APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS

Hokitika Guardian, 31 December 1931, Page 1

APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS

To say that an idea is necessary is simply to affirm that we cannot conceive the contrary; and the fact that we cannot conceive the contrary of any belief may be a presumption, but it is certainly no prooi, or its truth. * -s€■ 1 * X It js remarkable time flume does not refer to the sentimental arguments for the immorality of the soul which are so much in vogue at the present day ; and which are based upon our desire for a longer conscious existence than that which nature appears to have allotted us. Perhaps lie did not think them north notice. For indeed it is not a little strange, that our strong desire that a certain occurrence should happen should be put forward as evidence that it will happen. If niy intense desire to see the friend, from whom I have parted, does not bring him from the other side of the'world, or take me thither: if the mother’s agonised prayer that her child should live lias not prevented him from dying; experience certainly affords no presumption that the strung desire to he alive after death, which we call inspiration after immortality, is any more likely to be gratified. As Hume truly says, “All doctrines are to be suspected whichare favoured by our passions”; and the doctrine, .that we are immortal because we should extremely like to be so, contains the quintessence of suspiciousness.