192 Immortality [CH 



Progress is illusion and change is simply process. In- 

 stead of a whole creation groaning and travailing and 

 waiting together, instead of the earnest expectation of 

 the creature, we are but as the beasts, and must all 

 perish together. 



It may be said that we speak of the beasts that perish ; 

 why should we not ourselves perish too, to make way 

 for some nobler creature who may be fit for God's com- 

 pany? Is it true to say that the universe must lose all 

 meaning if man be not immortal? The answer to such 

 a question is easy. In the first place, are we sure that 

 the beasts do simply perish? Do we not rather trust the 

 goodness of God and believe that somehow life will be 

 made right for them as well as for us? Certainly many 

 of us do ; but this belief is really founded on our own be- 

 lief in personal immortality. Because we are sure that 

 God is just and loving to us, who believe ourselves able 

 to understand something of His nature, and who will one 

 day share His perfect experience, we are also sure that 

 God will prove j ust and loving to all His creatures. Since, 

 then, our belief in this matter is implicit in our belief in 

 our own immortality, we must turn to this once more. 



We are self-conscious; we know ourselves as persisting 

 through our experiences. In this, as far as we can judge, 

 we differ toto coelo from the lower animals. They know 

 only their experiences, not themselves as experients. In 

 man there is thus a new thing; and with it comes the 

 power of understanding the apparent order and reason 

 of the wprld. We cannot treat man as in the same cate- 

 gory with the lower creatures. He is able to see himself 

 as an end. If he is wrong, if his enduring self is but 

 illusion, God has played him false. He stands convicted 

 before the bar of our moral judgment, illusion though 

 this be also; He is no God. If man's immortality goes, 

 God goes too. 



This is, I think, a strong argument ; but yet it leaves 



