THE NEXT WORLD

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 2, 3 July 1933, Page 3

THE NEXT WORLD

NOT PROVEN

A PROFESSORS FINDING

XO COLUMBfas WANTED

;;{By>'P.N.") In "The List/nor," Professor Julian Huxley sets ..-ySjout the easy task of proving that /thero is no evidence of immortality. / Ho means evidence such asrwould l>o,.'acceptcd in a court of law. lie show?; that,;on such an evidential basis, no' ,6u'o can prove life after death, and no: ~'ono' can provo that life aftor death, doeg not exist. IJ'e'docs not say that "faith is a. firm "by'dcE in what ire know to be unlrue," /tut be tolls of "the voice of a dead" ■child" at a seance, of the detection of the- medinm a- little later in "gross trickery," and of the dead child's mother walking out of the room declaring, ;'' My faitli is as strong as ever." He points out physical difficulties in personal survival (survival of the body after death), but does not.mention that the existence of a physical. universe, under totally different physical laws to ours, unseen and unknown .to us^ is jiistv as incapable of evidential. disproof as are the sundry .other thingsj he refers to. .;' . HEBREW MOTIF. Professor Huxley states.. that "the belief in • immortality, when present, appears as if it were the crystallisation of the fear of extinction)' (it the wish for survival, of tho desiro /to poo our = loved ones and our friends;,again, which are natural, if not iheviteible, in human beings. But the precise form which> that belief takes is det/erinined, ' to a degree which is not generally realised, by the level of civilisation and culturo, by material conditioi/.s, and by tho philosophic and scientify's ideas of the time. This has been w/01l brought out recently in a, little V/ook called 'Issues of Immortality,' /by Corliss Lamont. Let mo give one* or two brief examples. The ancient .Hebrews had their'hopes set on sueces? in this world —the.success of their rtrxe and nation as God's chosen, peoplo; Accordingly, the idea of personal tfnrvival played little part in their li/.'e, and immortality' had no particular attraction, for ■ them. . . ' ■ • : "A very striking change in the' Christian • conception of immortality has taken place during th/rj last century and a half. Whereas at the beginning of the period hell waj/as important ns heaven, and.an imnjiflrtality of torture found. !t» place si^e by side-with an immortality of joy, today hell has more or less effectively/^aded out of tho picture. This has_ b/oen due to a number of facts—the ris/j of romanticism, of democracy, of tjr'ie'ideas of humanitarianism and soci/J service, tho belief in the. natural gooffc/t'ness and improvability of man, the-bij/eaking down of many of ; the old ha fd-and-fast ideas about morality. ■ ■ .' "Or ngain,^ it is very easy to see how tho sprer^a of our scientific knowledge 'about '/he universe, especially in astrouomy sk([ in physiology, has altered the general reaction to the older orthodox of immortality:- The idea of t\>jo, resurrection of the physical body,'aiyg, the notion of a heaven located/in some definite position in space, /.'have largely disappeared, and most ,4jnodern theologians emphasise our ignyfance of the future life, instead of stressing our knowledge of it, as was t/t'e custom among their predecessors, iffhis.: same, causo has favoured;;-/the /growth of the spiritualist creed of inimortality." ''-'■'■ SELFISHNESS BEBTJKED. Then suddenly the professor wanders strangely from his path of dialectical exactness. He writes:—"There is one other point which is work making. It is quite clear that wherever men concern themselves unduly with immortality and salvation in a future life, they may do harm. As a philosopher has said, they are- guilty of 'otherworldly selfishness.' Thero are two ways in which-they may do harm. They concentrate on self. a.s against others; and they neglect /tho .attempt to improvo this world yfoy concentrating on the next. If ■vye do not know anything about survival, -we do not know, and there foj-'tho moment is an end of it. "We tan.make every effort to find put, ai>ti some day perhaps we shall know sor/ething. Meanwhile we cau bravely/accept our ignorance" If'Vman concentrates on finding out ncmaitning—perhaps ■ something evi<leutial —about survival, how does he "Concentrate on self as against Others"? Does the professor hold that survival, if it exists, is confined to the man who finds it oufc? And if survival is not confineable to the investigator, is he not investigating in the interest of "the others" as wcfll as of himself? Did Columbus concentrate on himself as against others?- Or did the whole Columbus expedition concentrate' on itself as against/others? Surely not. Why, then, is the Columbus of the Spheres a selfish concentrator? When Columbias sailed westward from Spain, there m/usfc have been quite a lot of things itbnt still wanted clearing up in that Mogi Christian Country, and there must hayve been several geographical discoveries still to be made in the mountainoys hinterland, which is even today something of a terra incognita. "s£et it Cannot greatly be charged fagainsf Columbus that he neglected to smpro/Ve Spain by concentrating on The. West. TTNPBJOVEN FINALITY OF PHYSICAL LAWS. Evidentially, it is no more possible today to disprove an existence outside our known physical laws, than it was •possible in the day of Columbus to prove .or disprove an unknown land governed our physical laws. Columibus sailed out into the unknown and made' a great physical discovery. But, according to one of our acutcst scientific' minds, a spiritually-minded Columbus today is concentrating on Jiiiuself as- against others, and is iiegleeting to improve this world by concentrating on th& next. To such. a paltry argument can a .groat mind' descend! ' Again, in this survival question, •"somo day perhaps wo shall- know «on)ething." And to find out we must '"bravely accept our ignorance."'And ■we must,not "concentrate on self." Yet -vv6 are to "know something." Surely this is a new.plan of scientific research. . . Professor Huxley concludes: "Some theologians, including St. I'aul, havp •tated that if there is no life after tleath, we.have no motive against mere eelf-indulgence. This is to take a low nnd also a, false view of human nature. Pacing ignorance and overcoming fear, men and'women can still find enjoyment and interest for themselves in this world, and can attempt to transform it in the direction of something better, for tho benefit of others- now and in time to come. If they do this, and if there is another world after -death, their existence in thnt other world will take care of itself." ;

Which, being translated, means: Be t good: pupa, and. you will perhaps be s chrysalis .by and by, but for heaven's *ake don't distujb your pupa existence by any Investigation into what lies ahead.

Men outnumber women in ifonmouththo proportion being 05ii vomcu ettid *gtr]R to every. . 1000 men and boj's.