Religion and Science
4. Religion and the Life Hereafter
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pared to negation, and we are astonished to
find in it an exception to the philosophers’
assertion that space and time are necessary
forms of our mental acts. In the Id there is
nothing corresponding to the idea of time, no
recognition of the passage of time, and (a
thing which is very remarkable and awaits
adequate attention in philosophic thought) no
alteration of mental processes by the passage
of time. Conative impulses which have never
got beyond the Id, and even impressions
which have been pushed down into the Id by
repression, are virtually immortal and are
preserved for whole decades as though they
had only recently occurred.
The processes of the Id being independent of time
shows that the unconscious has its own
independent existence; it has been established that
the body is subject to the laws of time and space
and that it is in space and time that all its actions
take place. Now if the soul is simply an extension of
the body, then, like the body, it too should be
subject to the laws of time and space. Since
observation has shown that this is not so, there is
