The Conception of Immortality.

First edition. 12mo. [8], 91, [1] pp. Original green cloth, spine lettered and ruled in gilt (some light wear to edges, a very good copy. Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and Company. 'Royce's theory of immortality differs sharply from the popular spiritualistic and sentimental views of his day. For Royce the problem of immortality relates logically to the inherent incompleteness of finite purposes. If any man could ever say, 'My deed is done, my aims are fulfilled,' there would be no need for a continuance of life. But since no thoughtful person can say this and since every finite aim is the expression of an absolute aim, there is always an eternal need for each temporal life. The absolute need each self immortally, for without us his internal meaning can never be satisfied. 'My human form of consciousness,' he concluded, 'is indeed doubtless a transient of my immortal life. Not thus haltingly, not thus darkly and ignorantly, shall I always labor. But the service of the eternal is an essentially endless service. There can be no last moral deed.' (Clendenning, The Life and Thought of Josiah Royce). 'Josiah Royce (1855?1916) was the leading American proponent of absolute idealism, the metaphysical view (also maintained by Hegel and F.H. Bradley) that all aspects of reality, including those we experience as disconnected or contradictory, are ultimately unified in the thought of a single all-encompassing consciousness. Royce also made original contributions in ethics, philosophy of community, philosophy of religion and logic' (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).…