usness. What we admit as existing
independently of our own consciousness is the Power that causes in
us those conscious states which we call the perception of material
qualities. We have no reason for regarding this Power as in itself
material: indeed, we cannot do so, since by the theory material
qualities have no existence apart from our minds. I have elsewhere
sought to show that less difficulty is involved in regarding this Power
outside of us as quasi-psychical, or in some measure similar to the
mental part of ourselves; and I have gone on to conclude that this Power
may be identical with what men have, in all times and by the aid of
various imperfect symbols, endeavoured to apprehend as Deity. [12] We
are thus led to a view of things not very unlike the views entertained
by Spinoza and Berkeley. We are led to the inference that what we call
the material universe is but the manifestation of infinite Deity to our
finite minds. Obviously, on this view, Matter--the only thing to
which materialists concede real existence--is simply an orderly
phantasmagoria; and God and the Soul--which materialists regard as mere
fictions of the imagination--are the only conceptions that answer to
real existences.

[12] See my Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Part I. Chap. IV.;
Part III. Chaps. III., IV.

In the foregoing paragraph I have been setting down opinions with which
I am prepared to agree, and which are not in conflict with anything that
our study of the development of the objective world has taught us. In
so far as that study may be supposed to bear on the question of a future
life, two conclusions are open to us. First we may say that since
the phenomena of mind appear and run their course along with certain
specialized groups of material phenomena, so, too, they must disappear
when these specialized groups are broken up. Or, in other words, we may
say that every living person is an organized whole; consciousness is
something which pertains to this organized whole, as music belongs to
the harp that is entire; but when the harp is broken it is silent, and
when the organized whole of personality falls to pieces consciousness
ceases forever. To many well-disciplined minds this conclusion seems
irresistible; and doubtless it would be a sound one--a good Baconian
conclusion--if we were to admit, with the materialists, that the
possibilities of existence are limited by our tiny and ephemeral
experience.

But now, supposing s