The Belief in God and Immortality by James H. Leuba PDF
Preview The Belief in God and Immortality by James H. Leuba
THE BELIEF IN GOD AND IMMORTALITY A Psychological^ Anthropological and Statistical Study BY V JAMES LEUBA H. Professor ofPsychology and Pedagogy in Bryn Mawr College Authorof"A Psychological StudyofReligion; its Origin, Function and Future." BOSTON SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 1916 ASTOR, LENOX AND TUD£N FOUNDATIONS iyt7 Copyright, 1916 Sherman, French & Compaky TO MY WIFE INTRODUCTION God, the soul, and immortality constitute, accord- ing to general opinion, the great framework of re- ligion. In an earlier book I have considered the origin, the nature, the function, and the future of the belief in what I have called " personal " gods. The present volume is a similar study of the belief in personal immortality. Chapters one to four treat of the origin, the nature, and the function of this belief. They show in particular that two quite dif- ferent conceptions of personal immortality have been successively elaborated; and that the modern con- ception is not a growth from the primary belief, but an independent creation, differing radically from it in point of origin, in nature, and in function. Whereas the primary belief was forced upon men irrespective of their wishes as an unavoidable inter- pretation of certain patent facts (chiefly the ap- parition of deceased persons in dreams and in vi- sions), the modern belief was born of a desire for the realization of ideals. The first came to point to an exclusively wretched existence, and prompted men merely to guard against the possible danger to them arising from ghosts the second contemplated ; from the first endless continuation in a state of completed or increased perfection, and incited the living to ceaseless efforts in order to make them- selves fit for that blessed consummation. INTRODUCTION The effort that has been made to justify at the bar of reason the modern beHef in immortaHty by providing metaphysical proofs of it, is considered in chapter five. From a survey of these " proofs " it is evident that the longer we strive to demonstrate its truth, the more obvious becomes our failure, and the more general the conviction that " if immortality We cannot be disproved, neither can it be proved." shall see that even firm believers in immortality have had to come to this opinion. Deductive reasoning having failed, an attempt was then made to demonstrate personal immortali—ty by methods acceptable to science. This effort mainly—the work of the Society for Psychical Re- search is described and appraised in the last chap- ter of Part I. It would of course be most helpful, both to scien- tific students of religion and to ministers of it, did there exist definite information regarding the present diffusion of cardinal religious beliefs among the civ- ilized nations. Heretofore most divergent opinions have prevailed; and it has been possible neither to prove nor to refute them, since the statistics of be- lief so far attempted have no actual statistical value whatever. In Part II, the present status in the United States of the beliefs in God and immortality is shown as it appears from extensive statistical inquiries in which the usual fatal defects of statistical researches in the field of religious beliefs have been avoided. These inquiries have yielded results of considerable significance; and we are now for the first time in a position to make certain definite state- ments, valid for entire groups of influential persons, INTRODUCTION namely, college students, physical scientists, biol- ogists, historians, sociologists and economists, and psychologists. We have been able not only to com- pare these groups with each other but also, among the students, the lower classes with the higher and, ; among the other groups, the more eminent persons with the less eminent. It appears, with incontro- vertible evidence, that in each group the more dis- tinguished fraction includes by far the smaller number of believers. This, taken in connection with a study of the factors of belief, leads to important conclusions regarding the causes of disbelief. I hope that despite the widespread and, I must admit, on the whole justifiable distrust of statistics of belief, no reader will pass a summary judgment upon mine until he has examined them with some care. The numerous and extraordinarily varied com- ments made by those who answered the author's ques- tionnaire, as well as by those who refused to answer it, provide data of especial value for the psychology of belief and also for an understanding of the present situation of the Christian religion. Not only in Part II, but throughout the book, I have cited typical, concrete instances in profusion. By thus following a practice common in descriptive sciences, I have, I trust, kept close to reality and avoided the theoretical and empty character from which so many works on religion suffer. In a third and last part are presented certain facts and considerations bearing upon the present utility of the beliefs in a personal God and in im- mortality, from which it appears that, so far at least as the United States and other equally civilized
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