________________
T G. Kalghaigl
ated it in a modified form Hume and Schopenhauer mentioned it with respect Rod among contemporary philosophers there are some who are Inclined to accept it for want of inadequate evidence and proof In general the Westera philosophers did not persue the problem seriously The Christian theologians talled of immortality in the sease of continuance of soul after death and not in the sense of rebirth and transmigration Some sections of modern Philosopby were influenced by the sudden encroachment of science in o her fields of enguiry and discredited the belief in inimortality and survival of the life after death because consciousness and mental states, they say, are only products of the brain function They are epiphenomena The Question of survival of the soul after the destruction of the body does not arise
ILL
In the modern western philosophy, Dr McTaggart leans on the proHem of immortality of the soul involving pre-existence and continuance of soul after the destruction of the body The present attitude of most Western thinkers, he says, to the doctrine of pre-existence is curious of the many wbo regard oor life after death of our bodies as certain or probable, scarcely one regards our life before the birth of those bodies as a possibility which deserves discussion Yet it was taught by the Buddha and by Plato, and it 19 usually associated with the belief in immortality in the far East In modern Western thought the great support of the belief in immortality has been the Chrisisa toligion, and a form of belief which was never supported by the religion was not likely to be considered of any importance Aod, for some reason, Christians have almost unanimously rejected those theories which placed pre-existence by the side of immortality 10 Dr McTaggart accepts both pre-existence and recorrent earthly embodiment of the spirit He believes ibat any cvidence that proves immortality will also prove pre-existence The most effective way of proving that the doctrine of pre-existence is bound up with the doctrine of immortality would be to prove directly that the mature of man was such that it involved a life both before and after the putsent life 10 Dr McTaggart points out that the usual ethical arguments to prove immortality are not adequate to explain the belief in pre-existence He says that modern demonstration of immortality bas largely been ethical is character and not purely metaphysical and this explains why it has often been held in modern times that immortality was proved, although pre-existenot bas almost always been disbelieved on the basis of purely metaphysical arguments" Dr McTaggart says that any demonstration of immortality
Some Dogmas of Religion
(Edward
Arnold, 1930),
19 McTaggart U M.)
PP 112-13 20. Ibud
