Individual Immortality

future life are an illustration in point. We hear less of them now, perhaps chiefly because many people doubt the reality of that life itself. To enter into the reasons for this uncertainty would be to forestall the enquiry undertaken in the following pages. The writer's aim throughout the book is to show how far more reasonable from the scientific and philosophic points of view, and how far fuller from the Christian point of view, is the belief in individual immortality, than the greater number of those who accept or deny it at all realise.

She has further attempted to point out its vast practical issues in the life that now is.

The prominence and importance of individuality in the Social Order have been obscured by confusing it with individualism, and in the Natural Order by a misconception of the significance of modern scientific theories of evolution. The first step, therefore, towards approaching the question of Immortality with any adequacy is to vindicate the true position.

of the Individual in the general scheme of things. To this attempt chapters ii., iii., and iv. of the present volume are devoted. Chapter i. indicates the deep personal and social importance of the enquiry to be undertaken, and chapter v. endeavours to delineate the Christian Ideal of Immortality as it exists in the New Testament.

Each branch of the subject has been treated in some detail; but it is hoped with sufficient brevity and lucidity to present no great difficulty of apprehension to that large class of persons precluded by the pressure of their daily avocations from any continuous study of modern science and philosophy and their bearing on the great matter at issue. We are all profoundly interested in the question of our individual survival of death. We are not all in a position to weigh for ourselves the evidence for its reality or unreality, and too many of us stand in doubt. It is to the doubters chiefly that the writer ventures to address herself, in the hope that

the considerations she adduces may be of

some assistance in enabling them to overcome their uncertainty.

In conclusion, she desires to thank the Editor of the Contemporary Review for permission to reprint the first four Chapters of the present Book, they having originally appeared under his auspices.

EMMA MARIE CAILLARD.

June 1903.

NOTE.-The Scriptural quotations are throughout made from the Revised Version.

SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

URGENCY OF THE ENQUIRY