d to a preparation for
a blissful or at all events an untroubled eternity, and life becomes, in
the language of Plato, a meditation or practising of death. This
excessive preoccupation with a problematic future has been a fruitful
source of the most fatal aberrations both for nations and individuals.
In pursuit of these visionary aims the few short years of life have been
frittered away: wealth has been squandered: blood has been poured out in
torrents: the natural affections have been stifled; and the cheerful
serenity of reason has been exchanged for the melancholy gloom of
madness.

"Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
One thing at least is certain--_This_ Life flies;
One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies."

[Sidenote: The belief in immortality general among mankind.]

The question whether our conscious personality survives after death has
been answered by almost all races of men in the affirmative. On this
point sceptical or agnostic peoples are nearly, if not wholly, unknown.
Accordingly if abstract truth could be determined, like the gravest
issues of national policy, by a show of hands or a counting of heads,
the doctrine of human immortality, or at least of a life after death,
would deserve to rank among the most firmly established of truths; for
were the question put to the vote of the whole of mankind, there can be
no doubt that the ayes would have it by an overwhelming majority. The
few dissenters would be overborne; their voices would be drowned in the
general roar. For dissenters there have been even among savages. The
Tongans, for example, thought that only the souls of noblemen are saved,
the rest perish with their bodies.[6] However, this aristocratic view
has never been popular, and is not likely to find favour in our
democratic age.

[Sidenote: Belief of many savages that they would never die if their
lives were not cut short by sorcery. Belief of the Abipones.]

But many savage races not only believe in a life after death; they are
even of opinion that they would never die at all if it were not for the
maleficent arts of sorcerers who cut the vital thread prematurely short.
In other words, they disbelieve in what we call a natural death; they
think that all men are naturally immortal in this life, and that every
death which takes place is in fact a violent death inflicted by the hand
of a human enemy, though in many cases the foe