Continuity of existence, without break or interruption, is the fundamental idea that needs inculcation, not only among children but among ignorant people generally. And the survival, from savage times, of an inclination to associate a full measure of departed personality with the discarded and decomposing bodily remnant,—under the impression that it will awake and live again at some future day,—should be steadily discouraged. The idea of bodily resurrection, in this physical sense, is responsible for much superstition and for some ecclesiastical abuses.

A nearer approach to the truth may be expressed thus:—

Terrestrial existence is dependent for its continuance on a certain arrangement of material particles belonging to the earth, which are gradually collected and built up into the complex and constantly changing structure called a body. The correspondence or connection between matter and spirit, as thus exhibited, is common to every form of life in some degree, and is probably a symbol or sample of something permanently true; so that a double aspect of every fundamental existence is likely always to continue. But identity of person in no way depends upon identity of particles: the particles are frequently changed and the old ones discarded.

The term “body” should be explained and emphasised, as connoting anything which is able to manifest feelings, emotions, and thoughts, and at the same time to operate efficiently on its environment. The temporary character of the present human body should be admitted for purposes of religion; it usefully and truthfully displays the incarnate part of us during the brief episode of terrestrial life, and when it has served its turn it is left behind, its particles being discarded and dispersed. Hereafter—we are taught—an equally efficient vehicle of manifestation, similarly appropriate to our new environment, will not be lacking; this at present unknown and hypothetical entity is spoken of as “a spiritual body,” and represents the serious idea underlying crude popular notions about bodily resurrection.

The ego has been likened to a ripple raised by wind upon water, displaying in visible form the motion and influence of the operating breath, without being permanently differentiated from the vast whole, of which each ripple is a temporarily individualised portion: individualised, yet not isolated from others, but connected with them by the ocean, of whose immensity it may be supposed for poetic purposes gradually to become aware:—

There is much to be said for some form of doctrine of a common psychological basis or union of minds—some kind of Anima Mundi, some World-Mind, of which we are all fragments, and to which all knowledge is in a manner accessible; but the analogy of ocean ripples or icebergs need not be pressed to support the idea of a cessation of individual existence, when a given ripple or a given iceberg subsides. All analogies fail at some point. The ocean analogy happens to suggest indistinguishable absorption, or Nirvana, but others do not. The parts of a jelly are linked together and vibrate as a whole, but each little sac of fluid is partitioned off as an individual entity; in touch with all the rest, but with a texture and a colour of its own.

Continued personality, persistent individual existence, cannot be predicated of things which do not possess personality or individuality or character: but, to things which do possess these attributes, continuity and persistence not only may, but must, apply; unless we are to suppose that actual existence suddenly ceases. There must be a conservation of character; notwithstanding the admitted return of the individual to a central store or larger self, from which a portion was differentiated and individualised for the brief period during which the planet performs some seventy of its innumerable journeys round the sun. Absorption in original source may mask, but need not destroy, identity.

Even so a villager, picked out as a recruit and sent to the seat of war, may serve his country, may gain experience, acquire a soul and a width of horizon such as he had not dreamt of; and when he returns, after the war is over, may be merged as before in his native village. But the village is the richer for his presence, and his individuality or personality is not really lost; though to the eye of the world, which has no further need for it, it has practically ceased to be.

The character and experience gained by us during our brief association with the matter of this planet, become our possession henceforth for ever. We cannot shake ourselves free of them, even if we would: the enlargement of ideas, the growth in knowledge, the acquisition of friendships, the skill and power and serviceableness attained by us through this strange experience of incarnation, all persist as part and parcel of our larger self; and so do the memories of failure, of shame, of cruelty, of sin, which we have acquired here. To glory in these last things is damnation: the best that they can bring to us is pain and undying remorse—their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. There is no way out, save by the way of mercy and grace; whereby we are assured that at last, in the long last, we may ultimately attain to pardon and peace.

The class of things which is certainly not persistent, but must indubitably be left behind us for ever, is the weird collection of treasures for which most of us work so hard: scorning delights and living laborious days for their acquisition.

In this blind and mistaken struggle—a struggle which in the present condition of society seems so unavoidable, even so meritorious, but which in a reformed society will be looked back upon as at something akin to lunacy—we do not even make to ourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness. Its mottoes are “each for himself” and “vÆ victis.” Fortunately very few of the human race wholly succumb to this temptation; nearly all reserve great regions of their lives where kindness and friendliness and affection reign, and try to check the evil results of their worser or self-directed efforts by charitable doles.

In a more ideal state of society there would be no need either of the poison or of its antidote.

To bring about such an ideal state of society is the end and aim of Politics, and of all movements for social reform. Efforts in these directions are the most serious things in life, and may be the most fruitful in vital results: since few individuals are strong enough to withstand the pressure and tendency of their social surroundings. Only a few can rise superior to them, only a few sink far beneath them; the majority drift with the crowd and become—too many at present—irretrievably injured by the base and ugly conditions among which their lives are cast.

At present, for the majority of Englishmen, life is liable to be damaging and deleterious: initial weakness of character, so far from being strengthened and helped by the combined force of society, is hindered and enfeebled thereby,—a disastrous and disquieting condition of things. But when the efforts of self-sacrificing and laborious statesmen, Ministers in the highest sense (Mark x. 43),—when these efforts at cultivation bear fruit,—then, notwithstanding individual lapses here and there, society at large will be indistinguishable from a human branch of the Communion of Saints. Then will feeble impulses towards virtue be fostered and encouraged; the bruised reed will no longer be broken and trampled in the mire.

The Life Eternal in its fullest sense must be entered upon here and now. The emphasis is on the word Life, without reference to time. “I am come that ye might have Life.” Life of a far higher kind than any we yet know is attainable by the human race on this planet. It rests largely with ourselves. The outlook was never brighter than it is to-day; many workers and thinkers are making ready the way for a Second Advent,—a reincarnation of the Logos in the heart of all men; the heralds are already attuning their songs for a reign of brotherly love; already there are “signs of his coming and sounds of his feet”; and upon our terrestrial activity the date of this Advent depends.