c to elicit any really fruitful result; and as soon as I was
able I endeavoured to steer the conversation back into the smoother
waters from which it had been driven.

"Let us admit," I said, "if you like, for the sake of argument, that
on the question of the immortality of the soul we do not and cannot
know anything at all."

"But," objected Wilson, "I maintain that we do know that there is no
foundation at all for the idea. It is a mere reflection of our hopes
and fears, or of those of our ancestors."

"But," I said, "even if it be, that does not prove that it is not
true; it merely shows that we have no sufficient reason for thinking
it to be true."

"Well," he said, "put it so, if you like; that is enough to relegate
the notion to the limbo of centaurs and chimaeras. What we have no
reason to suppose to be true, we have no reason to concern ourselves
with."

"Pardon me," I replied, "but I think we have, if the idea is one that
interests us, as Is the case with what we are discussing. We may not
know whether or no it is true, but we cannot help profoundly caring."

"Well," he said, "I may be peculiarly constituted, but, honestly, I do
not myself care in the least"

"But," I said, "perhaps you ought to, if you care about the Good;
and that is really the question I want to come back to. What is the
minimum we must believe if we are to make life significant? Is it
sufficient to believe in what you call the 'progress of the race'? Or
must we also believe in the progress of the individual, involving, as
it does, personal immortality?"

"Well," said Wilson, "I don't profess to take lofty views of
life--that I leave to the philosophers. But I must say it seems to me
to be a finer thing to work for a future in which one knows one will
not participate oneself than for one in which one's personal happiness
is involved. I have always sympathized with Comte, pedant as he was,
in the remark he made when he was dying."

"Which one?" interrupted Ellis. "'Quelle perte irreparable?' That
always struck me as the most humorous thing ever said."

"No," said Wilson, gravely, "but when he said that the prospect of
death would be to him infinitely less sublime, if it did not involve
his own extinction; the notion being, I suppose, that death is
the triumphant affirmation of the supremacy of the race over the
individual. And that, I think myself, is the sound and healthy and
manly view."

"My dear Wilson," cried Ellis, "you t