Page:Why I am an infidel.pdf/16

 in a brief dispatch as disputing the theory of his old friend, Henry Ford, that we return to earth after death to live again in some other form—perhaps a maple tree or a fox terrier.

"All right," said the managing editor, "Burbank has told us what he doesn't believe. Now it's your job to have him tell us what he does believe."

Burbank answered the question first by an epigram, and he asked that the interview begin with the thought it contained.

"Most people's religion," he said, "is what they would like to believe, not what they do believe. And very few of them stop to examine its foundations."

Then, going on to tell why he does not believe in a resurrection: "The universe is not big enough to contain perpetually all the human souls and the other living beings that have been here for their short spans. A theory of personal resurrection or reincarnation of the individual is untenable when we but pause to consider the magnitude of the idea. On the contrary, I must believe that rather than the survival of all, we must look for survival only In the spirit of the, good we have done in passing through. This is as feasible and credible as Henry Ford's own practice of discarding the old models of his automobile. When obsolete, an automobile is thrown in the scrap heap. Once here and gone, the human life has likewise served its purpose. If it has been a good life, it has been sufficient. There is no need for another."