DEATH AND IMMORTALITYDEATH 1. The Discovery of Death. It is a matter of debatewhether animals have an awareness of mortality, butit is certain that man alone among all living creaturesknows that he has to die. Yet even Homo sapiens ac-quired this knowledge relatively late in the long historyof the species. It is reasonable to assume, as Voltairedid in his Dictionnaire philosophique (article, “Tout vabien”), that man has learned about death “throughexperience.” More recently some philosophers, notablyMax Scheler, asserted that man possesses an intuitiveawareness of his mortality, and Paul Landsberg sug-gested that it is not through experience in the usualmeaning of the term but by way of a particular “expe-rience of death” that one realizes one's own finitude.There is undoubtedly some truth in this view but asnumerous anthropological studies have shown, primi-tive man is totally unaware of the inevitability as wellas the possible finality of death. For him it is neithera natural event nor a radical change: death occurs onlyas a result of violence or of a disease brought on bymagic, and those who do die merely enter into anothermode of living in which the need for food, drink, andclothing does not cease.Therefore it is misleading to speak of the primitive'sbelief in immortality, because his view of death isrooted not in a denial of death but in the ignoranceof its nature. And the term “immortality” would haveto signify deathlessness as well as survival after death,whereby survival would be that of the whole man andnot merely of a hypothetical incorporeal entity. It wasonly after it had become apparent that death was nota mere temporary lapse and that the change was irre-versible and extreme that the notion could occur thatwhat survives is something other than the whole man.Even then the “survivor” was not conceived of assomething immaterial, but as a replica of the body,a “ghost” or “shadow,” and only much later did itbecome the completely disembodied “soul.”The primitive's misconception of death is due pri-marily to his inability to draw the proper conclusionsfrom his observations, but it is also strongly favoredby the difficulty of visualizing the end of one's exist-ence. This psychological peculiarity is not charac-teristic of the primitive alone. As Freud, and Schopen-hauer before him, have pointed out, “deep down” even

contemporary man does not “really” believe in his owndeath. And Martin Heidegger shrewdly observed thatthe proposition, “all men are mortal” usually involvesthe tacit reservation “but not I.”Neither the time nor the historical sequence of thetwo elements in the discovery of death—its inevita-bility as well as its possible finality—can be determinedwith any degree of accuracy. On the one hand, therealization of the inevitability of death may conceiv-ably have preceded the suspicion of its finality. On theother hand, the finality of death is in no way predicatedon its inevitability. But if we judge by the testimonyof the first written record of man's discovery of death,the Gilgamesh Epic (ca. 2500 B.C.), the realization ofthe inevitability of death as well as its possible finalitywould seem to have occurred simultaneously. If thisis so, it is pointless to ask which of the two producedthe greater shock. But again on the basis of theGilgamesh legend, there can be no doubt about itsseverity. As a result we find in Gilgamesh most of thethemes of the meditation on death as we know themtoday. But while King Gilgamesh strongly suspects thatdeath may well be total extinction, the predominantview of death of his contemporaries, obviously stillrooted in primitive ideas, was that the dead somehowcontinue to exist. But one cannot help but be impressedby the somber and frightening nature of the afterlifeas it appears in the Babylonian and Greek mythologies.Typical is Achilles' complaint in the Odyssey that itis better to be a slave on earth than a king in the realmof phantoms. Such an image of a miserable existenceas a mere “shadow” ought to throw considerable doubton the usual interpretation of the belief in immortalityas a mere “wish fulfillment,” at least as far as theearliest manifestations of this belief are concerned. Thiskind of survival must have appeared, at least to some,   Page 635, Volume 1as worse than complete extinction. For most peo-ple, however, the prospect of total annihilation wasas frightening and repulsive as that of a miserableafterlife. Seen against this background, the earliestphilosophical speculations about the soul's ultimateblissful immortality must have appeared as welcomenews.We shall deal with these, and subsequent, doctrinesof immortality in the second part of this article andconsider the various attempts to come to terms withmortality without taking refuge in comforting visions

of post-mortem existence.2. Epicurus. These attempts were mainly concernedwith gaining mastery over the fear of death. It isimportant, however, to realize that the first such at-tempts made by Democritus, and in particular byEpicurus, have been undertaken at a time when thepredominant view of death was that of dismal survivalin a bleak Underworld. Consequently Epicurus' liber-ating message consisted primarily in the denial of thereality of Hades. Later thinkers, however, had a differ-ent, and clearly a more difficult, task of trying toreconcile man with death meaning total extinction.According to Epicurus the fear of death is one of thetwo major afflictions of mankind, the other being thefear of the gods. Man fears death because he errone-ously believes that he will experience pain and sufferafter he has died. But, says Epicurus, death is depriva-tion of sensation. As to the soul it too does not survivedeath because, as Democritus has taught, like all things,it too consists of atoms (albeit particularly fine ones)which will disperse at death. Consequently “Death, themost terrifying of all ills, is nothing to us, since as longas we exist, death is not with us, and when death comes,then we do not exist” (Fragment XLVII, in WhitneyJ. Oates, The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers [1940],p. 42).This argument is frequently invoked even today inspite of the fact that it can be effective only againstthe fear of what comes after death—what may be doneto the dead body, as well as what is supposed to happento one's “shadow” in Hades. (The fear of mutilationand desecration of the corpse and the fear of beingdeprived of a proper burial were widespread in an-tiquity and sometimes appear to have been strongerthan the fear of death itself.) But what is mostly fearedtoday is precisely that which has been so lightly dis-missed by Epicurus, namely, that one shall not existanymore.Another obvious shortcoming of the Epicureanargument is that it might alleviate the fear of death“at the thought of death,” but not in its actual pres-ence. The inadequacy of the argument in this respect,as well as with regard to the fear of annihilation, hasbeen noted even by some of Epicurus' contemporaries.In one of the Platonic apocrypha, the Axiochus, thedying ruler rejects it as “superficial twaddle which canimpress only little boys.” Perhaps this was the reasonfor which Lucretius, while exalting Epicurus as the

great liberator from the “dread of Acheron,” intro-duced the additional argument of a pessimistic evalua-tion of life: “And quitting life you quit thy living pain.... For all the dismal tales, that poets tell, are verifiedon earth and not in Hell” (De rerum natura, trans. JohnDryden, Book III, 978-79).3. Methods of Mastering the Fear of Death. Thepessimistic evaluation of life can be considered as theoldest “remedy” against the fear of death. That “thebest thing is not to be born, and the second best isto escape life as soon as possible” has been, sinceTheognis of Megara (sixth century B.C.), a recurrenttheme of Greek poetry and drama. Pessimism is animportant element also in Emperor Marcus Aurelius'approach to mastering the fear of death. But for mostpeople the pessimistic stance carries no real conviction.Thus, another Roman Stoic, the slave Epictetus, reliesmore on self-discipline and the sense of decorum whenit comes to death. His answer is that we have to takemodestly the place assigned to us by God or Natureat the banquet of life and when the end approachesto leave it quietly and gracefully. This is also the viewof Seneca. But he realized, however, that such anattitude is rather the result of the conquest of the fearof death than its condition. He was, therefore, morespecific in suggesting as a remedy the constant thinkingof death.However, this second method of conquering the fearof death, even if it is done in the framework of hopeof a future life, is scarcely realistic. And without thathope it is a “remedy” which may be worse than theaffliction. The shortcomings of this method graduallybecame clear to Montaigne. In the chapter of hisEssays significantly entitled “That to philosophize isto learn to die,” he reports that being bothered byattacks of dread of dying, he at first tried to followSeneca's advice. As time passed, he came to the con-clusion that the only proper remedy against the fearof death is not “philosophy, which orders us to havedeath constantly before our eyes,” but the attitude ofthe unsophisticated peasant whom “nature teaches notto think of death except when he actually dies....If this be stupidity, let's all learn from it” (Essays [1595ed.], Book III, Ch. 12). But how can not thinking ofdeath be effective in the “presence” of death? Whatabout the problem of “easy” dying? Here Montaigneis somewhat vague. He praises Nature which arrangedthings so that dying is in reality not too hard. And

