if man were immortal… [which he isn’t]

Peirce’s logic is unassailably historically verifiable. Peirce was rendering into mathematical and linguistic ‘logic’, Nietzsche’s genealogy of morals – the philosophy of beyond good and evil. and that leaves ‘us’ in the ‘present’ with a massive ethical dilemma and a series of peardoxes.

the only certainty is that, ‘in place of “this” we have death.’

by ‘death’, CSP means the literal cessation of political/ethical/lawful life. but he’s also suggesting the death of memory, historical memory, including the memory of history. Death is the death of historical continuity.

For a Peirceian account of Peirce, i HIGHLY recommend  one of the first ‘scifi’ novels ever written – by the U of Birmingham moral philosopher – Olaf Stapledon – Last and First Men, 1930. a book for this era, if there ever was one. [i also recommend with equal enthusiasm, Stapledon’s other scifi – including his moral critique of religion, Star Maker, 1937, and for those interested in PK Dick [Dr. Bloodmoney], his critique of the human-animal relationship as allegory and more, of human hubris, his book about a talking dog, Sirius, 1944]