IV Religion and the Life Hereafter

not actually there) or inanimate object which moved apparently of its own volition or of hearing a voice which, so far as they could discover, was not due to any external physical cause. Many other countries followed suit and, by means of various experiments and demonstrations, it was shown that even after bodily death, the human personality survives in some mysterious form. In his book A Philosophical Scrutiny of Religion, C.J. Ducasse observes: These facts strongly suggest that the universe, and the human personality, each have a dimension additional to the material one so capably and successfully explored by the natural sciences. (p. 422) Many other scholars who have objectively examined the evidence furnished by psychical research have felt compelled to accept the life hereafter as a matter of fact. C. J. Ducasse, Professor of Philosophy at the Brown University, has made a philosophical and psychological scrutiny of this concept. He does not believe it in the sense in which it is presented by religion, yet he holds that apart from the dogmas of religion, such evidence do exist as compel us to accept the survival of life after death. After making a general survey of various investigations in the field of research, he observes: “Some of the keenest-minded and best-informed persons, who studied the evidence over many years in a highly critical spirit, eventually came to the conclusion that, in some cases at least, only the survival hypothesis remained plausible. Among such persons may be mentioned Alfred Russel Wallace, Sir William Crookes, F.W.H. Myers, Cesare Lombroso, Camille Flammarion, Sir Oliver Lodge, Dr. Richard Hodgson, Mrs. Henry Sidwick and Professor Hyslop, to name only a few of the most eminent.” This suggests that the belief in a life after death, which so many persons have found no particular difficulty in accepting