Chapter III: THE SOUTHERN ZONE.--Characterized by absence of Cyprinidae and (12)

It has been said that the _Imitation of Christ_ has had a wider
religious influence than any book except the Bible, and if the
statement be limited to Christendom, it is probably true. The
_Imitation_ has been translated into over fifty languages, and is said
to have run through more than 6000 editions. The other statement,
often made, that it sums up all that is best of earlier Western
mysticism--that in it "was gathered and concentered all that was
elevating, passionate, profoundly pious in all the older mystics"
(Milman) is an exaggeration that is but partially true, for it
depreciates unduly the elder mystics and fails to do justice to the
originality of the _Imitation_. For its spiritual teaching is
something quite different from the mysticism of Augustine in the
_Confessions_, or of Bernard in the _Sermons on the Song of Songs_; it
is different from the scholastic mysticism of the St Victors or
Bonaventure; above all, it is different from the obscure mysticism,
saturated with the pseudo-Dionysian Neoplatonism of the German school
of Eckhart, Suso, Tauler and Ruysbroek. Again, it is quite different
from the later school of St Teresa and St John of the Cross, and from
the introspective methods of what may be called the modern school of
spirituality. The _Imitation_ stands apart, unique, as the principal
and most representative utterance of a special phase of religious
thought--non-scholastic, non-platonic, positive and merely religious
in its scope--herein reflecting faithfully the spirit of the movement
initiated by Gerhard Groot (q.v.), and carried forward by the circles
in which Thomas à Kempis lived. In contrast with more mystical
writings it is of limpid clearness, every sentence being easily
understandable by all whose spiritual sense is in any degree awakened.
No doubt it owes its universal power to this simplicity, to its
freedom from intellectualism and its direct appeal to the religious
sense and to the extraordinary religious genius of its author.
Professor Harnack in his book _What is Christianity?_ counts the
_Imitation_ as one of the chief spiritual forces in Catholicism: it
"kindles independent religious life, and a fire which burns with a
flame of its own" (p. 266).

The best Latin edition of the _Imitation_ is that of Hirsche (1874),
which follows closely the autograph of 1441 and reproduces the
rhythmical character of the book. Of English translations the most
interesting is that by John Wesley, under the title _The Christian's
Pattern_ (1735). (E. C. B.)

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION, THE. This dogma of the Roman Catholic Church was defined, as "of faith" by Pope Pius IX. on the 8th of December 1854 in the following terms: "The doctrine which holds that the Blessed Virgin Mary, from the first instant of her conception, was, by a most singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the human race, preserved from all stain of Original Sin, is a doctrine revealed, by God, and therefore to be firmly and steadfastly believed by all the faithful."[1] These words presuppose the distinction between original, or racial, and actual, or personally incurred sin. There is no dispute that the Church has always held the Blessed Virgin to be sinless, in the sense of actual or personal sin. The question of the Immaculate Conception regards original or racial sin only. It is admitted that the doctrine as defined by Pius IX. was not explicitly mooted before the 12th century. But it is claimed that it is implicitly contained in the teaching of the Fathers. Their expressions on the subject of the sinlessness of Mary are, it is pointed out, so ample and so absolute that they must be taken to include original sin as well as actual. Thus we have in the first five centuries such epithets applied to her as "in every respect holy," "in all things unstained," "super-innocent" and "singularly holy"; she is compared to Eve before the fall, as ancestress of a redeemed people; she is "the earth before it was accursed."[2] The well-known words of St Augustine (d. 430) may be cited: "As regards the mother of God," he says, "I will not allow any question whatever of sin."[3] It is true that he is here speaking directly of actual or personal sin. But his argument is that all men are sinners; that they are so through original depravity; that this original depravity may be overcome by the grace of God, and he adds that he does not know but that Mary may have had sufficient grace to overcome sin "of every sort" (_omni ex parte_).

It seems to have been St Bernard who, in the 12th century, explicitly raised the question of the Immaculate Conception. A feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin had already begun to be celebrated in some churches of the West. St Bernard blames the canons of the metropolitan church of Lyons for instituting such a festival without the permission of the Holy See. In doing so, he takes occasion to repudiate altogether the view that the Conception of Mary was sinless. It is doubtful, however, whether he was using the term "Conception" in the same sense in which it is used in the definition of Pius IX. In speaking of conception one of three things may be meant: (1) the mother's co-operation; (2) the formation of the body, or (3) the completion of the human being by the infusion of the rational or spiritual soul. In early times conception was very commonly used in the first sense--"active" conception as it was called. But it is in the second, or rather the third, sense that the word is employed in modern usage, and in the definition of Pope Pius IX. But St Bernard would seem to have been speaking of conception in the first sense, for in his argument he says, "How can there be absence of sin where there is concupiscence (_libido_)?" and stronger expressions follow, showing that he is speaking of the mother and not of the child.[4]

St Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of the medieval scholastics, refused to admit the Immaculate Conception, on the ground that, unless the Blessed Virgin had at one time or other been one of the sinful, she could not justly be said to have been redeemed by Christ.[5] St Bonaventura (d. 1274), second only to St Thomas in his influence on the Christian schools of his age, hesitated to accept it for a similar reason.[6] The celebrated John Duns Scotus (d. 1308), a Franciscan like St Bonaventura, argued, on the contrary, that from a rational point of view it was certainly as little derogatory to the merits of Christ to assert that Mary was by him preserved from all taint of sin, as to say that she first contracted it and then was delivered.[7] His arguments, combined with a better acquaintance with the language of the early Fathers, gradually prevailed in the schools of the Western Church. In 1387 the university of Paris strongly condemned the opposite view. In 1483 Pope Sixtus IV., who had already (1476) emphatically approved of the feast of the Conception, condemned those who ventured to assert that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was heretical, and forbade either side to claim a decisive victory until further action on the part of the Holy See. The council of Trent, after declaring that in its decrees on the subject of original sin it did not include "the blessed and immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God," renewed this prohibition.[8] Pope Paul V. (d. 1651) ordered that no one, under severe penalties, should dare to assent in public "acts" or disputations that the Blessed Virgin was conceived in original sin. Pope Gregory XV., shortly afterwards, extended this prohibition to private discussions, allowing, however, the Dominicans to argue on the subjects among themselves. Clement XI., in 1708, extended the feast of the Conception to the whole Church as a holy day of obligation. Long before the middle of the 19th century the doctrine was universally taught in the Roman Catholic Church. During the reign of Gregory XVI. the bishops in various countries began to press for a definition. Pius IX., at the beginning of his pontificate, and again after 1851, appointed commissions to investigate the whole subject, and he was advised that the doctrine was one which could be defined and that the time for a definition was opportune. On the 8th of December 1854 in a great assembly of bishops, in the basilica of St Peter's at Rome, he promulgated the Bull _Ineffabilis Deus_, in which the history of the doctrine is summarily traced, and which contains the definition as given above.

The festival of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin, as distinct from her Nativity, was certainly celebrated in the Greek Church in the 7th century, as we learn from one of the canons of St Andrew of Crete (or of Jerusalem) who died about A.D. 700.[9] There is some evidence that it was kept in Spain in the time of St Ildefonsus of Toledo (d. 667) and in southern Italy before A.D. 1000. In England it was known in the 12th century; a council of the province of Canterbury, in 1328, ascribes its introduction to St Anselm. It spread to France and Germany in the same century. It was extended to the whole church, as stated above, in 1708. It is kept, in the Western Church, on the 8th of December; the Greeks have always kept it one day later.

The chief répertoire of Patristic passages, both on the doctrine and
on the festival, is Father Charles Passaglia's great collection,
entitled _De immaculato Deiparae semper Virginis conceptu Caroli
Passaglia sac. S.J. commentarius_ (3 vols., Romae, 1854-1855).

A useful statement of the doctrine with numerous references to the
Fathers and scholastics is found in Hürter's _Theologia Dogmatica_
(5th ed.), tom. i. tract. vii. cap. 6, p. 438.

The state of Catholic belief in the middle of the 19th century is well
brought out in _La Croyance générale el constante de l'Église touchant
l'immaculée conception de la bienheureuse Vierge Marie_, published in
1855 by Thomas M. J. Gousset (1792-1866), professor of moral theology
at the grand seminary of Besançon, and successively archbishop of
Besançon and cardinal archbishop of Reims.

For English readers the doctrine, and the history of its definition,
is clearly stated by Archbishop Ullathorne in _The Immaculate
Conception of the Mother of God_ (2nd ed., London, 1904). Dr F. G.
Lee, in _The Sinless Conception of the Mother of God; a Theological
Essay_ (London, 1891) argued that the doctrine of the Immaculate
Conception is a legitimate development of early church teaching.
(+J. C. H.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] From the Bull _Ineffabilis Deus._

[2] See Passaglia's work, referred to below.

[3] _De natura et gratia_, cap. xxxvi.

[4] S. Bernardi Epist. clxxiv. 7.

[5] _Summa theologia_, part iii., quaest. 27, art. 3.

[6] _In librum III. sententiarum distinct._ 3 quaest. i. art. 2.

[7] _In librum III. sententiarum dist._ 3 quaest. i. n. 4; _Cfr.
Distinct_. 18 n. 15. Also the _Summa theologia_ of Scotus (compiled
by a disciple), part iii., quaest. 27, art. 2.

[8] Sess. v. _De peccato originale_.

[9] _P. G._, tom. cxvii. p. 1305.

