16 REV. A. R. WHATELY, D.D., OX IMMORTALITY. 



the religious man sees himself in the direct light of God : sees 

 there his sphere, his possibilities, the meaning of his life. 



And here appears immortality. But his religion must be a 

 religion adequate to the purpose, and it must be lived. If he is 

 not naturally a thinker on first principles, the intellectual 

 expression of his faith may always remain rudimentary, without 

 hurt. But if he is, he ought to learn to define his lower 

 experiences by the higher. He ought to refuse to admit that 

 even for his simplest and most direct introspection he is a 

 psychic stream. He ought to perceive that the spiritual and 

 eternal meaning of his personality is not for him an inference 

 or a vague inkling, but belongs to the very essence of his self- 

 consciousness. It may come late, but when it is there it is the 

 foundation. 



We are too apt, even apart from special theories, to think of tlie 

 Ego as consisting in, or at least bound to, the temporal succession 

 of ideas. This is the opposite error to that of the unknowable 

 soul-atom. We virtually argue thus : — Without consciousness 

 there is no animal life. Without self-consciousness there is no 

 personal life. But all consciousness is in time. Therefore the Ego 

 is in time. This is the implied reasoning that leads us from one 

 extreme to the other. But, observe, if we carry it to the utmost 

 point which consistency demands, it would be necessary to be 

 always saying " I am I " in order to maintain the continuity 

 of our personality. True personality cannot exist without 

 self -consciousness, but that does mean tliat it expands and 

 shrinks according as we definitely focus our reflection upon our 

 own selfhood, in season and out of season. Take the case of sleep, 

 and let us call it — as it is at least relatively — a suspension of 

 consciousness. The question is asked : if consciousness can cease 

 for an hour, can it not even conceivably cease for all eternity ? 

 If there is a gap, might there not be a total cessation ? Yes, if 

 the mere temporal continuity, the mere succession of psychic 

 states, is the basis of personality. But, observe, though we may 

 regard sleep as a gap in the flow of a man's consciousness, we do not 

 regard it as a gap in his life-history. It does not, in normal cases, 

 break, however slightly and negligibly, the continuity of his life- 

 history. For that life-history, though not absolutely super- 

 temporal, is more than merely temporal. It has also a vital, logi- 

 cal, and teleological continuity which is the mark of its eternity. 



Still more, when the temporal life is covered by that all- 

 embracing surrender of the will which the highest religion 

 demands. If we live for the Christian ideal, time itself is taken 

 up into eternity. And I urge this quite apart from all sentiment. 



