a belief, relating to regions quite inaccessible to experience, cannot
of course be clothed in terms of definite and tangible meaning. For the
experience which alone can give us such terms we must await that solemn
day which is to overtake us all. The belief can be most quickly defined
by its negation, as the refusal to believe that this world is all. The
materialist holds that when you have described the whole universe of
phenomena of which we can become cognizant under the conditions of the
present life, then the whole story is told. It seems to me, on the
contrary, that the whole story is not thus told. I feel the omnipresence
of mystery in such wise as to make it far easier for me to adopt the
view of Euripides, that what we call death may be but the dawning of
true knowledge and of true life. The greatest philosopher of modern
times, the master and teacher of all who shall study the process of
evolution for many a day to come, holds that the conscious soul is not
the product of a collocation of material particles, but is in the
deepest sense a divine effluence. According to Mr. Spencer, the divine
energy which is manifested throughout the knowable universe is the same
energy that wells up in us as consciousness. Speaking for myself, I can
see no insuperable difficulty in the notion that at some period in the
evolution of Humanity this divine spark may have acquired sufficient
concentration and steadiness to survive the wreck of material forms and
endure forever. Such a crowning wonder seems to me no more than the fit
climax to a creative work that has been ineffably beautiful and
marvellous in all its myriad stages.

Only on some such view can the reasonableness of the universe, which
still remains far above our finite power of comprehension, maintain its
ground. There are some minds inaccessible to the class of considerations
here alleged, and perhaps there always will be. But on such grounds, if
on no other, the faith in immortality is likely to be shared by all who