to explain these
psychological phenomena by the theory of association of ideas, but
they eluded an analysis; there was no chain along which memory can
pass. They were like ignes fatui, flashing up from dank caverns and
dying out while I looked upon them. As I grew older I found strange
confirmation in those curious passages of Coleridge and Wordsworth,
[Footnote: Coleridge's "Sonnet on the Birth of a Son." Wordsworth's
"Ode--Intimations of Immortality."] and continually I propound to my
 these questions: 'If you are immortal, and will exist through
endless ages, have you not existed from the beginning of time?
Immortality knows neither commencement nor ending. If so, whither
shall I go when this material framework is dissolved? to make other
frameworks? to a final rest? Or shall the I, the me, the , lose
its former identity? Am I a minute constituent of the all-diffused,
all-pervading , a breath of the Infinite Essence, one day to
be divested of my individuality? or is God an awful, gigantic,
immutable, isolated Personality? If so, what medium of communication
is afforded? Can the spiritual commune with matter? Can the material
take cognizance of the purely spiritual and divine?' Oh, sir!