d the
sequel of human life from the materialistic point of view feels
disgust and terror at the prospect. The scene seems to him
degrading and the fate fearful. The loathing and dismay vulgarly
experienced thus, it is true, arise from an exaggerated
misapprehension of the basis and meaning of the facts: rightly
appreciated, all is rulingly alive, aspirant, beautiful, and
benignant. The ceaseless transformations filling the heights and
depths of the creation are pervaded with joy and

42 A full discussion of the pantheistic doctrine of immortality
will be found in the following works. Richmann, Gemsinfassl.
Darstellung und Wurdigung aller gehaltreichen Beweisarten fur Gott
und fur Unsterblichkeit der Seele. Unius, Unsterblichkeit.
Blanche, Philosophische Unsterblichkeitlehre.

43 Weisse, Die philosophische Geheimlehre von der Unsterblichkeit
des menschlichen Individuums. Goschel, Von den Beweisen fur die
Unsterblichkeit der menschlichen Seele im Lichte der speculativen
Philosophie. Morell, Historical and Critical View of the
Speculative Philosophy of Europe in the 19th Century, part ii. ch.
v. sect. 2: The German School of the 19th Century. Buchanan,
Modern Atheism.

clothed with a noble poetry. There is no real death: what seems so
is but a "return or falling home of the fundamental phenomenon to
the phenomenal foundation, a dissolution through which nature
seeks her ground and strives to renew herself in her principles."
Still, in spite of this more profound and genial interpretation of
the shifting metamorphoses of nature, the fear of there being no
conscious future life for man produces, when first entertained, a
horrid constriction around the heart, felt like the ice cold coils
of a serpent. The thought of tumbling hopelessly into "The blind
cave of eternal night" naturally oppresses the heart of man with
sadness and with alarm. To escape the unhappiness thus inflicted,
recourse has been had to expedients. Four artificial substitutes
for immortality have been devised. Fondly fixing attention upon
these, men have tried to find comfort and to absorb their thoughts
from the dreaded spectre and the long oblivion. The first is the
sentimental phantasm of posthumous fame. The Latin bard, ancient
Ennius, sings,

"Nemo me lacrymis decoret, nec funera fletu Faxit. Cur? volito
vivu' per ora virum." 44

Shakspeare likewise often expresses the same thought:

"When all the breathers of this world are dead, You still