Religion and Science
4. Religion and the Life Hereafter
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some cases at least, only the survival
hypothesis remained plausible. Among such
persons may be mentioned Alfred Russel
Wallace, Sir William Crookes, F.W.H. Myers,
Cesare Lombroso, Camille Flammarion, Sir
Oliver Lodge, Dr. Richard Hodgson, Mrs.
Henry Sidwick and Professor Hyslop, to name
only a few of the most eminent”.
This suggests that the belief in a life after
death, which so many persons have found no
particular difficulty in accepting as an article
of religious faith, not only may be true but is
perhaps capable of empirical proof; and if so,
that, instead of the inventions of theologians
concerning the nature of the postmortem life,
factual information regarding it may
eventually be obtained.
That, in such a case, the content of this
information will turn out to be useful rather
than not, for the two tasks which it is the
function of religion to perform, does not, of
course, automatically follow.
l
The author, while accepting life after death as
