SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

Hokitika Guardian, 29 June 1929, Page 7

SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH

PiTOFFSSOR McDOUGALL’S DLv.LAii ATJON LONDON, A fay 3. Professor William MvDougail, peroaps 1.. u best known and most distinguished 01 coiuemporary British payer mhg,sis, 111 Ins striking but difficult nook, “-Modern Materialism and t.iiieigent Evolution,” delivers a formidable attack upon the modern materialist and his version of evolution: “-Materialism (he says) in the liters' s use has gone., never to return; hut . cone still rcndcis an account of Man and the universe which, if not positive ’.v hostile, is ; ct ;,d\ orse to every f- rm • T Religion. . . . and obstructive to every form of moral effort.”

Alan is not a machine, lie maintains, and the evidence that ho is not a machine is growing yearly in strength. “ The machine differs profoundly in all-important respects. it does not grew; it is put together. If its parts are deranged, it cannot rectify its working. If any part is destroyed, ii cannot restore it.”

Even more damaging to the theories of materialism is the evidence of telepathy, which, says the author, “ seems irresistible by any competent person who may consider it comprehensively and impartially.” And this evidence again strengthens the case for the immortality of the soul or the survival by the personality of •'oclily death:

“The results attained (by psychicn' research) are neither negative nor negligible. They may best be summarised in the assertion that they place the unbiased inquirer before a dilemma cither personality is not in all cases utterly dissolved with the destruction of the body or telepathic communication of a most far-reaching and ini probable kind occurs.” “.MAN’S FOUL SURVIVES.”

The survival must be that df a modified nersonality:

“Impartial consideration leads Inevitably to the view thnt whatever' of personality may survive must be in many respects different from the personality that was manifested in the iicsh. And this, of course, is the popular, the orthodox, perhaps one might say, the theological view.” Thus the tendency of.the newest philosophy and the most critical thought Ts to emphasise the conclusion that “life is not the product or slave of any chemotactic forces, hut their maker and steersman,” that man’s soul survives the grave, and that the universe is not the result of blind chance.”

Professor McDougall, who is 58, is Professor of Psychology in Duke University. Durham, North Carolina. He was formerly a Professor at Harvard.

Before going to the United States h e was for a time a Fellow of Corpus Christi College and Reacjer in Mental Philosophy at Oxford.