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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 1900)
THE BATTALION. 23 IMMORTALITY. The immortality of the soul is a sub ject that has been engrossing the human mind for centuries. Yet it remains un fathomed ; no finite being has ever shown proof of its existence. One may ask, what is immortality? Is it that the soul shall live on through the mists of time, through the cycles of ages, and still retain its undaunted in dividuality? That this is the universal conception of it no one will deny. Upon the consideration of such* a sub ject, one can but feel his great incapa bility, and the futility of any effort to arrive at a definite conclusion; he at once becomes engrossed amidst the per plexities—theological, social, and moral —in which he is involved. The change, made by Darwin’s great discovery, in our notions regarding the origin of our species, could not fail to stimulate curiosity as to its destiny. It is true that whatever our origin may have been, and through whatever evolutionary process we may have gone, we are what we are, and none the less for it. That we have risen from the condition of the worm should not cause us to de spair, but should inspire us with hope for a greater and grander development. When we think of man in comparison with other animals, we find that he alone is consciously moral; he alone is spec ulative, looking over the past and into the future; he alone feels the sublime influence of beauty, and expresses his sense of it in poetry and art. Shall he then, the masterpiece of creative genius, perish and sink into oblivion, as do the lowliest and most insignificant creatures of earth? Who can fathom this mystery of exist ence? The human mind can not conceive of eternity and infinity; we can think of them only as time and space extended without limit; but still it is an absurd ity, since of space and time we must al ways think as things divisible; while of infinity and eternity there can be no di vision. Of the great philosophers of antiquity, Plato believed intensely in a future life, for which the present one was but a training, and in a future state of re wards and punishments. His arguments, put into the mouth of Socrates, who was about to die, come to uS in the most persuasive guise; but they are entangled with fanciful thoughts of a pre-existence of knowledge, a reminiscence of a pre vious state. They were based on the er roneous conception of the soul as a thing distinct from the body, and imprisoned in it; hence, they viewed death in the light of an emancipation of the immor tal soul from the mortal body. The soul, Plato thought, could not be affected by diseases of the body, but only by its own diseases of sin and vice. In this he approached our own belief very closely, and his avowed faith in the fu ture reward of loyalty to truth and vir tue is unmistakably set forth in his “Re public.” Thus man has ever shrunk from anni hilation; there is a universal desire to prolong existence beyond the life which we now live; but that his desire will be fulfilled we can offer but little assur ance beyond that found in theology. Mortal life prolonged to any consider able extent is but a span from things real to an inconceivable eternity. The destiny of the race is settled, whate’er it may be, and all know that across every life the inevitable shadow of death must pass. Whether mortal or immortal, man should strive to elevate his fellow creat ures, and find his own real spiritual life in his efforts j to perfect humanity, and his paradise in that happy anticipation of the state of bliss into which humanity will be brought when perfected. W. F. L., ’01.
