This is the well-known address which Professor James delivered as the first lecture on the Ingersoll foundation. His purpose was, not to set forth the positive grounds upon which a belief in human immortality may be founded, but to clear the way for constructive teaching by removing "two supposed objections to the doctrine." The first of these difficulties relates to the psycho-physiological contention that, if our inner life is a function of the brain, it is impossible for the function to persist after its organ has ...
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This is the well-known address which Professor James delivered as the first lecture on the Ingersoll foundation. His purpose was, not to set forth the positive grounds upon which a belief in human immortality may be founded, but to clear the way for constructive teaching by removing "two supposed objections to the doctrine." The first of these difficulties relates to the psycho-physiological contention that, if our inner life is a function of the brain, it is impossible for the function to persist after its organ has undergone decay. Adopting, at least for argumentative purposes, the general formula that thought is a function of the brain. Professor James endeavors to show that the 'fatal consequence' of disbelieving in immortality is not logically coercive, by pointing out that it rests upon the unwarranted presupposition that there is only one kind of function, namely, the productive function. But "we are entitled also to consider permissive or transmissive function," which not only is in itself just as scientifically credible as the more popular theory of production, but also possesses "certain positive superiorities," since it is in greater harmony with idealistic philosophy, in closer touch with the psychological conception of a 'threshold, ' and can more easily explain that whole class of experiences which is the object of investigation by the ' psychical researchers.' Inasmuch then as the theory of transmission is a "palpable alternative," "the fangs of cerebralistic materialism are drawn," and a conception of reality may be derived in accordance with which "the genuine matter of reality, the life of souls as it is in its fullness, will break through our several brains into this world in all sorts of restricted forms, and with all the imperfections and queernesses that characterize our finite individualities here below." The conception strikes one as essentially Neo-Platonic, and one cannot help doubting its consistency with Professor James's well-known theory of pluralism. An appended note (pp. 50 ff.), however, seems to anticipate and guard against any such criticism. The second objection, relating to the "incredible and intolerable number of beings which, with our modern imagination, we must believe to be immortal, if immortality be true," seems hardly to be on a level with the former objection, and, as might be expected, Professor James finds but little trouble in removing such a stumbling-block. It is somewhat perplexing to understand, however, how this difficulty should have any force, at least in "scientifically cultivated circles," to rob the notion of immortality "of its old power to draw belief." The former objection has, doubtless, been a real one, which "many a writer's pages logically presuppose and involve'' and Professor James's answer is certainly an extremely forcible and thoroughly adequate reply. The copious notes, appended to the lecture in this handsome little volume, are very helpful and greatly increase the instructive value of the work. The whole lecture is written in Professor James's perfectly inimitable, but nevertheless much imitated style. - The Philosophical Review , Volume 9 [1900]
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