href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@31354@[email protected]#XVI" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">51

XVII THE SAME, CONTINUED 54 XVIII THE LIMITED EGO WOULD BECOME A
TORTURE 57 XIX A NEW EGO CAN FIND A NUCLEUS AND
DEVELOP ITSELF IN INFINITY 60 XX THE ONLY SORROW THAT CAN TOUCH
OUR MIND 65 XXI INFINITY AS CONCEIVED BY OUR REASON 68 XXII INFINITY AS PERCEIVED BY OUR SENSES 71 XXIII WHICH OF THE TWO SHALL WE KNOW? 74 XXIV THE INFINITY WHICH BOTH OUR REASON
AND OUR SENSES CAN ADMIT 77 XXV OUR FAITH IN INFINITY 81 XXVI THE SAME, CONTINUED 84 XXVII SHALL WE BE UNHAPPY THERE? 87 XXVIII QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS? 90 XXIX THE SAME, CONTINUED 95 XXX IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO ANSWER
THEM 99 XXXI EVERYTHING MUST FINISH EXEMPT FROM
SUFFERING 102

 

 

DEATH

I

OUR IDEA OF DEATH

It has been well said:

“Death and death alone is what we must consult about life; and not some vague future or survival, in which we shall not be present. It is our own end; and everything happens in the interval between death and now. Do not talk to me of those imaginary prolongations which wield over us the childish spell of number; do not talk to me—to me who am to die outright—of societies and peoples! There is no reality, there is no true duration, save that between the cradle and the grave. The rest is mere bombast, show, delusion! They call me a master because of some magic in my speech and thoughts; but I am a frightened child in the presence of death!”[1]

 

 

II

A PRIMITIVE IDEA

That is where we stand. For us, death is the one event that counts in our life and in our universe. It is the point whereat all that escapes our vigilance unites and conspires against our happiness. The more our thoughts struggle to turn away from it, the closer do they press around it. The more we dread it, the more dreadful it becomes, for it battens but on our fears. He who seeks to forget it burdens his memory with it; he who tries to shun it meets naught else. But, though we think of death incessantly, we do so unconsciously, without learning to know death. We compel our attention to turn its back upon it, instead of going to it with uplifted head. We exhaust all our forces, which ought to face death boldly, in distracting our will from it. We deliver death into the dim hands of instinct and we grant it not one hour of our intelligence. Is it surprising that the idea of death, which should be the most perfect and the most luminous—being the most persistent and the most inevitable—remains the flimsiest of our ideas and the only one that is backward? How should we know the one power which we never looked in the face? How could it profit by flashes kindled only to help us escape it? To