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Page 6
"If the series of persons which constitutes an individual could by any
magic be brought together and these persons confronted with one another,
in how many cases would the result be mutual misunderstanding, disgust,
and even animosity? Suppose, for instance, that Saul, the persecutor of
the disciples of Jesus, who held the garments of them that stoned
Stephen, should be confronted with his later self, Paul the apostle,
would there not be reason to anticipate a stormy interview? For there is
no more ground to suppose that Saul would be converted to Paul's view
than the reverse. Each was fully persuaded in his own mind as to what he
did.
"But for the fact that each one of the persons who together constitute an
individual is well off the field before his successor comes upon it, we
should not infrequently see the man collaring his own youth, handing him
over to the authorities, and prefering charges against him as a rascally
fellow.
"Not by any means are the successive persons of an individual always thus
out of harmony with one another. In many, perhaps in a majority, of
cases, the same general principles and ideals are recognized by the man
which were adopted by the boy, and as much sympathy exists between them
as is possible in view of the different aspects which the world
necessarily presents to youth and age. In such cases, no doubt, could the
series of persons constituting the individual be brought together, a
scene of inexpressibly tender and intimate communion would ensue.
"But, though no magic may bring back our past selves to earth, may we not
hope to meet them hereafter in some other world? Nay, must we not expect
so to meet them if we believe in the immortality of human souls? For if
our past selves, who were dead before we were alive, had no souls, then
why suppose our present selves have any? Childhood, youth, and manhood
are the sweetest, the fairest, the noblest, the strongest of the persons
who together constitute an individual. Are they soulless? Do they go down
in darkness to oblivion while immortality is reserved for the withered
soul of age? If we must believe that there is but one soul to all the
persons of an individual it would be easier to believe that it belongs to
youth or manhood, and that age is soulless. For if youth, strong-winged
and ardent, full of fire and power, perish, leaving nothing behind save a
few traces in the memory, how shall the flickering spirit of age have
strength to survive the blast of death?
"The individual, in its career of seventy years, has not one body, but
many, each wholly new. It is a commonplace of physiology that there is
not a particle in the body to-day that was in it a few years ago. Shall
we say that none of these bodies has a soul except the last, merely
because the last decays more suddenly than the others?
"Or is it maintained that, although there is such utter diversity--physical,
mental, moral--between infancy and manhood, youth and age, nevertheless,
there is a certain essence common to them all, and persisting unchanged
through them all, and that this is the soul of the individual? But such
an essence as should be the same in the babe and the man, the youth and
the dotard, could be nothing more than a colourless abstraction, without
distinctive qualities of any kind--a mere principle of life like the
fabled jelly protoplasm. Such a fancy reduces the hope of immortality to
an absurdity.
"No! no! It is not any such grotesque or fragmentary immortality that God
has given us. The Creator does not administer the universe on so
niggardly a plan. Either there is no immortality for us which is
intelligible or satisfying, or childhood, youth, manhood, age, and all
the other persons who make up an individual, live for ever, and one day
will meet and be together in God's eternal present; and when the several
souls of an individual are in harmony no doubt He will perfect their
felicity by joining them with a tie that shall be incomparably more
tender and intimate than any earthly union ever dreamed of, constituting
a life one yet manifold--a harp of many strings, not struck successively
as here on earth, but blending in rich accord.
"And now I beg you not to suppose that what I have tried to demonstrate
is any hasty or ill-considered fancy. It was, indeed, at first but a
dream with which the eyes of my sweet mistress inspired me, but from a
dream it has grown into a belief, and in these last months into a
conviction which I am sure nothing can shake. If you can share it the
long mourning of your life will be at an end. Per my own part I could
never return to the old way of thinking without relapsing into
unutterable despair. To do so would be virtually to give up faith in any
immortality at all worth speaking of. For it is the long procession of
our past selves, each with its own peculiar charm and incommunicable
quality, slipping away from us as we pass on, and not the last self of
all whom the grave entraps, which constitutes our chief contribution to
mortality. What shall it avail for the grave to give up its handful if
there be no immortality for this great multitude? God would not mock us
thus. He has power not only over the grave, but over the viewless
sepulchre of the past, and not one of the souls to which he has ever
given life will be found wanting on the day when he makes up his jewels."
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