28o HUMANISM xv 



be that a future life which was accessible to scientific 

 methods of proof would necessarily appear to be of a 

 somewhat homely and humdrum character, displeasing to 

 spiritual sensationalists. Broadly speaking, our conceptions 

 of it would rest on the assumption of social and psychic 

 continuity, and they would tend to suppose that the 

 reward and punishment of the soul consisted mainly in 

 its continuing to be itself, with the intrinsic consequences 

 of its true nature revealed more and more clearly to itself 

 and others. Hence there would be but little scope 

 for epic flights of a lurid imagination, and those who 

 hanker after the ecstasies of the blessed and the torments 

 of the damned would have to go, as before, to the 

 preachers and the poets. We may, however, trust these 

 latter to work up a more copious material into pictures 

 quite as edifying and thrilling as those of Homer, Dante, 

 and Milton. 



II 



I have assumed hitherto, without a hint of doubt, the 

 general possibility of the conception of a future life. 

 But, after all, this also is an assumption, of a very vital 

 character, and one which has been strongly impugned on 

 a priori grounds. I shall devote, therefore, my concluding 

 remarks to disposing of such philosophic attempts at an 

 a priori suppression of the question and to stating some 

 of the philosophic considerations which lead me to think 

 the conception of a future life a valid and non-contra 

 dictory one, whether or not we are able or anxious to 

 find empirical evidence of its actual existence. On the 

 first point I may be brief: I should not deny that it is 

 possible to devise metaphysical systems which will render 

 the persistence of the individual consciousness improbable 

 and even impossible, and which consequently close the 

 question to all who conscientiously adopt them. Person 

 ally, I believe those systems to be demonstrably wrong, 

 but it is enough for our purpose that they should be 

 gratuitous, and that we may, at least equally well, adopt 

 metaphysical views which leave the question open, or 



