HUMAN IMMORTALITY.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " Spsorwros."]
Sin,—In the interesting article in the Spectator of Decem- ber 10th on the above subject, it seems to me that the writer is inclined to place too much stress upon Professor James's hypothesis " relative to the absolute dependence of our spiritual life, as we know it here, upon the brain" as an argument in favour of individual immortality. The belief in a sea of spiritual life existing behind the phenomena of the visible universe has all along been devoutly maintained by the exponents of many philosophical systems, and espe- cially by the transcendental school. The further hypothesis that the universal Spirit manifests itself as mind by "trans- mission " (as opposed to material " production ") through the animal nervous system, and in its most perfected form through the cortical grey matter of the human brain, has long ago been enunciated by that school of German thinkers whose views culminated in the writings of von Hartmann. Upon this hypothesis von Hartmann attempted to explain those phenomena which he termed generally " the clairvoy- ance of the unconscious," which are known at the present time as "veridical" hallucinations, or apparitions of - the dying. Upon the same hypothesis he based his argument against the probability of a personal sentient immortality. Most people who carefully consider Professor James's hypo- thesis as quoted in your article will, I think, be inclined to the opinion that it lends itself more readily to such beliefs as the Buddhist theory of absorption into the universal Spirit than to the more modern Christian doctrine of individual
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