ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



1800. 1 had sooner be in hell, a good deal — " as if he 

 expected to lie awake nights in his grave lamenting 

 his sad fate and saying to himself, "I had sooner be 

 in hell," where also he expected he would be con- 

 scious of his improved condition ! 



What possible difference could it make to him if 

 he did not know any more in 1900 than he did in 

 1800? Did he expect to enjoy his knowledge in 1900? 

 If not, why worry about it? What he was really la- 

 menting was that he did not know then and there 

 what he might know if he lived till 1900. He knew 

 that human knowledge was making tremendous 

 strides, and the thought that he should not share in 

 its advancement chilled him. 



It is all very human, but very childish. We may 

 to-day dread some task or ordeal that we are to face 

 to-morrow, because to-morrow we expect to be 

 alive, but shall we shrink from the to-morrow of 

 death on the same grounds? 



There is wisdom as well as wit in the epitaph in 

 dialogue which a clever Greek Byzantine composed 

 for Pyrrho : 



"Art thou dead, Pyrrho?" 



"I do not know." 



If we put the same question to our own dead, if 

 they could answer, they would say, "We do not 

 know." If they knew, would not that be proof that 

 they were not dead? May we not answer Huxley 

 that if consciousness is extinguished with life, he is 



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