Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/322

Now for the great truth to which these observations are the precursor. We have already taken occasion to remark that discussions of the kind we are engaged in, are carried on, not for the sake of any conclusion we may arrive at with respect to the existence or the non-existence of the material universe, but solely for the sake of the laws of human thought which may be evolved in the course of the research. Now, the conclusion to which we are led by the train of our present speculation is this, that no question and no proposition whatever can for a moment be entertained which involves the supposition of our annihilation. It is an irreversible law of human thought, that no such idea can be construed to the mind by any effort of the understanding, or rationally articulated by any power of language. We cannot, and we do not think it; we only think that we think it. And upon the basis of this law, and upon it alone, independently of revelation, rests the great doctrine of our immortality. The fear of death is a salutary fear, and the thought of death is a salutary thought, not because we can really think the thought or really entertain the fear, but only because we imagine that we can do so. This imagination of ours (we say it with the deepest reverence) is a gracious imposition practised upon us by the Author of our nature, for the wisest and most benevolent of purposes. We appear to ourselves to be able to realise the thought and the fear, and this it is which drives us back so irresistibly into the busy press of