IMMANENCE (from Lat. _in-manere_ to dwell in, remain), in philosophy and theology a term applied in contradistinction to "transcendence," to the fact or condition of being entirely within something. Its most important use is for the theological conception of God as existing in and throughout the created world, as opposed, for example, to Deism (q.v.), which conceives Him as separate from and above the universe. This conception has been expressed in a great variety of forms (see THEISM, PANTHEISM). It should be observed that the immanence doctrine need not preclude the belief in the transcendence of God: thus God may be regarded as above the world (transcendent) and at the same time as present in and pervading it (immanent). The immanence doctrine has arisen from two main causes, the one metaphysical, the other religious. Metaphysical speculation on the relation of matter and mind has naturally led to a conviction of an underlying unity of all existence, and so to a metaphysical identification of God and the universe: when this identification proceeds to the length of expressing the universe as merely a mode or form of deity the result is pantheism (cf. the Eleatics): when it regards the deity as simply the sum of the forces of nature (cf. John Toland) the result is naturalism. In either case, but especially in the former, it frequently becomes pure mysticism (q.v.). Religious thinkers are faced by the problem of the Creator and the created, and the necessity for formulating a close relationship between God and man, the Infinite and Perfect with the finite and imperfect. The conception of God as wholly external to man, a purely mechanical theory of the creation, is throughout Christendom regarded as false to the teaching of the New Testament as also to Christian experience. The contrary view has gained ground in some quarters (cf. the so-called "New Theology" of Rev. R. J. Campbell) so far as to postulate a divine element in human beings, so definitely bridging over the gap between finite and infinite which was to some extent admitted by the bulk of early Christian teachers. In support of such a view are adduced not only the metaphysical difficulty of postulating any relationship between the infinite and the purely finite, but also the ethical problems of the nature of human goodness--i.e. how a merely human being could appreciate the nature of or display divine goodness--and the epistemological problem of explaining how finite mind can cognize the infinite. The development of the immanence theory of God has coincided with the deeper recognition of the essentially spiritual nature of deity as contrasted with the older semi-pagan conception found very largely in the Old Testament of God as primarily a mighty ruler, obedience to whom is comparable with that of a subject to an absolute monarch: the idea of the dignity of man in virtue of his immediate relation with God may be traced in great measure to the humanist movement of the 14th and 15th centuries (cf. the Inner Light doctrine of Johann Tauler). In later times the conception of conscience as an inward monitor is symptomatic of the same movement of thought. In pure metaphysics the term "immanence-philosophy" is given to a doctrine held largely by German philosophers (Rehmke, Leclair, Schuppe and others) according to which all reality is reduced to elements immanent in consciousness. This doctrine is derived from Berkeley and Hume on the one hand and from Kantianism on the other, and embodies the principle that nothing can exist for the mind save itself. The natural consequence of this theory is that the individual consciousness alone exists (solipsism): this position is, however, open to the obvious criticism that in some cases individual consciousnesses agree in their content. Schuppe, therefore, postulates a general consciousness (_Bewusstsein überhaupt_).

IMMANUEL BEN SOLOMON (c. 1265-c. 1330), Hebrew poet, was born in Rome. He was a contemporary and friend of Dante, and his verse shows the influence of the "divine poet." Immanuel's early studies included science, mathematics and philosophy; and his commentaries on Proverbs, Psalms, Job and other Biblical books are good examples of the current symbolical methods which Dante so supremely used. Immanuel's fame chiefly rests on his poems, especially the collection (in the manner of Harizi, q.v.) entitled _Mehabberoth_, a series of 27 good-natured satires on Jewish life. Religious and secular topics are indiscriminately interwoven, and severe pietists were offended by Immanuel's erotic style. Most popular is an additional section numbered 28 (often printed by itself) called _Hell and Paradise_ (_ha-Tophet veha-Eden_). The poet is conducted by a certain Daniel (doubtfully identified with Dante) through the realms of torture and bliss, and Immanuel's pictures and comments are at once vivid and witty.

See J. Chotzner, _Hebrew Humour_ (Lond., 1905), pp. 82-102. (I. A.)

IMMERMANN, KARL LEBERECHT (1796-1840), German dramatist and novelist, was born on the 24th of April 1796 at Magdeburg, the son of a government official. In 1813 he went to study law at Halle, where he remained, after the suppression of the university by Napoleon in the same year, until King Frederick William's "Summons to my people" on March 17th. He responded with alacrity, but was prevented by illness from taking part in the earlier campaign; he fought, however, in 1815 at Ligny and Waterloo, and marched into Paris with Blücher. At the conclusion of the war he resumed his studies at Halle, and after being _Referendar_ in Magdeburg, was appointed in 1819 _Assessor_ at Münster in Westphalia. Here he made the acquaintance of Elise von Lützow, Countess von Ahlefeldt, wife of the leader of the famous "free corps" (see Lützow). This lady first inspired his pen, and their relationship is reflected in several dramas written about this time. In 1823 Immermann was appointed judge at Magdeburg, and in 1827 was transferred to Düsseldorf as _Landgerichtsrat_ or district judge. Thither the countess, whose marriage had in the meantime been dissolved, followed him, and, though refusing his hand, shared his home until his marriage in 1839 with a grand-daughter of August Hermann Niemeyer (1754-1828), chancellor and _rector perpetuus_ of Halle university. In 1834 Immermann undertook the management of the Düsseldorf theatre, and, although his resources were small, succeeded for two years in raising it to a high level of excellence. The theatre, however, was insufficiently endowed to allow of him carrying on the work, and in 1836 he returned to his official duties and literary pursuits. He died at Düsseldorf on the 25th of August 1840.

Immermann had considerable aptitude for the drama, but it was long before he found a congenial field for his talents. His early plays are imitations, partly of Kotzebue's, partly of the Romantic dramas of Tieck and Müllner, and are now forgotten. In 1826, however, appeared _Cardenio und Celinde_, a love tragedy of more promise; this, as well as the earlier productions, awakened the ill-will of Platen, who made Immermann the subject of his wittiest satire, _Der romantische Oedipus_. Between 1827 and 1832 Immermann redeemed his good name by a series of historical tragedies, _Das Trauerspiel in Tirol_ (1827), _Kaiser Friedrich II._ (1828) and a trilogy from Russian history, Alexis (1832). His masterpiece is the poetic mystery, _Merlin_ (1831), a noble poem, which, like its model, _Faust_, deals with the deeper problems of modern spiritual life. Immermann's important dramaturgic experiments in Düsseldorf are described in detail in _Düsseldörfer Anfänge_ (1840). More significant is his position as a novelist. Here he clearly stands on the boundary line between Romanticism and modern literature; his _Epigonen_ (1836) might be described as one of the last Romantic imitations of Goethe's _Wilhelm Meister_, while the satire and realism of his second novel, _Münchhausen_ (1838), form a complete break with the older literature. As a prose-writer Immermann is perhaps best remembered to-day by the admirable story of village life, _Der Oberhof_, which is embedded in the formless mass of _Münchhausen_. His last work was an unfinished epic, _Tristan und Isolde_ (1840).