he says that “if we have known how to live properly   Page 636, Volume 1and calmly, we will know how to die in the samemanner.”However, Nature's cooperation is not necessarilyrealized in every case, although it was in Montaigne's:he did not have a chance to put the above statementto a test, having died suddenly of a stroke. His expecta-tion of a peaceful death as an outgrowth of a “properlife” does not really convey Montaigne's radically newattitude toward life which determines his eventualattitude toward death. It is quite different from theStoic position and even more so from that of Christi-anity; it is the expression of the Renaissance spirit withits appreciation of the exciting and wonderful worldsurrounding man of which he feels himself to be a part.Life is not seen any longer as something to be enduredbut something to be enjoyed and which can be shapedand changed for the better by man's own effort. Inshort, the memento vivere replaces the Christian me-mento mori. (It is plausible to assume that this radicalreversal was, at least in part, an anticlimax to thepathologically heightened consciousness of mortalitycharacteristic of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,which grew out of the disaster of the “Black Death.”)What a “proper and calm” life was for Montaigne,a useful and productive life was for Leonardo da Vinci.“As a day well spent bestows pleasant sleep, so a lifewell used bestows pleasant death.”This has become the most often suggested secularanswer to the problem of coming to terms with thefact of death. A variant of it, which puts even a greateremphasis on achievement, has been given expressionby the German poet Hölderlin: “Should my verse growperfect/ Most welcome then, O stillness of shadesbelow... (“To the Fates”). It is obvious, however,that such a condition for overcoming the reluctanceto die is well beyond the reach of the majority ofmortals. Moreover, even the consciousness of havingled a “full” life, and achieved great things may notbe enough to make death welcome. What usuallymakes death acceptable is its coming as a well deservedsurcease from a life of continuous hardship and partic-ularly from the indignity and suffering of old age.However, it is hardly necessary to point out that theproblem posed by premature death still remains in allits poignancy.The weakness of the method of allaying fear of death

by not thinking of it is that under certain circumstancesit is easier said than done. Robert Burton realized itwhen he wrote in his Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)that “if our present weakness is such that deathfrightens us, we cannot moderate our passion in thisbehalf. We must divert them by all means, by doingsomething else, thinking of another subject. Study isabove all the best means to divert one's thoughts” (Parta, sec. 3, mem. 5 [1907 ed.]). Spinoza too was wellaware of this. But, according to him, not any kind ofstudy but only philosophical reflection which leads towhat he calls “a higher kind of knowledge” can betruly effective. Therefore, his famous propositionLXVII (in the fourth part of Ethics), “A free man thinksof nothing less than death, and his wisdom is a medita-tion not of death but of life,” is not advice to avoidthinking of death as a means of overcoming fear ofit. To interpret this proposition as meaning that onlyfools waste their time on meditating about death isto misunderstand it completely. Spinoza's “free” manis the wise man, and the latter is defined as “one wholives under the guidance of reason and is not led byfear.” But as Spinoza points out at the end of hismagnum opus, the attainment of wisdom is one of themost difficult things in the world. Thus the aboveproposition is not an admonition not to think of deathbecause no reasonable man does such a foolish thing,but a promise of a reward for the effort of becomingwise. It asserts that when one finally attains wisdom(that is, becomes “free”) he will be able not to thinkof death, but of life. And it is obvious that only afterhaving thought of death a great deal did Spinoza him-self become able not to think of it any longer becausehe had learned not to fear it.Although the method of allaying the fear of deathby not thinking about it is a defective one, particularlysince one usually thinks of it for some good reason (beit real danger of death to a loved one, or to oneself),the proffering of such advice is understandable if weconsider man's uncanny ability to ignore his mortality.There is also the previously mentioned phenomenonthat, in Freud's words, “in the unconscious no onereally believes in one's own death.” Were it not forthese psychological defense mechanisms, who knowswhat havoc the knowledge of death would create inman's psyche.Finally, a fourth method of mastering the fear ofdeath is that of “minimizing” death. We have noted

already that Epicurus' argument against the fear ofdeath was, to a large extent, based on such an ap-proach. But it was Socrates who must be consideredas its initiator when, in Plato's Apology, he presses theanalogy between death and sleep. “For fear of deathis indeed the pretense of wisdom... being the pre-tense of knowing the unknown.... We may well hopethat death is good, since it is either dreamless sleepor migration of the soul from this world to another...” (Apology 39D).A telling criticism of the sleep analogy is Keats'complaint that “Mortality weighs on me like unwillingsleep” (“Endymion,” 1818), and John Dryden's insist-ence that death is a very special kind of “sleep”: “tosleep, and never wake again.” These are valid reasonswhy the other alternative suggested by Socrates has   Page 637, Volume 1been so popular. From the point of view of theconquest of the fear of death, the belief in immortalityis nothing but another way of “minimizing” death.While the method of not thinking of death couldbe effective only in instances of the fear of death “atthe thought of it,” that of thinking of it constantly (andthus becoming “familiar” with it) could probably beof help also in the “presence” of death. The two othermethods, that of minimizing death, and that of mini-mizing the value of life may be helpful in both in-stances and unlike the first two are not mutually exclu-sive, but can and have been combined for greaterefficacy. None of the four, however, is effective in thecase of pathological fear of death. As the fifteenth-century Scottish poet, William Dunbar, stated in his“Lament for the Makaris” (stanza 10),... Art magicians, and astrologis,Rhetoris, logicians and theologis,Thame helpis no conclusions slee;—Timor mortis conturbat me(“Fear of death shatters me”).Before we consider what, if anything, contemporarypsychology and psychotherapy have to contribute tothis issue, we have to say a few words about deathas the motive as well as the theme of philosophy.4. Philosophers and Death. Schopenhauer main-tained that death is the muse of philosophy and that“all religious and philosophical systems are principallydirected toward comforting us concerning death, andare thus primarily antidotes to the terrifying certaintyof death” (The World as Will and Idea, III, Ch. 16).

