Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/570

* I11M0SAI.ITY. ■l'J6 IMMORTALITY. denination of the criminal law, and it is the tendency of advancing civilizutiun to brand with ( riniiiiulily many classes of acts which wero lurnierly left to the penalties of conscience or of the Church. Other classes of iniiiiural acts, not branded as criminal, yet incur indirectly the eundenination of the law. as by denying to the person who has Iwen guilty of them his right to enforce a claim arising upon a contract or a tort. Thus a bond given for an immoral consid- eration, or to secure the performance of an im- moral act. is unenforceable. Immorality which does not fall under the ban of nmnicipal law rarely if ever alfivts the legal rights or status of a jjcrson. It may subject him to social cen- sure, but it docs not defeat him in the ])rosc- cution (if a le;;al claim. Compare Maliji in Se. IMMORTAUTY (Lat. immortalitas, from immorluli.s, undying, from in-, not + mortalis, mortal, from mors, death; connected with Skt. mar, to die. (Ik. fSp-ii, moras, death, and liportn, hrolos, mortal, l^ilh. mirti, to die, OChurch Slav. iiiruliu, dead, OUC mord. Cer. ilord, murder, A.S. jHorJ', death). The endless existence of the human soul in the continued possession of its dis- tinct personality and consciousness. How early the idea of a survival after death entered the mind of man cannot be determined. There is.no evidence of it in the Paleolithic period. But in the Neolithic perioil not only the ornaments, weapons, tools, and food placed by the side of the dead, but the houses, mounds, chulpas, and tombs built for them, testify to a belief that some of the dead for some time continue some kind of an e.vistence after death. It is probable that at first death was looked ui)on as a deep and prolonged sleep. The dead was left in his dwelling-place, the sunivors seeking a new home, or a special structure was made for him. Visions of the departed in dreams naturally led to the con- flusion that they left their dwellings in the night, and, upon further reflection, to the theory of a double or finer material, but dependent upon the food and drink brought to the tomb. The practices of the Xeolithic period already imply the development of some such theory of a 'soul.' The fact that these customs and the faith they imply survived into the more advanced civilizations of antiquity and are to be foimd ex- tensively at the i)respnt time among peoples that have remained upon lower stages of development, indicates for them a very high age. Tombs were the earliest temples, and the an- cestral cult was the earliest form of divine wor- ship. .s long as ofTerings were made to the dead the departed ancestors were believed to ex- ist "and to protect their descendants. Thus the cult itself tended to create a confidence in an indefinite j)rolongation of existence in the ease of the objects of filial worship. As the great cosmic forces betian to attract more attention the double cf the de.Td might be connected with them in one vay or another, and therebj- become more independent of the tomb. But even where, as in Eg>pt. this process can be most clearly per- ceived, the ancestral cult as the basis of hope for survival maintained itself to the latest times. Whether the mass of men in Ecr^-pt who were too poor to pay the cost of embalming and 'a house for etomify' were regarded ,->? loner surviv- ing the shock of death is doubtful. But the as^iiirance in a future life, as rich as the present and not very different in its outward conditions, for those properly embalmed and entonilMjd, was very strong. Numerous pictorial representations and ins<;riptions in tombs and papyri from dilfcr- ont period-i s|nnv how inten-ely the inhabitants of the Nile 'alley Ixdicved in a life after death. Starting from the same premises, s|ieculation as to the future took a dilferent turn in India. Tlio doctrine of mclemiwychosis was developed. With out losing its identity, the spiritual substance in man was supposed to enter into other forms of life, rising or sinking in the scale of being in consequence of the deeds wrouglil in the body and the character formed. (See E.sch.vtoi.ooY.) This transmigration of souls implied eternal ex- istence before as well as after any appearance in the world as a human Iwing. It precluded tho idea of a disembodied spirit, and it adjusted out- ward circumstance to inner character, punish- ment to crime, and reward to virtue more nicely than any other system of thought. But this assurance of eternal life became itself a burden to the mind of man. and it cried out for dcliver- once from the endlessly turning wheel of exist- ence. Buddhism otTered relief in the ho])e of Nirvana. In I'ersia, Mazdaism proclaimed, pos- sibly njt in the Gathic period, but certainly aa. early as the third ccnturj- H.c, the doctrine of a resurrection (q.v.). This doctrine was no doubt based upon the simpler and more wide- spread belief that the sleepers in the dust might be aroused. Cases of apparent death and suc- cessful resuscitation would strengthen this expec- tation. The animistic basis is quite evident. Among the Iranian peoples of the northwest, the Sarmatians. the Scythians, and the Thracians, the faith in a future life was verj- strong. From Thrace the Orphic cult spread in the Greek world. While the Mycena-an tombs, as compared with the remains of the preceding age. reveal r. grow- ing importance attached to the life bejond, but no conceptions differing from those generally as- sociated with the ancestral cult, and the Ho- meric poems tell of Elysian fields as well as a barren and cheerless Hades, but put no emphasis upon what still is a somewhat sh.-idowy existence beyond with no moral distinctions, the Orphic cult societies offered to the initiated the hope of a blessed immortality. (See Escir.VTOLO0Y; He.wex: Hell.) The arguments of Socrates and Plato are far from being the first intima- tions of immortality among the Greeks. They are not endeavors to open new vistas into a life beyond. On the contrary, they represent a crit- ical tendency seeking to establish the truth of a view held by many, and to find the rational grounds on which it can be maintained, if at all. In the following periods skepticism prevailed in some circles, ardent belief in others. If the prac- tical character of the R.iman caused him to cling to the ancestral cult, his hospitality to re- ligious ideas opened the doors to the doctrines taught by the Orphic and Dionysiac societies. It was a real life of battle and of joy to which the Teutonic warriors looked forward in Odin's hall. Valhalla. .mong the Semitic nations the prevailing view left 'little joy in the thought of man's fate after death. The Babylonians and Assyrians seem to have believed in a semiconscious later existence, but with no distinctions based on character or conduct, and no feature rendering it desirable. The mvth of Ishtar's descent to the nether world