LECTURE BY DR. OSLER

Dr. William Osler, Professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, delivered last evening the Ingersoll lecture for the year on the subject "Science and Immortality." The New Lecture Hall was completely filled when President Eliot introduced the speaker.

No problem, Dr. Osler said, is so great as that which Job expressed in the words "If a man die, shall he live again?" The physician's work lies on the confines of the shadowland. He sees that dying and men in the fear of death, and learns of their hopes and fears as regards the life hereafter.

Within the lifetime of some of us science has changed the aspect of the world. It is a question whether science makes the individual more or less hopeful or immortality. Alone, science may be said to lessen the belief of the individual in a future life. An immense majority of men live without any idea of immortality, a large group regard the hereafter as one of man's inventions, while a third, and much smaller class, lay hold of the life hereafter as a governing influence in this one.

The attitude of the average man of today is one of indifference. The person who buttonholes his acquaintances and inquires about their hopes of future life is shunned like the Ancient Mariner. Among clergymen the subject is seldom referred to except from the pulpit, and even the daily press is silent. Only on occasions of sickness and sorrow, and at the approach of death, does the though arise, "Of what am I, and where do I go?" It is often the case that the older one grows the less fixed becomes the interest in immortality.

A living faith in future existence has no place in the modern social and political problems which face the human race. One reason for the prevailing popular indifference is caused by uncertainty. It is commonly supposed, that a man is appalled at the approach of death. This is erroneous, for as a rule man dies uninfluenced by the thoughts of future life.

The old story of Adam which states that man was originally perfect, but degenerated, has been cast aside by scientists, who declare that man is the end, and the one far-off event, toward which nature has been steadily moving--the heir of all the ages. During the past forty years biological research has caused a revolution in human thought--has even changed the mind of man. Those who have lived through the bitter changed of fierce extremes in the war between science and religion compare with sorrow the times gone by, when faith was diversified by doubt, with the present, when doubt is diversified by faith.

For those who grope in the shadow of uncertainty, the analogy between human life and the spectrum of light is comforting. We can see but a small part of the rays; those which give the shades of color, while the rays which come before and after the spectrum are invisible. Thus it is with life--the unknown past, the illuminated present, and the unseen future of human existence should not make us doubt the reality of what we cannot see. Out eyes and ears are finite, and receive no impressions of infinite things. They dupe us, and make us blind and deaf to things of the spirit.

Mystics and idealists compel admiration by the lives they lead. The salt of the earth are those who preserve for us a belief in the existence of a future life. On questions of this kind the only enduring belief is through faith. In the presence of so many unsolved mysteries one must not be dogmatic and deny the existence of a future state, but must recognize as a rock of safety some belief in the world to come. But this is all. Whether we are to step from light to light or from light to darkness we do not know.

In conclusion, Dr. Osler addressed the young men particularly, and advised that each should meet the problem alone. The heart is a better guide than the mind in such matters, and our reason does not lead us so well as our natural instinct. The one is capable only of perplexing us, while the other gives us hope of life eternal.