I Once Began An Essay On
"The Art Of Knowing What Gives One Pleasure," But Soon Found Myself
Out Of
The diatonic with it, in all manner of strange keys, amid a
maze of metaphysical accidentals and double and treble
Flats, so I
left it alone as a question not worth the trouble it seemed likely
to take in answering. It is like everything else, if we much want
to know our own mind on any particular point, we may be trusted to
develop the faculty which will reveal it to us, and if we do not
greatly care about knowing, it does not much matter if we remain in
ignorance. But in few cases can we get at our permanent liking
without at least as much experience as a fishmonger must have had
before he can choose at once the best bloater out of twenty which,
to inexperienced eyes, seem one as good as the other. Lord
Beaconsfield was a thorough Erasmus Darwinian when he said so well
in "Endymion": "There is nothing like will; everybody can do
exactly what they like in this world, provided they really like it.
Sometimes they think they do, but in general it's a mistake." {1}
If this is as true as I believe it to be, "the longing after
immortality," though not indeed much of an argument in favour of
our being immortal at the present moment, is perfectly sound as a
reason for concluding that we shall one day develop immortality, if
our desire is deep enough and lasting enough.
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