The belief is in reality based upon
nothing but instinct and desire, and the impossibility of
conceiving of life as existing apart from one's own perception. But
even if a man cannot hold that it is in any sense a certainty, he
may cherish a hope that it is true, and he may be generously and
sincerely grateful for having been allowed to taste, through the
medium of personal consciousness, the marvellous experience of the
beauty and interest of life, its emotions, its relationships, its
infinite yearnings, even though the curtain may descend upon his
own consciousness of it, and he himself may become as though he had
never been, his vitality blended afresh in the vitality of the
world, just as the body of his life, so near to him, so seemingly
his own, will undoubtedly be fused and blent afresh in the sum of
matter. A man, even though racked with pain and tortured with
anxiety, may deliberately and resolutely throw himself into
sympathy with the mighty will of God, and cherish this noble and
awe-inspiring thought--the thought of the onward march of humanity;
righting wrongs, amending errors, fighting patiently against pain
and evil, until perhaps, far-off and incredibly remote, our
successors and descendants, linked indeed with us in body and soul
alike, may enjoy that peace and tranquillity, that harmony of soul,
which we ourselves can only momentarily and transitorily obtain.
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