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Before replying to these, we must choose our universe, for we have the choice. It is a matter of knowing how we propose to look at infinity. Is it the moveless, immovable infinity, from all eternity perfect and at its zenith, and the purposeless universe that our reason will conceive at the farthest point of our thoughts? Do we believe that, at our death, the illusion of movement and progress which we see from the depths of this life will suddenly fade away? If so, it is inevitable that, at our last breath, we shall be absorbed in what, for lack of a better term, we call the cosmic consciousness. Are we, on the other hand, persuaded that death will reveal to us that the illusion lies not in our senses but in our reason and that, in a world incontestably alive, despite the eternity preceding our birth, all the experiments have not been made, that is to say that movement and evolution continue and will never and nowhere stop? In that case, we must at once accept the theory of a modified or progressive consciousness. The two aspects, after all, are equally unintelligible but defensible; and, although really irreconcilable, they agree on one point, namely, that unending pain and unredeemed misery are alike excluded from them both for ever.