ON IMMORTALITY : COUNTERTHESIS. 173 



be immeasurably distant in comparison with the failure 

 of our species, the earth herself will perish, by falling 

 back upon the sun from which, in her state of nebulous 

 vapour, she was originally separated. 



Thus argues Science : but the admission that there 

 are other worlds, with possibly higher forms of life and 

 consciousness, possibly something better than conscious- 

 ness, permits the mystic still to indulge a hope of further 

 life. Let us grant him in turn a hearing. 



Might I not be caught up again after my departure 

 hence, in some new and grander stream of evolution, in 

 some other planet, sun, or star in the course of ages ? 

 Might I not find myself an atom, a conscious being, in 

 this new stream of life, in the same entirely mysterious 

 way as I once was on the earth ? There is ample time 

 ahead, and it is easy for the dead to wait till the 

 favourable chance, the happy moment arises, which 

 ushers me into life once more. There is endless time, 

 there are infinite worlds, there are innumerable possi- 

 bilities. Somewhere, then, sometime, and somehow, I 

 shall be summoned up again ; I shall awaken refreshed 

 after my deep Lethean bath of sleep, and shall take part 

 once again in the strange and mysterious, but withal 

 interesting, drama of life and consciousness, I know 

 not how, or where, or when; but what has once hap- 

 pened can at least happen again, and with infinite 

 chances may and likely will happen. The miracle and 

 the mystery of my awakening from nothing into con- 

 sciousness has undeniably once occurred ; my next new 

 birth will be only a repetition of the miracle which has 

 once already occurred in my particular case. This is 

 indeed so little inconceivable, that it is the fear and 

 dread of the Buddhist that it will happen ; it was to 

 deliver the wise and virtuous man from this danger, so 



