“At any rate, one wouldn’t care to make any _fresh_ medical discoveries,” said Arthur. “I see no help for _that_—though I shall be sorry to give up my favorite studies. Still, medicine, disease, pain, sorrow, sin—I fear they’re all linked together. Banish sin, and you banish them all!”
“_Military_ science is a yet stronger instance,” said the Earl. “Without sin, _war_ would surely be impossible. Still any mind, that has had in this life any keen interest, not in _itself_ sinful, will surely find itself _some_ congenial line of work hereafter. Wellington may have no more _battles_ to fight—and yet—
‘We doubt not that, for one so true, There must be other, nobler work to do, Than when he fought at Waterloo, And Victor he must ever be!’”
He lingered over the beautiful words, as if he loved them: and his voice, like distant music, died away into silence.
After a minute or two he began again. “If I’m not wearying you, I would like to tell you an idea of the future Life which has haunted me for years, like a sort of waking nightmare—I ca’n’t reason myself out of it.”
“Pray do,” Arthur and I replied, almost in a breath. Lady Muriel put aside the heap of music, and folded her hands together.
“The one idea,” the Earl resumed, “that has seemed to me to overshadow all the rest, is that of _Eternity_—involving, as it seems to do, the necessary _exhaustion_ of all subjects of human interest. Take Pure Mathematics, for instance—a Science independent of our present surroundings. I have studied it, myself, a little. Take the subject of circles and ellipses—what we call ‘curves of the second degree.’ In a future Life, it would only be a question of so many years (or _hundreds_ of years, if you like), for a man to work out _all_ their properties. Then he _might_ go to curves of the third degree. Say _that_ took ten times as long (you see we have _unlimited_ time to deal with). I can hardly imagine his _interest_ in the subject holding out even for those; and, though there is no limit to the _degree_ of the curves he might study, yet surely the time, needed to exhaust _all_ the novelty and interest of the subject, would be absolutely _finite_? And so of all other branches of Science. And, when I transport myself, in thought, through some thousands or millions of years, and fancy myself possessed of as much Science as one created reason can carry, I ask myself ‘What then? With nothing more to learn, can one rest content on _knowledge_, for the eternity yet to be lived through?’ It has been a very wearying thought to me. I have sometimes fancied one _might_, in that event, say ‘It is better _not_ to be,’ and pray for personal _annihilation_—the Nirvana of the Buddhists.”