This is an obvious oversimplification and over-statement. The origin of religion involves many otherfactors than just the dimension of human anxiety withregard to death, and this is true even more of philoso-phy where “wonder” (Plato) and intellectual curiositywere motives of equal if not greater importance.Still almost from the very first, death was a majortopic of philosophical reflection. Of the 126 knownfragments of Heraclitus, no less than sixteen deal withdeath. And while it is a mistake to impute to Platothe proposition that philosophy is a meditation ondeath or to suspect him of an inordinate fear of it,there can be no doubt whatsoever that it held a promi-nent place in his thought. What Plato did say wasthat “the true philosopher is ever pursuing death anddying” (Phaedo 64A). This statement can be understoodcorrectly only in the context of Plato's notion thatthe soul is a prisoner in the body, that the body is anobstacle to the acquisition of knowledge, that thephilosopher is a seeker after truth, and that the attain-ment of true knowledge is possible only when the soulis liberated from the chains of the body, which is whatdeath means to Plato. Thus, in the pursuit of trueknowledge, the philosopher strives in this life to ap-proach the condition in which his soul will be afterdeath. In philosophizing, he is, as it were, rehearsingdeath.Death was also an important theme among theStoics, Montaigne, Bruno, Descartes, Pascal, Spinoza,Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Feuerbach,Nietzsche, and many others of lesser stature.In any case, not until very recent times did philoso-phers—with the notable exception of “existentialists”—deliberately shun the problems arising from the factof mortality. This is the more surprising since theprominent place which the topic of death occupies incontemporary literature (Malraux, Camus, Heming-way, Faulkner, Beckett, Ionesco to mention but themost oustanding examples) seems to reflect the pro-found uneasiness concerning man's ultimate fate.One of the reasons for the reluctance of most contem-porary philosophers to deal with death is their disen-chantment with metaphysical speculation whichseemed to yield nothing but contradictory opinions.Moreover, the “glamor” of science, due to its spec-tacular advances and the visibility of its practical ap-plications, awakened the ambition to make philosophyan “exact” science in its own right. Both of these

tendencies led to a considerable restriction of the scopeof philosophy. “Professional” philosophers today areneither disposed nor expected (at least by their peers)to concern themselves with “ultimate questions.” Butif the so-called analytical philosophers, who predomi-nate in the English-speaking countries, exclude deathas a legitimate topic of philosophy because of a narrowview of the task of philosophy, some of those who stillcling to a broader and more traditional view of thephilosophical enterprise disregard death because indi-vidual man and his death appear to them to be of littleimportance.Typical is the remark of the German philosopherNicolai Hartmann that only “self-tormenting meta-physicians” waste their time on meditating on deathand speculating about immortality. And most pragma-tists are, in addition, haunted by the fear that concernwith “otherworldly” things will interfere with the taskof improving the conditions of existence here and now.It may be argued, however, that a better life includesalso a satisfactory coming to terms with death. In anycase, for better or for worse, a great many contem-porary philosophers have abandoned the field almostentirely to psychologists and sociologists.5. Contemporary Psychology and Death. System-atic studies of man's attitudes toward death and dyinghave begun only around the turn of this century. Theyhave elicited information with regard to different agegroups, sex, occupation, marital status, education, andphysical as well as mental health and sickness. Most   Page 638, Volume 1of the results are, however, conflicting, and no uni-versally accepted theory of the genesis of the fear ofdeath has emerged. But it has become amply clear thatthe term “fear of death” is a catch-all label which hidesheretofore unsuspected complexities. Not only do theemotions described as death-fear range from simplereluctance or aversion to think of death to outrightterror, but these emotions refer to a variety of “ob-jects.” There is fear of what comes after death (fearof the effects of death), and fear of the process of dying(fear of the pain and anguish of dying). As to thetherapy of the (pathological) dread of death and dying,(that is, when no valid medical reasons to expect im-pending death exist), it appears that the two mosteffective approaches so far are that of psychoanalysis,which considers “anxiety” over death as but a specialcase of a general anxiety state which has become

“fixated” on this particular subject, and hypnotic sug-gestion therapy, for which Russian psychiatrists claimoutstanding successes. In the case of apprehension andfear in people actually dying, recent experiments withLSD have shown promising results. One should becareful, however, not to confuse the cure of thepathological fear of death or the chemically inducedrelief of the anxiety of the dying with a “solution” ofall the problems which the fact of death continues topresent to the inquiring mind.This does not mean that there is, or must be, sucha “global” solution. However, it is important to re-member that until very recently it was generally as-sumed that the answer to the problems of death wasknown, universally accepted, and it is still consideredvalid by many. This answer was “immortality.”IMMORTALITY Before discussing the main doctrinal formulations ofthe idea of immortality, a few preliminary remarks willbe useful.In order to be a satisfactory solution to the problemsarising in connection with the fact of death, immor-tality must be first a “personal” immortality, and sec-ondly it must be a “pleasant” one. Only pleasant andpersonal immortality provides what still appears tomany as the only effective defense against the fear ofdeath. But it is able to accomplish much more. Itappeases the sorrow following the death of a lovedone by opening up the possibility of a joyful reunionin the hereafter. It satisfies the sense of justice outragedby the premature deaths of people of great promiseand talent, because only this kind of immortality offersthe hope of fulfillment in another life. Finally, it offersan answer to the question of the ultimate meaning oflife, particularly when death prompts the agonizingquery, “What is the purpose of this strife and struggleif, in the end, I shall disappear like a soap bubble?”(Tolstoy, A Confession, 1879).It is important to realize, however, that the notionof a pleasant immortality for all and sundry runs coun-ter to the sense of justice which otherwise plays sucha prominent role in man's claim to immortality. Whileit was felt that it would be an “injustice” if man werecondemned to total annihilation, it did not make sensethat evil men should enjoy the same privileges in thehereafter as did the good ones. Thus we find in alldoctrines of immortality some restrictions as to theenjoyment of a blissful afterlife, be it a permanent

exclusion from it of those guilty of crimes, or a merelytemporary one, allowing for rehabilitation, expiation,or purification. The main difficulty with personal im-mortality, however, is that once the naive positionwhich took deathlessness and survival after death forgranted was shattered, immortality had to be proved.All serious discussion of immortality became a searchfor arguments in its favor.The three main variants of the idea of immortalityare the doctrine of reincarnation, or transmigration ofthe soul, the Platonic theory of the immortality of thesoul (which also admits the possibility of transmigra-tion), and the Christian doctrine of resurrection of thebody, which includes “Platonic” immortality. Histori-cally they seem to have appeared in the Western worldin that order. But we shall begin with the doctrineof the immortality of the soul as expounded by Plato,partly because his position was the best argued, andbecause it is around it that in subsequent times mostserious discussions revolved.I. IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 1. Plato. The two basic premises of Plato's doctrineof the immortality of the soul are a radical dualismwhich sees man as a composite of a material body andan incorporeal soul, and the assertion that the soul,and not the body, is the essential, the true man. Thesoul is not only totally independent of the body, butit is of divine origin and only an unwilling guest inthe body. This is what makes Plato define death as aliberation of the soul from the bodily “prison.” Theprobable source of this view is the Orphic “soma-sema,” the body is the prison (of the soul). Whetherit is this view of the soul which leads to the notionthat the soul is the essential person or the other wayaround, is impossible to determine. In any case, whenCrito asks Socrates how he wants to be buried, thelatter expresses surprise that his listeners apparentlystill did not get the main point of his discussion,namely, that it is the Socrates who is now conversingwith them, and not the corpse he will soon become,who is the real Socrates (Phaedo 115C-D).   Page 639, Volume 1Plato advances the following arguments for theimmortality of the soul: (1) the argument from remi-niscence. Man has certain ideal concepts as well assome knowledge of a priori (e.g., mathematical) truthswhich could not have been derived or been acquiredthrough experience (Phaedo 72A-77A; Meno 81B-86B).

