Page:The World and the Individual, Second Series (1901).djvu/17

I felt this fact, although with less clearness, from the first. I was of course sure, from the time of the first statement of my doctrine, that I attributed conscious individuality to the Absolute; and I plainly insisted, in my Religious Aspect of Philosophy, that, in the Absolute, all finite individual lives, wills, meanings are consciously recognized, fulfilled, and justly expressed, precisely as they deserve to be. But I was not clear as to what consequences were involved in this thesis when one applied it to the question as to the continued existence of this man, as he at present conceives himself. Now a philosophical student waits for light; and does not teach a doctrine until he finds light about that doctrine; and is careless what other people think of the practical value of his teachings, so long as he is conscious that he is sincerely looking for truth. I can at all events say that my own little contribution to the doctrine of Immortality, such as it is, has been no product either of a feverish desire for the endurance of my private consciousness, or of a similar longing regarding any friend of mine, or of any wish to conform to the traditional lore upon the subject. In my discussion with Professor Howison (published in the book called The Conception of God), in my more recent Ingersoll Lecture on The Conception of Immortality (published at Boston in 1900), and, finally, in the present volume, I have simply reported the results to which meditation on the nature of the Ethical Self and on the place of Individuality in the Theory of Being have led me. To make clearer my personal equation, I may add that, since childhood, I have never had any faith about the problem of Immortality except in so far