Was ending ending once and always, when you died? (l. 172.)
Hence suggests itself the further question, a necessary sequel to the first. If death is not the ending of the soul’s life, what is the nature of that immortality, the actuality of which the speaker seeks to establish? We have already seen Cleon emphatically repudiating the theory of Protus as to the satisfaction afforded by a vicarious immortality, “what thou writest, paintest, stays: that does not die.” Equally unsatisfactory to human nature is the suggestion in the present instance of a prolongation and renewal of life by influences transmitted to succeeding generations. And yet is the certainty of the thirteenth century possible to the nineteenth? “Phrase the solemn Tuscan fashioned.”
I believe and I declare—
Certain am I—from this life I pass into a better, there
Where that lady lives of whom enamoured was my soul.
With this assurance all would be well.
(iv) Now, the mere possibility of propounding questions such as the foregoing, involves the existence of that which asks, and of that to which the enquiry is addressed with at least an anticipation, however vague, of obtaining an answer. In other words, the existence of an intelligent being and an external source of intelligence to which its questionings are directed. These are the only facts on which the speaker would insist as a basis for subsequent argument: but of the certainty of these he is absolutely assured. That their existence is beyond proof he holds as testimony to their reality.
Call this—God, then, call that—soul, and both—the only facts for me.
Prove them facts? that they o’erpass my power of proving, proves them such:
Fact it is I know I know not something which is fact as much. (ll. 222-224.)
God and the soul. The primary fact of life and that which is dependent on the primary. That the soul knows not whence it came nor whither it goes is no argument against either its existence and immortality, or the existence and omnipotent and omniscient control of a divine Being. The relative positions of the rush and the stream lend themselves to the illustration of this assertion. Whatever the purpose of life, it is yet possible that man should exist without possessing assured knowledge concerning his future destiny. All that the rush may conjecture of the course of the stream is “mere surmise not knowledge”: nevertheless, the existence of the stream is a fact as self-evident to the onlooker as is that of the rush. Therefore—
Ask the rush if it suspects
Whence and how the stream which floats it had a rise, and where and how
Falls or flows on still! What answer makes the rush except that now
Certainly it floats and is, and, no less certain than itself,
Is the everyway external stream that now through shoal and shelf
Floats it onward, leaves it—may be—wrecked at last, or lands on shore
There to root again and grow and flourish stable evermore.
—May be! mere surmise not knowledge: much conjecture styled belief,
What the rush conceives the stream means through the voyage blind and brief. (ll. 226-234.)
Thus all man’s conjecture as to his future existence is but conjecture: surmise based upon probabilities deduced from the present conditions of life and accumulated experience.
(v) And is then this fact of the present existence of the soul cause sufficient to demand belief in its immortality? The affirmative answer, “Because God seems good and wise,” proves inadequate when the eyes of the enquirer are turned to a world in which evil is manifestly existent, and not only existent, but frequently predominant. The possibility of reconciling such conditions with the design of a beneficent omnipotence is only attained through the acceptance of belief in a future life which shall disentangle the complexities of the present; which shall render perfect that which is imperfect; complete that which is incomplete. Without such a prospect of the ultimate solution of its problems life would be unintelligible, therefore impossible as the work of an intelligent being: hence the existence of God is denied by implication, and the premise originally accepted (l. 222) is rejected. This question is treated more fully later in the poem (ll. 335-348).