The commonwealth. (Greenwood, Miss.) 1896-1923, 1897-09-09
So"ot""'"s HAVE noticed Of late "A peculiar repugnance to eternn,
EIEMNIIYs = The sentiment shmusi itself in a nxnrSs III. 4.

ETERNITY. ! The sentiment shows itself in a bafexpressed with ~. ny.
eternity should not exist. Not a few re disposed to say that eternity is ,r
bhg that the thought of it may well make us shudder. And this is said !
believe, with little respect to the prospective immortality of the soul; albeit
one cannot logically object to eternity if the abstract notion of it be cousd.
cred apart from our personal concern therein For if u are not to live tm
ever why should we trouble ourselves that something else shall still continue
forever without us?
As matter of fact, eternity exists, and it can neither be abolished no.
obvated: it can neither be modified nor abridged. Eternity is the only fact.
which, if abrogated, would continue as before! Here is an infinite paradox.
if God should destroy eternity it would be there still! If He himself shound
perish out of the universe, eternity would remain unchanged and uncbanm.
able: all this for the reason that only things can be abolished, and eternity i
not a thing, Even If God should be not. eternity would still be- We NAV
admit that the thought is appalling.
But why should any one dread eternity? 1t would appear that te h.
man mind is changing its point of observation, To some 1t is beginning to
seem undesirable that onyhng should continue forever. Many minds way,.
sometimes eternal duration seem desirable; at other times it seem undesh.
'oe' very d'heult II is for the human spirit to free itself from the tram
mes Of environment and TO look at such a question undsturbed by the to-.
ments of time and sense.
Looked at historically. eternity las seemed most desirable to mankind
t has been so because eternity has appeared to our hopes st the continents
immortality. The idea that the Universal Thing shall end as a light that,
is extinguished has, therefore. revolued the human rae as mmch, Nc a % t t'
concept. Literature is hecked all the way from the Idos to the .punci
ps {" Biology with broken expressions of hope that at least somethngmay
continue forever. Very rarely in the literary excursion over the fields Of tina
past do we find even a hint of a desIethat all thingsshoud cease, and bepot
1t is the turning from this mood to another mood, in which eternal dr..
ration is considered as a doubtful boon, or as something to be dreaded rather
tha Desired that marks the thought Of the present age with the peculiar
accent fa'oring the universal extinction of whatever is, as the final and per-.
1et good. 1T is, no doubt, a symptom of the oncoming old age of the vest.
ern races 1t is a hint of that Oriental Nirvana which the Buddhists fndas
the final rest of souls.
This change of mood in our age seems to me to be the result of = social,
state tn"' mas supervened j" the world and not to be a primary and normal
evolution of thought. 1t would appear that the oyerstrain of humanity has
p"'"ceo oVer-estmateoft the blcssedncsso of surccaSc and sleep. Civilization
has taken its living component parts and subjected them to Sc much torture
that they have come to shudder at the thought that it may continue forever.
Therefore, saith the sufferer, it were better that consciousness be ended, and
II that should be obiterated, then why should oayhiug continue afterwards
Even eternity without any inhabitants would be mere inane and hollow
gulf AN infinite cave of vacuous silence.
What, therefore, is suicide but the logical conclusion IF a syloGsm. the
major premise of which is the intoerabc rigor of the civilized life, and the
minor premise OF which is the torment Of the individual soul. The trouble
with the suicide is his failure to reflect how horribly he is defeating himself
by trying to employ death as a stopper! He fooHshly imagines that he can
tranmel up eternity by aboishing himself. 1t is as though a man should
try to prevent the return Of the vernal equinox by burning down his cabin.
But was only intending to note the fact that in or age there is GER.
tam shudder in many minds at the thought Of eternal duration. Several
times have heard noted men, not oyerdone with calamity. but rather in
hoarshlng estate, express the wish that neither eternity nor the thought of
had any existence, but rather that cessation and nonentity might super.
Vene at last as the happest finale to the chaos which we call nature and the
meteor which we call lie.-The Arena.