conceptions that answer to real existences.

[12] See my Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Part I. Chap. IV.;
Part III. Chaps. III., IV.


In the foregoing paragraph I have been setting down opinions with
which I am prepared to agree, and which are not in conflict with
anything that our study of the development of the objective world
has taught us. In so far as that study may be supposed to bear on
the question of a future life, two conclusions are open to us.
First we may say that since the phenomena of mind appear and run
their course along with certain specialized groups of material
phenomena, so, too, they must disappear when these specialized
groups are broken up. Or, in other words, we may say that every
living person is an organized whole; consciousness is something
which pertains to this organized whole, as music belongs to the
harp that is entire; but when the harp is broken it is silent,
and when the organized whole of personality falls to pieces
consciousness ceases forever. To many well-disciplined minds this
conclusion seems irresistible; and doubtless it would be a sound
one--a good Baconian conclusion--if we were to admit, with the
materialists, that the possibilities of existence are limited by
our tiny and ephemeral experience.

But now, supposing some Platonic speculator were to come along
and insist upon our leaving room for an alternative conclusion;
suppose he were to urge upon us that all this process of material
development, with the discovery of which our patient study has
been rewarded, may be but the temporary manifestation of