How far are the interests of the present
life concerned in the form given to our conceptions of a future life?

It would seem to be an unanswerable assumption that, in all the three
situations above supposed, we should do the very best that the case
admits of. In the order of nature we should get, as far as possible, the
truth and the whole truth; in the choice of ends for this life we should
embrace the best ends; in the shaping of another life we should be free
to follow out whatever may be the course suitable to the operation.

* * * * *

[EARLY SOURCES OF INTOLERANCE.]

The means for arriving at truth in the order of nature is an active
search according to certain well-known methods. It farther involves the
negative condition of perfect freedom to canvass, to controvert, or to
refute, every received doctrine or opinion. There is no use in going
after new facts, or in rising to new generalities, if we are not to be
allowed to displace errors. This is now conceded, except at the points
of contact of the natural and the supernatural. In spite of the wide
separation of the two worlds--the world of fact and the world of
imagination,--we cannot conceive the second except in terms of the
first; and if the shaping of the supernatural acquires fixity and
consecration, the natural facts made use of in the fabric acquire a
corresponding fixity, even although the rendering is found to be
inaccurate. The prevailing conception of a future life needs a view of
the separate and independent subsistence of the mental powers of man,
very difficult to reconcile with present knowledge.

* * * * *

The growth of intolerance is quite explicable, but the explanation is
not necessarily a justification. Although every division of the human
family must have passed through many social phases, and must therefore
have experienced revolutionary shocks, yet the rule of man's existence
has been a rigorous fixity of institutions, with a hatred of change.
Innovations, when not the effect of conquest, would be made under the
pressure of some great crisis, or some tremendous difficulty that could
not otherwise be met. The idea of individuals being allowed, in quiet
times, to propose alterations in government, in religion, in morals, or
even in the common arts of life, was thought of only to be stamped out.
There was a step in advance of the ancient and habitual order of things,
when an