PARADOXICAL PHILOSOPHY. 



esrtain arcomstances, "there must arise a consciousness." Such statements, care- 

 fyiy itndkrt, mar contribute to the further progress of science hi the path 

 which we have been describing, by shewing more clearly that consciousness 

 be the result of a plexus of nervous communications any more than of 



of plastidule souls. 



Jity is often spoken of as if it were another name for the continuity 



of oooscioasness as reproduced in memory, but it is impossible to deal with 

 personality at if it were something objective that we could reason about. My 

 knowledge that I am is quite independent of my recollection that I was, and 

 also of my belief that, for a certain number of years, I have never ceased to 

 be. But as soon aa we plunge into the abysmal depths of personality we get 

 beyond the limits of science, for all science, and, indeed, every form of human 

 tpeech. is about objects capable of being known by the speaker and the hearer. 

 Whenever we pretend to talk about the Subject we are really dealing with an 

 Object under a false name, for the first proposition about the Subject, namely, 

 ' I am," cannot be used in the same sense by any two of us, and therefore 

 can never become part of science at all. 



The progress of science, therefore, so far as we have been able to follow 

 it. baa added nothing of importance to what has always been known about the 

 physical consequences of death, but has rather tended to deepen the distinction 

 between the visible part, which perishes before our eyes, and that which we 

 are ourselves, and to shew that this personality, with respect to its nature as 

 well as to its destiny, lies quite beyond the range of science. 



