402 IMMORTALITY 



whose activities have been devoted to the com- 

 mission of evil deeds, that burn their impress on 

 the soul, will be haunted by their torturing memory. 

 Those who have trained and habituated themselves 

 to high and noble activities, who have disposed 

 their thoughts towards truths which are permanent 

 and their affections towards relations which are 

 enduring, will rise to life everlasting, and will have 

 actions worthy of memory to look back upon. The 

 cup of Circe, the debasing draught of forgetfulness, 

 which turns men into beasts, and renders them 

 oblivious of their divine destiny, will pass from 

 them. And they will be capable of remembering 

 their past life, glad to retrace the record of great 

 and noble deeds and lofty aspirations, the promise 

 of a spiritual progress they have since nobly ful- 

 filled. Nor will the memory of the past fade until 

 it pleases them to forget it in the ecstasy of still 

 sublimer activities. Thus each of us will be the 

 master and maker of his own self and of his own 

 immortality, and his future life will be such as he 

 has deserved. 



§ 13. But it may be objected that memory does 

 not last for ever, and that hence a future life de- 

 pending on it would endure but for a season. And 

 the fact that this and several other objections might 

 be brought against the views we have hinted at, 

 should admonish us of the necessity of dropping 

 the negative method of criticizing inconclusive 

 arguments, and proceeding at length to a connected 

 account of a positive doctrine. It may be a salutary 

 and necessary discipline to begin at the beginning 

 as it appears to us, to start with the obvious diffi- 

 culties which a subject presents to our first attack ; 

 but after such efforts have cleared the ground, we 