Thus we must have acquired them before this lifebegan, which indicates that the soul is prior to thebody. But this would prove only the preexistence ofthe soul, not its immortality, although the latter is mademore plausible if preexistence is true. The case forimmortality is strengthened, however, when we con-sider that in order to apprehend the eternal “Ideas”or “Forms,” the soul must itself be eternal for “noth-ing mortal knows what is immortal.”(2) Argument from the “fact” that the soul is theprinciple of life: the soul, whose essence is life (vitality)and thus the very opposite of death, cannot be con-ceived as dying any more than fire can be conceivedas becoming cold. This argument (Phaedo, 100B-107A)is based on Plato's arbitrarily equating “soul” as theprinciple of life with soul as the bearer or originatorof mental and emotional activity. Moreover, to holdthat as the principle of life the soul is the “Idea” oflife and, as such, deathless and eternal has no bearingon the immortality of the individual soul, since the“Idea” of a thing is, according to Plato himself, verydifferent from its individual manifestation.The same unwarranted equation of the two meaningsof soul underlies the third argument, (3) the soul asself-moving, which states that since the soul movesitself and is the source of movement and life, it mustbe immortal because that which moves itself is incor-ruptible and ingenerable (Phaedrus 245C-246A).(4) The soul as “simple.” Plato argues that the soulmust be immortal since it is “simple” and incorporeal.An incorporeal substance is “naturally” incorruptible,and “simple” means that it is uncompounded andtherefore incapable of dissolution (in the sense of fallingapart; Kant has later argued that even if it has no“extensive quality,” it nevertheless possesses “intensivequality” and can therefore dwindle to nothingness “bya gradual loss of power”).Plato himself was well aware of the inadequacy ofhis arguments for the immortality of the soul (and thismay be taken as a proof that he never doubted itstruth). He admitted that the divine origin of the soulas well as the existence of eternal “Ideas” requirefurther investigation (Phaedo 107B). His former pupil,Aristotle, rejected these basic assumptions on whichPlato's doctrine of immortality of the soul rested.Aristotle held that the soul is one with the body asits “form” (which term is quite different from Platonicsense of “Form” or “Idea”). There is no necessity for

the separate existence of Ideas, because “the shape ofa bronze sphere exists at the same time as the bronzesphere exists,” but it is not at all certain that “any formsurvives afterwards” and “the soul may be of this sort”(Metaphysics 1070a).But while he was quite positive in his denial thatthe soul could survive in its entirety, Aristotle spokeof the possibility of survival of the intellectual partof it. Unfortunately, it is not at all clear what he meantby the term “pure intellect”: on the one hand hedescribed it as a capacity, but then there are passageswhere he speaks of it as if it were an incorporealsubstance. Clearly, only the latter could be conceivedas immortal. What Aristotle may have had in mindis that if not the whole soul, then at least man's activeintellect is of divine origin (since he spoke of it ascoming from the “outside”) and as such can be saidto be eternal. But this is not the immortality of thesoul as Plato conceived it. Not only does Aristotle seemto be contemptuous of this doctrine (NicomacheanEthics 1111b), but most of his commentators beginningwith Alexander of Aphrodisias, and particularly Aver-roës, were of the opinion that “The Philosopher” didnot believe in any kind of individual immortality.2. Descartes. For almost two thousand years, fewnew arguments were propounded in favor of the doc-trine of the immortality of the soul until Descartesturned his attention to the problem. In the meantimethe reintroduction to the Western world of Greekphilosophical works, in particular those of Aristotle,by Arabic scholars about the middle of the twelfthcentury, brought with it the first serious threat to theuniversally accepted belief in immortality, since theseworks, and the commentaries on them, containedshocking but well-reasoned arguments against immor-tality of the soul.The reaction among Christian philosophers to thisthreat was exemplified by Siger of Bradant in thetwelfth century, and set the pattern for the next sixhundred years. This reaction considered in the distinctionbetween the truth of reason and the truth of faith.Although on rational grounds the immortality of thesoul is, at best, doubtful, human reasoning must yieldto the divinely revealed truth as set forth in the HolyScriptures.Descartes shared the view of the religious apologistsabout the morally disastrous effects of disbelief in theimmortality of the soul. In Part V of the Discourse

on Method, he wrote that “next to the error of thosewho deny God... there is none which is more effec-tual in leading feeble minds from the straight path ofvirtue than to imagine that... after this life we havenothing to fear or to hope for, any more than the fliesor the ants” (Haldane and Ross, trans. throughout).   Page 640, Volume 1He asserted that “our soul is in its nature entirelyindependent of the body, and in consequence it is notliable to die with it. And then, inasmuch as we observeno other causes capable of destroying it, we are natu-rally inclined to judge that it is immortal.” How didhe justify the first assertion? Harvey's discovery of thecirculation of the blood gave Descartes the idea thatboth animal and human bodies might be regarded as“machines.” But, although, according to Descartes,there is no real difference between a machine and aliving organism, man is much more than just a body.For he is able “to reply appropriately to everything... said in his presence” and “act from knowledge,whereas the animal can do so only from the dispositionof its organs” (Discourse, Part V). What this means issimply that man alone “thinks.” Thinking, however,was conceived by Descartes rather broadly to include“all that we are conscious as operating in us... will-ing, imagining, feeling” (Principles of Philosophy, I, IX).And “all that is in us and which we cannot in anyway conceive as pertaining to the body must be attrib-uted to our soul” (Passions of the Soul, I, IV).Since the idea that something material may beendowed with thought is not contradictory and musthave been known to Descartes (it was the view of theGreek atomists and presented with eloquence byLucretius), what were his reasons for attributingthought to an immaterial soul apart from his commit-ment to religious dogma? The “proof” that there isa soul totally independent of the body appears as aby-product of his revolutionary approach to the prob-lem of a criterion of certainty. In the Discourse (PartIV) he describes how he arrived at what he claimedto be rock-bottom certainty of the cogito ergo sum—“Iam thinking, therefore I exist”: “... I saw that I couldconceive that I had no body, and that there was noworld nor place where I might be; but yet that I couldnot for all that conceive that I was not.” Thus heconcluded that he was “... a substance the wholeessence and nature of which is to think, and that forits existence there is no need of any place, nor does

