THE SURVIVAL OF IMPERFECT PHASES. 4O9 



ness which substantially preserves his personality. 

 And yet, when we look upon the sordid lives of 

 others, whose outlook is limited to the grossest 

 features of this world, we cannot but feel that the 

 persistence of their personalities would be only an 

 obstacle to the development of their spirit. And so 

 it will perhaps seem a probable compromise to make 

 the aspirations of the soul, ix., the fitness of the 

 phenomenal self to adapt itself to the conditions of 

 a higher spiritual life, the test of immortality, and 

 to suppose that the desire of continuance, whether 

 widely or exceptionally felt, affords a fairly adequate 

 measure of personal survival. We need not suppose 

 that personal immortality will be forced on those 

 whose phenomenal self has not desired it nor pre- 

 pared itself to survive death, and who make no effort 

 to preserve the memory of their past, nor yet that 

 those should be baulked who have really and in- 

 tensely desired it. And for these latter the practical 

 outcome of this doctrine cannot be formulated more 

 truly and more concisely than in the maxim of 

 Aristotle, oo-w fxaK^TTa aQavaTiQeiv} bidding them " as 

 far as possible to lead the life of immortality " on 

 earth, ix,, to live constantly in communion with the 

 ideal, and in co-operation with the aim of the world's 

 evolution. 



§ 16. Such are the outlines of a theory of im- 

 mortality which would meet the main difficulties of 

 the subject, and explain how a future life can admit 

 of gradations proportioned to the grades and con- 

 ditions of consciousness. But our account would be 

 incomplete if it did nothing to elucidate several 

 points not yet touched upon. The easiest miscon- 

 ception, e.g,, to fall into would be that of regarding 

 1 Ar. Eth. Nich. X. vii. S. 



