cated manhood to a
condition more helpless than that of an animal, just because of a
relatively slight disintegration of the cortex, be expected to recover
his intellect by means of its total disintegration? Can it be denied
that the burden of proof rests on those who assert immortality?

The so-called ethical argument for immortality is associated with the
name of Immanuel Kant. Kant's philosophy was agnostic, and it was this
agnosticism which made his use of the ethical argument possible. If
you can't make any assured theoretical statement {148} about the nature
of the self, you can allow demands, which you regard as ethical and
primary, to dictate your ultimate beliefs. It cannot be denied that
Kant's argument savors of the popular notion that the virtuous must be
rewarded. At its highest, the ethical argument signifies a demand for
a future life in order to carry out that development of character which
the brief span of earthly life is not equal to. It is this argument
which runs through Browning. What shall we say of it?

There are both factual and theoretical objections to the ethical
argument for immortality. The more we know about habit, the more we
realize that character is pretty well "set" by middle life. The
creative period of human life ends all too soon. Character is not an
abstract possession separable from human tasks and needs. It is not
like a work of art which can be polished and re-polished. But, when
all is said and done, ethics must abide by the facts of the case. Take
character abstractly enough and apart from its human and organic
setting, and the dream of continuous perfecting may have meaning; but
so would the dream of continuous intellectual advance. Yet the scholar
knows all too well the judgment passed by the coming generation upon
the older one: "They can't adjust themselves to this new point of
view." Would progress come if the generations did not pass?

The philosophical aspect of the question can be touched upon only
briefly and in an untechnical way. The basic problem may be put in
this way: Can human personality be included in nature in a
theoretically satisfactory way? It has been customary to stress the
difficulties which confront such an attempt {149} and to be silent in
regard to the problems which the separation of body and personality has
always found facing it. Yet I think that few philosophers would deny
that it is the very irrationality of the traditional d