it depend on any material thing; so that this `me,' thatis to say, the soul by which I am what I am, is entirelydistinct from the body... and even if the body werenot, the soul would not cease to be what it is.”The strength of the above argument in favor of asoul entirely distinct from the body derives from theease with which everyone can follow it, and from thefamiliarity with the experience described therein, be-cause everyone at one time or another did have theimpression of being a disembodied “spirit.” The mainobjection to Descartes' conclusion is his unwarrantedequating of “me” with the soul. It is a far cry fromthe reasoning that “while trying to think everythingfalse, it must needs be that I, who was thinking thiswas something” to the conclusion that this somethingwas the incorporeal soul, that it was entirely distinctfrom the body, and thus will survive bodily death.It is interesting that Descartes sometimes appearsto have been more concerned with proving the exist-ence of the soul than with the search for ultimatecertainty. Having been advised by his friend, themathematician Father Mersenne, that his cogito, ergosum is not an original discovery since it can be foundin Saint Augustine's The City of God (XI, 26), Descartesdefends himself in a letter to Andreas Colvius (Novem-ber 14, 1640) by pointing out the difference betweenthem: “The use I make of it is in order to show thatthat `I' which thinks is an immaterial substance whichhas nothing corporeal about it.”Descartes' difficulties in attempting to explain howsuch two radically different substances as the immate-rial soul and the extended body could interact, sincethey obviously do interact, are well known. In them-selves, they do not invalidate the notion of an incorpo-real and immortal soul. But he must have felt in theend that to prove it may be as impossible as to solvethe problem of the interaction between body and soul.It is significant that he changed the original subtitleof his Meditations from “In which the existence of Godand the Immortality of the Soul are demonstrated” to“In which the Real Distinction between Mind andBody is demonstrated.” But this does not mean thatDescartes gave up his deep conviction that the soulwas immortal.The belief in immortality did not have to rely onrational proofs. As early as the ninth century, the Irishmonk John Scotus Erigena held that personal immor-tality cannot be proved or disproved by reason. A much

more forceful, detailed, and influential statement of thesame position was made by Pietro Pomponazzi in hisDe immortalitate animae (1516). After having examinedvarious arguments in favor of immortality and dis-cussed several sets of objections to them, he concludedthat the question should be regarded as a “neutral”one since man's natural reason was not strong enougheither to demonstrate or to refute immortality of thesoul. Pomponazzi added, however, that the questionof the immortality of the soul had been answeredaffirmatively by God himself as reported in the HolyScriptures. This is, in essence, a reiteration of theposition advanced by Siger of Brabant. Pomponazzi'sconclusion was interpreted by some of his contem-poraries, and many modern historians have agreed withthem, as implying that Pomponazzi. himself did notbelieve in the immortality of the soul. Nevertheless,the imputation of hypocrisy in Pomponazzi has verylittle real evidence to support it.   Page 641, Volume 1In any case, in spite of the position that the truthof immortality of the soul should be based on faithand revelation, and asserted on this ground alone,philosophers continued to seek proofs of immortality.However, Descartes' fiasco made it clear to some thata radically new approach had to be tried, the moreso because of new arguments against immortality.The most cogent and influential were those advancedby David Hume. According to Hume, the doctrine ofimmortality is suspect since it is so obviously favoredby human desire. Man would not cling so tenaciouslyto this belief if he did not fear death. But the veryfact of this fear points rather in favor of the assumptionthat bodily death brings with it also the end of theconscious personality. Since “Nature does nothing invain, she would never give us a horror against animpossible event.” But what is the point of makingus afraid of an unavoidable event? Hume answers thatwithout the terror before death, mankind would nothave survived. Moreover, why does Nature confine ourknowledge to the present life if there is another? Allthe arguments from analogy to nature, Hume dismissesas being rather “strong for the mortality of the soul.”Finally, “What reason is there to imagine that animmense alteration, such as made on the soul by thedissolution of the body, and all its organs of thoughtand sensation, can be effected without the dissolutionof the soul?” (“Of the Immortality of the Soul,” Unpub-

lished Essays [1777], pp. 401-06).The last argument was, in essence, the one advancedalso by the French Encyclopedist d'Alembert and bythe materialists, La Mettrie, Cabanis, and d'Holbach.3. Kant. The most notable attempt to provide a newbasis for ascertaining immortality of the soul, wasKant's “moral” argument. His starting point was thatman is not only a rational but also a moral being, andthat human reason has two functions, one “speculative”or theoretical (“pure reason”), and the other concernedwith moral action (“practical reason”). In his Critiqueof Pure Reason (1781; revised 1787), Kant showed thatGod, freedom, and immortality are ideas which specu-lative reason can form but cannot prove. They are,however, “postulates” of “practical reason,” that is,they “are not theoretical dogmas but presuppositionswhich necessarily have only practical import... theygive objective reality to the ideas of practical reasonin general.” Thus the immortality of the soul must betrue because morality demands it. In his Critique ofPractical Reason (1789), Kant argued that the highestgood (summum bonum) is the union of happiness andvirtue. But while happiness can be attained in this life,perfect virtue (“holiness”) cannot and requires, there-fore, that the existence of man be prolonged to infinity.Thus there must be another, future life. Later on, Kantmodified this argument somewhat by stating that weare required by moral law to become morally perfect.But “no rational being is capable of holiness at anymoment of his existence. Since, however, it is requiredas practically necessary, it can be found in a progresswhich continues into infinity.... This infinite progress,however, is possible only if we assume an infinitelylasting existence of the same rational being (which iscalled the immortality of the soul)” (Critique of Practi-cal Reason, trans. L. W. Beck [1949], pp. 225-26).Unfortunately, there is no absolute necessity thatreality will yield to moral demands unless, of course,we assume that the world is ruled, as Kant asserts,“with great wisdom” and with a purpose which in-cludes the moral perfection of man. This, too, however,can be “proved” only as a postulate of practical reason.No wonder, then, that Kant's moral argument forimmortality of the soul failed to impress even hisadmirers.4. Some Recent Philosophical Arguments. The in-fluential French philosopher, Henri Bergson, theEnglishman, John McTaggart, and the German, Max

Scheler, were probably the most notable twentieth-century thinkers who opposed the predominant anti-immortalist trend of the nineteenth century, andargued in favor of immortality. All three embracedmore or less the position that we cannot form a correctjudgment on the issue of immortality because we donot know all the relevant facts about mental life.Bergson felt that to consider man as limited to hisbodily frame is “a bad habit of limiting consciousnessto a small body and ignoring the vast one.” He arguesthat the only reason we can have for believing in theextinction of consciousness at death is that we see thebody become disorganized. But this reason loses itsforce if it can be shown, as Bergson believed, thatalmost all of consciousness is independent of the body(Time and Free Will [1913], p. 73). But if the “mentallife overflows the cerebral life, survival becomes soprobable that the burden of proof comes to lie on himwho denies it” (ibid.). Max Scheler took a similar posi-tion and declared that the burden of proof (onusprobandi) falls on those who deny immortality.McTaggart, however, was much more of an old-fashioned metaphysical idealist. He believed that “allthat exists is spiritual,” that reality is rational andexternal, and that time and change are only apparent.Death is not the end of the self, even though it deprivesthe spirit of an apparent finite body.Basic to the views of all three philosophers is theirconviction that the self—the unchanging, unifying coreof man's personality—is not identical with the bodyand not wholly dependent on the brain, since it controlsand drives the body in ways which are not native to   Page 642, Volume 1it. The body gives to the self merely a location andan opportunity to act. This is also the view of WilliamErnest Hocking, and of Gabriel Marcel who essentiallyrepeats Socrates' assertion that “I am not my body.”William James, however, held that even if the “soul”may be the function of the brain, this does not at allexclude the possibility that it continues after the braindies. According to James, this continuity is, on thecontrary, quite possible if we think of their relationas one of “functional dependence,” that is, if the brainjust fulfills a “permissive” or “transmissive” function.In addition to the sometimes very subtle argumentsfor the immortality of the soul advanced by philoso-phers, there are several less sophisticated ones. Amongthem are the following.

