The problem of my own existence also convinces me that there is much more. The questions are: Did my soul exist before my body was formed? Or did it … - Richard Jefferies
" "The problem of my own existence also convinces me that there is much more. The questions are: Did my soul exist before my body was formed? Or did it come into life with my body, as a product, like a flame, of combustion? What will become of it after death. Will it simply go out like a flame and become non-existent, or will it live for ever in one or other mode? To these questions I am unable to find any answer whatsoever. In our present range of ideas there is no reply to them. I may have previously existed; I may not have previously existed. I may be a product of combustion; I may exist on after physical life is suspended, or I may not. No demonstration is possible. But what I want to say is that the alternatives of extinction or immortality may not be the only alternatives. There may be something else, more wonderful than immortality, and far beyond and above that idea. There may be something immeasurably superior to it As our ideas have run in circles for centuries, it is difficult to find words to express the idea that there are other ideas. For myself, though I cannot fully express myself, I feel fully convinced that there is a vast immensity of thought, of existence, and of other things beyond even immortal existence.
English
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About Richard Jefferies
(6 November 1848 – 14 August 1887) was an English nature writer, noted for his depiction of English rural life in essays, books of natural history, and novels. His childhood on a small Wiltshire farm had a great influence on him and provides the background to all his major works of fiction.
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Native Name:
John Richard Jefferies
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Additional quotes by Richard Jefferies
[N]ow we see eyes become dim and artificial aid needed in comparative youth, and teeth drop out in mere childhood. Many men and women lose teeth before they are twenty. This simple fact is evidence enough of inherited weakness or flaw. How could a person who had lost teeth before twenty be ever said to die of old age, though he died at a hundred and ten? Death is not a supernatural event; it is an event of the most materialistic character, and may certainly be postponed, by the united efforts of the human race, to a period far more distant from the date of birth than has been the case during the historic period. The question has often been debated in my mind whether death is or is not wholly preventible; whether, if the entire human race were united in their efforts to eliminate causes of decay, death might not also be altogether eliminated.
These things speak with a voice of thunder. From every human being whose body has been racked by pain, from every human being who has suffered from accident or disease, from every human being drowned, burned, or slain by negligence, there goes up a continually increasing cry louder than the thunder. An awe-inspiring cry dread to listen to, which no one dares listen to, against which ears are stopped by the wax of superstition, and the wax of criminal selfishness:— These miseries are your doing, because you have mind and thought, and could have prevented them. You can prevent them in the future. You do not even try.
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