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BULLETIN OF DENISON UNIVERSITY. 
kindled except some adequate cause be applied to awake the reaction. 
This is excluded by our premise and, moreover, it is impossible to con- 
ceive how conflicting forces could ever destroy each other unless two uni- 
verses are assumed, when, again, it would be inconceivable how inter- 
action could begin between them. This endless chain of argument 
clearly shows that the collapse of the system through the sinking to a 
dead level — absorbtion in Nirvana — is impossible. Thus much to 
preserve us from an error into which Lotze seems to have nearly 
fallen 
If being is identified with energy and all being is immanent 
in the Absolute, it remains to account for the various kinds of being. 
From moment to moment we are affected by various sorts of stimuli 
the energy of each of which indicates to our minds a special being. 
Existence is, in conformity with the above argument, that combination 
of identity and diversity out of which grow our notions of sequence, 
cause and effect. Being as continuous, is existence. Existence im- 
plies correlated acts of energy in a stated order or method. Existence 
as self-continuing is life. In life the correlation is sustained from 
within rather than without. Life as self-conscious implies personality. 
The relations conceived as existing between these forms of being may be 
illustrated thus. Two currents of the celestial ether impinge and pro- 
duce a musical note —that is being ; this note varies according to a 
definite order, producing a melody — that is existence ; the eddying 
forces act and react rhythmically, each impact producing the next — 
that is life; the notes are wafted back from the unknown in an echo to 
begin a new refrain, and thus indefinitely in a responsive theme — that 
is personality. 
Lotze was driven by his line of argument to cast doubt upon the 
substantiality of the soul. But the same shadow must envelop all 
other kinds of substance. The only logical position seems to be pure 
agnosticism on this point. The energy implied in psychical existence 
is not denied, and this energy is the souks being, no matter what its 
ground, and the sequence of its manifestations constitutes the soul’s 
existence. If it be proper to speak of the life of a soul, it is found 
evidenced in the capacity to perpetuate its states and predicate its ex- 
istence. If the soul is personal, it is so because it is conscious of this 
power, and thus responsible for its execution. Better substitute for 
what is meant by substantiality is not, for our purpose, necessary. 
Lotze in an inconsequent way developed hesitation in postulating 
the immortality of the soul, chiefly influenced by pathological consid- 
erations and what seems to us an erroneous conception of time.* 
■-'■‘It is believed that modern philosophy has something to learn from Lucre- 
tius in the temporal discussion The classical student will perhaps remember 
the following passage from Lucretius better than the metaphysician ; 
“Tempus item perse non est, sed rebus ab ipsis 
Consequitur sensus, transactum quid sit in aevo, 
