ix THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY 201 



mental existence; and we have no more reason, in 

 the latter case, than in the former, to suppose that 

 there is anything beyond the phenomena which 

 answers to the name. In the case of the soul, as 

 in that of the body, the idea of substance is a 

 mere fiction of the imagination. This conclusion 

 is nothing but a rigorous application of Berkeley's 

 reasoning concerning matter to mind, and it is 

 fully adopted by Kant.* 



Having arrived at the conclusion that the con- 

 ception of a soul, as a substantive thing, is a mere 

 figment of the imagination; and that, whether it 

 exists or not, we can by no possibility know any- 

 thing about it, the inquiry as to the durability of 

 the soul may seem superfluous. 



Nevertheless, there is still a sense in which, 

 even under these conditions, such an inquiry is 

 justifiable. Leaving aside the problem of the 

 substance of the soul, and taking the word " soul " 

 simply as a name for the series of mental 

 phenomena which make up an individual mind; 

 it remains open to us to ask, whether that series 

 commenced with, or before, the series of 

 phenomena which constitute the corresponding 

 individual body; and whether it terminates with 



* " Our internal intuition shows no permanent existence, 

 for the Ego is only the consciousness of my thinking." 

 " There is no means whatever by which we can learn any- 

 thing respecting the constitution of the soul, so far as re- 

 gards the possibility of its separate existence." Kritik von 

 den Paralogismen der reinen Vernunft. 



