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THE KNICKERBOCKER.

  VOL. XXII.        NOVEMBER, 1843.        NO. 5.




THOUGHTS ON IMMORTALITY.

BY A NEW CONTRIBUTOR.


THERE are those who reject the idea of a future state; or, at
least, who deny that they ought to be convinced of its reality,
because reasoning, in the method of the sciences, does not appear
to prove it to them; although they acknowledge how natural it is
for man to anticipate a future existence. I have thought that such
persons might be included in a similitude like the following. Let
us suppose a young bee, just returning from his first excursion
abroad, bearing his load of honey. He has been in a labyrinth of
various directions, and far from his native home; winding among
trees and their branches, and stopping to sip from numerous flowers.
He has even been taken, by one bearing no good-will to the little
community of which he is a member, and carried onward, without being
permitted a sight of the objects which he passed, that he might
estimate aright his new direction. Notwithstanding, he is winging
his way with unerring precision to the place where his little load
is to be deposited. Not more exactly does the needle tend to the
pole, than the line he is drawing points toward his store-house. But
in this he is governed by no such considerations of distance and
direction as enable the skilful navigator so beautifully to select
his way along the pathless ocean. He has no data, by reasoning from
which, as the geometrician reasons, he may determine that his course
bears so many degrees to the right or so many to the left. He has
never been taught to mark the right ascension of hill-tops, nor
to estimate latitude and longitude from the trees. He is governed
in his progress by that indescribable and mysterious principle of
instinct alone, which, although developed in man, produces its
most surprising effects in the brute creation. But here, as he is
going onward thus swiftly and surely, by some creative power a vast
addition is made to his previous character. All at once he becomes a
reasoning being, possessed of all the faculties which are found in
the philosopher. He is endowed with judgment, that he may compare,
and consciousness and reflection, to make him a metaphysician. Nor
is he slow to exercise these newly-acquired faculties.

Among other things, his consciousness tells him that he is impressed
with a deep presentiment of something greatly desirable in the
far distance toward which he supposes his course to be fast and
directly tending. Perhaps he has a memory of the place he left, of
the business there going on, and of the part which he is taking in
it. Probably his strong impression is, that he is fast advancing
toward that place; that he expects the greeting of his friends of
the swarm. Possibly he finds his bosom even now beginning to swell
in anticipation of the praise which shall be bestowed on his early
manifestation of industry and virtue. Perhaps his recollections are
more vague; and accordingly his consciousness only tells him that he
thinks of something requiring him to urge onward in that particular
direction, but of which he realizes no very definite idea.

But here Reason interrupts him: 'Why are you pursuing this course
so fast? I see nothing to attract your attention so strongly.' 'I
am going to a place lying this way,' says the bee, 'where I can
deposite my load in safety, which I am anxious to do quickly, that I
may return for another.' 'But,' says Reason, 'what evidence have you
that the place lies this way?' Here Philosophy whispers: 'You should
not act without evidence; it becomes no reasonable creature to do
so;' but Reason continues: 'There are many points in the horizon
beside that you are making for; and I see not why one of them is not
as likely to be the place as another.'

This rather staggered the bee at first; for he had no recollection
of courses and distances taken, by a comparison of which he could
prove his true direction; but suddenly he said: 'Why, I am so
strongly impressed that this is the course, that I cannot doubt
it.' 'But what signify your strong impressions,' says Reason, 'if
they are not founded on any evidence? Were you ever led to such a
place as you seek by the aid of _impression_ alone?' 'I never was,'
said the bee; for in fact he had never before been out of sight of
the place where he was born. 'Then again,' says Reason, 'I ask what
is your evidence?' And Philosophy again, as a faithful monitor,
replies: 'Bee, you must not act without evidence.'

The bee could hardly add any thing more. Had his experience been
greater, and his reflection deeper, he might have answered, that
there are principles in the mind pointing to certain conclusions,
and seeking to establish certain beliefs, of which those principles
are at once the evidence and the source; and that the impression
which now seemed so clearly to point out his course was one of this
class. But in the exercise of his young faculties he had not yet
arrived at that height of philosophy which could lead him to recur
to such principles. He had never come to distinguish between those
impressions which have taken possession of the mind by chance, and
those which Nature herself has prepared to aid the very weakness of
reason. No wonder then, that thus sore pressed by Reason, he seemed
to find himself at fault.

Whether these mental conflicts were sufficient to suspend his course
entirely, or whether, like a prudent bee, he resolved to act as if
nature were right and reason were wrong until he knew nature to be
wrong and reason to be right, I am not able to say. But I could not
fail to reflect, that if he did finally arrive at the place whither
he had been directing his course, he would probably quarrel with all
the arrangements in the tree.

It would not