The literature on the philosophical problems involved in the question of a future life begins with Plato. We cannot therefore do better than start with a quotation from Phaedo, the dialogue in which Plato deployed what is put forward as a demonstration of the immortality of the soul. Having heard and apparently accepted the supposed proof put into the mouth of Socrates, Crito asks:

"But how shall we bury you?" "However you please," Socrates replied, "if you can catch me and I do not get away from you." And he laughed gently, and looking towards us, said: "I cannot persuade Crito, my friends, that the Socrates who is now conversing and arranging the details of his argument is really I: he thinks I am the one whom he will presently see as a corpse, and he asks how to bury me. And though I have been saying at...