The empirical status of immortality can best be brought out by a glance at the facts of abnormal psychology. In olden days, as we have seen, insanity was explained as the disturbing effect of a demon. To-day, experiment and careful observation have proven that it is due to a functional disorder of the brain. That, whenever there is a disorder of the mind, there {147} is some corresponding anatomical or physiological flaw in the brain has become a commonplace of modern medicine and psychology. In fact, insanity is defined as a "symptom of disease of the brain inducing disordered mental symptoms." A multitude of experiences point to the very intimate connection between the brain and consciousness. Careful observation of clinical cases has, for example, shown that a lesion in the visual center of the brain, that is, the part of the brain to which the fibers of the optic nerve run, induces the disappearance of both sight and visual imagery. Psychology and physiology have been busily engaged in discovering these correlations. So extended are they that the suggestion that consciousness is inseparable from the brain forces itself home ever more obstinately. Mental capacity runs parallel with the finer development of the brain. Is not, therefore, the very meaning of mental capacity connected with the needs and activities of the organism? But the case is still stronger when we note what happens to an individual when something goes wrong with the brain. Can this poor lunatic, who has dropped from the high level of educated manhood to a condition more helpless than that of an animal, just because of a relatively slight disintegration of the cortex, be expected to recover his intellect by means of its total disintegration? Can it be denied that the burden of proof rests on those who assert immortality? The so-called ethical argument for immortality is associated with the name of Immanuel Kant. Kant's philosophy was agnostic, and it was this agnosticism which made his use of the ethical argument possible. If you can't make any assured theoretical statement {148} about the nature of the self, you can allow demands, which you regard as ethical and primary, to dictate your ultimate beliefs. It cannot be denied that Kant's argument savors of the popular notion that the virtuous must be rewarded. At its highest, the ethical argument signifies a demand for a future life in order to carry out that development of character which the brief span of earthly life is not equal to. It is this argument which runs through Browning. What shall we say of it?