288 ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY 



what leaving open of a consoling hope, even — of this 

 personal preservation the transmission-theory of 

 brain-function can afford. Professor James de- 

 clares, and no one will deny, that the production- 

 theory leaves no room for the hope of any kind of 

 immortality, individual or generic : does his trans- 

 mission-theory, then, really afford any hope of ittdi- 

 vidnal immortality ? And let us remind ourselves, 

 once more, that this is the only immortality in 

 which we have any interested concern, or are capa- 

 ble of having any. We are not interested in the 

 everlastingness of the eternal " mother sea," call 

 it God or call it what we will, unless we include in 

 it the sum of all our enduring distinct personalities. 

 So the question is, Does even the theory that the 

 brain performs simply a transmissive function in 

 our conscious life, instead of a producing one, really 

 warrant even a hope of personal preservation for- 

 ever, not to speak of an assurance of it } 



Professor James's own management of this theory 

 is singularly disappointing in this reference, and 

 singularly short of his own pungent emphasis of the 

 universal passion for personal continuance. The 

 white radiance of eternity which he hints as shining- 

 through the many-coloured dome of natural life, 

 — the pied translucence of the brain, — is prevail- 

 ingly conceived by him as in itself a continuous 

 and undivided and undifferentiated Whole. Upon 



