HUMAN IMMORTALITY 307 



We are not yet come, however, to the utmost 

 goal of our desire : we are still short of the com- 

 plete meaning of immortality, for that is the utter 

 imperishableness of the soul. Our argument, so 

 far, only goes expressly to the point that we sur- 

 vive death, — perhaps many deaths. But one can 

 well ask, May we not be subject to substantive 

 destruction, by some otJier cause, some other power .'' 

 — to annihilation outright, in our eternal essence, 

 and, if the reasoner please, mysteriously, inexpli- 

 cably, whether by the power of God or otherwise } 

 Yet to this more searching question too, our argu- 

 ment, once its subtlest implications are brought to 

 light, yields an answer favourable to our most im- 

 passioned aspirations. For the ultimate and real 

 meaning of the argument is, that a soul or mind 

 or person, purely as such, is itself the fountain of 

 its percipient experience, and so possesses what has 

 been happily named "life in itself." Proof of the 

 presence in us of a priori or spontaneous cognition, 

 then, is proof of just this self-causative life. 



A world of such individual minds is by the final 

 implications of this proof the world of primary 

 causes, and every member of it, secure above the 

 vicissitudes of Time and Space and Force, is pos- 

 sessed of a supertemporal or eternal reality, and is 

 therefore not liable to any lethal influence from 

 any other source. Itself a primary cause, it can 



