THE PHYSIOLOGY OF DEATH. 339 



of its own relations with the infinity of like unities, and 

 which more or less draws near to them by thought and by 

 love. It is beyond our power to conceive what will become 

 of that unity when, quitting its prison of flesh, and soaring 

 into the ideal ether, it will no longer have organs with 

 which to act ; but what we can affirm is that, precisely by- 

 reason of this freedom, it will rise to a clearer knowledge 

 of all that it had only known obscurely, and to a purer love 

 of what it had adored only through the veil of sense. And 

 this certainty, which is the ennobling and elevating force 

 of life, is also the consolation for death. 



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