise believed in the existence of Dæmons or Genii, who were present unseen amongst mankind.
5. The earliest Egyptian records attest the belief of this nation in the immortality of the soul:-'Dissolution, according to them, is only the cause of reproduction-nothing perishes which has once existed, and things which appear to be destroyed only change their natures and pass into another form.'[4]
Anubis held in Egypt an office similar to that of Mercury among the Greeks, being the usher of souls in their passage to the future state. Amenti was the region to which the souls of men were supposed to go after death, and Sir Gardner Wilkinson notices the resemblance between this name and that of Ement 'the West'-the west, where the sun was seen to sink, being looked upon as the end of the world. The guardian of the lower regions was called Ouom-n-Amenti, or the Devourer of Amenti. It had frequently the appearance of a hippopotamus, but was drawn sometimes with the head of a fanciful creature something between the hippopotamus and the crocodile.
'The judgment of the soul was conducted by Osiris, aided by forty-two assessors, supposed to represent the forty-two crimes from which a virtuous man was expected to be free when judged in a future state, or rather the accusing spirits, each of whom examined if the deceased was guilty of the peculiar crime which it was his province to avenge.'[5]
6. As regards the fate of the soul when once the judgment had been passed upon it,-the Egyptians considered the souls of men to be emanations of the Divine soul, and each was supposed to return to its Divine origin when sufficiently pure to unite with the Deity. On the other hand, those who had been guilty of sin were doomed to pass through a series of torments ending in the second death.
7. It is considered probable by some that the Egyptian custom of embalming the body had relation to this religious doctrine, and before the mummy was allowed burial it had to be judged and acquitted by terrestrial authorities. Diodorus gives a detailed account of the ceremonies which then took place, in which forty-two judges were summoned to act as assessors and determine the fate of the body. If it could be proved that the deceased had led an evil life, his body was deprived of the accustomed burial, and on such occasions the grief and shame felt by the family were excessive. Diodorus considers that this was in itself a strong inducement to every one to abstain from crime, and praises very strongly the authors of so wise an institution.
8. Let us next consider the antient belief of the Hebrew nation.
Referring to the records of this nation, we find that at an early period they had been slaves or serfs to the Egyptians, from whom they were delivered by Moses, who became afterwards their lawgiver. Moses had by a species of adoption obtained a very prominent position among the Egyptians, and had probably been initiated into their sacred mysteries, for we read that he was 'learned...
