“And passed from a babe, in the creeping trance of a couple of
    summers and winters to articulate and walk.  All this is equally
    wonderful.

    “And that my soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other
    without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps to see each other,
    is every bit as wonderful.

    “And that I can think such thoughts as these is just as wonderful,

    “And that I can remind you, and you think them and know them to be
    true, is just as wonderful.

    “And that the moon spins round the earth, and on with the earth, is
    equally wonderful,

    “And that they balance themselves with the sun and stars is equally
    wonderful.”

“That,” I said, “is the passage I meant, and it shows that Whitman, at any rate, did not share Wilson’s feeling that the immortality of the soul is unimaginable.”

“Well,” said Wilson, “imaginable or no, we have no reason to believe it to be true.”

“No reason, indeed,” I agreed, “so far as demonstration is concerned, though equally, as I think, no reason to deny it.  But the point I raised was, whether, if we are to take a positive view of life and hold that it somehow has a good significance, we are not bound to adopt this, hypothesis of immortality—­to believe, that is, that, somehow or other, there awaits us a state of being in which all souls shall be bound together in that harmonious and perfect relation of which we have a type and foretaste in what we call love.  For, if it be true that perfect Good does involve some such relation, and yet that it is one unattainable under the conditions of our present life, then we must say either that such Good is unattainable—­and in that case why should we idly pursue it?—­or that we believe we shall attain it under some other conditions of existence.  And according as we adopt one or the other position—­so it seems to me—­our attitude towards life will be one of affirmation or of negation.”

“But,” he objected, “even if you were right in your conception of Good, and even if it be true that Good in its perfection is unattainable, yet we might still choose to get at least what Good we can—­and some Good you admit we can get—­and might find in that pursuit a sufficient justification for life.”

“We might, indeed,” I admitted, “but also we might very well find, that the Good we can attain is so small, and the Evil so immensely preponderant, that we ought to labour rather to bring to an end an existence so pitiful than to perpetuate it indefinitely in the persons of our luckless descendants.”

“That, thank heaven,” said Parry, “is not the view which is taken by the Western world.”

“The West” I replied, “has not yet learned to reflect.  Its activity is the slave of instinct, blind and irresponsible.”

“Yes,” he assented eagerly, “and that is its saving grace!  This instinct, which you call blind, is health and sanity and vigour.”