ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



All the elements that enter into my body must per- 

 sist; they always have persisted through all the 

 vicissitudes of astronomic and geologic time. We 

 are as sure of that as we are sure of anything, and 

 we are sure that they will continue in some form to 

 exist. We believe it without proof. Our scientific 

 faith carries us over this gulf — our faith in the 

 oneness and integrity of the universe. Is there any- 

 thing real, in the same sense, in what we call our 

 minds or souls? Huxley was convinced that con- 

 sciousness was as real as matter and energy, and 

 must persist like them — persist in other persons 

 who follow us; but how about our individual selves? 

 And how about consciousness when the race of man 

 becomes extinct? We can only take refuge in the 

 thought that consciousness will dawn and continue 

 in other worlds through all time, or rather endless 

 time, since the all of a thing implies limits. Equally 

 to make consciousness coeval with matter and en- 

 ergy, we must think of it as having existed in other 

 worlds throughout an endless and beginningless 

 past. But my consciousness and your consciousness 

 are bound up with certain combinations of matter 

 which we know are unstable — in fact, are the re- 

 sult, in a sense, of their instability, their ceaseless 

 change. 



In the final change, which we call death, what 

 happens to consciousness? When we try to think of 

 it in terms of our actual experience with tangible 



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