This has been our idea of immortality, this infinite of love, love universal and triumphant. And what is this but a prison and a bondage· What is eternity but the endless passage of time· What is infinity but an endless progressing through space· Eternity, infinity, our great ideas of rest and arrival, what are they but ideas of endless travelling· Eternity is the endless travelling through space; no more, however we try to argue it. And immortality, what is it, in our idea, but an endless continuing in the same sort· A continuing, a living forever, a lasting and enduring forever—what is this but travelling· An assumption into heaven, a becoming one with God—what is the infinite on arrival· The infinite is no arrival. When we come to find exactly what we mean by God, by the infinite, by our immortality, it is a meaning of endless continuing in the same line and in the same sort, endless travelling in one direction. This is infinity, endless travelling in one direction. And the God of Love is our idea of the progression ad infinitum of the force of love. Infinity is no arrival. It is as much a cul-de-sac as is the bottomless pit. And what is the infinity of love but a cul-de-sac or a bottomless pit·
Love is a progression towards the goal. Therefore it is a progression away from the opposite goal. Love travels heavenwards. What then does love depart from· Hellwards, what is there· Love is at last a positive infinite. What then is the negative infinite· Positive and negative infinite are the same, since there is only one infinite. How then will it matter if we travel heavenwards, ad infinitum, or in the opposite direction, to infinity· Since the infinity obtained is the same in either case, the infinite of pure homogeneity, which is nothingness, or everythingness, it does not matter which.
Infinity, the infinite, is no goal. It is a cul-de-sac, or, in another sense, it is the bottomless pit. To fall down the bottomless pit is to travel forever. And a pleasant-walled cul-de-sac may be a perfect heaven. But to arrive in a sheltered, paradisiacal cul-de-sac of peace and unblemished happiness, this will not satisfy us. And to fall forever down the bottomless pit of progression, this will not do either.
Love is not a goal; it is only a travelling. Likewise death is not a goal; it is a travelling asunder into elemental chaos. And from the elemental chaos all is cast forth again into creation. Therefore death also is but a cul-de-sac, a melting-pot.