A. Argument of “General Consent.” This argumentis simply that the universality of the belief in immor-tality is evidence of its truth. Others see such evidencein the universal desire for immortality. However, botharguments are fallacious, if for no other reason thanthe fact that such a belief is neither universally heldnor is immortality universally desired. Moreover, nomatter how intense and widespread such desire maybe, there is no guarantee that the object of a desiremust actually exist or be realized.In addition, it must be pointed out that what isactually desired (although far from being a universalwish) is not the immortality of the soul but “deathless-ness”: most people would rather go on living indefi-nitely, and the belief in an immortal soul is merelya “compromise,” a “second best” for those who arereluctant to face the prospect of total extinction butknow that death is inevitable.B. Argument that Cessation is “Inconceivable.” Thedifficulty of imagining one's own demise has beenused, among others, by Goethe as an argument forimmortality: “It is quite impossible for a thinking beingto imagine nonbeing, a cessation of thought and life.In this sense everyone carries the proof of his ownimmortality within himself” (Johann Peter Eckermann,Conversations with Goethe, 1852). He tries to compen-sate for the obvious weaknesses of this “proof” bytaking refuge in the difficulties of proving immortality.“As soon as one endeavors to demonstrate dogmaticallya personal continuation after death, one becomes lostin contradictions” (op. cit.). But Hume has disposedof this excuse by asking why, if man is indeed immortal,he does not have a clearer knowledge of it.C. Mystical “Evidence.” As a counterargumentagainst the above, Jacques Maritain affirms that thereis in man “a natural, instinctive knowledge of his im-mortality.” The question is whether this “instinctiveknowledge” is not the very same psychological phe-nomenon of disbelief in one's mortality that we havereferred to above. But Maritain may have in mindcertain experiences which, for the lack of a betterword, we can call “mystical,” like those described inGoethe's Wilhelm Meister: “During some sleeplessnights, especially, I had some feelings... as if my soulwere thinking unaccompanied by the body.... Thegrave awakens no terror in me; I have eternal life.”But this and similar experiences are strictly “private”insights and, as such, not very convincing. Sometimes

they are not convincing even to those who have such“revelations,” especially since they are counter-balanced by other experiences recently emphasized bysome “existentialists.” For example, Karl Jaspers speaksof the “awareness of fragility,” and Heidegger speaksof the “experience of progressing toward death.”What is needed, then, in order to make immortalitycredible would be empirical, publicly verifiable evi-dence, without which the subjective feeling of one'sindestructibility will have great difficulties in over-coming the formidable obstacle voiced by OmarKhayyam that “... of the myriads who/ Beforeus passed the door of Darkness/ Not one returns tous....”D. Spiritism and Psychical Research. It is preciselybecause it claims to offer empirical proof that the deaddo survive, and can be communicated with, that“Spiritualism” (or “Spiritism”) exercises a strong ap-peal to more people than is usually realized. “Spirits”and the doctrine of Spiritism were revived in theUnited States in 1844, in Hydesville, New York, wheremysterious happenings occurring in the farmhouse ofthe Fox family were assumed by the members of thefamily to be due to the “spirits” of people, now dead,who had previously occupied the house. The “experi-ences” of the Fox sisters, who claimed to be able tocommunicate with these spirits, served as a basis forthe book of a Frenchman, Léon Rivail (who assumedthe spirit-inspired name of Allan Kardec), entitled LeLivre des esprits, which is considered the “bible ofSpiritism.”There are two schools of Spiritism. The one preva-lent in Anglo-Saxon countries believes in a singleembodiment of the soul. The other, popular in Latincountries, follows Kardec who teaches multiple incar-nation. Both posit the existence of an “astral” bodywhich is conceived as an infinitely fine matter, or subtlefluid, which envelops the immaterial soul. It is saidto be observable when a person dies and the soulreverts from the carnate to the disincarnate state. This“visibility” as well as the communication between theliving and the dead (by means of the tapping of athree-legged table or the utterances of medium intrance) is the “proof” of immortality which the spirit-ists offer. And since immortality is thus for them a   Page 643, Volume 1proven fact, they claim that they bring it down to earthas a purely naturalistic phenomenon and not something

that involves supernatural intervention or magic. Theidea of an astral body had been entertained by severalearly church fathers. Thus Tatian speaks of an etherealbody which envelops the soul, and Irenaeus maintainsthat the soul retains the imprint of the body like waterwhich retains the shape of the receptacle in which itfroze.The obvious criticism of the spiritist doctrine ofimmortality is that although there may be mental andeven physical paranormal phenomena, it is quite far-fetched to assume that they are caused by the spiritsof the dead. Moreover, not only are the messages from“beyond the grave” uniformly trivial, not to sayasinine, but all the mediums have been so far exposedas frauds, even by sympathetic investigators of the“occult” world. The more serious among the studentsof these strange phenomena assert only that they arethe result of the hidden or neglected powers of themind, that these point to the mind's independence of,and mastery over, the body, which renders the hypoth-esis of its survival after death not only plausible buteven probable.More recently, experimental studies of these unusualpowers of the human psyche have been undertaken,of which those of J. B. Rhine of Duke University havereceived the most publicity. Without necessarily deny-ing the existence of “extrasensory perception” (ESP),critics point out that it may be superfluous to assumea spiritual entity in order to explain parapsychologicalpowers and that these are not more spectacular oruncanny than other psychological capacities which aretaken for granted.E. Conclusion. It has become clear from our briefsurvey of the arguments for immortality that they areperhaps sufficient to reinforce an already existing con-viction, but not good enough for someone skepticalabout the possibility of survival after death. Nor is theposition that the burden of proof lies on those whodeny immortality particularly persuasive.William James noted that on this subject there aretwo kinds of people, “those whom we find indulgingto their hearts' content in the prospects of immortality,and... those who experience the greatest difficultyin making such a notion seem real to themselves atall. These latter persons are tied to their senses...and feel a sort of intellectual loyalty to what they callhard facts” (The Will to Believe [1897], p. 40). Buttoday, even among the first kind, we find rather a hope

