Next comes survival with our consciousness of to-day. I have broached this question in an essay on Immortality,[2] of which I will only reproduce an essential passage, contenting myself with supporting it with a few new considerations.

What composes this sense of the ego which turns each of us into the centre of the universe, the only point that matters in space and time? Is it formed of sensations of our body, or of thoughts independent of our body? Would our body be conscious of itself without our mind? And, on the other hand, what would our mind be without our body? We know bodies without mind, but no mind without a body. It is almost certain that an intellect devoid of senses, devoid of organs to create and nourish it, exists; but it is impossible to imagine that ours could thus exist and yet remain similar to that which derived from our sensibility all that gave it life.