"You need not ask me about the gods and spirits or the world beyond the grave, because I really cannot tell you anything about them. You ask me what death is. I do not know. I think it will be time enough to consider the problems of death when we have solved those presented by life: and it will be a long time before we have done that.[297] You ask me about serving the dead. First make sure that you are doing everything possible in the service of living men, then you may consider, if you will, whether any changes should be made in our ancestral modes of serving the spirits of the dead. You ask if the departed have any knowledge of the sacrifices we offer them, or if they are totally unconscious of what we are doing for them. How can I answer you? If I were to tell you that the dead are conscious, you might waste your substance in funerals and sacrifices, and thus neglect the living to pay court to the dead. If on the other hand I were to tell you that the dead are unconscious, filial piety might diminish and sons begin to leave the bodies of their parents uncared for and unburied. Seek not to know whether the departed are indeed conscious. If they are, you will know it some day; meanwhile study the world you live in and have no fear that you will exhaust its treasures of knowledge: the world takes a lot of knowing. What is the use of my giving you my personal opinion about death and spiritual beings? You, or others less intelligent than you, might take my opinions as definite statements of truth, and if they happen to be erroneous opinions I might very properly be charged with the propagation of error. It is the custom of our race to offer sacrifices to the spirits of the dead and I consider this a good old custom and one that ought to be kept up, because even if there are no spirits to receive our homage the practice is in itself a harmless one and helps to foster reverence for one's elders and for those in authority. Therefore I say to you, carry out the solemn sacrifices to which you have been accustomed, and when you do so, honour the spirits as if they were present,[298] but do not be so foolish as to attempt familiar intercourse with them. It was not we who made the chasm that lies between ourselves and the spiritual world, nor have we any right (so far as we know) to try to bridge that chasm. God--if there be a God--knows why the chasm is there, and God can bridge it if He will.