AS A POSTULATE OF FEELING. 389 



desire for Immortality, but the history of Hinduism 

 shows that under certain circumstances the prospect of 

 the continuation of life may actually come to be pretty 

 universally regarded with horror and detestation, and 

 that the loss of personal existence by absorption into 

 the Absolute may become the highest object of de- 

 sire. Nor can human nature be utterly different in 

 the West ; and if among us the desire for annihil- 

 ation Is less prominent, it is not because it is there less 

 reasonable. For surely it must indicate a deplorable 

 lack either of imagination or of real belief. If men 

 who admit that if there Is a future life they have 

 merited the severest punishment — and there must 

 be many such — can prefer the torments of eternal 

 damnation to the cessation of life. Not only, there- 

 fore, does the argument from feeling involve the 

 somewhat dubious thesis that men desire continu- 

 ance at any price, but It also has first to posit the 

 rationality of things. The constitution of things 

 must not be so wantonly perverse as to baulk us of 

 the satisfaction of our desires. 



And even granting this, and granting, as we may 

 perhaps do, that the desire for immortality has played 

 an important and beneficial part In furthering the 

 progress of the world, we are not yet assured of a 

 personal immortality. It may be that our feelings 

 are not destined to utter disappointment in their 

 ultimate form, but that we were yet mistaken as to 

 the real drift of our present desires. It may be that 

 what would really satisfy them will be attained, and 

 yet prove something considerably different from what 

 we now desire. 



Yet we may concede to this plea a certain amount 

 of truth. It would truly be an outrage upon our 

 conviction of the rationality of things if a feeling so 



