[214] The analysis no doubt has its interest. But among other difficulties it is not easy to see how the argument, based as it is on rational grounds, makes for anything but annihilation. Death is a negation—it, according to the argument, puts an end to the "process"—what remains then is apparently the evanescence of the finite spirit. This reference to "happiness" assumes that conscious individual life continues, which is a mere pelitio principii. If it continues the former dual aspect would seem to be implied in it. The analysis of the actual significance of death for Christendom and Greek paganism retains, of course, its validity.
[215] But surely in a sense personal life, if only limited to Earth's existence, may be, I do not say necessarily is, all the more valuable. This is an important aspect of the matter which is not here adequately answered, and it suggests a real grievance against the extravagant follies of a certain type of Christendom. The present feeling of the wisest minds of our own time will be inclined to regard a good deal of Hegel's remarks here as insufficient or lacking directness. One recalls those significant lines of a great writer but recently taken from us:
Sensation is a gracious gift
But were it cramped in station,
The prayer to have it cast adrift
Would spout from all sensation.
Hegel's point of view seems neither to be that of mysticism nor mere absorption.
[216] "Odyssey," XI, vv. 481-91. But this illustration is at least evidence of the high value a Greek attached to life on Earth.
[217] True enough as an analysis of the Christian consciousness; but the difficulty above pointed out remains so far as the writer refers to a future life, which he sometimes appears to do, sometimes not. Conditions are assumed for human personality of which we can form no conception.
[218] He means it is the negation of that which is itself a negation, finite existence. The conclusion is of course, as above suggested, replete with difficulty.
[219] That is, I presume, the positive character of natural conditions; but it may mean its own "affirmative" relation.
[220] Auf die Innerlichkeit des Geistes.
[221] Reason or Spirit are perhaps preferable.