unprovided for are those who do not bother themselves much
about the matter, one way or another.

The question of human immortality is the most momentous that the mind is
capable of conceiving. If it is a fact that the dead live all other
facts are in comparison trivial and without interest. The prospect of
obtaining certain knowledge with regard to this stupendous matter is not
encouraging. In all countries but those in barbarism the powers of the
profoundest and most penetrating intelligences have been ceaselessly
addressed to the task of glimpsing a life beyond this life; yet today no
one can truly say that he knows. It is as much a matter of faith as ever
it was.

Our modern Christian nations profess a passionate hope and belief in
another world, yet the most popular writer and speaker of his time, the
man whose lectures drew the largest audiences, the work of whose pen
brought him the highest rewards, was he who most strenuously strove to
destroy the ground of that hope and unsettle the foundations of that
belief.

The famous and popular Frenchman, Professor of Spectacular Astronomy,
Camille Flammarion, affirms immortality because he has talked with
departed souls who said that it was true. Yes, monsieur, but surely you
know the rule about hearsay evidence. We Anglo-Saxons are very
particular about that.

M. Flammarion says:

"I don't repudiate the presumptive arguments of schoolmen. I merely
supplement them with something positive. For instance, if you assumed
the existence of God this argument of the scholastics is a good one. God
has implanted in all men the desire of perfect happiness. This desire
cannot be satisfied in our lives here. If there were not another life
wherein to satisfy it then God would be a declever. _Voila tout_."

There is more: the desire of perfect happiness does not imply
immortality, even if there is a God, for

(1) God may not have implanted it, but merely suffers it to exist, as he
suffers sin to exist, the desire of wealth, the desire to live longer
than we do in this world. It is not held that God implanted all the
desires of the human heart. Then /why hold that he implanted that of
perfect happiness?

(2) Even if he did--even, if a divinely implanted desire entail its own
gratification--even if it cannot be gratified in this life--that does
not imply immortality. It implies _only_ another life long enough for
its gratification just once. An eternity of gratification is not