ON IMMORTALITY. ff' 165 



UNi'ERSIT. 



But he, his hopes and hates, his homes an^faee, 

 And even his bones long laid within the gr^ws 

 The very sides of the grave itself, shall pass^ 

 Vanishing, atom and void, atom and void, 

 Into the unseen forever. 



How absurd, then, to raise a question as to the immor- 

 tality of the countless myriads of a species that in time 

 shall itself have utterly vanished, without leaving a 

 trace ; the very memory of which shall have passed out 

 of the consciousness of the universe, if any such be left 

 after the disappearance of man ! How presumptuous to 

 suppose that Nature so values these countless individuals 

 as to think it worth her pains to preserve their souls for 

 ever! Immortality was a doctrine begotten of man's 

 presumption, and suitable to his days of ignorance, when 

 he believed that the earth was the central and only im- 

 portant body in the universe; that he himself was 

 specially created, and wholly different from the animals ; 

 and that his soul was a most precious thing, which must 

 at all hazards be saved in the economy of Nature. It is 

 not a doctrine that harmonizes with the views of life 

 and the universe that modern science discloses, still less 

 with the more modest estimate of his own nature and 

 merits, that the judgment of every rational man, in con- 

 firmation of the conclusions of science, must, if he is only 

 fair and candid with himself, inevitably come to. 



