Truth and Immortality
One everywhere finds people who have given up the hope of immortality or else regard it with extreme doubt. Forms of belief with which it has been associated have proved unthinkable to them. Worse yet, to hope for immortality seems not to be loyal to truth. “We want reality,” they say. “We propose t...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
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| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1909
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| In: |
Harvard theological review
Year: 1909, Volume: 2, Issue: 2, Pages: 202-220 |
| Online Access: |
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| Summary: | One everywhere finds people who have given up the hope of immortality or else regard it with extreme doubt. Forms of belief with which it has been associated have proved unthinkable to them. Worse yet, to hope for immortality seems not to be loyal to truth. “We want reality,” they say. “We propose to face the facts; we demand honest thinking. We have no use for dreams, however pleasant; we wish only truth.” Mr. Huxley's famous letter to his friend Charles Kingsley expresses this attitude. Here is a man who, in the greatest of sorrows, feels obliged to put away comfort and hope in obedience to the demand of truth. It is not possible to divide his mind into exclusive compartments, and to indulge an ancient religious emotion on one side of himself, while on the other side he remains the conscientious student of science. He must keep his integrity at any cost to his feelings. No one can help admiring this type of mind. A multitude of people who have nothing like Mr. Huxley's rigor of conscience are immensely moved by the attitude of such men as he. If he could see no truth in immortality and had to remain an agnostic about it, why should we not be agnostics also? |
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| ISSN: | 1475-4517 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Harvard theological review
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0017816000003709 |