ON IMMOETALITY: COUNTERTHESIS. 189 



even now. Still more, there may be great things and 

 modes of being that could not enter through any of the 

 usual avenues of the senses into consciousness at all, 

 which would require a new sense, or several new ones, to 

 give them to us. " It would be absurd," said Mill, " t 

 assume that our words exhaust the possibilities of Being. 

 There may be innumerable modes of it which are in- 

 accessible to our faculties, and which consequently we 

 are unable to name." * 



And what we mean to imply is just this. There may 

 be things that "eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor 

 hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive," as St. 

 Paul affirmed. There may be "more things in heaven 

 and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy," as 

 Shakespeare says. There may be infinite modes of being 

 or attributes under which the one Eternal Substance can 

 express itself, though to us men it has only revealed 

 itself under the two forms of thought and extension, as 

 Spinoza has taught. Silence is the proper, indeed the 

 only, attitude for us in the face of these possibilities; 

 but silence only after their existence has been pointed 

 out and recognized ; silence after we have called attention 

 to them, and can speak no more regarding them ; because 

 to call attention to them is a matter of moment to men 

 that have hereafter to face these possibilities. 



We know the existence of a world outside our 

 conscious phenomenal world, as Kant affirms; but we 

 know no more. Our ignorance is even greater that Kant 

 believed ; for, admitting the possibility of further exist- 

 ence, we cannot tell by what rule or law the succession 

 of further existence will be determined. We cannot 

 conclude with any degree of probability that our future 

 places depend upon our earthly merit or demerit, both 



* Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's PhilosopJiy, p. 14. 



