on the one hand, immortality is likened to the vital energy, which,
®owing from time immemorial, is passed from one organism to
the next—from the ¤rst tree to its seed, on to another tree. On
the other hand, all kinds of evidences from parapsychology are
introduced to justify the belief that the person survives as a dis-
carnate, insubstantial spirit and returns to human existence. Be-
tween these two views there lies an enormous difference: whereas
the ¤rst substitutes a nonindividual continuing vitality for any per-
sistence of the person, the second presupposes such persistence.^54Likewise, the nineteenth century’s fascination with (and its revulsion
from) scienti¤c theories of evolution also shaped Whitman’s concep-
tion of death. David Kuebrich observes, “modern science and democratic
thought enabled the poet to arrive at a new, and in his mind more exalted
understanding not only of this world but also of the afterlife,” so that
“he conceived of the afterlife as a process in which the soul attained to
successively higher levels of illumination and participation in the divine
consciousness... [a] belief in humanity’s in¤nite potential for spiritual
development.”^55 Whitman also interpreted evolution as evidence of the
inexorable advancement of the race and of his own exalted destiny; he
might have applauded Darwin’s assertion that “as natural selection works
solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endow-
ments will tend to progress toward perfection.” But he credited science
with making only limited advances toward the highest truths. The “facts”
of science “are not my dwelling,” he declares in “Song of Myself”; “I enter
by them to an area of my dwelling.” The scienti¤c evolution of Huxley
and Darwin, he remarked late in life, is only a “working hypothesis”; but
“when it comes to explaining absolute beginnings and ends,” it doesn’t
clear up “the mystery any better than the philosophies that have preceded
it.” He admired the evolutionary hypothesis, he said, essentially because
that sort of thinking “always keeps the way beyond open—always gives
life, thought, affection, the whole man, a chance to try over again after a
mistake—after a wrong guess.” (“The way beyond” can refer, ambigu-
ously, either to the terrestrial or the post-terrestrial future.)^56
Leaves of Grass explores the many resonances of death because Whit-
man chose to look at death (as he looked at everything) from every pos-
sible angle, and so depicted death as a tragic loss, a personal drama, an
aspect of species immortality, or as a point of departure on his quest to
attain godliness. Because of the poet’s empathy and compassion, his in-
Introduction / 29