Part 18 (1/2)

I cannot conceive of my personality as a thing apart from the phenomena of my life. When I try to form such a conception I discover that, as Coleridge would have said, I only hypostatize a word, and it alters nothing if, with Fichte, I suppose the universe to be nothing but a manifestation of my personality. I am neither more nor less eternal than I was before.

CCXCIX

I do not know whether the animals persist after they disappear or not. I do not even know whether the infinite difference between us and them may not be compensated by _their_ persistence and _my_ cessation after apparent death, just as the humble bulb of an annual fives, whilst the glorious flowers it has put forth die away.

CCC

My business is to teach my aspirations to confirm themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations.

CCCI

Science seems to me to teach in the highest and strongest manner the great truth which is embodied in the Christian conception of entire surrender to the will of G.o.d. Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow numbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this.

CCCII

There are, however, other arguments commonly brought forward in favour of the immortality of man, which are to my mind not only delusive but mischievous. The one is the notion that the moral government of the world is imperfect without a system of future rewards and punishments.

The other is: that such a system is indispensable to practical morality.

I believe that both these dogmas are very mischievous lies.

With respect to the first, I am no optimist, but I have the firmest belief that the Divine Government (if we may use such a phrase to express the sum of the ”customs of matter”) is wholly just The more I know intimately of the lives of other men (to say nothing of my own), the more obvious it is to me that the wicked does _not_ flourish nor is the righteous punished. But for this to be clear we must bear in mind what almost all forget, that the rewards of life are contingent upon obedience to the _whole_ Law--physical as well as moral--and that moral obedience will not atone for physical sin, or _vice versa_.

CCCIII

The ledger of the Almighty is strictly kept, and every one of us has the balance of his operations paid over to him at the end of every minute of his existence.

Life cannot exist without a certain conformity to the surrounding universe--that conformity involves a certain amount of happiness in excess of pain. In short, as we live we are paid for living.

CCCIV

It is to be recollected in view of the apparent discrepancy between men's acts and their rewards that Nature is juster than we. She takes into account what a man brings with him into the world, which human justice cannot do. If I, born a bloodthirsty and savage brute, inheriting these qualities from others, kill you, my fellow-men will very justly hang me, but I shall not be visited with the horrible remorse which would be my real punishment if, my nature being higher, I had done the same thing.

CCCV

The absolute justice of the system of things is as clear to me as any scientific fact The gravitation of sin to sorrow is as certain as that of the earth to the sun, and more so--for experimental proof of the fact is within reach of us all--nay, is before us all in our own lives, if we had but the eyes to see it.

CCCVI

Not only do I disbelieve in the need for compensation, but I believe that the seeking for rewards and punishments out of this life leads men to a ruinous ignorance of the fact that their inevitable rewards and punishments are here.