xv PHILOSOPHY AND A FUTURE LIFE 285 



light upon its nature. Perhaps they have lived in terror 

 of it, like more ordinary mortals, and so lacked the courage 

 to think about it at all. At all events I can readily 

 believe, from a study of their doctrines, that Spinoza was 

 right in maintaining that there is no subject concerning 

 which the sage thinks less than about death. 1 Which, 

 nevertheless, is a great pity. For the sage is surely 

 wrong. There is no subject concerning which he, if he is 

 an idealist and has the courage of his opinions, OUGHT to 

 think more, and OUGHT to have more interesting things 

 to say. 



In partial proof of which let me attempt to arouse him 

 to reflection by propounding some old 2 paradoxes about 

 death which will, I think, be germane to our subject. 



1 i ) No man ever yet perished without annihilating also 

 the world in which he lived. 



(2) No man ever yet saw another die ; but if he had, he 

 would have witnessed his own annihilation. 



(3) The %vorld is the greatest of all conventions ; but all 

 are unconventional enough to leave it. 



(4) To die is to cut off our connexion with our friends ; 

 but do they cut us, or we them, or botli, or neither ? 



Now these paradoxes contain nothing but necessary 

 inferences from the idealistic view of the world, if it is 

 applied practically to the phenomenon of death/ and no 

 philosopher who really and seriously accepts that view 

 should have the slightest difficulty with them. But for 

 the sake of the others I feel that it may be better to add 

 a short commentary. &quot; No man ever yet perished without 

 annihilating also the world in which he lived,&quot; i.e., the world 

 of his experience, or as we may perhaps say with still more 

 accuracy, the objective world, in so far as it was assumed 

 to explain his experience. Moreover, &quot; no man ever yet 

 saw another die, but if he had he would have witnessed 

 his own annihilation &quot; : inasmuch as he could never see 

 the other s self and so a fortiori could not observe its de 

 struction ; what he saw was the death of a body which 



1 Eth. iv. Pr. 67. 

 2 Cp. S. P. R. Journal for March 1898, vol. viii. p. 204. 



