HUMAN IMMORTALITY 283 



the fangs of cerebralistic materialism are drawn ; " 

 ..." the fatal consequence is not coercive, the con- 

 clusion which materialism draws being due solely 

 to its one-sided way of taking the word 'function.' " ^ 

 He points out that it assumes the functional relation 

 of brain to consciousness to be always and solely 

 productive, ignoring the fact that it may just as well 

 be either (r) permissive, i.e. releasing, or (2) trans- 

 missive. "My words," he closes by saying, "ought 

 consequently to exert a releasing function on your 

 hopes. You may believe henceforward, whether you 

 care to profit by the permission or not." ^ 



Upon this merely permissive conclusion of his 

 argument, this bare opening of room for belief, — to 

 take advantage of which we must summon the cour- 

 age to risk the belief, and so leave it after all a mat- 

 ter of sheer resolution, — I repeat I can hardly doubt 

 that many of you wondered if this were all that phil- 

 osophic thought can do for our heart's desire after 

 light and foothold beyond the grave. You must 

 have wondered if that region of "super-solar blaze" 

 must always remain this blank Perhaps ; if that 

 "white radiance of eternity" always must be visible 

 to the poet's eye alone ; or if it might not, rather, 

 by some better philosophic fortune be revealed to 

 clear insight as a reality undeniable, and so our belief 

 in it become the act of intelligence, solid and sup- 



^ Human Immortality, pp. 18, 19. "^ Ibid., p. 19. 



