to the history of philosophy. No evidence for it can be alleged beyond
the familiar fact that during the present life we know Soul only in its
association with Body, and therefore cannot discover disembodied soul
without dying ourselves. This fact must always prevent us from obtaining
direct evidence for the belief in the soul's survival. But a negative
presumption is not created by the absence of proof in cases where, in
the nature of things, proof is inaccessible.[17] With his illegitimate
hypothesis of annihilation, the materialist transgresses the bounds of
experience quite as widely as the poet who sings of the New Jerusalem
with its river of life and its streets of gold. Scientifically speaking,
there is not a particle of evidence for either view.

But when we desist from the futile attempt to introduce scientific
demonstration into a region which confessedly transcends human
experience, and when we consider the question upon broad grounds of
moral probability, I have no doubt that men will continue in the future,
as in the past, to cherish the faith in a life beyond the grave. In past
times the disbelief in the soul's immortality has always accompanied
that kind of philosophy which, under whatever name, has regarded
Humanity as merely a local incident in an endless and aimless series of
cosmical changes. As a general rule, people who have come to take such a
view of the position of Man in the universe have ceased to believe in a
future life. On the other hand, he who regards Man as the consummate
fruition of creative energy, and the chief object of Divine care, is
almost irresistibly driven to the belief that the soul's career is not
completed with the present life upon the earth. Difficulties on theory
he will naturally expect to meet in many quarters; but these will not
weaken his faith, especially when he remembers that upon the alternative
view the difficulties are at least as great. We live in a world of
mystery, at all events, and there is not a problem in the simplest and