Some Intimations of Immortality from the Physical and Psychical Nature
of Man. By the Right Hon. Sir Edward Fry, G.C.B. !Williams and Norgate. ls. net.)—In these few pages Sir Edward Fry summarizes in an admirable manner the more important philosophical arguments in favour of a belief in immortality. He demolishes the contentions put forward by materialists that life is merely matter in a peculiar state, that consciousness is only a' secretion" of the brain, and that the absence in our experience of any spirit disconnected from matter necessarily implies that spirit can have no separate existence. On the other hand, he puts forward some most weighty reasons for believing that " the body declares that there is a soul, and that that soul is something non-
material, and so the decay of the body need cause no fear of the loss or decay of the soul." We cannot hero quote his arguments, but we can indicate their scope by reference to some of his closing words, which draw attention " to the fact that the considerations I have offered to show that there is behind physical nature an immaterial something are totally independent of such arguments as are drawn from religion." We should recommend to our readers Sir Edward Fry's argument as meriting the most attentive study.
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