When we come to analyze all the different proofs that have been urged for the immortality of the soul, we find that not a single one of them is of a scientific character; not a single one is consistent with the truths we have learned in the last few decades from physiological psychology and the theory of descent. The _theological_ proof--that a personal creator has breathed an immortal soul (generally regarded as a portion of the divine soul) into man--is a pure myth. The _cosmological_ proof--that the "moral order of the world" demands the eternal duration of the human soul--is a baseless dogma. The _teleological_ proof--that the "higher destiny" of man involves the perfecting of his defective, earthly soul beyond the grave--rests on a false anthropism. The _moral_ proof--that the defects and the unsatisfied desires of earthly existence must be fulfilled by "compensative justice" on the other side of eternity--is nothing more than a pious wish. The _ethnological_ proof--that the belief in immortality, like the belief in God, is an innate truth, common to all humanity--is an error in fact. The _ontological_ proof--that the soul, being a "simple, immaterial, and indivisible entity," cannot be involved in the corruption of death--is based on an entirely erroneous view of the psychic phenomena; it is a spiritualistic fallacy. All these and similar "proofs of athanatism" are in a parlous condition; they are definitely annulled by the scientific criticism of the last few decades.