ON IMMORTALITY: COUNTERTHESIS. 183 



of the past is not implied under either religion. The 

 greatest poets, too, as well as philosophers and founders 

 of religions, have had this thought of another existence ; 

 and the poets must count for much in the argument, 

 since they possess in higher degree than others the 

 great creative faculty of imagination which outlines the 

 province of the possible beyond the reach of other men. 

 They see, at least the greatest of them see, more clearly 

 than men possessing only the logical intellect and a more 

 limited range of intuitions, what may be possible, and 

 how much there is room for in the nature of things. 

 And does not the very greatest of poets, who was also 

 supreme as a thinker, while treating this great question 

 of a future life through the thought of Hamlet, regard a 

 further existence as possible, without any necessary re- 

 collection of the past ? Has Shakespeare not carefully 

 considered the scientific conclusion, " To die, to sleep 

 no more," and while judging this a good thing and "a 

 consummation devoutly to be wished " in face of the 

 multiplied miseries of life which he enumerates, does he 

 not also reject it as an insufficient determination of the 

 question by qualifying the natural suggestion, "to die, 

 to sleep," by the noteworthy addition, "to sleep, perchance 

 to dream ; ay, there's the rub " ? 



In fact, this mighty spirit, in profound philosophic 

 insight, as in all else incomparable, has given a summary 

 of the whole argument in this memorable soliloquy, 

 which has never been approached by savant or philo- 

 sopher for depth and weight and point, and he has 

 condensed the conclusions of both sides in this great 

 debate, as well as the whole result of the argument, into 

 a single line 



To die, to sleep ; to sleep, perchance to dream* 



