It may be objected that our present existence is very far from being a dream or trance-like condition, that we are very wide awake to the “realities” of the world, and very keen about “things of importance”; that an analogy drawn from the memories of hypnotic patients and multiple personalities, and other pathological cases, is sure to be misleading. It may be so, the idea is admittedly of the nature of speculation; but the greatest of poets lends his countenance to the notion that phenomena and appearances are not ultimate realities, that our present life is not unlike the state of a sleep-walker—that we slept to enter it, and must sleep again before we wake—
“We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”
As to the question whether we ever again live on earth, it appears unlikely on this view that a given developed individual will appear again in unmodified form. If my present self is a fraction of a larger self, some other fraction of that larger self may readily be thought of as appearing,—to gain practical experience in the world of matter, and to return with developed character to the whole whence it sprang. And this operation may be repeated frequently; but these hypothetical fractional appearances can hardly be spoken of as reincarnations. We must not dogmatise, however, on the subject, and the case of the multitudes at present thwarted and returned at infancy may demand separate treatment. It may be that the abortive attempts at development on the part of individuals are like the waves lapping up the sides of a boulder and being successively flung back; while the general advance of the race is typified by the steady rising of the tide.
Soul and Body
The philosophic doctrine of the “self” on this view is a difficult one, and involves much study. As here stated, the form is sure to be crude and imperfect. Philosophy resents any sharp distinction between soul and body, between indwelling self and material vehicle. It prefers to treat the self as a whole, an individual unit; though it may admit the actual agglomeration of material particles to be transient and temporary. The word “self” can be used in a narrower or in a broader sense. It may signify the actual continuity of personality and memory whereof we are conscious; or it may signify a larger and vaguer underlying reality, of which the conscious self is but a fraction. The narrower sense is wide enough to include the whole man, both soul and body, as we know him; but the phrase “subliminal self” covers ideas extending hypothetically beyond that.
The idea of Redemption or Regeneration, in its highest and most Christian form, is applicable to both soul and body. The life of Christ shows us that the whole man can be regenerated as he stands; that we have not to wait for a future state, that the Kingdom of Heaven is in our midst and may be assimilated by us here and now.
The term “salvation” should not be limited to the soul, but should apply to the whole man. What kind of transfiguration may be possible, or may have been possible, in the case of a perfectly emancipated and glorified body, we do not yet know.
In a still larger sense these terms apply to the whole race of man; and for the salvation of mankind individual loss and suffering have been gladly expended. Not the individual alone, but the race also, can be adjured to realise some worthy object for all its striving, to open its eyes to more glorious possibilities than it has yet perceived, to