“Oh, yes; I have read of such cases, certainly.”
“Very well. You have read of such cases. So!--Now, then, suppose an accident of that sort should befall _you?_ Everything you can hope for from death would come to pass, and yet you would live. What better could you desire?
“And yet _I_ would live? Hardly. My body would live, true. But _I_, my personality, my identity, would have vanished. For is not the very pith and marrow of one's identity, remembrance? Is not memory the birthmark, so to speak, by which one recognises one's-self? Is it not the cord upon which one's experiences are strung, which holds them together, and establishes their unity? My body would live, true enough. But it would be inhabited and animated by another spirit, another mind.”
“Well, even so? It is the extinction of your identity which you seek to bring about by means of death. But you have no ground for supposing that death involves any such extinction. Atheist, agnostic, what you will, you must always acknowledge and allow for that possibility of a future life. Whereas, the man or woman to whom the accident happens which we have assumed, obtains for a surety that which he or she can only dubiously hope for from death.”
“Ah, but there is a mighty difference. It is not within my power to cause such an accident. It _is_ within my power to die.”
“Not within your power to cause such an accident? Not within _your_ power, I grant. But will you say that it is not within human power, not within any man's power? Imagine whatever human circumstance you like, which can come to pass by accident. Then, speaking _à priori_, tell me of any conclusive reason why that circumstance should not be brought to pass by design? Why man, investigating the causes of it, enlightened by his science, employing his cunning, should not be able at will to occasion it? Take this very case in hand--the total obliteration of a human being memory of the past. A blow upon the head, the result of an accident, can occasion it. Why not a blow upon the head, the result of man's deliberate purpose? Insanity, small-pox, consumption, paralysis, deafness, blindness--each of these it would be entirely possible for man voluntarily to induce. Why not oblivion?”