Immermann's _Gesammelte Schriften_ were published in 14 vols. in
1835-1843; a new edition, with biography and introduction by R.
Boxberger, in 20 vols. (Berlin, 1883); selected works, edited by M.
Koch (4 vols., 1887-1888) and F. Muncker (6 vols., 1897). See G. zu
Putlitz, _Karl Immermann, sein Leben und seine Werke_ (2 vols., 1870);
F. Freiligrath, _Karl Immermann, Blätter der Erinnerung an ihn_
(1842); W. Müller, _K. Immermann und sein Kreis_ (1860); R. Fellner,
_Geschichte einer deutschen Musterbühne_ (1888); _K. Immermann: eine
Gedächtnisschrift_ (1896).

IMMERSION (Lat. _immersio_, dipping), the act of being plunged into a fluid, or being overwhelmed by anything; in astronomy, the disappearance of a heavenly body in the shadow of another, especially of a satellite in the shadow of its primary.

IMMIGRATION (from Lat. _in_, into, and _migrare_, to depart), the movement of population, other than that of casual visitors or travellers, _into_ one country _from_ another (see MIGRATION).

IMMORTALITY (Lat. _in_-, not, _mortalis_, mortal, from _mors_, death), the condition or quality of being exempt from death or annihilation. This condition has been predicated of man, both body and soul, in many senses; and the term is used by analogy of those whose deeds or writings have made a lasting impression on the memory of man. The belief in human immortality in some form is almost universal; even in early animistic cults the germ of the idea is present, and in all the higher religions it is an important feature. This article is confined to summarizing the philosophical or scientific arguments for, and objections to, the doctrine of the persistence of the human soul after death. For the Christian doctrine, see ESCHATOLOGY; and for other religions see the separate articles.

In the Orphic mysteries "the soul was regarded as a part of the divine, a _particula aurae divinae_, for which the body in its limited and perishable condition was no fit organ, but a grave or prison ([Greek: to sôma sêma]). The existence of the soul in the body was its punishment for sins in a previous condition; and the doom of its sins in the body was its descent into other bodies, and the postponement of its deliverance" (Salmond's _Christian Doctrine of Immortality_, p. 109). This deliverance was what the mysteries promised. A remarkable passage in Pindar (_Thren._ 2) is thus rendered by J. W. Donaldson (_Pindar's Epinician or Triumphal Odes_, p. 372). "By a happy lot, all persons travel to an end free of toil. And the body, indeed, is subject to the powerful influence of death; but a shadow of vitality is still left alive, and this alone is of divine origin; while our limbs are in activity it sleeps; but, when we sleep, it discloses to the mind in many dreams the future judgment with regard to happiness and misery."

The belief of Socrates is uncertain. In the _Apology_ he is represented as sure that "no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death," but as not knowing whether "death be a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or a change or migration of the soul from this world to the next" (i. 40, 41). In the _Phaedo_ a confident expectation is ascribed to him. He is not the body to be buried; he will not remain with his friends after he has drunk the poison, but he will go away to the happiness of the blessed. The silence of the _Memorabilia_ of Xenophon must be admitted as an argument to the contrary; but the probability seems to be that Plato did not in the _Phaedo_ altogether misrepresent the Master. In Plato's thought the belief held a prominent position. "It is noteworthy," says Professor D. G. Ritchie, "that, in the various dialogues in which Plato speaks of immortality, the arguments seem to be of different kinds, and most of them quite unconnected with one another." In the _Phaedrus_ (245 c) the argument is, that the soul is self-moving, and, therefore, immortal; and this argument is repeated in the _Laws_ (x. 894, 895). It is an argument that Plato probably inherited from Alcmaeon, the physician of Croton (Arist. _De An._ i. 2, § 17 405 A 29), whose views were closely connected with those of the Pythagoreans. In the _Phaedo_ the main argument up to which all the others lead is that the soul participates in the idea of life. Recollection (_anamnesis_) alone would prove pre-existence, but not existence after death. In the tenth book of the _Republic_ we find the curious argument that the soul does not perish like the body, because its characteristic evil, sin or wickedness does not kill it as the diseases of the body wear out the bodily life. In the _Timaeus_ (41 A) the immortality even of the gods is made dependent on the will of the Supreme Creator; souls are not in their own nature indestructible, but persist because of His goodness. In the _Laws_ (xii. 959 A) the notion of a future life seems to be treated as a salutary doctrine which is to be believed because the legislator enacts it (Plato, p. 146). The estimate to be formed of this reasoning has been well stated by Dr A. M. Fairbairn, "Plato's arguments for immortality, isolated, modernized, may be feeble, even valueless, but allowed to stand where and as he himself puts them, they have an altogether different worth. The ratiocinative parts of the _Phaedo_ thrown into syllogisms may be easily demolished by a hostile logician; but in the dialogue as a whole there is a subtle spirit and cumulative force which logic can neither seize nor answer" (_Studies in the Philosophy of Religion_, p. 226, 1876).

