[Illustration: FRANCES POWER COBBE. _From “Life of Frances Power Cobbe.” By Herself._] THE PEAK IN DARIEN, WITH SOME OTHER INQUIRIES TOUCHING CONCERNS OF THE SOUL AND THE BODY. AN OCTAVE OF ESSAYS BY FRANCES POWER COBBE. “Das Leben ist der Güter höchstes nicht; Der Uebel grösstes aber ist die Schuld.” _Die Braut von Messina._ BOSTON: GEO. H. ELLIS, 141 FRANKLIN STREET. LONDON: WILLIAMS & NORGATE. 1882. PREFACE. My last little book, _Lectures on the Duties of Women_, was addressed principally to the young of my own sex. The present volume is intended for my contemporaries who are daily brought face to face with some of the darker problems of the time, or are led by their advancing years to ponder ever more earnestly on the mystery of the great transition. In these various papers,--some new, some already published in different periodicals,--I have striven to meet fairly the questions whether the denial of God and immortality be indeed (as Agnostics and Comtists are wont to boast) a “magnanimous” creed, whether life be truly (as Leopardi and Schopenhauer and hundreds of their English disciples din daily in our ears) a burden and a curse, and whether (as much recent legislation and newspaper literature would seem to teach) bodily health be after all the _summum bonum_ for which personal freedom, courage, humanity, and purity ought all to be sacrificed? To these discussions, I have added one on the “Fitness of Women for the Ministry of Religion,”--a subject, I believe, destined soon to acquire importance,--with two or three less serious papers on other matters touching moral questions; and, in conclusion, I have returned to a speculation concerning the immediate entry into the life after death which I find has possessed interest for many readers. That “Peak in Darien,” which we must all ascend in our turn,--the apex of two worlds, whence the soul may possibly descry the horizonless Pacific of eternity,--is the turning-point of human hope. And it appears to me infinitely strange that so little attention has been paid to the cases wherein indications seem to have been given of the perception by the dying of blessed presences revealed to them even as the veil of flesh has dropped away. Were I permitted to record with names and references half the instances of this occurrence which have been narrated to me, this short essay might have been swelled to a volume. It is my wish, however, that it should serve to suggest observation and provoke the interchange of experiences, rather than be considered as pretending to decide affirmatively the question wherewith it deals.