cases of this kind the asserted doctrine is
placed on the basis of a divine revelation, and must be implicitly
received. God proclaims it through his anointed ministers:
therefore, to doubt it or logically criticize it is a crime.
History bears witness to such a procedure wherever an organized
priesthood has flourished, from primeval pagan India to modern
papal Rome. It is traceable from the dark Osirian shrines of Egypt
and the initiating temple at Eleusis to the funeral fires of Gaul
and the Druidic conclave in the oak groves of Mona; from the
reeking altars of Mexico in the time of Montezuma to the masses
for souls in Purgatory said this day in half the churches of
Christendom. Much of the popular faith in immortality which has
prevailed in all ages has been owing to the authority of its
promulgators, a deep and honest trust on the part of the people in
the authoritative dicta of their religious teachers.

In all the leading nations of the earth, the doctrine of a future
life is a tradition handed down from immemorial antiquity,
embalmed in sacred books which are regarded as infallible
revelations from God. Of course the thoughtless never think of
questioning it; the reverent piously embrace it; all are educated
to receive it. In addition to the proclamation of a future life by
the sacred books and by the priestly hierarchies, it has also been
affirmed by countless individual saints, philosophers, and
prophets. Most persons readily accept it on trust from them as a
demonstrated theory or an inspired knowledge of theirs. It is
natural for modest unspeculative minds, busied with worldly cares,
to say, These learned sages, these theosophic seers, so much more
gifted, educated, and intimate with the divine counsels and plan
than we are, with so much deeper experience and purer insight than
we have, must know the truth: we cannot in any other way do so well
as to follow their guidance and confide in their assertions.
Accordingly, multitudes receive the belief in a life to come on
the authority of the world's intellectual and religious leaders.

Fourthly, the belief in a future life results from philosophical
meditation, and is sustained by rational proofs.1 For the
completion of the present outline, it now remains to give a brief
exposition of these arguments. For the sake of convenience and
clearness, we must arrange these reasonings in five classes;
namely, the physiological, the analogical, the psychological, the