The science of life : fully illustrated in tone and line and including many diagrams
BORDERLAND SCIENCE
ness. Though we are mortal as ourselves, we may be immortal as phases and transitory parts of an evolving undying percipient continuity. When we philosophize in the stillness it may be not ourselves alone, but Man that feels his way to self-realization through our individual thoughts.
Apart from such speculations we may say this much: upon the continuity of any individual consciousness after bodily cessation and disintegration The Science of Life has no word of assurance, and on the other hand it assembles much that points towards its improbability. But so far as our lives go, as matters of fact apart from consciousness, The Science of Life has no doubts ; it does not speculate, it states. Our lives do not begin afresh at birth, and
do not end inconclusively ; they take up a physical inheritance, they take over a tradition, they enter into a set drama, they are conditioned from the outset, and each has a role to play, different from any role that has ever been played before or will ever be played again. And our lives do not end with death; they stream on, not merely in direct offspring, but more importantly perhaps in the influence they have had on the rest of life. According to the playing of the rdle the unending consequences are determined. They endure in the fabric of things accomplished for ever. That at least is not theory or speculation; it is as much a statement of fact as that every stream that flows upon this planet earth flows down towards the sea.
853