sition to the first, I maintain that the foci of consciousness flow
freely into each other even on the psychical plane, while in the eternal
world there are probably no barriers at all. In opposition to the
second, it is certain that the empirical self is by no means identical
throughout, and that the spiritual life, in which we may be said to
attain real personality for the first time, is only 'ours' potentially.
In opposition to the third, I repeat that the question whether it is
'my' soul that will live in the eternal world seems to have no meaning
at all. In philosophy as in religion, we had better follow the advice of
the Theologia Germanica and banish, as far as possible, the words 'me
and mine' from our vocabulary. For personality is not something given to
start with. It does not belong to the world of claims and counter-claims
in which we chiefly live. We must be willing to lose our soul on this
level of experience, before we can find it unto life eternal.
Personality is a teleological fact; it is here in the making, elsewhere
in fact and power. So in the case of our friends. The man whom we love
is not the changing psycho-physical organism; it is the Christ in him
that we love, the perfect man who is struggling into existence in his
life and growth. If we ask what a man is, the answer may be either, 'He
is what he loves,' or 'He is what he is worth.' The two are not very
different. Thus I cannot agree with Keyserling, who in criticising this
type of thought (with which, none the less, he has great sympathy) says
that 'mysticism, whether it likes it or not, ends in an impersonal
immortality.' For impersonality is a purely negative conception, like
timelessness. What is negated in 'timelessness' is not the reality of
the present, but the unreality of the past and future. So the
'impersonality' which is here (not without warrant from the mystics
themselves) said to belong to eternal life is really the liberation of
the idea of personality. Personality is allowed to expand as far as it
can, and only so can it come into its own. When Keyserling adds, 'The
instinct of immortality really affirms that the individual is not
ultimate,' I entirely agree with him.

The question, however, is not whether in heaven the circumference of the
soul's life is indefinitely enlarged, but whether the centre remains.
These centres are centres of consciousness; and consciousness apparently
belongs to the world of will. It comes into exi