instinct, but perforce believes that beyond the sepulchral line of
mortality he shall know no more of his friends, may find, as helps
to a willing acquiescence in what is fated, either one of two
possible contemplations.8 He may sadly lay upon his heart the
stifling solace, There will be no baffled wants nor unhappiness,
but all will be over when hic jacet is sculptured on the headstone
of my grave. Or, with measureless rebound of faith, he may crowd
the capacity of his soul with the mysterious presentiment, In the
unchangeable fulness of an infinite bliss, all specialties will be
merged and forgotten, and I shall be one of those to whom "the
wearisome disease" of remembered sorrow and anticipated joy "is an
alien thing."

8 Wieland's Euthanasia expresses disbelief in the preservation of
personality and consciousness after death. The same ground had
been taken in the work published anonymously at Halle in 1775,
Plato and Leibnitz jenseits des Styx. See, on the other side of
the question, Wohlfahrt, Tempel der Unsterblichkeit, oder neue
Anthologie der wichtigsten Ausspruche, besonders neuerer Weisen
uber Wiedersehen u. s. w.

CHAPTER VII.

LOCAL FATE OF MAN IN THE ASTRONOMIC UNIVERSE.

ACCORDING to the imagining of some speculative geologists, perhaps
this earth first floated in the abyss as a volume of vapor,
wreathing its enormous folds of mist in fantastic shapes as it was
borne along on the idle breath of law. Ages swept by, until this
stupendous fog ball was condensed into an ocean of fire, whose
billows heaved their lurid bosoms and reared their ashy crests
without a check, while their burning spray illuminated its track
around the sable vault. During periods which stagger computation,
this molten world was gradually cooled down; constant rivers wrung
from the densely swathing vapor poured over the heated mass and at
last submerged its crust in an immense sea. Then, for unknown
centuries, fire, water, and wind waged a Titanic war, that
imagination shudders to think of, jets of flame licking the stars,
massive battlements and columns of fire piled to terrific heights,
now the basin of the sea suddenly turned into a glowing caldron
and the atmosphere saturated with steam, again explosions hurling
mountains far into space and tearing the earth open in ghastly
rents to its very heart. At length the fire was partially subdued,
the peaceful deep glassed the sky in its bosom or rippled to the
whispers of the breeze