Aristotle held that the [Greek: nous] or active intelligence alone is immortal. The Stoics were not agreed upon the question. Cleanthes is said to have held that all survive to the great conflagration which closes the cycle, Chrysippus that only the wise will. Marcus Aurelius teaches that even if the spirit survive for a time it is at last "absorbed in the generative principle of the universe." Epicureanism thought that "the wise man fears not death, before which most men tremble; for, if we are, it is not; if it is, we are not." Death is extinction. Augustine adopts a Platonic thought when he teaches that the immortality of the soul follows from its participation in the eternal truths. The Apologists themselves welcomed, and commended to others, the Christian revelation as affording a certainty of immortality such as reason could not give. The Aristotelian school in Islam did not speak with one voice upon the question; Avicenna declared the soul immortal, but Averroes assumes only the eternity of the universal intellect. Albertus Magnus argued that the soul is immortal, as _ex se ipsa causa_, and as independent of the body; Pietro Pomponazzi maintained that the soul's immortality could be neither proved nor disproved by any natural reasons. Spinoza, while consistently with his pantheism denying personal immortality, affirms that "the human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the body, but there remains of it something which is eternal" (_Eth._ v. prop, xxiii.). The reason he gives is that, as this something "appertains to the essence of the mind," it is "conceived by a certain eternal necessity through the very essence of God."

Leibnitz, in accord with the distinctive principle of his philosophy, affirmed the absolute independence of mind and body as distinct monads, the parallelism of their functions in life being due to the pre-established harmony. For the soul, by its nature as a single monad indestructible and, therefore, immortal, death meant only the loss of the monads constituting the body and its return to the pre-existent state. The argument of Ernst Platner (_Philos. Aphor._ i. 1174, 1178) is similar. "If the human soul is a force in the narrower sense, a substance, and not a combination of substances, then, as in the nature of things there is no transition from existence to non-existence, we cannot naturally conceive the end of its existence, any more than we can anticipate a gradual annihilation of its existence." He adds a reason that recalls one of Plato's, "As manifestly as the human soul is by means of the senses linked to the present life, so manifestly it attaches itself by reason, and the conceptions, conclusions, anticipations and efforts to which reason leads it, to God and eternity."

Against the first kind of argument, as formulated by Moses Mendelssohn, Kant advances the objection that, although we may deny the soul extensive quantity, division into parts, yet we cannot refuse to it intensive quantity, degrees of reality; and consequently its existence may be terminated not by decomposition, but by gradual diminution of its powers (or to use the term he coined for the purpose, by _elanguescence_). This denial of any reasonable ground for belief in immortality in the _Critique of Pure Reason_ (_Transcendental Dialectic_, bk. ii. ch. i.) is, however, not his last word on the subject. In the _Critique of the Practical Reason_ (_Dialectic_, ch. i. sec. iv) the immortality of the soul is shown to be a postulate. _Holiness_, "the perfect accordance of the will with the moral law," demands an _endless progress_; and "this endless progress is only possible on the supposition of an _endless_ duration of the _existence_ and _personality_ of the same rational being (which is called the immortality of the soul)." Not demonstrable as a theoretical proposition, the immortality of the soul "is an inseparable result of an unconditional a priori practical law." The moral interest, which is so decisive on this question in the case of Kant, dominates Bishop Butler also. A future life for him is important, because our happiness in it may depend on our present conduct; and therefore our action here should take into account the reward or punishment that it may bring on us hereafter. As he maintains that probability may and ought to be our guide in life, he is content with proving in the first chapter of the _Analogy_ that "a future life is probable from similar changes (as death) already undergone in ourselves and in others, and from our present powers, which are likely to _continue_ unless death destroy them." While we may fear this, "there is no proof that it will, either from the nature of death," of the effect of which on our powers we are altogether ignorant, "or from the analogy of nature, which shows only that the _sensible proof_ of our powers (not the powers themselves) may be destroyed." The imagination that death will destroy these powers is unfounded, because (1) "this supposes we are compounded, and so discerptible, but the contrary is probable" on _metaphysical_ grounds (the indivisibility of the subject in which consciousness as indivisible inheres, and its distinction from the body) and also _experimental_ (the persistence of the living being in spite of changes in the body or even losses of parts of the body); (2) this also assumes that "our present living powers of reflection" must be affected in the same way by death "as those of sensation," but this is disproved by their relative independence even in this life; (3) "even the suspension of our present powers of reflection" is not involved in "the idea of death, which is simply dissolution of the body," and which may even "be like birth, a continuation and perfecting of our powers." "Even if suspension were involved, we cannot infer destruction from it" (analysis of chapter i. in Angus's edition). He recognizes that "reason did, as it well might, conclude that it should finally, and upon the whole, be well with the righteous and ill with the wicked," but only "revelation teaches us that the next state of things after the present is appointed for the execution of this justice" (ch. ii. note 10). He does not use this general anticipation of future judgment, as he might have done, as a positive argument for immortality.

