Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/518

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THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW.
[Vol. I.

with this view that to the unity of the world's energy there is any corresponding unity of world-consciousness? and (2) Can we believe consistently with this theory that when that unity of consciousness which we call human personality is once broken by death it can ever be restored? In simpler terms, does it exclude a conscious intelligence presiding over the universe? and does it admit the possibility that death is not an eternal sleep?

All thoughtful men will admit that, upon any hypothesis, scientific answers to these questions are hardly to be expected, because they lie beyond the sphere of present experience. It is perhaps sufficient to say that the order of ideas proposed in this essay is no more hostile to affirmative answers to both these questions than any other scheme of thought. Evolution along lines of ascending life, upon which we must all agree, seems to imply the existence of plan and purpose, of means and end, of rational agency and intelligent finality. If all physical movements (kinesis) are accompanied with psychic concomitants (metakinesis), and these may have foci in human consciousness, it would be very bold to say that they have no other focus, that is, that there is no superhuman or cosmic consciousness. And, as we know nothing of the area through which energy is extended, who can say where such a focus may not be? And who can affirm that, in an Infinite Being, the focus may not be everywhere? Or, since our geometry is built upon finite space-forms, who can say that it may not be without having any space-relation? If, indeed, this be a universe in which we dwell, and not a heap of isolated disjecta membra, is it not a necessity of thought that, the system of energy being totally inter-related, so also the psychic concomitants which the hypothesis requires must also have their unity?

The other question may be thrown into this form: If reason and justice and beneficence have had and do have place in human life and history, does not the principle of continuity require that they do not cease before their fulfilment is achieved? May we not then suppose that personal consciousness, new-born every morning and relinquished every night, may be resumed so