. All this is equally
wonderful.

"And that my soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other
without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps to see each other,
is every bit as wonderful.

"And that I can think such thoughts as these is just as wonderful,

"And that I can remind you, and you think them and know them to be
true, is just as wonderful.

"And that the moon spins round the earth, and on with the earth, is
equally wonderful,

"And that they balance themselves with the sun and stars is equally
wonderful."

"That," I said, "is the passage I meant, and it shows that Whitman, at
any rate, did not share Wilson's feeling that the immortality of the
soul is unimaginable."

"Well," said Wilson, "imaginable or no, we have no reason to believe
it to be true."

"No reason, indeed," I agreed, "so far as demonstration is concerned,
though equally, as I think, no reason to deny it. But the point I
raised was, whether, if we are to take a positive view of life and
hold that it somehow has a good significance, we are not bound to
adopt this, hypothesis of immortality--to believe, that is, that,
somehow or other, there awaits us a state of being in which all souls
shall be bound together in that harmonious and perfect relation of
which we have a type and foretaste in what we call love. For, if it be
true that perfect Good does involve some such relation, and yet that
it is one unattainable under the conditions of our present life, then
we must say either that such Good is unattainable--and in that case
why should we idly pursue it?--or that we believe we shall attain it
under some other conditions of existence. And according as we adopt
one or the other position--so it seems to me--our attitude towards
life will be one of affirmation or of negation."

"But," he objected, "even if you were right in your conception
of Good, and even if it be true that Good in its perfection is
unattainable, yet we might still choose to get at least what Good
we can--and some Good you admit we can get--and might find in that
pursuit a sufficient justification for life."

"We might, indeed," I admitted, "but also we might very well find,
that the Good we can attain is so small, and the Evil so immensely
preponderant, that we ought to labour rather to bring to an end an
existence so pitiful than to perpetuate it indefinitely in the persons
of our luckless descendants."

"That, th