IMMORTALITY AND . EVOLUTION [To the Editor of-the SPECTATOR.]
Sra,—The old problem of the reconciliation of science' and religion, on which much has lately lieen said or Written, seems never to be discussed in the light of the most formidable of its difficulties.
The familiar arguments for the possession by man of an " imthortal soul " may be applicable enough to human society as we know it. For us the " unconquerable hope," the conviction that a personality which has on earth attained a noble maturity cannot be utterly lost and wasted, may support a belief in a continued existence after death. But we ire. not the whole of humanity. What about the lower levels—Ithe cave dweller, and the primeval savage, or the African pigmy of to-day ? Had, or have, they " immortal souls " ? Arid, if not, at what point in his upward develop- ment—to put the question in its simplest form—did man become immortal ?
It is Very remarkable that writers on Immortality, such as ProfeSsOr Pringle Pattison, seem never to have • envisaged' the subject in the light of evolution. Their failure even to realize the. difficulty is another proof of' how little the evolu- tionary tiona doctrine has really influenced common thought. All the arguments for immortality proceed on the assumption that Man is a specially gifted creation in immediate touch with a spiritual Unseen world. That assumption lit's into no system of evolution that has yet been expounded. Until religious teachers approach this crucial difficulty and •confront the problem of immortality in a scientific spirit, there can be no true reconciliation between science and religion.—I am, Sir,
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