The origin of the absurd idea of immortal life is easy to discover it is kept alive by hope and fear, by childish faith, and by cowardice.

Darrow dismisses belief in personal immortality as a psychologically motivated illusion rather than a conclusion grounded in evidence. He traces the persistence of the idea to emotional drivers—hope for reunion or reward, fear of death and punishment—reinforced by uncritical, “childish” faith and by “cowardice,” i.e., an unwillingness to face finitude. The quote reflects Darrow’s broader freethinking, anti-clerical stance and his tendency to explain religious doctrines in terms of human needs and social conditioning. Its force lies in reframing a metaphysical claim as a moral-psychological diagnosis: immortality is not discovered, but desired, and therefore believed.