194 THE CEEED OF SCIENCE, EELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 



sanguine hope, yet not destitute either of faith or of 

 hope. 



This at least appears certain we shall never escape 

 out of the circle of existence into annihilation. We shall 

 never get away either from consciousness higher or lower 

 than our present, or from something quite other than 

 consciousness, but quite as important and significant, and 

 which yet is as far as the opposite pole from annihila- 

 tion. We may have full and ample taste of both con- 

 scious and unconscious existence, in ways and modes 

 that we dream not of, nor can describe, the present life 

 being far from the conclusion of our " strange, eventful 

 history." 



6. To recapitulate : What we here affirm is, that 

 another and a conscious existence is possible, and more 

 than one such. . A higher conscious existence is possible, 

 and also a lower ; and amongst the many possible, the 

 continuation of the present would seem the most likely 

 of all, were it not for the difficulty of connecting the 

 future drama and continuation with the present prologue 

 when the bridge of memory is broken down. Uncon- 

 scious existence is also possible, as of the stone or the 

 plant, and also, what is of much greater importance, 

 unconscious existence of a great and grand order, which 

 we cannot attempt to describe, but the notion of which 

 all can see the drift of who have the poetic or pantheistic 

 conception of a great universal spirit, and even all who 

 think of God, the Infinite Spirit, as wholly unlike the 

 finite spirit. Annihilation should also be included 

 amongst the list of our possibilities, were it not that the 

 word is a name which contains really only the minimum 

 of meaning, or rather contains no meaning, except the 

 cessation, the removal of existence in one form. For we 

 have no evidence, but all the contrary, that there is any 



