"
Plato died in the act of writing; Lucan while reciting part of his book on
the war of Pharsalus; Blake died singing; Wagner in sleep with his head on
his wife's shoulder. Many have passed away in their sleep. Various high
medical authorities have expressed their surprise that the dying seldom
feel either dismay or regret. And even those who perish by violence, as
for instance in battle, feel, it is probable, but little suffering.
But what of the future? There may be said to be now two principal views.
There are some who believe indeed in the immortality of the soul, but not
of the individual soul: that our life is continued in that of our children
would seem indeed to be the natural deduction from the simile of St. Paul,
as that of the grain of wheat is carried on in the plant of the following
year.
So long indeed as happiness exists it is selfish to dwell too much on our
own share in it. Admit that the soul is immortal, but that in the future
state of existence there is a break in the continuity of memory, that one
does not remember the present life, and from this point of view is not the
importance of identity involved in that of continuous memory? But however
this may be according to the general view, the soul, though detached from
the body, will retain its conscious identity, and will awake from death,
as it does from sleep; so that if we cannot affirm that
"Millions of spiritual creatures walk the Earth,
Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep," [4]
at any rate they exist somewhere else in space, and we are indeed looking
at them when we gaze at the stars, though to our eyes they are as yet
invisible.
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