THE NEXT WORLD

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XXX, Issue 8494, 27 July 1933, Page 3

THE NEXT WORLD

NO EVIDENCE OF IMMORTALITY EXISTENCE NOT PROVEN PROFESSOR HUXLEY’S FINDING (By “P.N.”) In “The Listener,” Professor Julian Huxley sets about the easy task of proving that there is no evidence of immortality. He means evidence such as would be accepted in a court of law. He shows that, on such an evidential basis, no one can prove life after death, and no one can prove that life after death does not exist. He does not say that “faith Is a firm belief in what we know to be untrue,” but he tells of “the voice of a dead child” at a seance, of the detection of the medium a little later in “gross trickery,” and of the dead child’s mother walking out of the room declaring, “My faith 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 just as incapable of evidential disproof as are the sundry other things 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, of the wish for survival, of the desire to see our loved ones and our friends again, which are natural, if not inevitable, in human beings. But the precise form which that belief takes is determined, to a degree which is not generally realised, by the level of civilisation and culture, by material conditions, and by the philosophic and scientific ideas of the time. This has been well brought out recently in a little book called “Issues of Immortality," by Corliss Lament. Let me give one or two brief examples. The ancient Hebrews had theor hopes set on success in this world —the success of their race and nation as God’s chosen people. Accordingly, the idea of personal survival played little part in their life, and immortality had no particular attraction for them.

"A very striking change in the Christian conception of immortality has taken place during the last century and a half. Whereas at the beginning of the period hell, 'was as important as heaven, and an immortality of torture found its place side by side with an immortality of joy, to-day hell has more or less effectively faded out of the picture. This has been due to a number of facts —the rise of romanticism, of democracy, of the ideas of humanitarianism and service, the belief in the natural goodness and improvability of man. the breaking down of many of the old hard-and-fast ideas about morality. “Or, again, it is very easy to see how the spread of our scientific knowledge about the universe, especially in astronomy and in physiology, has altered the general reaction to the older orthodox ideas of immortality. The idea of the resurrection of the physical body, and the notion of a heaven located in some definite position in space, have largely disappeared, and most modern theologians emphasise our ignorance of the future life, instead of stressing our knowledge of it, as was the custom among their predecessors. This same cause has favoured the growth of the spiritual creed of immortality.”

SELFISHNESS REBUKED Then suddenly the professor wanders strangely from his path of dialectical exactness. He writes:- — “There is one other point which is worth 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 ‘other-worldly selfishness.’ There are two ways in which they may do harm. They concentrate on self as against others; and they neglect the attempt to improve thi§ world by concentrating on the next. If we do not know anything about survival, we do not know, and there for the moment is an end of it. We can make every effort to find out, and some day perhaps we shall knp,w something. Meanwhile we bravely accept ofir ignorance," If a man concentrates on finding out something—perhaps something evidential —about survival, how does

he “concentrate on seif as against others”? Does the professor hold that survival, if it exists 1 , is confined to the man who finds it out? And if survival is not confineable to the investigator, is he not investigating in the interests of “the others" as well 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 Columbus sailed westward from Spain, there must have been ; quite a lot of things that still wanted clearing up in that Most Christian Country, and there must have been several geographical discoveries still to be made in the mountainous hinterland, which is even to-day something of a terra incognita. Yet it cannot greatly bo charged, against' Columbus that he neglected, to improve Spain by concentrating on The, West. PHYSICAL LAWS Evidentially, it is no more possible to-day to disprove an existence outside Our known physical laws than it was possible in the day of Columbus, to prove or disprove an unknQWU land governed our physical laws, Columbus sailed out intp the unknown and made a great physical discovery. Bpt, according to one of our acutest scientific minds, a spirituallyminded Columbus to-day is concentrating on himself as againpt others, and is neglecting to improve this world by concentrating on the next. To such a paltry argument can a ’ great mind descend! , Again, in this survival question, “some day perhaps we shall know something.” And to find out we must “bravely accept our ignorance.” And we must not “concentrate on self.” Yet we are to “know some-

thing.” Surely, a new plan of scientific research. Professor Huxley concludes: “Some theologians, including St. Paul, have stated that if there is no life after death, we have no motive against meye self-indulgence. This is to take a low and also a false view of human nature. Facing 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 the benefit of I others now and in time to come. If they do this, and if there is another world after death, their existence in that other world will take care of itself.” Which, being translated, means: Be a good pupa, and you will perhaps be a chrysalis by and by, but for heaven’s sake don't disturb your pupa existence by any investigation into what lies ahead.