Adam Ferguson (_Institutes of Moral Philosophy_, p. 119, new ed., 1800) argues that "the desire for immortality is an instinct, and can reasonably be regarded as an indication of that which the author of this desire wills to do." From the standpoint of modern science John Fiske confirms the validity of such an argument; for what he affirms in regard to belief in the divine is equally applicable to this belief in a future life. "If the relation thus established in the morning twilight of man's existence between the human soul and a world invisible and immaterial is a relation of which only the subjective term is real and the objective term is non-existent; then I say it is something utterly without precedent in the whole history of creation" (_Through Nature to God_, 1899, p. 188, 189). Whatever may have been Hegel's own belief in regard to personal immortality, the logical issue of his absolute idealism has been well stated by W. Windelband (_History of Philosophy_, p. 633). "It became clear that in the system of perpetual Becoming and of the dialectical passing over of all forms into one another, the finite personality could scarcely raise a plausible claim to the character of a substance and to immortality in the religious sense." F. D. Schleiermacher applies the phrase "the immortality of religion" to the religious emotion of oneness, amid finitude, with the infinite and, amid time, with the eternal; denies any necessary connexion between the belief in the continuance of personal existence and the consciousness of God; and rests his faith on immortality altogether on Christ's promise of living fellowship with His followers, as presupposing their as well as His personal immortality. A. Schopenhauer assigns immortality to the universal will to live; and Feuerbach declares spirit, consciousness eternal, but not any individual subject. R. H. Lotze for the decision of the question lays down the broad principle, "All that has once come to be will eternally continue so soon as for the organic unity of the world it has an unchangeable value, but it will obviously again cease to be, when that is not the case" (_Gr. der Psy._ p. 74).

Objections to the belief in immortality have been advanced from the standpoints of materialism, naturalism, pessimism and pantheism. _Materialism_ argues that, as life depends on a material organism, thought is a function of the brain, and the soul is but the sum of mental states, to which, according to the theory of psychophysical parallelism, physical changes always correspond; therefore, the dissolution of the body carries with it necessarily the cessation of consciousness. That, as now constituted, mind does depend on brain, life on body, must be conceded, but that this dependence is so absolute that the function must cease with the organ has not been scientifically demonstrated; the connexion of the soul with the body is as yet too obscure to justify any such dogmatism. But against this inference the following considerations may be advanced: (1) Man does distinguish himself from his body; (2) he is conscious of his personal identity, through all the changes of his body; (3) in the exercise of his will he knows himself not controlled by but controlling his body; (4) his consciousness warrants his denying the absolute identification of himself and his body. It may further be added that materialism can be shown to be an inadequate philosophy in its attempts to account even for the physical universe, for this is inexplicable without the assumption of mind distinct from, and directive of, matter. The theory of psychophysical parallelism has been subjected to a rigorous examination in James Ward's _Naturalism and Agnosticism_, part iii., in which the argument that mind cannot be derived from matter is convincingly presented. Sir Oliver Lodge in his reply to E. Haeckel's _Riddle of the Universe_ maintains that "life may be something not only ultra-terrestrial, but even immaterial, something outside our present categories of matter and energy; as real as they are, but different, and utilizing them for its own purpose" (_Life and Matter_, 1906, p. 198). He rejects the attempt to explain human personality as "generated by the material molecular aggregate of its own unaided latent power," and affirms that the "universe where the human spirit is more at home than it is among these temporary collocations of matter" is "a universe capable of infinite development, of noble contemplation, and of lofty joy, long after this planet--nay the whole solar system--shall have fulfilled its present spire of destiny, and retired cold and lifeless upon its endless way" (pp. 199-200).

In his lecture on _Human Immortality_ (3rd ed., 1906), Professor William James deals with "two supposed objections to the doctrine." The first is "the law that thought is a function of the brain." Accepting the law he distinguishes _productive_ from _permissive_ or _transmissive_ function (p. 32), and, rejecting the view that brain produces thought, he recognizes that in our present condition brain transmits thought, thought needs brain for its organ of expression; but this does not exclude the possibility of a condition in which thought will be no longer so dependent on brain. He quotes (p. 57) with approval Kant's words, "The death of the body may indeed be the end of the sensational use of our mind, but only the beginning of the intellectual use. The body would thus be not the cause of our thinking, but merely a condition restrictive thereof, and, although essential to our sensuous and animal consciousness, it may be regarded as an impeder of our pure spiritual life" (_Kritik der reinen Vernunft_, 2nd ed., p. 809).

Further arguments in the same direction are derived from the modern school of psychical research (see especially F. W. H. Myers' _Human Personality_, 1903).

Another objection is advanced from the standpoint of _naturalism_, which, whether it issues in materialism or not, seeks to explain man as but a product of the process of nature. The universe is so immeasurably vast in extension and duration, and man is so small, his home but a speck in space, and his history a span in time that it seems an arrogant assumption for him to claim exemption from the universal law of evolution and dissolution. This view ignores that man has ideals of absolute value, truth, beauty, goodness, that he consciously communes with the God who is in all, and through all, and over all, that it is his mind which recognizes the vastness of the universe and thinks its universal law, and that the mind which perceives and conceives cannot be less, but must be greater than the object of its knowledge and thought.

_Pessimism_ suggests a third objection. The present life is so little worth living that its continuance is not to be desired. James Thomson ("B.V.") speaks "of the restful rapture of the inviolate grave," and sings the praises of _death_ and of _oblivion_. We cannot admit that the history of mankind justifies his conclusion; for the great majority of men life is a good, and its continuance an object of hope.

For pantheism personal immortality appears a lesser good than reabsorption in the universal life; but against this objection we may confidently maintain that worthier of God and more blessed for man is the hope of a conscious communion in an eternal life of the Father of all with His whole family.

Lastly positivism teaches a corporate instead of an individual immortality; man should desire to live on as a beneficent influence in the race. This conception is expressed in George Eliot's lines:

"O, may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence: live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge man's search
To vaster issues."

But these possibilities are not mutually exclusive alternatives. A man may live on in the world by his teaching and example as a power for good, a factor of human progress, and he may also be continuing and completing his course under conditions still more favourable to all most worthy in him. Consciously to participate as a person in the progress of the race is surely a worthier hope than unconsciously to contribute to it as an influence; ultimately to share the triumph as well as the struggle is a more inspiring anticipation.

