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XIV THE ETHICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF IMMORTALITY1 ARGUMENT Objections: (a) a But there is moral I. Is Immortality an Ethical Postulate Yes, if it can be shown to be implied in the validity of our ethical valuation of the world. pure morality needs no reference to another world. waste if goodness of character perishes, and ultimate moral failure when physical life becomes impossible on earth; (b) it is immoral to relegate the sanctions of morality to another world. Not if future happiness and misery are conceived as the intrinsic consequences of moral goodness and badness; (c) we cannot live for two worlds at once. Depends on how they are conceived. The thought of a future life morally bracing, and, like all forethought about the future, a mark of superior mental development. II. What is the value of an Ethical Postulate? The postulate is not emotional but rational, and affirms the validity of our moral judgments. It is part of a system of postulates which all proceed similarly. Moreover, the ideals we postulate are coincident and bound up together. Ultimately Truth, Goodness, Happiness and Beauty must all be postulated or rejected together. The alleged superior validity of the ideal of Truth explained. An ethical postulate, however, does not prescribe any special mode of its realisation, for which we must look to scientific experience. There are also other questions which may modify, though they cannot subvert, our ethical demand. WE are so accustomed in these days to hear the world-old traditions of the human race denied or ignored simply because they are old that the antique flavour inevitably attaching to any argument about Immortality almost suffices to secure its condemnation unheard. Yet such scornful treatment of authority is not justified by the present state of our knowledge. On the contrary, the antiquity and wide prevalence of an idea in themselves constitute a prima facie claim upon the attention of the 1 First published in the New World for September 1897. 250

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