ABSTRACT
All we gregarious beings are swept along in the great stream of obvious social life. We are caught in the wheels of an enormous engine, pushed and carried by the half-conscious drift of the herd. And no doubt, as a rule, while things go entirely well with us, this is all the life we need. Yet constantly, in a man's ordinary experience, there is an undercurrent of discontent or home-sickness; a feeling that this is not our complete or ultimate life; that there is somewhere another life which is more our own and which matters more. The commonest view places it after death, but mystics and contemplatives have believed it to exist now in our own souls. In any case it is described as something peculiarly real and transcendantly important. Indeed the language used about it, and about the rewards and punishments which it carries with it, is usually so strong as to excite suspicion in the plain man. The offer of such enormous interest seems calculated to compensate for some exceptionally large element of uncertainty.