In stating constructively the doctrine of immortality we must assign altogether secondary importance to the metaphysical arguments from the nature of the soul. It is sufficient to show, as has already been done, that the soul is not so absolutely dependent on the body, that the dissolution of the one must necessarily involve the cessation of the other. Such arguments as the indivisibility of the soul and its persistence can at most indicate the _possibility_ of immortality.

The _juridical argument_ has some force; the present life does not show that harmony of condition and character which our sense of justice leads us to expect; the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer; there is ground for the expectation that in the future life the anomalies of this life will be corrected. Although this argument has the support of such great names as Butler and Kant, yet it will repel many minds as an appeal to the motive of self-interest.

The _ethical argument_ has greater value. Man's life here is incomplete, and the more lofty his aims, the more worthy his labours, the more incomplete will it appear to be. The man who lives for fame, wealth, power, may be satisfied in this life; but he who lives for the ideals of truth, beauty, goodness, lives not for time but for eternity, for his ideals cannot be realized, and so his life fulfilled on this side of the grave. Unless these ideals are mocking visions, man has a right to expect the continuance of his life for its completion. This is the line of argument developed by Professor Hugo Münsterberg in his lecture on _The Eternal Life_ (1905), although he states it in the terms peculiar to his psychology, in which personality is conceived as primarily will. "No endless duration is our goal, but complete repose in the perfect satisfaction which the will finds when it has reached the significance, the influence, and the value at which it is aiming" (p. 83).

More general in its appeal still is the argument from the _affections_, which has been beautifully developed in Tennyson's _In Memoriam_. The heart protests against the severance of death, and claims the continuance of love's communion after death; and as man feels that love is what is most godlike in his nature, love's claim has supreme authority.

There is a _religious argument_ for immortality. The saints of the Hebrew nation were sure that as God had entered into fellowship with them, death could not sever them from his presence. This is the argument in Psalms xvi. and xvii., if, as is probable, the closing verses do express the hope of a glorious and blessed immortality. This too is the proof Jesus himself offers when he declares God to be the God of the living and not of the dead (Matt. xxii. 32). God's companions cannot become death's victims.

Josiah Royce in his lecture on _The Conception of Immortality_ (1900) combines this argument of the soul's union with God with the argument of the incompleteness of man's life here:--

"Just because God is One, all our lives have various and unique places
in the harmony of the divine life. And just because God attains and
wins and finds this uniqueness, all our lives win in our union with
Him the individuality which is essential to their true meaning. And
just because individuals whose lives have uniqueness of meaning are
here only objects of pursuit, the attainment of this very
individuality, since it is indeed real, occurs not in our present form
of consciousness, but in a life that now we see not, yet in a life
whose genuine meaning is continuous with our own human life, however
far from our present flickering form of disappointed human
consciousness that life of the final individuality may be. Of this our
true individual life, our present life is a glimpse, a fragment, a
hint, and in its best moments a visible beginning. That this
individual life of all of us is not something limited in its temporal
expression to the life that now we experience, follows from the very
fact that here nothing final or individual is found expressed" (pp.
144-146).

R. W. Emerson declares that "the impulse to seek proof of immortality is itself the strongest proof of all." We expect immortality not merely because we desire it; but because the desire itself arises from all that is best and truest and worthiest in ourselves. The desire is reasonable, moral, social, religious; it has the same worth as the loftiest ideals, and worthiest aspirations of the soul of man. The loss of the belief casts a dark shadow over the present life. "No sooner do we try to get rid of the idea of Immortality--than Pessimism raises its head.... Human griefs seem little worth assuaging; human happiness too paltry (at the best) to be worth increasing. The whole moral world is reduced to a point. Good and evil, right and wrong, become infinitesimal, ephemeral matters. The affections die away--die of their own conscious feebleness and uselessness. A moral paralysis creeps over us" (_Natural Religion_, Postscript). The belief exercises a potent moral influence. "The day," says Ernest Renan, "in which the belief in an after-life shall vanish from the earth will witness a terrific moral and spiritual decadence. Some of us perhaps might do without it, provided only that others held it fast. But there is no lever capable of raising an entire people if once they have lost their faith in the immortality of the soul" (quoted by A. W. Momerie, _Immortality_, p. 9). To this belief, many and good as are the arguments which can be advanced for it, a confident certainty is given by Christian faith in the Risen Lord, and the life and immortality which he has brought to light in his Gospel.

In addition to the works referred to above, see R. K. Gaye, _The
Platonic Conception of Immortality and its Connexion with the Theory
of Ideas_ (1904); R. H. Charles, _A Critical History of the Doctrine
of a Future Life in Israel, in Judaism and in Christianity_ (1899); E.
Pétavel, _The Problem of Immortality_ (Eng. trans. by F. A. Freer,
1892); J. Fiske, _The Destiny of Man, viewed in the Light of his
Origin_ (1884); G. A. Gordon, _Immortality and the New Theodicy_
(1897); Henry Buckle, _The After Life_ (1907). (A. E. G.*)

IMMUNITY (from Lat. _immunis_, not subject to a _munus_ or public service), a general term for exemption from liability, principally used in the legal sense discussed below, but also in recent times in pathology (for which see BACTERIOLOGY). In international law the term ("not serving," "not subject") implies exemption from the jurisdiction of the state which otherwise exercises jurisdiction where the immunity arises. It is thus applied to the exceptional position granted to sovereigns and chiefs of states generally, and their direct representatives in the states to which they are accredited.

