Victorian era; but our conviction of personal immortality is probably far less. The two things do not go together: the diminution of church attendance in the last fifty years has not worsened the conditions of labour.
It may, however, be argued that an instinct for immortality is still subconsciously at work within us, colouring our actions and directing us on right ethical lines. But if it be a subconscious direction which thus works in us for righteousness, it may equally be to a subconscious end. The subconscious impulse may merely be guiding us to a subconscious realisation which would not at all satisfy the advocates of conscious immortality after death. What works subconsciously can in all probability find satisfaction in a subconscious reward. The chemic processes of the stomach and of the blood, for instance, are largely subconscious in their operation; and their needs may be subconsciously appeased without the brain being told anything about it through the usual intermediaries of taste and mastication. We have a preference for a conscious performance of the functions of life which we have always been accustomed to perform consciously; but a very large proportion of our life-functions work themselves out subconsciously and independently of our will. Our hearts beat, our blood circulates, our nails grow, our stomachs digest, our wounds heal, whether we tell them to or no, and yet we are
