426 IMMORTALITY. 



to combat the objections which easily suggest them- 

 selves, and which make up by their obviousness for 

 what they may be lacking in profundity. Thus to 

 dismiss the philosophy of love by saying that " they 

 shall be ow^fleshl' and that this is the whole mean- 

 ing of the desire to be one spirit, is to appeal to a 

 coarsely physical method of explanation, which is as 

 good as explanations of the higher by the lower 

 usually are {cp, ch. vi. § 3) ; but it should at this point 

 be unnecessary to show in detail why it is mislead- 

 ing. 



The essential points for which we must now con- 

 tend are that such a metaphysic of love will not in 

 any wise affect either the practical value of our 

 doctrine of immortality or the metaphysical prin- 

 ciples on which it rests. It does not affect its 

 emotional value, because ex hypothesi the basis of 

 the evidence for the explanation suggested is 

 emotional, and it is our desire for the coalescence of 

 imperfect personalities which makes us think it 

 possible. Hence there is no loss, but gain : what- 

 ever we may lose of individual immortality is lost 

 because it is our soul's desire, is lost because we 

 gain in return a higher good which we desire more 

 intensely than what we sacrifice. And, moreover, 

 it is not even true that the self is lost by being 

 absorbed and growing one with what it loves : it is 

 lost as little as our earth-life is lost by passing into 

 a higher phase of being (§ 1 5). 



And similarly this theory contains nothing that 

 need modify our metaphysics and our view of the 

 world-process, but rather confirms them. We can- 

 not argue from a possible fusion of imperfect into 

 perfect persons to an impossible confusion of all 

 things in the absolute One. We need not therefore 



I 



