If the soul is immaterial, it may survive the body; and if it so survives, Providence is justified.  Had I no other proof of the immaterial nature of the soul, the triumph of the wicked and the oppression of the righteous in this world would be enough to convince me.  I should seek to resolve so appalling a discord in the universal harmony.  I should say to myself, “All is not over with life, everything finds its place at death.”  I should still have to answer the question, “What becomes of man when all we know of him through our senses has vanished?” This question no longer presents any difficulty to me when I admit the two substances.  It is easy to understand that what is imperceptible to those senses escapes me, during my bodily life, when I perceive through my senses only.  When the union of soul and body is destroyed, I think one may be dissolved and the other may be preserved.  Why should the destruction of the one imply the destruction of the other?  On the contrary, so unlike in their nature, they were during their union in a highly unstable condition, and when this union comes to an end they both return to their natural state; the active vital substance regains all the force which it expended to set in motion the passive dead substance.  Alas! my vices make me only too well aware that man is but half alive during this life; the life of the soul only begins with the death of the body.

But what is that life?  Is the soul of man in its nature immortal?  I know not.  My finite understanding cannot hold the infinite; what is called eternity eludes my grasp.  What can I assert or deny, how can I reason with regard to what I cannot conceive?  I believe that the soul survives the body for the maintenance of order; who knows if this is enough to make it eternal?  However, I know that the body is worn out and destroyed by the division of its parts, but I cannot conceive a similar destruction of the conscious nature, and as I cannot imagine how it can die, I presume that it does not die.  As this assumption is consoling and in itself not unreasonable, why should I fear to accept it?

I am aware of my soul; it is known to me in feeling and in thought; I know what it is without knowing its essence; I cannot reason about ideas which are unknown to me.  What I do know is this, that my personal identity depends upon memory, and that to be indeed the same self I must remember that I have existed.  Now after death I could not recall what I was when alive unless I also remembered what I felt and therefore what I did; and I have no doubt that this remembrance will one day form the happiness of the good and the torment of the bad.  In this world our inner consciousness is absorbed by the crowd of eager passions which cheat remorse.  The humiliation and disgrace involved in the practice of virtue do not permit us to realise its charm.  But when, freed from the illusions of the bodily senses, we behold with joy the supreme Being and the eternal