of immortality than a firm belief in it.Several causes of the erosion of the immortalist'sposition have been suggested, among them the generaldecline of religious beliefs, the refutation of “proofs”of immortality by materialist philosophers, and scien-tific data showing the dependence of mental phenom-ena on the brain. Another reason could well be thatmany may not really care about it. If this is so, it wouldsignify a radical change in attitudes not only towarddeath but also toward life.II. RESURRECTION Bodily reconstitution combined with the immortalityof the soul has been the universally accepted versionof immortality in the Western world for almost twothousand years. Only recently (1968) Pope Paul VIreaffirmed this doctrine, thus categorically repudiatingall attempts to interpret it symbolically.The Christian view of the immortality of the souldiffers significantly from the Platonic in that it is some-thing which results from divine grace, whereas for thelatter, immortality is a “natural” endowment of eachand every soul. As Pope Paul formulated it, “We be-lieve that the souls of all those who die in the graceof Christ, whether they must still be purified in Purga-tory or whether from the moment they leave theirbodies Jesus takes them to Paradise, are the peopleof God in the eternity beyond death which will beconquered on the day of resurrection when these soulswill be reunited with their bodies” (Time, August 1968).Most of those who accept this position as well asthose who consider it unacceptable in such literal termsare unaware that the belief in the resurrection of thedead antedates Christianity. It is an integral part ofthe Zoroastrian eschatology and it is found among theJews prior to Jesus' time. Although, according toJosephus Flavius, the sect of the Pharisees believed“that every soul is incorruptible, but that only the soulsof the good pass over to other bodies,” and thus appearto have believed in transmigration rather than resur-rection, Saint Paul (Acts 23:6) attributes to them thelatter belief.Generally speaking, the idea of the resurrection ofthe body is not at all strange if we consider that, likethe doctrine of the immortality of the soul, it was areaction to the popularly held somber vision of post-mortem existence in Sheol or Hades. Man is no morecontent with a sad conclusion to the drama of hisexistence than he is with this existence being an un-

mitigated calamity. Moreover, the awakening moralconscience demanded not only punishment but alsorewards for one's actions in this life. And what betterreward for a decent life could there be than restorationto life?Significantly, however, what Saint Paul had beenpreaching seems to differ from the later, official Cath-olic doctrine. Not only did he speak of the resurrectionof the body (resurrectionem corporis) and not of the   Page 644, Volume 1flesh (resurrectionem carnis), but he insisted that thebody will be resurrected in a new, changed form. Twicein I Corinthians he says, “We shall all be changed.”In his view, God will recreate man not as the identicalphysical organism that he was before death but as a“spiritual body” (soma pneumaticon) endowed withthe characteristics and the memory of the deceased.Yet such a view of resurrection may have been trou-blesome. Skeptics doubted that Jesus had risen fromthe dead at all, and in order to convince them, it wasimperative to be able to say that the disciples didrecognize Him because He was physically exactly thesame—“flesh and bones”—(sarka kai ostea, Luke24:29). Obviously, such a positive identification wouldnot have been possible in the case of a changed, “spir-itual” body. In any case, the early church fathers didreshape the Paulinic view of resurrection to conformto these requirements.This raises, however, the thorny question as to thecondition in which the body will be resurrected, e.g.,as it was at the time of death, or in its youthfulsplendor. Another perhaps even more serious problemwas whether, on the day of the Last Judgment, thesouls which were in Purgatory or Paradise awaitingthat decisive hour would indeed rejoin the right bodies.The officially accepted answers to these and otherproblems are those of Thomas Aquinas.Concerned as he was with proving the truth ofresurrection, Aquinas was attracted to Aristotle's viewthat the person is the living human body. And facedwith the necessity of asserting the immortality of thesoul, he had, however, to show that it was a substanceor, in his terminology, “something subsistent.” There-fore, in his commentary to Aristotle's De anima, Aquinas tries to interpret Aristotle's remark that theintellect exists separately as meaning that “the princi-ple of intellectual operation which we call the soulis both incorporeal and subsistent.” Only in this way

was a “synthesis” of the Aristotelian and the Platonicpositions possible. And only if such synthesis could beaccomplished and the unity of body and soul demon-strated can bodily resurrection, and not merely im-mortality of the soul, be asserted as man's true post-mortem destiny. On the other hand, only if the soulis an incorporeal substance will it survive death andbe available for the reunification with the resurrectedphysical body. That it will find the identical formerbody is, according to Aquinas, quite certain becausethe truth of resurrection is vouchsafed by the HolyScriptures. He argues further that since man is createdfor happiness, and since it is unattainable here on earth,there must be an afterlife where this goal will beattained. But the whole man, body and soul, is destinedfor happiness. Thus only resurrection, and not mereimmortality of the soul, would fulfill this promise. Andif the soul would not return to the very same bodyit left at death, it would not be true resurrection.Modern man has considerable difficulty in acceptingthe doctrine of literal resurrection of the body. AsEdwyn Bevin points out, “For many people today, theidea of a literal resurrection of the body has becomeimpossible” (The Hope of a World to Come [1930], p. 53).III. REINCARNATION Various forms of this doctrine are transmigration,metempsychosis, palingenesis, and rebirth. It does notnecessarily imply the eternity of the soul sinceBuddhism, which teaches reincarnation, denies it. Thebelief that the soul of a dead individual reenters im-mediately (or as in the Tibetan book of the dead, theBardo Tödol, after 49 days) that of a newborn childeliminates the difficulty of visualizing a totally disem-bodied soul and the question of its destiny after it leavesthe body. The doctrine of reincarnation seems to haveoriginated in India, possibly in prehistoric times. Manyprimitives in various parts of the world believe thatman possesses several souls, one of which reincarnatesin a descendent of the deceased, a notion which mayhave been suggested by the sometimes striking resem-blance between a child and his dead relative. It isinteresting, however, that no traces of the belief inreincarnation can be found among the ancient Egyp-tians or the Assyro-Babylonians. There is also no hintof it in Homer, or Hesiod, and no mention of it inthe Old Testament. Among the Jews we find it muchlater, and the sect of the Pharisees which adopted ithad been obviously influenced by their Greek contem-

poraries. In Greece itself, the doctrine of reincarnationwas first taught by Pythagoras in the sixth century B.C.and is usually assumed to be of orphic origin. Somescholars, however, claim that the doctrine was“invented” by Pherecydes of Syros and base theiropinion on a passage in Cicero's Tusculan Disputations. Others point out that to trace it to Orphism of whichlittle is known is to beg the question of an even earliersource.It is tempting to seek it in the influence of Indianthought if it were not for the difficulty of findingconcrete evidence for such a connection. Moreover,there is a basic difference between the Hindu versionof the doctrine and that of Pythagoras. While the latterconsiders successive reincarnations as the opportunityfor the purification and perfection of the soul, for theHindus, Brahmanists and Buddhists alike, reincarnationrepresents merely a continuous repetition of thesuffering and misery of earthly existence. It is tied inwith the doctrine of cosmic eternal recurrence and theperiodic disappearance and reappearance of humanity   Page 645, Volume 1during which the soul transmigrates without end. Andwhile, for the Hindu, salvation consists in an escapefrom the wheel of rebirths, in the Greek version thesoul is ultimately united with God.In the Western world, the doctrine of reincarnationhas never achieved popularity. The Pythagoreanbrotherhoods were secret societies, and subsequentlyonly sectarian and heretical movements like the JewishCabalists, the Christian Gnostics, and the Catharsembraced it. It fared somewhat better among philoso-phers. Aside from Pythagoras, one has to mentionEmpedocles and, in particular, Plato who gave a moreor less systematic account of the doctrine of the trans-migration of the soul in several of his dialogues (Gorgias 525C-526B; Phaedrus 248A-B; Phaedo 82A, 113E,114A-B; Republic X, 614C-625A; Theaetetus 117A;Timaeus 91D, 92A-B). Plotinus incorporated this doc-trine into his philosophical system. Soon thereafter itwas completely displaced by the Christian doctrine ofresurrection. It reappears again in the Renaissanceamong the Italian Platonists of the fifteenth century,in the Cambridge Neo-Platonists in the seventeenthcentury, and is sympathetically considered by GiordanoBruno, and later on by Leibniz. Even the skepticalHume felt that if there were immortality, “metem-psychosis is the only system of this kind that philosophy

