Their spiritual
life is parasitic: it is sheltered by convictions which belong, not to
them, but to the society of which they form a part; it is nourished by
processes in which they take no share. And when those convictions decay,
and those processes come to an end, the alien life which they have
maintained can scarce be expected to outlast them" (Chap. iv.).
III
THE HUNGER OF IMMORTALITY
Let us pause to consider this immortal yearning for immortality--even
though the gnostics or intellectuals may be able to say that what
follows is not philosophy but rhetoric. Moreover, the divine Plato, when
he discussed the immortality of the soul in his _Phaedo_, said that it
was proper to clothe it in legend, _muthologein_.
First of all let us recall once again--and it will not be for the last
time--that saying of Spinoza that every being endeavours to persist in
itself, and that this endeavour is its actual essence, and implies
indefinite time, and that the soul, in fine, sometimes with a clear and
distinct idea, sometimes confusedly, tends to persist in its being with
indefinite duration, and is aware of its persistency (_Ethic_, Part
III., Props. VI.-X.).
It is impossible for us, in effect, to conceive of ourselves as not
existing, and no effort is capable of enabling consciousness to realize
absolute unconsciousness, its own annihilation. Try, reader, to imagine
to yourself, when you are wide awake, the condition of your soul when
you are in a deep sleep; try to fill your consciousness with the
representation of no-consciousness, and you will see the impossibility
of it.
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