ON IMMORTALITY: COUNTERTHESIS. 187 



Thus in the unconscious sphere there are to be found 

 the various physical forces and chemical elements ; but 

 besides these things, themselves unconscious though they 

 reveal themselves to consciousness, there may be behind 

 the phenomenal curtain something grander than con- 

 sciousness, though indescribable, and not to be projected 

 even in imagination upon the surface of any human 

 consciousness. 



There may be, then, in the unconscious sphere, some- 

 thing better, greater, grander than any consciousness. 

 There may be not one such state, but many, into one of 

 which we may one day enter after we quit this present 

 state. And now, what in particular may these states 

 be ? What are the states of being better than the highest 

 conscious state, better or greater than the poet's vision 

 of beauty, than the lover's paradise, than the enthusiast's 

 rapture, than the sage's peace; better, again, than the 

 unconscious bliss of Nirvana, the pure holiday-time of 

 simple non-existence, the utter extinction of conscious- 

 ness, the m/mmfum bonum of Buddha and Schopenhauer ? 

 Ah ! this we cannot tell. Philosophers, mystics, poets, 

 prophets, and revealers are all as impotent as the men 

 of science to say what may be, though they have been 

 for ever putting their souls on the stretch to describe 

 this great unexplored continent between consciousness 

 and annihilation. To know and tell this would be to 

 know and tell all. But "this eternal blazon must not 

 be to ears of flesh and blood," nor can it be made by 

 mortal mind. We await the only possible, the only real 

 enlightener, Death or if death is only a word to express 

 the failure of our present consciousness, we await the 

 experience itself on the further shore. 



Nevertheless, the great philosophers, poets, mystics, 

 and revealers have all taught us something. They have 



