APPENDIX TO THE FIRST EDITION
Mary C. Wadsworth translation
THE first suggestion of the idea worked out in this paper, that the spirits of the dead continue to exist in the living as individuals, came to me through a conversation with my friend Professor Billroth, then living in Leipzig, now in Halle. While this idea, in a series of related images, both appealed to me and awakened kindred ones, it took prominent shape, and through a sort of enforced progression extended to the idea of a higher life of spirits in God. Meanwhile the originator, as in the philosophy of religion in general, so especially in the doctrine of immortality, took a quite different line from this, conforming more directly to the church dogma, which led him away, for the most part, if not wholly, from this fundamental idea, so that, while I had thought it necessary to point to him as its author, I no longer venture to call him its advocate. The views of this philosopher upon the subject in question will be developed in a work by him shortly to appear.
Written in Gastein in August, 1835.
LIFE AFTER DEATH