1875.) The Possibility of a Future Life. 483 
own atmosphere has also to be taken into account. It is 
further supposed by some that space may contain in consider- 
able numbers the dead bodies of extinguished suns, which, 
of course, may eclipse to us the light of stars placed behind 
them. Hence there is absolutely no proof that any light 
is absorbed by the ether. The supposition of such a process 
is merely one out of several ways of accounting for certain 
facts, and it is in no manner forced upon our acceptance. 
But supposing such an absorption to take place, is there 
any necessity that the force thus gained is handed over to 
an assumed secondether? None whatever: this force may, 
quite as probably, be restored to the visible universe in man- 
ners not dreamt of in ourphilosopy. An acute though sar- 
castic critic has pointed out that it may be transformed into 
other kinds of motion, or may serve in making up atoms, 
and even that the doctrine of the conservation of force may 
be only an approximate truth, and that the light, if any, 
absorbed by the ether, may be simply lost. 
Amongthe possible objeCtions to their views—it is curious, 
by the way, to note the kind of arguments which theorists 
put into the mouths of imaginary opponents,—we find it 
conceded that the unseen universe of the authors will find 
room for an immortality, not of man only, but also in brutes. 
How far down the organic series immortality is supposed 
to extend they do not say. Plants, indeed, have no brain and 
possibly no memory, but may not the same be said of many 
forms of animal life? We certainly should not object to the 
widest extension of a future existence. Flowers and trees 
are always pleasant companions, which is vastly more than 
can be asserted of animals, our own species by no means 
excepted. 
But if we admit the unseen universe of our authors, and 
if we suppose our spiritual bodies duly elaborated there, and 
rendered the seat of the consciousness that has left its decay- 
ing tenement in this world, there is another difficulty remain- 
ing. How is our immortality in such future state to be 
guaranteed? Shall we be able to exert force without trans- 
formation of material, or, in other words, to create force out 
of nothing? This we have always held to be the preroga- 
tive of one only Being. But if not, will not the preserva- 
tion of our life depend upon conditions stri@tly analogous to 
those by which it is governed in our present state? Nor is 
this all; by hypothesis our spiritual bodies will stand to 
their surroundings in a very similar relation to that which 
our present frames bear to the medium which they now 
inhabit. But if so, we may extend the argument which the 
