Mr. Frederick Myers's book, ‘Human Personality,’ sums up the effort of a lifetime. The author was perhaps the most elegant, certainly the most poetical of modern classical scholars. His English poetry had its original music, its personal note, its expression of a singular character. He was a hard-working Inspector of Schools. He was fond of social intercourse, and most interesting in conversation. But what lay nearest his heart was the problem of human immortality, or rather of the survival of the conscious life of the soul or spirit, using that word ‘without prejudice,’ till a better term is adopted. In Mr. Myers's opinion this question of survival after death was ‘the most momentous of all.’ Here I must differ from him to a certain extent. The question may be the most momentous, but it is not so regarded. Our race has always ‘jumped the life to come.’ The belief in it, when most generally held, had next to no influence on morality, on conduct. At the time of the Reformation the Catholic believed; but he could propitiate the Lord of Death and Life by gifts, penances, masses, and so forth. The Calvinist believed; but he was ‘elect,’ – and then could do as he pleased; or he was reprobate, – and then it did not matter. Black Ormistoun, before he was hanged for unnumbered offences (about 1574), announced that he was elect, and certain to sup that night in Paradise. Gilles de Rais entertained similar expectations.

If immortality was as absolutely certain as Mr. Myers himself believed it to be, people would, I think, behave exactly as they do at present. In short, the idea of immortality, as it does not affect conduct, is not the most momentous of all possible ideas.

The emotions with which Mr. Myers regarded immortality were very unlike those of men in general. In what I have to say of his book I shall be as frank as if he were yet with us, for he knew what I thought, and listened to objection with imperturbable humour and good humour. It is an objection that he had the strongest possible bias towards belief; just as most of our instructors in cheap popular science have precisely the opposite bias.