The knowledge that my individual life is but a span, a breath; that in a little while I too must wither and mingle like one of those fallen yellow leaves with the mould, does not grieve me.

I know it and yet disbelieve it; for am I not here alive, where men have inhabited for thousands of years, feeling what I now feel--their oneness with everlasting nature and the undying human family?
The very soil and wet carpet of moss on which their feet were set, the standing trees and leaves, green or yellow, the rain-drops, the air they breathed, the sunshine in their eyes and hearts, was part of them, not a garment, but of their very substance and spirit.

Feeling this, death becomes an illusion; and the illusion that the continuous life of the species (its immortality) and the individual life are one and the same is the reality and truth.

An illusion, but, as Mill says, deprive us of our illusions and life would be intolerable.
Happily we are not easily deprived of them, since they are of the nature of instincts and ineradicable.

And this very one which our reason can prove to be the most childish, the absurdest of all, is yet the greatest, the most fruitful of good for the race.