HUMAN IMMORTALITY 287 



the rebuttal of the second objection to immortal 

 life — the strange objection drawn from the enmd 

 at contemplating the incalculable thronging of the 

 eternal world, invoh^ed in immortality. "Life," he 

 rehearses, in behalf of the objector, "is a good thing 

 on a reasonably copious scale ; but the very heavens 

 themselves, and the cosmic times and spaces, would 

 stand aghast, we think, at the notion of preserving 

 eternally such an ever-swelling plethora and glut 

 of it."^ And to the objection his telling reply is 

 in substance this : The inner significance of other 

 lives exceeds all our powers of sympathy and insight. 

 . . . Every one of these aliens, however gro- 

 tesque or even repulsive to you or to me, is ani- 

 mated by an inner joy of living as hot or hotter 

 than that which we feel beating in our private 

 breasts. . . . Not a being of the countless throng 

 is there whose continued life is not called for, and 

 called for intensely, by the consciousness that ani- 

 mates the being's form. . . . Spiritual being, when- 

 ever it comes, affirms itself, expands, and craves 

 continuance.^ 



The true and real point of this reply, you cannot 

 fail to notice, turns entirely upon the assumption 

 that nothing short of individual immortality can be 

 the object of any serious question in this region. 

 So now let us ask, with accuracy, what assurance — 



1 Human fm mortality, p. 36. ^ jf^id^^ pp. 39-41. 



