simple case) a spirit could be believed to pull down one of the scales, the Experiment would be worthless. To sustain the credit of our fundamental experiments, we need to suppose these Spirits to be so conscientious towards men of Science as never to interfere or mar an observation or an experiment, however wild their pranks at other times.

Next, to believe that God would allow unseen Spirits to play tricks with us, would so alter my conception of Divine Rule, that I cannot tell how much of practical religion I should be able to retain.

If we could prove the existence of even one dis-embodied soul; or else one transmigration of a human soul into a "new house" at the moment of losing its old house (so as never to be dis-embodied), this would be a step forward. Our inability to prove either, involves our moral argument for "life after death" in serious tangle. For, unless we ar first nearly sure that an arrangement which we desire on moral grounds is within the sphere of Power, it is vain to pile reason upon reason why it ought to exist. To reconcile human ideas when intrinsically incongruous, (like "undoing the past") is no problem for Deity.

SECTION X.

CONSENT OF MANKIND.

A CURRENT argument from Cicero down to Theodore Parker claims in favor of human immortality the fact that all nations believe it. The reasoner in Cicero adds, that as the concurrent testimony of mankind to the existence of Divine Power is a just ground of belief, so is it for a belief in future life for individual man.

Hesiod and Aristotle rightly lay stress on "the voice

"of many nations" (not vox populi, but vox multorum populorum) as "a sort of divine voice." As a ground of Human Ethics and of belief in Divine Power, I accept it as very substantial, very important: moreover in both Ethics and Theology increased knowledge and culture justify the sentiment of barbarian mankind. Ever since Newton unveiled the law of Gravitation connecting distant worlds, a man who accepts the law as a fact writes himself down as on the mental level of a Fetishworshipper, if he deny that a Universal Mind is activ and prepotent in Nature; which Mind or Spirit we entitle GOD. In these two branches of thought cultured intellect adopts and re-inforces the earlier belief. But as to human immortality the argument is sophistical. First, there is no real Consent of Mankind. Next, what consent there is, we may trace to weakness of understanding. Thirdly, advance in culture does not corroborate herein the thought of ruder men; on the contrary, seems rather to undermine it.

SECTION XI.

NATIONS NOT UNANIMOUS.

IN Cicero's day the beliefs of foreign nations were far less known than now. Of China and Africa scarcely more was known than of the undiscovered America: even as to the Hebrew religion the grossest error was current. We cannot censure Roman ignorance. But in English authors of this century to whom the Hebrew Scriptures ar familiar, the assertion that all mankind unite in believing human immortality damages their case; for it suggests that through lack of valid argument they rashly make false assertions. Nothing is clearer in

the Hebrew prophets, in most of the Hebrew Psalms and in the whole law called Mosaic, than that in the national creed (until changed by Captivity and Dispersion) no future life for individuals was taught. Next, in Roman and Greek literature and in all their Epitaphs, it is clear that life after death was not a practical belief, but only an occasional poetical fancy or flattering compliment.

Concerning Ancient Egypt we know now that three notions contended for mastery: first, resurrection of the flesh,--which was the apparent stimulus to embalming ; next, the doctrin of Transmigration of human souls into other perhaps bestial forms; thirdly, in the Ritual of the Dead, (as early as king Mycerinus,* earlier, I believe, than the patriarch Abraham, and thenceforward) the sacred and perhaps secret doctrin was, the absorption of the soul into the divinity by death. This, it seems, was a privilege; a higher and better lot than to reanimate a human or bestial form; the latter being a punishment. This "absorption," which Sophocles expresses by "going "back thither, whence we came," is a delicate phrase, which prosaic Englishmen interpret by annihilation, and insult it as "dying like a dog." We know now that also in the Buddhist creed this reabsorption into the Divine Spirit is the normal lot of the eminently blessed. And what number of the human race hold the Buddhist creed? The best accredited authority on this question is Dr. W. Hunter's Dictionary, which assigns to them five hundred millions at present. Those who set the number lower, hav to allow that in India both Islam and Brahminism hav largely won upon Buddhism. Thus from the "consent of the human race" we hav to except the Hebrews, whence we derive our highest and purest inward religion; the Greeks and Romans, our intellectual

B

* Rawlinson's Egypt, vol. ii. p. 64.

and political teachers; and the very numerous votaries of Buddhism. When a religious minister to whom we cannot impute ignorance or fraud rests human immortality on this "consent," it seems as though his mind were drugged unawares by a traditional creed. The formula uttered by religious Moslems in dying: "From thee we came, to thee we return," has a smack of the old Buddhism, and I hav my private reasons for thinking that dying Christians ar often in reality closer to that creed than is generally suspected or than they ar themselves aware. The Christian Heaven is to us at most an intellectual belief, but it can hav no color or form to the imagination.

SECTION XII.

66 CONSENT" EASILY EXPLICABLE.

HOMER'S poetry exhibits plainly how futil ar barbarian notions on this matter. Achilles sees in a dream his slain friend Patroclus, and tries to embrace him; in vain. Then he raves against the stupidity of ghosts, who do not know their friends. The dream givs a vivid notion of a ghost. In Cicero's dialogs we see that spectres in dreams ar adduced in proof of fact, and even the Epicureans supposed such spectres to hav a material existence, of which they must giv some explanation. To savages whose life has had its main excitement from war and hunting, nothing is more natural than to fancy and desire like employment after death: hence their effort to furnish a deceased chief with the means of continuing his old gratification. No just weight could be given to such notions, were they even universal. As well might

we argue from universal consent, that the Earth is still, and the Sun moves round it. Discerning the cause of the vulgar error, we smile at the ignorance which would giv it importance. Time (says Cicero sagaciously) pulls down Error, but establishes Truth.

SECTION XIII.

A COUNTER PHENOMENON.

CICERO and Lucretius (iii. 911) allude to the ejaculation over one deceased: "Ah, poor fellow" (miser ah miser!) The same thing continues among Christians, even when the deceased is revered as a pious relativ (as, "My poor "father"), however firmly they think they believe that he is "gone to a better world." I hav heard this in quarters very various, and when I least expected it. The fact suggests that the heart contradicts the head. The head is possessed with a creed that the next world is a better world, but instinct forbids the reception of the idea into the heart, and suggests (as I hav heard) that "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." In all such cases there is no consent of the whole man to the idea that untimely death of one, however saintly, is a benefit and promotion to him.

An amiable preacher lately pronounced over the grave of an honored gentleman, that Death was either a highly melancholy event or matter of joyful felicitation. (I hav not the actual words before me.) The inference implied was, that, unless we were willing to accept it in this case as deplorable, we must glorify the departure. But to me every untimely death seems mournful, even of a criminal who is too dangerous for human society. But