itself. But while it
lives it lives in its totality and when it perishes, if it be its
destiny to perish, it perishes in its totality.

While the soul lives we may sink into it and have no fear; and yet
all the while we have no right to say anything about it except that
it exists. Truly it is a tragic commentary upon the drama that we
call our life, that we should find our ultimate "rest" and "peace" in
so bare, so stark, so austere, so irrational a revelation as this!

But surrounded as we are by the menace of eternal nothingness it
is at least something to have at the background of our life a living
power of this kind, a power which can endure unafraid the very
breaking point of disaster, a power which can contemplate the
possibility of annihilation itself with equanimity and unperturbed
calm.

It will be noted that I have been compelled to use once and again
the term "eternal nothingness." This is indeed an inevitable aspect
of what the soul visualizes as possible. For since the soul is the
creator and discoverer of all life, when once the soul has ceased to
exist, non-existence takes the place of existence, and nothingness
takes the place of life.

Speculatively we have the right, although the complex vision is
silent on that tremendous question, to dally with the idea of the
survival of the soul after the death of the body. But this must for
ever be an open question, not to be answered either negatively or
affirmatively, not to be answered by the intelligence of any living
man. All we can say is that it seems as if the death of the body
destroyed the complex vision; and if the complex vision is
destroyed it seems as though non-existence were bound to take the
place of existence, and as though nothingness were bound to take
the place of everything. The oriental conception of "Nirvana" is no
more than a soothing opiate administered to a soul that has grown
weary of its complex vision and weary of its irreducible
personality. To imagine oneself freed from the burden of personal
consciousness, and yet in some mysterious way conscious of being
freed from consciousness, is a delicious and delicate dream of
life-exhausted souls.

As a speculation it has a curious attraction; as a reality it has
nothing that is intelligible. But though the tragedy of life to all
sensitive spirits is outrageous and obscene, at least we may say
that the worst conceivable possibility is not likely to occur. The
worst conceivable poss