282 ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY 



that our brains are such thin and half-transparent 

 places in the veil. What will happen ? Why, as 

 the white radiance comes through the dome with all 

 sorts of staining and distortion imprinted on it by 

 the glass, . . . even so the genuine matter of reality, 

 the life of souls as it is in its fulness, will break 

 through our several brains into this world in all sorts 

 of restricted forms, and with all the imperfections 

 and queernesses that characterise our finite individu- 

 alities here below." ^ 



This ideal theory of the true and real being that 

 hides behind phenomena. Professor James, I repeat, 

 puts forward only as a possible hypothesis, to point 

 and emphasise his contention that "when we think 

 of the law that thought is a function of the brain, 

 we are not required to think of productive function 

 only ; zve are entitled also to consider permissive or 

 traitsmissive function.'"^ For, on this hypothesis, 

 "our soul's life, as we here know it, would none the 

 less in literal strictness be the function of the brain." ^ 

 And bis object in this contention is to display the 

 pertinent and pointed moral, that "dependence of 

 this sort on the brain for this natural life would in 

 no wise make immortal life impossible ; it might 

 be quite compatible with supernatural life behind 

 the veil hereafter."* So that "in strict logic, then, 



•^ Human Immortality, pp. l6, 17. "^ Ibid., p. 15. 



^ Ibid.,^. 18. ^ Ibid.,^. 18. 



