The Endless Life (The Ingersoll Lecture, 1905)

55 pp. Maroon cloth boards. Top edge gilt. "The Endless Life," by Dr. S. M. Crothers, was the Ingersoll Lecture for 1905. It presented the point of view of the idealist, who, while cognizant of the 'Everlasting Nay' which science is believed to have pronounced against human immortality, still holds that there are regions in which science cannot properly dictate, and that in these regions the hopes and inferences and implications of the spiritual life are entitled to full respect. Dr. Crothers writes without dogmatism, in a fine, genial tone, and enriches his discussion with many pertinent quotations. His words cannot fail to give strength to many readers. The method of choosing the Ingersoll lectures so that philosophy, science, history, and religion have in turn their spokesman is truly excellent. The Ingersoll Lectures is a series of lectures presented annually at Harvard University on the subject of immortality. The Ingersoll Lectureship was established by a bequest by Caroline Haskell Ingersoll, who died in 1893, leaving $5000 for the institution of a series of lectures to be read annually in memory of her father, George Goldthwait Ingersoll. The lectures were to take place at Harvard University on the subject of "the immortality of man". The lectures were initiated by Harvard president Charles W. Eliot in 1896. They are now generally known as The Ingersoll Lectures on Human Immortality. On May 21, 1979, the Ingersoll Lecture Fund was transferred to the endowment of Harvard Divinity School, which continues to organize and host the lectures. The lectures were to be published. From 1896 to 1912 they were issued by the Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston and New York. From 1914 to 1935 Harvard University Press published them. Since then, the lectures have been published primarily in the Harvard Divinity Bulletin or the Harvard Theological Review.