It is manifest that, together with the substantial soul, immortality is also disposed of. True, here too the word is cautiously retained; but by immortality is now understood perpetuation in the human race, in the ideas of posterity, in “objective spirit,” in the “imperishable value of ethical possessions,” for which the individual has laboured. Some fine words are said about it, as roses are used to cover a grave. Yet, it is only the immortality of the barrel of Regulus, or the Gordian knot in history, the immortality of which the printers’ press may partake in the effect of the books it prints. To quote _Jodl_ again: “The fact of the objective spirit, together with the organic connection of the generations to one another, form the scientific reality of what appears in popular, mythological tenets of faith as the idea of personal immortality ... and which has been defended by the dualistic psychology with worthless, invalid arguments.” The refutation of these arguments does not bother him. “A refutation of these scholastic arguments is as little needed as a refutation of the belief in the miracles and demons of former centuries is needed by a man standing on the ground of modern natural science.” This reminds one of _Haeckel’s_ method. The latter nevertheless found it worth while in his “Weltraetsel” to dispose in thirteen lines of six such arguments, and then to assure the reader that “All these and similar arguments have fallen to the ground.” That the matter in question is an idea that has been the foundation of Christian civilization and ethics for thousands of years, that has led millions to holiness; an idea, indeed, that has been the common property of all nations at all times—this seems to count for very little. This technique of a superficial speculation, which, devoid of piety, casts everything overboard, finds no trouble in disposing of the entire _spiritual world_. “No one is capable,” says _Jodl_ again, “of imagining a purely spiritual reality.” This is disposed of. “Since the war between the Aristotle-scholastic and the mechanical method has been waged, spiritual powers have never played any other part in the explanation of the world than that of an unknown quantity in equations of a higher degree, which, unsolvable by methods hitherto prevalent, are only awaiting the superior master and a new technique (_sic_) in order to disappear” (p. 77 _seq._).