1892 THE BASIS OF MORALITY 323 



such change as that depicted in the fifteenth chapter of the first 

 Epistle to the Corinthians, immortality must be eternal misery. 

 The fate of Swift's Struldbrugs seems to me not more horrible 

 than that of a mind imprisoned for ever within the flammantia 

 mania of inextinguishable memories. 



Further, it may be well to remember that the highest level 

 of moral aspiration recorded in history was reached by a few 

 ancient Jews Micah, Isaiah, and the rest who took no count 

 whatever of what might or might not happen to them after 

 death. It is not obvious to me why the same point should not 

 by and by be reached by the Gentiles. 



He admits that the generality of mankind will not be 

 satisfied to be told that there are some topics about which 

 we know nothing now, and do not seem likely ever to be able 

 to know more ; and, consequently, that in the long-run the 

 world will turn to those who profess to have conclusions : 



And that is the pity of it. As in the past, so, I fear, through 

 a very long future, the multitude will continue to turn to those 

 who are ready to feed it with the viands its soul lusteth after ; 

 who will offer mental peace where there is no peace, and lap it 

 in the luxury of pleasant delusions. 



To missionaries of the Neo-Positivist, as to those of other 

 professed solutions of insoluble mysteries, whose souls are bound 

 up in the success of their sectarian propaganda, no doubt, it 

 must be very disheartening if the " world," for whose assent 

 and approbation they sue, stops its ears and turns its back upon 

 them. But what does it signify to any one who does not happen 

 to be a missionary of any sect, philosophical or religious, and 

 who, if he were, would have no sermon to preach except from 

 the text with which Descartes, to go no further back, furnished 

 us two centuries since? I am very sorry if people will not 

 listen to those who rehearse before them the best lessons they 

 have been able to learn, but that is their business, not mine. Be- 

 lief in majorities is not rooted in my breast, and if all the world 

 were against me the fact might warn me to revise and criticise 

 my opinions, but would not in itself supply a ghost of a reason 

 for forsaking them. For myself I say deliberately, it is better 

 to have a millstone tied round the neck and be thrown into the 

 sea than to share the enterprises of those to whom the world 

 has turned, and will turn, because they minister to its weak- 

 nesses and cover up the awful realities which it shudders to 

 look at. 



