188 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 



shown us the possibility of such grander spheres of being, 

 both conscious and unconscious, if they have not been 

 able to describe the actuality by analogy, or similitude, 

 or suggestion. They have both suggested the possibility 

 and they have shown us the credibility of such other 

 greater states. In particular, one conclusion of the 

 greatest significance and importance, but left out in the 

 scientific reckoning, has been suggested by philosophy, 

 namely, that the removal of consciousness is not equal 

 to annihilation, that death is not the eternal wind up ; 

 that what follows is not the state of the flame when the 

 oil that fed it is all consumed. In short, the suggestion 

 of Science itself respecting matter and force, holds of 

 consciousness and of existence generally There is no 

 creation or annihilation, but only a change of state. 

 The conscious may pass into the unconscious, and into 

 many and inconceivable varieties of the unconscious, and 

 it may re-emerge into the conscious again, and the 

 process may be, as sometimes we hope, and sometimes 

 we dread, an eternal one ! 



Thus though we cannot describe higher forms of con- 

 sciousness than we have actually experienced; and 

 though we can still less tell what are the grander things 

 than consciousness, we can yet suggest the possibility 

 of such to every one, as also in a certain sense the mean- 

 ing of the assertion. Every one can see that with but 

 four senses, with the sight of sense or hearing cancelled, 

 our consciousness would not be so rich or wide as with 

 our present five ; also that if there were no such thing 

 at all as the feeling of affection or the perception of 

 beauty, both of which, in some people, are very faint, 

 two of the greatest things would be removed from our 

 inner consciousness. Thus there is a higher and a lower 

 degree, a narrower and a wider area to consciousness 



