i860 the doctrine OF IjMMORTALITY 



235 



minded me of nothing so much as the man who is sawing off the 

 sign on which he is sitting, in Hogarth's picture. But this by 

 the way. 



I cannot conceive of my personahty as a thing apart from 

 the phenomena of my life. When I try to form such a concep- 

 tion I discover that, as Coleridge would have said, I only hypos- 

 tatise a word, and it alters nothing if, with Fichte, I suppose 

 the universe to be nothing but a manifestation of my personality. 

 I am neither more nor less eternal than I was before. 



Nor does the infinite difference between myself and the 

 animals alter the case. I do not know whether the animals per- 

 sist after they disappear or not. I do not even know whether 

 the infinite difference between us and them may not be com- 

 pensated by their persistence and my cessation after apparent 

 death, just as the humble bulb of an annual lives, while the 

 glorious flowers it has put forth die away. 



Surely it must be plain that an ingenious man could specu- 

 late without end on both sides, and find analogies for all his 

 dreams. Nor does it help me to tell me that the aspirations of 

 mankind — that my own highest aspirations even — lead me 

 towards the doctrine of immortality. I doubt the fact, to begin 

 with, but if it be so even, what is this but in grand words asking 

 me to believe a thing because I like it. 



Science has taught to me the opposite lesson. She warns 

 me to be careful how I adopt a view which jumps with my pre- 

 conceptions, and to require stronger evidence for such belief 

 than for one to which I was previously hostile. 



My business is to teach my aspirations to conform them- 

 selves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonise with my 

 aspirations. 



Science seems to me to teach in the highest and strongest 

 manner the great truth which is embodied in the Christian con- 

 ception of entire surrender to the will of God. Sit down before 

 fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived 

 notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature 

 leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn 

 content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to 

 do this. 



There are, however, other arguments commonly brought 

 forward in favour of the immortality of man, which are to my 

 mind not only delusive but mischievous. The one is the notion 

 that the moral government of the world is imperfect without a 

 system of future rewards and punishments. The other is : that 



