But, in the next place, in tentatively committing himself to the conclusion we are criticising, it seems to us that Sir Oliver Lodge loses sight of the very essence of his own contention: his conclusion, in effect, contradicts his premises. Syllogistically, and, of course, very bluntly stated, his argument might be summed up as follows: "What is of value is preserved; the soul is of value; therefore the soul is--dissolved." Let us put this a little more explicitly. That which has been gained in the course of evolution, so far as the human soul is concerned--that which makes it worthy to endure, _viz._, its character, conscience, idealism and so forth--belongs to the {238} soul precisely as an individual entity, and in no other way whatsoever; neither can it be effectively preserved save in the form of an individual entity. The soul, in other words, is not to be compared to a mere quantum of raw material, or to a cupful of water temporarily drawn from an infinite deep into which it may be poured back, and nothing lost: it is, on the contrary, a highly individualised product, so individual as to be unique, and in simply being merged in the totality of being all that is most valuable in it would be lost and wasted. We have no difficulty in believing that mere _life_--the potentiality, the material out of which higher things evolve--may go back into the all, to arise again in new manifestations and combinations; but it is otherwise with the highly complex resultant of the evolutionary process which we call _personality_, endowed as it is with self-consciousness, with the sense of right and wrong, the capacity for ideals, the faculty of self-giving, a god-like within answering to the God without. It is because these things--those which "avail for highest purposes"--make man personal and mark him off, broadly speaking, from the lower, sub-human life out of which he has emerged, that we believe in the permanence of human personality, of the spiritual element in man, in the survival of the soul _as individual and personal_, and not merely as "part of the eternal Being of God." A simple illustration will help us to enforce our {239} point of view. In the process of porcelain manufacture the half-finished ware is placed in "seggars" or coarse clay shells for protection in the glaze or enamel kiln. These temporary shells, having served their purpose, are broken up and ground down again into a shapeless mass under heavy revolving rollers; but no one would dream of treating the graceful vases and figures they enclosed for a time after the same fashion. The parallel is fairly obvious: the protecting clay envelope broken to pieces, merged and mingled with other clay, to be so used and broken a hundred times; the precious product carefully taken from its coarse shell and preserved. The dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns unto God who gave it: returns, but not as it came forth from Him, but