Morality and Progress
Practically all the progress that man had made is due to the fact that he is mortal. He has recognised that he is in this world only for a short while and this knowledge has been a good thing to stimulate him to make diligent use of whatever talents he is endowed with. The secrets of Nature, who have been wrested from her ungrudging fingers by men who, knowing they were mortal, have sought to comprehend the mysteries of the world around them in the hope that knowledge might enable them, if not to circumvent death, at least to ameliorate the austerities of life for themselves and others. All our instincts and emotions are reinforced by death. If we were not mortal, the paternal and maternal instincts would not dominate our lives as strongly as they do. If we knew that we should never die, we should have no desire for children to perpetuate our name and carry on the succession of the race. Thus ultimately, we should arrive at a world without a child, and a world without a child would be a place in which there was no call for some of the most beautiful emotions to which the human soul can give expression. And death lends a peculiar sanctity to human love. A man may love his books, but the love he bears for his wife, his children, or his friends, is something deeper and more sublime; it is love intensified and purified by the thought that human life is a finite thing, which may at any moment be touched by the finger of death.
