PREFACE. THE principal essay in this book addresses itself to a small class of readers. For those who believe that a Life after Death has been guaranteed to mankind by a supernatural Revelation, it is superfluous; and for those who believe that the experiences of the bodily senses and the inductions thence derived mark the limits of human knowledge, it is useless. There yet remain some minds to whom I hope the speculations and observations which it contains may not be uninteresting or unserviceable; who, having lost faith in the apocalyptic side of Christianity, find no basis therein for their immortal hopes, but who are yet able to trust the spiritual instincts of their own and other men's hearts, provided they can recognize the direction in which they harmoniously point. I indulge no dream of discovering new ground for faith in immortality, still less of proving that we are immortal by logical demonstration. But something will be gained if I succeed in warning off a few inquirers from false paths which lead only to disappointment, and point out to them, if not the true argument, yet the true method of argument, whereby such satisfaction as lies within our reach may be obtained. Perhaps I may have the greater advantage in speaking of the belief in a future life because for many years of my own earlier life, while slowly regaining faith in God after the collapse of supernaturalism, I failed to discover any sufficient reason for such trust, and in the desire to be loyal to truth deliberately thrust it away even under the pressure of a great sorrow. It is possible, therefore, that I may understand better than most believers in the doctrine why many honest, and not irreligious, minds are at this moment mournfully shutting out that gleam of a brighter world which should cheer and glorify the present; and perhaps I may also have learned from experience how some of their difficulties may be met. It is needless to discuss the importance of the belief of mankind in a Life beyond the grave. Whether, with a recent distinguished writer, we look on the threatened loss of it as the most perilous of "Rocks Ahead," on which the whole order of society may make shipwreck, or whether (as I am more disposed to think) the danger lies in the gradual our carnalization of our nature which would follow the extinction of those ennobling hopes which have lifted men above mere animalism and given to Duty and to Love an infinite extension,-in either case it is hard to speak too gravely of the imperilment of that which has been, since the beginning of history, perhaps the most precious of the mental heirlooms of our race. To conjure up a picture of the desolation which such a loss must bring to the hearts of the bereaved, and the dreary hopelessness of the dying and the aged, would be to give ourselves superfluous pain. Nor must it be forgotten that it does not ask a great deal, if not to kill such a faith (which is perhaps impossible), yet to maim and paralyze it, so that it shall become practically powerless to comfort or to elevate. The great majority of mankind rather catch belief and disbelief from those around them than originate them on their own account; and the disbelief of even a few of their neighbours is often sufficient to take away all confidence in the affirmative verdict even of the wisest and best. Dr. Johnson said he was "injured by knowing there was one man who did not believe in Christianity;" the knowledge was just so far a deduction from the universality of consent in which even that intellectual giant found repose. It would probably need only that five per cent. of the |