b 



WANTED A GRADUATED IMMORTALITY. 397 



Utterly Impossible to attribute an Immortal, or Indeed 

 any sort of consciousness, to the material rudiments 

 of our Individual existence ; and the modern doctrine 

 of the descent of man makes It almost as Impossible 

 to do so In the case of the race. The union of two 

 minute particles of Matter Is the historical origin, at 

 all events, of all conscious beings ; and at what point 

 in the historical development can we Introduce a 

 transition from the material existence of the germs, 

 which exists only for consciousness, to the spiritual 

 existence of an Immortal consciousness?^ Or again. 

 If all living beings have been propagated from living 

 protoplasm, and if man is but the highest of the 

 animals, but does not differ from them In kind, how 

 can we, In the Infinite gradations of spiritual evol- 

 ution, draw a line anywhere to separate men or 

 animals who possess Immortal souls from those that 

 do not? It would seem that they must all be 

 treated alike ; either all animals are immortal or 

 none. And yet, while some might welcome a be- 

 lief In the immortality of the higher animals, e.g. of 

 dogs, how could any one admit the immortality of 

 an amoeba ? And even if our generosity rose to 

 the absurd pitch of admitting it, how could we 

 carry this belief into practice ? how should we discern 

 the immortality of beings which possess so little in- 

 dividuality ? Is every leaf or cell of a tree, and 

 every segment of a zoophyte — In short, every part of 

 an organism which under favourable conditions is 

 capable of Independent existence — an immortal in- 

 dividual ? If so, can we multiply Immortal souls by 

 dividing a jelly-fish ? Surely, when once the question 

 Is definitely raised that we must be just as Immortal 



1 Cp. Mr. F. H. Bradley's Logic^ p. 466, for a forcible and 

 frank discussion of this difficulty. 



