organisms from the same
materials to repeat the same physiological and psychological
processes.47 There is a gleam of cheer and of nobleness in this
representation; but, upon the whole, it is perhaps as ineffectual
as the former. It is a vapid consolation, in view of our own
annihilation, to think that others will then live and also be
annihilated in their turn. It is pleasant to believe that the
earth will forever be peopled with throngs of men; but though such
a belief might help to reconcile us to our fate, it could not
alter the intrinsic sadness of that fate.

A third substitute for the common view of immortality is a
scientific perception of the fact that the peculiar force which
each man is, the sum of his character and life, is a cause
indestructibly mixed with the course of subsequent history, an
objective personal immortality, though not a conscious one. What
he was, remains and acts forever in the world.

The fourth substitute is an identification of self with the
integral scheme of things. I am an inseparable portion of the
totality of being, to move eternally in its eternal motion.

"If death seem hanging o'er thy separate soul, Discern thyself a
part of life's great whole."

Lose the thought of thy particular evanescence in the thought of
the universal permanence. The inverted torch denotes death to a
mere inhabitant of the earth: to a citizen of the universe,
downward and upward are the same. Perhaps one who rejects the
ordinary doctrine of a future life can be solaced and edified by
these substitutes in proportion to his fineness, greatness, and
nobleness. But to most persons no substitute can atone for the
withdrawn truth of immortality itself.

In regard to the eternal preservation of personal consciousness,
it were bigoted blindness to deny that there is room for doubts
and fears. While the monad soul so to call it lies here beneath
the weak glimmer of suns so far off that they are forceless to
develop it to a

46 Lucretius, De Nat. Rerum, lib. ii. 1. 78.

47 Schultz Schultzenstein, Die Bildung des menschlichen Geistes
durch Kultur der Verjungung seines Lebens, ss. 834-847: Die
Unsterblichkeitsbegriffe.

victorious assurance, we cannot but sometimes feel misgivings and
be depressed by skeptical surmises. Accordingly, while belief has
generally prevailed, disbelief has in every age had its
representatives. The ancients had their Dicaarchus, Protagoras,
Panatius, Lucan, Epicurus, Casar,