niverse. Sometimes we are led by our feelings, rather
than by our reason, to think of the good and wise only as existing in
another life. Why should the mean, the weak, the idiot, the infant,
the herd of men who have never in any proper sense the use of reason,
reappear with blinking eyes in the light of another world? But our
second thought is that the hope of humanity is a common one, and that
all or none will be partakers of immortality. Reason does not allow us
to suppose that we have any greater claims than others, and experience
may often reveal to us unexpected flashes of the higher nature in
those whom we had despised. Why should the wicked suffer any more than
ourselves? had we been placed in their circumstances should we have been
any better than they? The worst of men are objects of pity rather than
of anger to the philanthropist; must they not be equally such to divine
benevolence? Even more than the good they have need of another life; not
that they may be punished, but that they may be educated. These are
a few of the reflections which arise in our minds when we attempt to
assign any form to our conceptions of a future state.

There are some other questions which are disturbing to us because we
have no answer to them. What is to become of the animals in a future
state? Have we not seen dogs more faithful and intelligent than men,
and men who are more stupid and brutal than any animals? Does their life
cease at death, or is there some 'better thing reserved' also for
them? They may be said to have a shadow or imitation of morality, and
imperfect moral claims upon the benevolence of man and upon the justice
of God. We cannot think of the least or lowest of them, the insect, the
bird, the inhabitants of the sea or the desert, as having any place in
a future world, and if not all, why should those who are specially
attached to man be deemed worthy of any exceptional privilege? When we
reason about such a subject, almost at once we degenerate into nonsense.
It is a passing thought which has no real hold on the mind. We may argue
for the existence of animals in a future state from the attributes of
God, or from texts of Scripture ('Are not two sparrows sold for one
farthing?' etc.), but the truth is that we are only filling up the void
of another world with our own fancies. Again, we often talk about
the origin of evil, that great bugbear of theologians, by which they
frighten us into believing any superstition.