vi] Immortality 201 



We have said that if there is no memory linking up a 

 man's different existences, the consciousness will be so 

 different that it is meaningless to speak of the same 

 person; and we used this argument against the doctrine 

 of reincarnation upon earth. But we have all along 

 admitted the probability of other existences, of other 

 grades of being and stages of approach. Here is no real 

 difficulty however; for as long as there is becoming- 

 progress there must be memory, and with memory, 

 continuity of personal experience. Where the difficulty 

 does become real is at the point where man has been 

 made perfect; for we have argued that in pure trans- 

 cendence there must be pure simultaneity, and lience 

 no memory. 



The problem is more apparent than real; and the 

 solution of it is involved in its statement. In pure 

 transcendence process in duration has ceased. The 

 individual is a self -identity whose nature is determined 

 by past experiences of process. All it is is in an eternal 

 now, in which there is no room for memory. It has 

 finally escaped from the temporal illusion. For, if we 

 define memory as potential ideas, no such things can 

 exist in simultaneous being, where the whole personality 

 eternally fulfills every activity, and nothing is latent. 

 On the other hand, if, with Bergson, we say that memory 

 exists in the past and is selected from in response to 

 present needs, we can only claim that in simultaneous 

 being everything is present; there cannot be at any 

 moment a reservoir of unused past. No doubt we do 

 not fully understand what such existence would mean; 

 but at least it is clear that where everything is in the 

 now there can be no question of lost identity. Absence 

 of memory can only involve a loss of individuality while 

 process is still going on in duration ; while there is any- 

 thing left uncompleted. 



If the arguments we have just set forth are just, we 



