se that we know
of, or can conceive. If then the thing produced has in itself a capacity
of being immortal, it is more than a token that the power that produced
it, which is the self-same thing as consciousness of existence, can
be immortal also; and that as independently of the matter it was first
connected with, as the thought is of the printing or writing it first
appeared in. The one idea is not more difficult to believe than the
other; and we can see that one is true.

That the consciousness of existence is not dependent on the same form
or the same matter, is demonstrated to our senses in the works of
the creation, as far as our senses are capable of receiving that
demonstration. A very numerous part of the animal creation preaches to
us, far better than Paul, the belief of a life hereafter. Their little
life resembles an earth and a heaven, a present and a future state; and
comprises, if it may be so expressed, immortality in miniature.

The most beautiful parts of the creation to our eye are the winged
insects, and they are not so originally. They acquire that form and
that inimitable brilliancy by progressive changes. The slow and creeping
caterpillar worm of to day, passes in a few days to a torpid figure, and
a state resembling death; and in the next change comes forth in all the
miniature magnificence of life, a splendid butterfly. No resemblance of
the former creature remains; every thing is changed; all his powers
are new, and life is to him another thing. We cannot conceive that the
consciousness of existence is not the same in this state of the animal
as before; why then must I believe that the resurrection of the same
body is necessary to continue to me the consciousness of existence
hereafter?

In the former part of 'The Agee of Reason.' I have called the creation
the true and only real word of God; and this instance, or this text, in
the book of creation, not only shows to us that this thing may be so,
but that it is so; and that the belief of a future state is a rational
belief, founded upon facts visible in the creation: for it is not more
difficult to believe that we shall exist hereafter in a better state and
form than at present, than that a worm should become a butterfly, and
quit the dunghill for the atmosphere, if we did not know it as a fact.

As to the doubtful jargon ascribed to Paul in 1 Corinthians xv., which
makes part of the burial service of some Christian sectaries, it is
as desti