“I admit it, then.”
“And I repeat that to prove life endless is a matter of the FIRST importance. And I will go a little farther.—Does it follow that life is worth having because a man would like to have it for ever?”
“I should say so; who should be a better judge than the man himself?”
“Let us look at it a moment. Suppose—we will take a strong case—suppose a man whose whole delight is in cruelty, and who has such plentiful opportunity of indulging the passion that he finds it well with him—such a man would of course desire such a life to endure for ever: is such a life worth having? were it well that man should be immortally cruel?”
“Not for others.”
“Still less, I say, for himself.”
“In the judgment of others, doubtless; but to himself he would be happy.”
“Call his horrible satisfaction happiness then, and leave aside the fact that in its own nature it is a horror, and not a bliss: a time must come, when, in the exercise of his delight, he shall have destroyed all life besides, and made himself alone with himself in an empty world: will he then find life worth having?”
“Then he ought to live for punishment.”
“With that we have nothing to do now, but there you have given me an answer to my question, whether a man’s judgment that his life is worth having, proves immortality a thing to be desired.”