Under EXTERRITORIALITY is treated the inviolability of embassies and legations and the application of the material side of the doctrine of immunity. As a right appertaining to the persons of those who enjoy it, the doctrine has grown out of the necessity for sovereigns of respecting each other's persons in their common interest. To be able to negotiate without danger of arrest or interference of any kind with their persons was the only condition upon which sovereigns would have been able to meet and discuss their joint interests. With the development of states as independent entities and of intercourse between them and their "nationals," the work of diplomatic missions increased to such an extent that instead of having merely occasional ambassadors as at the beginning, states found it expedient to have resident representatives with a permanent residence. Hence the sovereign's inviolability becomes vested in the person of the sovereign's delegate, and with it as a necessary corollary the exterritoriality of his residence. Out of the further expansion of the work of diplomatic missions came duplication of the _personnel_ and classes of diplomatic secretaries, who as forming part of the embassy or legation also had to be covered by the diplomatic immunity.

In no branch of international intercourse have states shown so laudable a respect for tradition as in the case of this immunity, and this in spite of the hardship which frequently arises for private citizens through unavoidable dealings with members of embassies and legations. The Institute of International Law (see PEACE) at their Cambridge session in 1895 drew up the following rules,[1] which may be taken to be the only precise statement of theory on the subject, for the guidance of foreign offices in dealing with it:--

ART. 1.--Public ministers are inviolable. They also enjoy
"exterritoriality," in the sense and to the extent hereinafter
mentioned and a certain number of immunities.

ART. 2.--The privilege of inviolability extends: (1) To all classes
of public ministers who regularly represent their sovereign or their
country; (2) To all persons forming part of the official staff of a
diplomatic mission; (3) To all persons forming part of its
non-official staff, under reserve, that if they belong to the country
where the mission resides they only enjoy it within the official
residence.

ART. 3.--The government to which the minister is accredited must
abstain from all offence, insult or violence against the persons
entitled to the privilege, must set an example in the respect which is
due to them and protect them by specially rigorous penalties from all
offence, insult or violence on the part of the inhabitants of the
country, so that they may devote themselves to their duties in perfect
freedom.

ART. 4.--Immunity applies to everything necessary for the fulfilment
by ministers of their duties, especially to personal effects, papers,
archives and correspondence.

ART. 5.--It lasts during the whole time which the minister or
diplomatic official spends, in his official capacity, in the country
to which he has been sent.

It continues even in time of war between the two powers during the
period necessary to enable the minister to leave the country with his
staff and effects.

ART. 6.--Inviolability cannot be claimed: (1) In case of legitimate
defence on the part of private persons against acts committed by the
persons who enjoy the privilege; (2) In case of risks incurred by any
of the persons in question voluntarily or needlessly; (3) In case of
improper acts committed by them, provoking on the part of the state to
which the minister is accredited measures of defence or precaution;
but, except in a case of extreme urgency, this state should confine
itself to reporting the facts to the minister's government, requesting
the punishment or the recall of the guilty agent and, if necessary, to
surrounding the official residence to prevent unlawful communications
or manifestations.

_Immunity with Respect to Taxes._

ART. 11.--A public minister in a foreign country, functionaries
officially attached to his mission and the members of their families
residing with them, are exempt from paying: (1) Personal direct taxes
and sumptuary taxes; (2) General taxes on property, whether on capital
or income; (3) War contributions; (4) Customs duties in respect of
articles for their personal use.

Each government shall indicate the grounds (_justifications_) to which
these exemptions from taxation shall be subordinated.

_Immunity from Jurisdiction._

ART. 12.--A public minister in a foreign country, functionaries
officially attached to his mission and the members of their families
residing with them, are exempt from all jurisdiction, civil or
criminal, of the state to which they are accredited; in principle,
they are only subject to the civil and criminal jurisdiction of their
own country. A claimant may apply to the courts of the capital of the
country of the minister, subject to the right of the minister to prove
that he has a different domicile in his country.

ART. 13.--With respect to crimes, persons indicated in the preceding
article remain subject to the penal laws of their own country, as if
they had committed the acts in their own country.

ART. 14.--The immunity attaches to the function in respect of acts
connected with the function. As regards acts done not in connexion
with the function, immunity can only be claimed so long as the
function lasts.

ART. 15.--Persons of the nationality of the country to the government
of which they are accredited cannot claim the privilege of immunity.

ART. 16.--Immunity from jurisdiction cannot be invoked: (1) In case of
proceedings taken by reason of engagements entered into by the exempt
person, not in his official or private capacity, but in the exercise
of a profession carried on by him in the country concurrently with his
diplomatic functions; (2) In respect of real actions, including
possessory actions, relating to anything movable or immovable in the
country.

It exists even in case of a breach of the law which may endanger
public order or safety, or of crime against the safety of the state,
without prejudice to such steps as the territorial government may take
for its own protection.

ART. 17.--Persons entitled to immunity from jurisdiction may refuse to
appear as witnesses before a territorial court on condition that, if
required by diplomatic intervention, they shall give their testimony
in the official residence to a magistrate of the country appointed for
the purpose.

Further questions connected with Immunity and Exterritoriality (q.v.) arise out of the different industrial enterprises undertaken by states, such as posts, telegraphs, telephones, railways, steamships, &c., which require regulation to prevent conflicts of interest between the state owners and the private interests involved in these enterprises. (T. Ba.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The rules were drawn up in French. The author of this article is
responsible for the translation of them.