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   Dear ap:ers,   
      
   I thought you might enjoy this given the current themes floating around.   
      
   IMMORTALITY:[1] A DIALOGUE.   
      
      
   Thrasymachos—Philalethes.   
      
   Thrasymachos. Tell me now, in one word, what shall I be after my death?   
   And mind you be clear and precise.   
      
   Philalethes. Everything and nothing.   
      
   Thrasymachos. I thought so! I gave you a problem, and you solve it by a   
   contradiction. That's a very stale trick.   
      
   Philalethes. Yes, but you raise transcendental questions, and you expect   
   me to answer them in language that is only made for immanent knowledge.   
   It's no wonder that a contradiction ensues.   
      
   Thrasymachos. What do you mean by transcendental questions and immanent   
   knowledge? I've heard these expressions before, of course; they are not   
   new to me. The Professor was fond of using them, but only as predicates of   
   the Deity, and he never talked of anything else; which was all quite right   
   and proper. He argued thus: if the Deity was in the world itself, he was   
   immanent; if he was somewhere outside it, he was transcendent. Nothing   
   could be clearer and more obvious! You knew where you were. But this   
   Kantian rigmarole won't do any more: it's antiquated and no longer   
   applicable to modern ideas. Why, we've had a whole row of eminent men in   
   the metropolis of German learning—   
      
   Philalethes (aside). German humbug, he means.   
      
   Thrasymachos.—The mighty Schleiermacher, for instance, and that gigantic   
   intellect, Hegel; and at this time of day we've abandoned that nonsense. I   
   should rather say we're so far beyond it that we can't put up with it any   
   more. What's the use of it then? What does it all mean?   
      
   Philalethes. Transcendental knowledge is knowledge which passes beyond the   
   bounds of possible experience, and strives to determine the nature of   
   things as they are in themselves. Immanent knowledge, on the other hand,   
   is knowledge which confines itself entirely within those bounds; so that   
   it cannot apply to anything but actual phenomena. As far as you are an   
   individual, death will be the end of you. But your individuality is not   
   your true and inmost being: nay, only the outward manifestation of it. It   
   is not the thing-in-itself, but only the phenomenon presented in the form   
   of time; and therefore with a beginning and an end. But your real being   
   knows neither time nor beginning nor end, nor yet the limits of any given   
   individual. It is everywhere present in every individual; and no   
   individual can exist apart from it. So when death comes, on the one hand   
   you are annihilated as an individual; on the other you are and remain   
   everything. That is what I meant when I said that at death you would be   
   everything and nothing. It is difficult to find a more precise answer to   
   your question and at the same time be brief. The answer is contradictory,   
   I admit; but it is so simply because your life is in time, and the   
   immortal part of you in eternity. You may put the matter thus: Your   
   immortal part is something that does not last in time and yet is   
   indestructible; but there you have another contradiction! You see what   
   happens by trying to bring the transcendental within the limits of   
   immanent knowledge. It is in some sort doing violence to the latter by   
   misusing it for ends it was never meant to serve.   
      
   Thrasymachos. Look here, I sha'n't give two-pence for your immortality   
   unless I'm to remain an individual.   
      
   Philalethes. Well, perhaps I may be able to satisfy you on this point.   
   Suppose I guarantee that after death you shall remain an individual, but   
   only on condition that you first spend three months of complete   
   unconsciousness.   
      
   Thrasymachos. I shall have no objection to that.   
      
   Philalethes. But remember, if people are completely unconscious, they take   
   no account of time. So, when you are dead, it's all the same to you   
   whether three months pass in the world of consciousness, or ten thousand   
   years. In the one case as in the other, it is simply a matter of believing   
   what is told you when you awake. So far, then, you can afford to be   
   indifferent whether it is three months or ten thousand years that pass   
   before you recover your individuality.   
      
   Thrasymachos. Yes, if it comes to that, I suppose you're right.   
      
   Philalethes. And if by chance, after those ten thousand years have gone   
   by, no one ever thinks of awaking you, I fancy it would be no great   
   misfortune. You would have become quite accustomed to non-existence after   
   so long a spell of it—following upon such a very few years of life. At any   
   rate you may be sure you would be perfectly ignorant of the whole thing.   
   Further, if you knew that the mysterious power which keeps you in your   
   present state of life had never once ceased in those ten thousand years to   
   bring forth other phenomena like yourself, and to endow them with life, it   
   would fully console you.   
      
   Thrasymachos. Indeed! So you think you're quietly going to do me out of my   
   individuality with all this fine talk. But I'm up to your tricks. I tell   
   you I won't exist unless I can have my individuality. I'm not going to be   
   put off with 'mysterious powers,' and what you call 'phenomena.' I can't   
   do without my individuality, and I won't give it up.   
      
   Philalethes. You mean, I suppose, that your individuality is such a   
   delightful thing—so splendid, so perfect, and beyond compare—that you   
   can't imagine anything better. Aren't you ready to exchange your present   
   state for one which, if we can judge by what is told us, may possibly be   
   superior and more endurable?   
      
   Thrasymachos. Don't you see that my individuality, be it what it may, is   
   my very self? To me it is the most important thing in the world,   
      
   For God is God and I am I.   
      
   I want to exist, I, I. That's the main thing. I don't care about an   
   existence which has to be proved to be mine, before I can believe it.   
      
   Philalethes. Think what you're doing! When you say I, I, I want to exist,   
   it is not you alone that says this. Everything says it, absolutely   
   everything that has the faintest trace of consciousness. It follows, then,   
   that this desire of yours is just the part of you that is not   
   individual—the part that is common to all things without distinction. It   
   is the cry, not of the individual, but of existence itself; it is the   
   intrinsic element in everything that exists, nay, it is the cause of   
   anything existing at all. This desire craves for, and so is satisfied   
   with, nothing less than existence in general—not any definite individual   
   existence. No! that is not its aim. It seems to be so only because this   
   desire—this Will—attains consciousness only in the individual, and   
   therefore looks as though it were concerned with nothing but the   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)