172 THE CUBED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 



sciousness, which some consider such a fine thing, but 

 which they consider the grand error made by Nature, 

 and the sad cause of all our woe so much so, indeed, 

 that a celebrated philosopher has been much exercising 

 his mind how best this grand false step and capital 

 blunder of Nature's may be corrected, even yet, though 

 so late in the day. Hartmann, following Schopenhauer, 

 as we know, labours strenuously to show us how this 

 obstinate inherent disease in the inmost constitution of 

 Nature, this continual breaking out into consciousness 

 and individual life, may be finally eradicated from 

 Nature's system. In a word, consciousness with Hart- 

 mann to-day, as with Buddha centuries ago, is the grand 

 evil, for which Nirvana, though differently sought for by 

 each, is the accepted and the only cure. 



Thus we see that the wise, weighing its evil against 

 its good, are by no means agreed as to the desirability 

 of consciousness. But however these questions be finally 

 decided, if ever, by philosophers ; whether consciousness 

 be essentially an evil or no ; whether it will finally fail 

 altogether in the universe or no ; whether there be 

 greater and better things than consciousness elsewhere 

 or no on all which questions Science too has an opinion, 

 though the present is not the place to press it ; the 

 lesson which she categorically teaches with respect to 

 you, the individual, is that your particular consciousness, 

 and that of all men resembling you, bound up as each 

 one is with its indispensable bodily basis, ceases at death. 

 Further, though the lesson less materially concerns you, 

 it is the teaching of Science that, at the end of a period 

 not long in comparison with the long history of the 

 earth, the human species, together with all that it ever 

 produced, will disappear from the earth ; and at the last, 

 though this is less certain, and in any case will probably 



