pic vision and punctiform sensibility of those who
think themselves practical, that speculative natures seem to be
proclaiming another set of interests, another and quite miraculous life,
when they attempt to thaw out and vivify the vulgar mechanism; and the
sense of estrangement and contradiction often comes over the spiritually
minded themselves, making them confess sadly that the kingdom of heaven
is not of this world. As common morality itself falls easily into
mythical expressions and speaks of a fight between conscience and
nature, reason and the passions, as if these were independent in their
origin or could be divided in their operation, so spiritual life even
more readily opposes the ideal to the real, the revealed and heavenly
truth to the extant reality, as if the one could be anything but an
expression and fulfilment of the other. Being equal convinced that
spiritual life is authoritative and possible, and that it is opposed to
all that earthly experience has as yet supplied, the prophet almost
inevitably speaks of another world above the clouds and another
existence beyond the grave; he thus seeks to clothe in concrete and
imaginable form the ideal to which natural existence seems to him wholly
rebellious. Spiritual life comes to mean life abstracted from politics,
from art, from sense, even in the end from morality. Natural motives
and natural virtues are contrasted with those which are henceforth
called supernatural, and all the grounds and sanctions of right living
are transferred to another life. A doctrine of immortality thus becomes
the favourite expression of religion. By its variations and greater or
less transparency and ideality we can measure the degree of spiritual
insight which has been reached at any moment.

CHAPTER XIII

THE BELIEF IN A FUTURE LIFE

[Sidenote: The length of life a subject for natural science.]

At no point are the two ingredients of religion, superstition and moral
truth, more often confused than in the doctrine of immortality, yet in
none are they more clearly distinguishable. Ideal immortality is a
principle revealed to insight; it is seen by observing the eternal
quality of ideas and validities, and the affinity to them native to
reason or the cognitive energy of mind. A future life, on the contrary,
is a matter for faith or presumption; it is a prophetic hypothesis
regarding occult existences. This latter question is scientific and
empirical, and should be tr