claim upon the allegiance of Humanity disappears. So the poet sings :—

"Truth for truth and good for good! The Good, the True, the Pure, the Just.

Take the charm 'For ever' from them, and they crumble into dust."

But these ideas, as humanly conceived, are resident in the spirit. They are not of the body or the mind, but of the spirit. And if so, then the eternity of the ideas implies the eternity of the spirit which contains them.

It is needless to dwell upon the vindication of the Divine Equity and the Divine Providence within the spaces of the infinite future; for this has been already considered as part of the satisfaction for which the human soul is permitted to look in Eternity. It is enough to say that the Almighty in virtue of His Infinity demands infinity wherein to reveal Himself to His creatures.

Let us, then, see what it is that the argument for Immortality from the Being of God may be said to amount to.

God is ex hypothesi perfect in Wisdom, in Power and in Love.

'Tennyson, Locksley Hall, Sixty Years After.

It is a justifiable expectation that He shall reveal the perfectness of His attributes to His sentient, intelligent and moral creatures. But the justification is not complete in the present life. It demands a life transcending and surviving the present.

Again, the Infinity of the Divine Nature characterises the moral qualities which are the necessary attributes of Divinity. But these qualities inform Humanity and invest it with an eternal character.

And, lastly, the disciplinary or educational character of the present life postulates a future life as a part of the Divine Counsel; and the spiritual or immortal element in Man, whereby he is allied to God, postulates Eternity.

This chapter, then, has suggested the external evidences for the soul's Immortality, i.e., such evidences as lie in the constitution of the Universe, in the nature of Man, and in the Being of God.

It is now time to consider the internal evidences, i.e., the witness of the soul to itself.

CHAPTER V

EVIDENCES FOR THE BELIEF

B. Internal Evidences

IT has already been remarked that there is a difficulty in distinguishing the various evidences or lines of evidence for the great belief which is under consideration.

Even between the external and internal evidences (as they have been called) for the belief, it is not an easy thing to draw an absolute line.

Thus the Being of God is an external evidence for Immortality; but if Man be made, as he is, in the image of God, the eternity of God stands in direct relation to the eternity of Man.

Further the testimony of the soul to itself is an intricate question. We are concerned to know

what is the nature of the soul. In the default or

deficiency of external evidence we seek to learn from the soul itself what it is. But in so doing we are treating the subject of our inquiry as our witness.

Yet however difficult it may be to judge of the soul by studying the soul itself, no study can be more interesting, or so far as it can be prosecuted, more convincing. To some minds it will seem the only satisfactory way of arriving at a conclusion respecting the probable destiny of the soul.

Thus Emerson says, "Immortality is a doctrine too great to rest on any legend, that is on any man's experience but our own. It must be proved, if at all, from our own activity and designs which imply an interminable future for their play." 1

Such a statement clearly means that the study of the soul in itself will produce a conviction of its Immortality.

What, then, is the soul?

The soul in its proper nature has been the subject of discussion and, so far as possible, of definition in the first chapter. It has been defined as the total sum of the intellectual, moral and spiritual faculties belonging to human nature. In Dr. Martineau's explicit words already quoted it is "the 1 Conduct of Life. Essay on Worship.

constant centre to which we refer all our acts as their source and all our experiences as their receptacle."

It is not now with the soul, abstractedly considered, but with its faculties or qualities as leading to a belief in its immortal destiny, that we are concerned. And of these there are four which have been recognised, more or less widely, by philosophical thinkers, in modern times and in ancient, as attributes characteristic of Immortality, viz., its immateriality, its indissolubility, its spontaneous energy, and its affinity to the Divine Nature. Each of these four qualities has, at some time or other been held to be in itself a sufficient proof that the soul is immortal; but the cumulative evidence of all is necessarily more forcible than the evidence of any one taken by itself. It will be well to consider them in order, and first—

(1) The immateriality of the soul.

It must be admitted that this argument will not appeal to one who takes a material, and not a spiritual, view of the Universe. If there is nothing in the Universe but what is material, then either there is no such thing as soul, or the soul is material and therefore mortal. The belief in the