Are the assumptions of the monist any more in harmony with the doctrine of immortality than with those other beliefs with which it thus finds itself at variance? We have already seen that they are not: neither the Monism of Mr. Picton nor that of Mr. Wells leaves any room for personal survival--as is, indeed, only to be expected in accordance with their premises; for if the individual as such does not really exist, why should he persist? And from yet another monistic quarter we are oracularly assured that we shall "one day know that the end of our being is that it may _be submerged without reserve in the infinite ocean of God_." Nothing could be more definite; nor, it must be confessed, more utterly hopeless. To be "submerged without reserve" is to cease from even the illusion of individuality; it is absorption, Nirvana.
In taking up this position, in finally quenching
The hope whereto so passionately cling The dreaming generations from of old,
the monist is merely true to his creed; we may, however, express a preference that he should do so without religious circumlocutions--that the verdict should be, as in the famous historical instance, "_la mort, sans phrase_." When Mr. Wells says--
I do not believe I have any personal immortality. . . The experiment will be over, the rinsed beaker returned to its shelf, the crystals gone dissolving down the wastepipe--[1]
we know where we are, and feel thankful to the author for his frankness; to talk about submersion in "the infinite ocean of God," on the other hand, invests an idea which, nakedly stated, means annihilation pure and simple, with a pseudo-religious air which is far more subtly dangerous. Indeed, of the various expedients for extinguishing men's faith in the life to come, this is probably the most insidiously effective in use to-day; it is the silken handkerchief, drenched with chloroform and held quite gently to the victim's face--a lethal weapon in all but appearance. And there are some who are attracted by the faint, cloying odour of this chloroform.
Before we examine this fashionable doctrine of absorption, however, it may be well to deal { 221} with certain other causes which between them account for much of the uneasiness--often unavowed but nevertheless very real--concerning a future life, which unquestionably is widely felt in our day. All assertions to the contrary notwithstanding, it is a case of uneasiness, and not of indifference; the bravado which professes to give thanks to "whatever gods there be"--