Finch, A: Belief in Immortality

Excerpt from The Belief in Immortality: Its Physiological Origin; Its Theological Development; Its Scientific Decline; Its Practical Effect on the Well-Being of Human Lifey

The Theology of death (formulated prior to the attainment of such knowledge) has been superseded by the Physiology of death (formulated on the basis of such knowledge).

Death in the contemplation of theology a penalty, and only a partial termination of human existence.

Theological development of the doctrine of Immortality, with illustrations from The Imitation of Christ,' Law's Serious Call,' - and the Burial Service in 'the Book of Common Prayer.' The belief in a life after death has arisen from the constant occurrence of premature death, and the mental faculties being, on the approach of such death, in vigour and activity, hence still desiring continued life, and expecting a future existence. Illustrations from Plato's account of the thoughts of Socrates under sentence of death; Shakspere's soliloquy of Hamlet contemplating suicide; Addison's description of the re¿ections of Cato about to commit self-destruction; Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress composed in apprehension of premature death in Bedford jail.

Premature deaths in general a direct consequence of N ature's law of over-production of life, discovered by the Geologists, and, as regards human life, by Malthus and Darwin, showing that more human beings are recklessly brought into existence than can possibly live to attain to death through organic decay; thevast majority of actual deaths being life cut short by various diseases ('nature's terrible correctives of redundancy occasioned by poverty and privation, overcrowding, intemperance, vice, and breeding from the unfit.

Human intelligence a true Sanitary Science) ought so to regulate the multiplication of man as to stamp out premature deaths, with all their attendant diseases, superstition, and misery.

Probability that on the decline of premature deaths the belief in immortality, or the expectation of any future life, would also decline. Illustrations from the Life of George Combe, - the Autobiographies of Charles Bray and Harriet Martineau.

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