CHAPTER XI 



CONCLUSION 



Summary of the Argument The Creed of Nature 

 The Next Step? 



IN order to show that in the preceding chapters 

 I have not been reasoning loosely, nor obscuring 

 the question with literary flourishes, I will here lay 

 the bare chain of my argument before my readers 

 so that they may test for themselves the strength 

 of each of the nineteen links of which it is com- 

 posed, as follows: 



1. There can be no unhappiness or " suffering " 

 in the human sense of anguish, agony, pain, 

 torment, torture, etc. unless one knows what one 

 feels. 



2. There can be no knowledge of what one feels 

 without self -consciousness, that is to say, without 

 the power of thinking about one's feelings. 



3. The lowest forms of plants, such as the green, 

 slimy film which spreads over a damp paling, and 

 is composed of myriads of microscopic one-celled 

 plants, which multiply by splitting up, cannot have 

 the power of thinking about their " feelings." 

 When you brush against an old fence and make 



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