[To the Editor of the Senera-roa.] Sin,—" F. T. D."
touches a real difficulty, and in the light of evolution the current belief that all human beings (but human beings alone) have " immortal souls " seems to need readjust- ment in two directions : (1) What ground have we for denying that for other conscious creatures lower down in the scale of life there may be the possibility of some kind of life beyond this ? Almost every man finds in his own dog evidence of moral values-faithful- ness, readiness to forgive, love strong as death. Have these qualities " survival value " or not ? Those who are inclined to answer " Yes " find themselves in the company of men like Bishop Butler, John Wesley, Charles Kingsley and Bishop Gore. And Jesus said Himself that not a sparrow is forgotten before God.
(2) On the other hand, the belief that man—as such—has an " immortal soul " seems to be Greek rather than Christian in its origin. According to St. Luke's version (xx. 35) of a famous saying, Jesus speaks of those " that are accounted worthy to attain to that world and the resurrection from the dead." St. Paul almost repeats the words when he writes (Philippians iii. 11): " If by any means I may attain unto the resurrection of the dead." And if he is the writer of 1 Timothy he is also the author of the remarkable words : " Lay hold on eternal life " (vi. 12). " Lay hold of the life which is life indeed."
Such expressions seem to support the belief that men ale potentially, but not necessarily, immortal. The experience of missionaries among " primaeval savages " suggests that the capacity for moral and spiritual life is waiting to be developed on much " lower levels " of human existence than " F. T. D." seems to suppose ; but his question : " At what point in his upward development did man become immortal?" seems to be one of those many questions to which no answer is possible.
For this present world would appear to be (in Keats' phrase) " a vale of soul-making " rather than a dwelling-place of souls already and necessarily immortal. On the very " lowest levels " of human life, spiritual values—love, unselfishness and the like—hold the promise of fuller life beyond. But if, on the higher levels of our more advanced civilization, a man's whole concern is with himself and his own private interests, is it unreasonable to say, with Browning, that such a man :— " Has the world here—Should he need the next, Let the world mind him! "
" F. T. D." is mistaken in supposing that no recent writer on Immortality has dealt with the subject in the light of evolution. To mention only one recent book, J. Y. Simpson's Man, and the Attainment of Immortalityt (Hodder, 1922) cer- tainly does so. The writer is a layman, but none the less for that a " religious teacher," and he " confronts the problem of immortality in a scientific spirit."
The root of the matter seems to be this. The belief that this Universe is a rational and a moral order (that is to say, that God is a rational and a, moral Being) involves the belief that spiritual values, which " the whole Creation " has groaned and travailed to produce, are not produced only to be destroy-ed.
But is there any real meaning in saying that spiritual values are immortal, unless we believe that the persons, in whom these values are (here, always imperfectly) realized, are
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