96 
C. L. Herrick 
which we now live has descended to us from our ancestors. Such 
significance as our life has for the universe is not limited to either 
a conscious continuum or a brain continuum. The perishing of 
our body may render the presumption so high as to resemble 
a certainty that the forms of conscious existence we now have 
shall cease with it, but the vanishing of these by no means proves 
that the teleological unit which formed the ground for these 
appearances has been destroyed. As well might the chemist 
whose knowledge is limited to what he can see deny that water 
exists in the gaseous state because he can no longer discover it. 
It can hardly be assumed that so complex and important a center 
of force as a man leaves no trace besides those we experience, and 
has no properties besides those we have discovered. The utter 
destruction of the life back of the phenomenal is inherently very 
improbable from a purely scientific point of view. Without 
arrogance man can claim that his advent into the world has 
changed the whole character of the universe. If those centers 
of energ3^ which we (in our ignorance) call molecules of matter 
have such a high degree of persistence as to give rise to a theory 
of imperishability of matter — in so much that these molecules 
will pass through all the mutations of experimental treatment 
we can give them and through numerous phases and chemical 
compositions — it were strange indeed if the unit, ^^man, ’’ should 
be so unstable that a breath would annihilate him. An heavenly 
alchemy may indeed change him from one state to another as the 
ice passes into the clouds, but is still water. 
^^But’^ breaks in some impatient listener, ^Ahis is beside the 
point; what we want to know is, shall we know our friends over 
there? As James says, what we all wish to keep is just these in- 
dividual restrictions, these self-same tendencies and peculiarities 
that define us to ourselves and constitute our identity, so-called. 
Our finiteness and limitations seem to be our personal essence; and 
when the finiting organ drops away, and our severed spirits revert 
to their original source and assume their unrestricted condition, 
will they be anything like the sweet streams of feeling which we 
know, and which even now our brains are sifting out from the 
great reservoir for our enjoyment here below. 
The only answer given is by way of suggestion: ‘‘It might prove 
that the loss of some of the particular determinations which 
the brain imposes would not appear a matter for such absolute 