can hearken to” (“Of the Immortality of the Soul,”op. cit.). In the twentieth century, McTaggart arguedin its favor, and C. J. Ducasse considers it the mostplausible hypothesis.Apart from metaphysical considerations, what arethe most important arguments for reincarnation? Hereagain we have to distinguish between the Hindu andWestern proponents of this doctrine. In the West itis but one of several answers to the question of man'spost-mortem destiny, and unless it is accepted un-critically, it adds the burden of proving multiple incar-nations of the soul to the already sufficiently taxingtask of proving its immortality. In Hindu thought, forwhich (with the exception of a few materialist philoso-phers) the immortality of the soul is axiomatic, itsreincarnation is most often equally so. And if oneshould, nevertheless, want proofs, these are usuallybased on the soul's “obvious” immortality. Thus theleading contemporary philosopher (and ex-president)of India, S. Radhakrishnan, advances the followingargument: since souls are eternal, and since their nor-mal condition is to be associated with a body whichis perishable, it is plausible to assume that in orderfor the soul to remain in its normal condition, it mustinhabit an unending succession of bodies.But the Western mind is not impressed and prefersempirical proofs. Among these, one of the favoritearguments is the undeniable fact that some childrenexhibit certain instinctive capacities, and a few areeven geniuses at a very early age. This is supposedto prove that there must be reincarnation, since other-wise the possession of such extraordinary gifts remainstotally uncomprehensible.Another argument is the occurrence of the phenom-enon known as déjà vu. But the most popular andsupposedly clinching argument is that some peopleapparently remember their previous existences, some-times without extraneous help, though usually underhypnosis.The obvious counterarguments, as far as genius inchildren and the déjà vu phenomena are concerned,is that although they are difficult to explain, the re-course to such an extreme as the preexistence andreincarnation of the soul seems unjustified. And re-garding people who claim to remember their previouslives, not only can the information elicited not bereliably verified, but such people are exceedingly fewand far between.

It remains to mention the reply of the adherents ofthe reincarnation doctrine to the last counterargument.They contend that death is a traumatic experience ofsuch a force that it seriously affects or obliteratesmemory. But this argument tacitly assumes the immor-tality of the soul, since only in such a case can onespeak of the consequences of the traumatic experienceof death. And while dying may well be traumatic formany, on all available evidence it appears to be thelast experience of a person.Substitute Immortalities. Some of those who bringforth arguments against immortality of the soul (orresurrection of the body) propose other kinds of“immortality,” thus giving this term a broader andoften misleading meaning. There is, first of all, whatmay be called the doctrine of impersonal immortality:the spirit, or mind of man, is not destroyed at deathbut returns to and merges with the universal or divineSoul, or mind. This is the possible meaning of Aris-totle's hint about the eternity of the active intellect.The main representatives of this view are Averroës,Bruno, Spinoza, and the German and English romanticpoets and philosophers of the late eighteenth and earlynineteenth centuries. Of this kind of immortality, Ma-dame de Staël remarked somewhat sarcastically that“if the individual inner qualities we possess return tothe great Whole, this has a frightening similarity todeath.”Another kind of “immortality” which is intended toconsole, as well as to justify death, is “biological”immortality of our germ plasm (genes). The prospectto live on in one's children has, however, lost muchof its comforting power since the realization that man-kind itself will some day disappear, and particularly   Page 646, Volume 1now that the atomic and hydrogen bombs have madesuch an outcome not infinitely remote but a very realand even immediate possibility. It might not neces-sarily affect Santayana's “ideal” immortality which isreminiscent of Goethe's view that the “traces on one'searthly days cannot be erased in Aeons.” Nor wouldit affect what is known as “cosmological” immortality,according to which our energy-matter does not ceaseto exist but is only transformed and dispersed. But toboth of these “immortalities,” Madame de Staël's criti-cism equally applies. Of course, many people wouldbe satisfied with mere “social” or “historical” immor-tality—to have left traces of one's passage on earth

in the form of an artistic achievement, scientific dis-covery, or other remarkable accomplishments. “Howcan he be dead, who lives immortal in the hearts ofmen?” asks Longfellow in speaking of Michelangelo.This was the meaning of immortality for the great menof Ancient Rome. In modern times, this kind of“immortality” was first suggested by M. J. de Con-dorcet in his Outline of the Progress of the HumanMind, and, with particular force, by LudwigFeuerbach. The least ambitious immortality would beto live on for a short time in the memory of one's familyand friends. Very probably this is the only kind of“immortality” that the overwhelming majority of peo-ple will ever have. But for many people, this is nota completely satisfactory thought.BIBLIOGRAPHY Death. Jacques Choron, Death and Western Thought (NewYork, 1963); idem, Modern Man and Mortality (New York,1964), which contains an extensive bibliography of the mostrelevant philosophical and psychological works in Englishand foreign languages dealing with death. Herman Feifel,ed., The Meaning of Death (New York, 1959). Robert Fulton,ed., Death and Identity (New York, 1965). Arnold Toynbee,Man's Concern with Death (London, 1968).Immortality of the Soul. W. R. Alger, A Critical Historyof the Doctrine of a Future Life (New York, 1871). AnthonyFlew, ed., Body, Mind and Death (New York, 1964). JamesHastings, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, 13 vols.(Edinburgh and New York, 1910), Vol. XI, article “The Stateof the Dead.” Corliss Lamont, The Illusion of Immortality (New York, 1950). F. W. H. Myers, Human Personality andits Survival of Bodily Death (London and New York, 1903).Resurrection. J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (London, 1958). James MacLeman, Resurrection Then andNow (Philadelphia, 1967). K. Stendahl, ed., Immortality andResurrection (New York, 1965), consists of four IngersollLectures (1955, 1956, 1958, and 1959), by Oscar Cullmann,Harry A. Wolfson, Werner Jaeger, and Henry J. Cadbury.Reincarnation. S. G. F. Brandon, “Man and His Destiny,”World Religions (Manchester, 1962). C. J. Ducasse, TheBelief in a Life after Death (New York, 1961). Ian Stevenson,The Evidence for Survival from Claimed Memories of FormerIncarnation (New York, 1961).JACQUES CHORON[See also Antinomy v1-15  ; Buddhism v1-34  ; Existentialism v2-22  ; Faith v2-25  ; Idea v2-58  ; Platonism v3-63  v3-64  v3-65  ; Pythagorean. v4-04  v4-05  ...]

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