Now we spoke of immortality. Although the six of us believed in it, by trying to convince Alfred we might gain much.
I asked why, or whether, it was important to have an opinion concerning immortality.
Marian said it was important for us to know, because we were interested, because we cared so much. I answered, that was one reason, and then there was another. Ruth said the other reason was that we acted according to our ideas of death, that it influenced our morality.
“Yes,” I answered, “we live according to our expectations. Think of how the false or true ideas of a future life influenced morality in ages past, of the morals, good and bad, which sprang from the idea of heaven and hell! Alfred, do you think it is important to know?”
“Yes,” said he, “it is important; but I can’t come to any conclusion. I am not convinced.”
Some people feel sure one cannot know anything about immortality, and that therefore it is not worth thinking of it at all.
Henry said: “Because one does not know a thing now is no reason why one should not try to find out. And I believe we shall know, some time. If people had felt so about other equally difficult things, we would never have got on.”
I said: “What is knowledge? We cannot _know_ immortality as an experience, through our senses; but I believe we can _know_ through our reason, just as so much other scientific knowledge is a matter of reason, of analogy, of deduction. It can’t be proved, as one might prove that two and two are four. But then I once read in a book that nothing could be proved, except the things not worth proving.
“If we saw a red rose, and we all called it a red rose, there would be no doubt of its redness. But if we differed, and some called it red, some pink, some yellow, we should soon be in grave doubt. Our eyes might be wrong. There have been so many opinions regarding immortality, because people had different ‘eyes,’ that now we are full of doubts.”
We spoke of the time when the earth was thought flat because it looked flat.
Alfred said: “Immortality of what, do you mean?”
“Immortality of everything,” I answered. “We might, of course, believe that the universe will die, will be extinct. But it is an unthinkable thought. We all believe in something eternal. We know that force does not die, but is changed and transmitted; we know that no substance is destroyed; we know that every action, every circumstance has endless consequences and endless antecedents. They—and I—are forever a part of the universe. How could we be destroyed? Why should we think that everything is immortal, excepting self, which seems the motive force?”