The belief in God and immortality, a psychological, anthropological and statistical study

367 Pages·2008·17.56 MB·English

THE BELIEF IN GOD
AND IMMORTALITY
A
Psychological^ Anthropological
and Statistical Study
BY V
JAMES LEUBA
H.
Professor ofPsychology and Pedagogy in Bryn
Mawr College
Authorof"A Psychological StudyofReligion;
its Origin, Function and Future."
BOSTON
SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY
1916
ASTOR, LENOX AND
TUD£N FOUNDATIONS
iyt7
Copyright, 1916
Sherman, French & Compaky
TO
MY WIFE

INTRODUCTION
God, the soul, and immortality constitute, accord-
ing to general opinion, the great framework of re-
ligion. In an earlier book I have considered the
origin, the nature, the function, and the future of
the belief in what I have called " personal " gods.
The present volume is a similar study of the belief
in personal immortality. Chapters one to four treat
of the origin, the nature, and the function of this
belief. They show in particular that two quite dif-
ferent conceptions of personal immortality have been
successively elaborated; and that the modern con-
ception is not a growth from the primary belief, but
an independent creation, differing radically from it
in point of origin, in nature, and in function.
Whereas the primary belief was forced upon men
irrespective of their wishes as an unavoidable inter-
pretation of certain patent facts (chiefly the ap-
parition of deceased persons in dreams and in vi-
sions), the modern belief was born of a desire for
the realization of ideals. The first came to point
to an exclusively wretched existence, and prompted
men merely to guard against the possible danger to
them arising from ghosts the second contemplated
;
from the first endless continuation in a state of
completed or increased perfection, and incited the
living to ceaseless efforts in order to make them-
selves fit for that blessed consummation.
INTRODUCTION
The effort that has been made to justify at the
bar of reason the modern beHef in immortaHty by
providing metaphysical proofs of it, is considered
in chapter five. From a survey of these " proofs "
it is evident that the longer we strive to demonstrate
its truth, the more obvious becomes our failure, and
the more general the conviction that " if immortality
We
cannot be disproved, neither can it be proved."
shall see that even firm believers in immortality have
had to come to this opinion.
Deductive reasoning having failed, an attempt
was then made to demonstrate personal immortali—ty
by methods acceptable to science. This effort
mainly—the work of the Society for Psychical Re-
search is described and appraised in the last chap-
ter of Part I.
It would of course be most helpful, both to scien-
tific students of religion and to ministers of it, did
there exist definite information regarding the present
diffusion of cardinal religious beliefs among the civ-
ilized nations. Heretofore most divergent opinions
have prevailed; and it has been possible neither to
prove nor to refute them, since the statistics of be-
lief so far attempted have no actual statistical value
whatever. In Part II, the present status in the
United States of the beliefs in God and immortality
is shown as it appears from extensive statistical
inquiries in which the usual fatal defects of statistical
researches in the field of religious beliefs have been
avoided. These inquiries have yielded results of
considerable significance; and we are now for the
first time in a position to make certain definite state-
ments, valid for entire groups of influential persons,
INTRODUCTION
namely, college students, physical scientists, biol-
ogists, historians, sociologists and economists, and
psychologists. We have been able not only to com-
pare these groups with each other but also, among
the students, the lower classes with the higher and,
;
among the other groups, the more eminent persons
with the less eminent. It appears, with incontro-
vertible evidence, that in each group the more dis-
tinguished fraction includes by far the smaller
number of believers. This, taken in connection with
a study of the factors of belief, leads to important
conclusions regarding the causes of disbelief. I
hope that despite the widespread and, I must admit,
on the whole justifiable distrust of statistics of belief,
no reader will pass a summary judgment upon mine
until he has examined them with some care.
The numerous and extraordinarily varied com-
ments made by those who answered the author's ques-
tionnaire, as well as by those who refused to answer
it, provide data of especial value for the psychology
of belief and also for an understanding of the present
situation of the Christian religion. Not only in
Part II, but throughout the book, I have cited
typical, concrete instances in profusion. By thus
following a practice common in descriptive sciences,
I have, I trust, kept close to reality and avoided the
theoretical and empty character from which so many
works on religion suffer.
In a third and last part are presented certain
facts and considerations bearing upon the present
utility of the beliefs in a personal God and in im-
mortality, from which it appears that, so far at least
as the United States and other equally civilized