If this life be the whole measure of the existence of a soul, if birth mean its beginning and death its end, the something that is called “soul” is seen to be merely a temporary evanescent affection of the matter that constitutes the body. But it is an abuse of language to speak of matter as being either morally good or morally bad. Even if it be admitted that matter can live and be endowed with consciousness and volition, there would still be a manifest absurdity in attributing to it a knowledge of good and evil. It follows, therefore, that any person who is a thorough-going materialist is logically debarred from speaking of goodness, benevolence, honour, integrity, charity, truth, piety, patriotism, profligacy, fraud, crime or wickedness. The masses of matter to which he gives the name “human beings” are non-moral just as much as his table or his boots. He talks nonsense when he praises them for acting in a manner which he calls “right,” or when he blames them for acting in a manner which he calls “wrong.” Nor is the case bettered by conceding that “good conduct” may be beneficial and “bad conduct” harmful to the mass of matter in action, and may therefore, in an analogical way, be described as meriting commendation and reproof respectively. The mass of matter will know well enough that success, prosperity and worldly enjoyment are attained much more frequently by bad men than by the righteous, and he will laugh at the idea of a satisfied conscience being preferred to a satisfied body. He will know that when death comes the good will not be any better off than the bad--they will both be annihilated--and he will also know that during life the bad are much better off than the good. Does this doctrine commend itself to any sane man? Does any leader of science exist who will say deliberately that he repudiates the doctrine of right and wrong? If he will not say this he must not say that souls are merely appurtenances of bodies and cease to exist after death. CHAPTER II SOUL AND LIFE The phrase that the dead still live does not mean the same thing as when it is said that a human body lives. In the former case the word “live” merely means “exist”; in the latter the word “lives” connotes, together with the idea of existence, a particular concrete form of living which is differentiated markedly from “living” in the abstract. This distinction is frequently overlooked, and as the oversight leads to much confusion of thought and lies at the root of much of the opposition that is here and there offered to the doctrine of “survival,” it seems well to devote a few pages to its discussion.