How to cope with the inevitability and finality of death was one of the more dis

turbing of the many troubling questions which prompted the writing of 'Foundatio
ns'. It also provided the motive for the proposal to establish the Society of Hu
manKind. The hope which that first founding book creates is that by our own effo
rts in and through the Society we will gain eternal life for ourselves and for e
very member of our species. If we are to dedicate ourselves to the achievement o
f that Aim we must truly believe that it will be realised. The corollary must be
an equal conviction that both the dead and the yet to be born are not forever l
ost to us, a consequence which gives the Treatise on Morality its force.
Adherence to the Society of HumanKind and a sincere commitment to its Aim must m
ean that we believe the death of an individual to be no more than a transition f
rom one state of existence to another. That assurance may provide some comfort t
o us when we face our own mortality but it can offer little to help us to cope w
ith the passing of those we love. Death will still irrecoverably separate us fro
m them. The Society will not give its support to any attempt to communicate with
the dead. The risks involved for the natural progression of our history, and fo
r the achievement of our Aim are incalculable and therefore unacceptable. We mus
t learn to accept that once we have lost one of our companions to death, they ar
e gone to us for the rest of our lives. The Society and our faith in it may lead
us to the confident hope that we will meet them again, and in better circumstan
ces, but we will still have to live without them, and with the pain and distress
of their absence.
Much of the pain of death for the living comes from a sense of loss. It marks an
end to all the possibilities both for ourselves and for the departed that might
have been realised by a longer life. Yet the Principle of Peace and the Treatis
e on the Individual both emphasise our inability to judge the value of the exist
ence of any individual with any certainty. How then can we even estimate what an
y individual might have contributed to our society had they lived longer? How ca
n we begin to guess what might have happened in our lives had they still been wi
th us? An understanding of the Principle of Peace must lead us to recognise that
we have no measure by which we can judge whether it was better for any individu
al to have lived a longer, or for that matter, a shorter life.
Or even to have lived at all. Only if the achievement of the Objective of the Do
gma is followed by a realisation of the Aim of the Society of HumanKind will we
be able to say with any confidence that every individual lived for as long as wa
s needed, and that they made their proper contribution to the survival and progr
ess of humanity. Only then can we be sure that no-one lives or dies in vain. If
that Aim is not realised however, then no matter how great the impact of any hum
an life, or how valuable its contribution to the history of our species, both fo
r us and for the departed, all will vanish like a stick snatched from water, lea
ving no trace.
We honour the dead therefore by working to reunify humanity outside the constrai
nts of our mortality, which is the cause of their loss to us. We cannot ease our
pain by attempting to estimate the value of their lives, because we have no mea
ns to make that judgement. All we can do is to strengthen our resolve to accompl
ish their salvation, a task to which they can make no further contribution.
Let us therefore mark the occasion of death as the moment simply to give thanks
for the life of the departed. If we truly believe that the Objective of the Dogm
a will be achieved then we must be confident that the existence of the deceased
will contribute to that success. In that faith we can rededicate ourselves to th
e discharge of our Duty, through a renewed determination to build the realisatio
n of the Aim of the Society of HumanKind upon the work and achievements of all o
ur predecessors, not just the one that might be specially in our thoughts.
In the presence of death we must look to the future and give thanks for our exis

tence; our culture; our knowledge; our peace; and our unity. That is the pricele
ss gift of the dead and the foundation on which we must build our hopes for thei
r salvation, and for that of all humanity.