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A Russian View of Immortality

It is arguable that without a decline in the credibility of life after death, Western civilisation, with its frenetic attempts to manipulate man's physical environment, could hardly have developed as it did. As long as human life is regarded sub specie aeternitatis, changes in the conditions under which it is lived can hardly be thought of as being of supreme importance. Conversely, current indications of a renewal of interest in the great theme of personal immortality may owe something to the eclipse of our science-based culture and the increasingly precarious nature of life in this world. It is still far too soon to be sure. In the circumstances it may be of interest to look at a work written almost 200 years ago by a man who has often been hailed as the first Russian revolutionary. Though it has never been translated, it is generally known in English as the Treatise on Immortality. Highly literate and articulate, the author affirmed his belief in the indestructibility of the human spirit in face of imminent bodily dissolution. The arguments he deploys are not essentially dissimilar to the terms of the immortality debate today. First, however, a minimum of information about the writer is necessary if his views are not to be presented in a vacuum.