rsal sorrow and wailing over
death." It is obvious to answer that both these expressions are
true utterances of human nature. It grieves over the sadness of
parting, the appalling change and decay, the close locked mystery
of the unseen state. It rejoices in the solace and cheer of a
sublime hope springing out of the manifold powerful promises
within and without. Instead of contemning the idea of a heavenly
futurity as an idle dream image of human longing, it were both
devouter and more reasonable, from

22 Charakteristiken und Kritiken, s. 394.

that very causal basis of it, to revere it and confide in it as
divinely pledged. All the thwarted powers and preparations and
affections, too grand, too fine, too sacred, to meet their fit
fulfilment here, are a claim for some holier and vaster sphere, a
prophecy of a more exalted and serene existence, elsewhere. The
unsatisfied and longing soul has created the doctrine of a future
life, has it? Very good. If the soul has builded a house in
heaven, flown up and made a nest in the breezy boughs of
immortality, that house must have tenants, that nest must be
occupied. The divinely implanted instincts do not provide and
build for naught.

Certain considerations based on the resemblances of men and
beasts, their asserted community of origin and fundamental unity
of nature, have had great influence in leading to the denial of
the immortality of the human soul. It is taken for granted that
animals are totally mortal; and then, from the apparent
correspondences of phenomena and fate between them and us, the
inference is drawn that the cases are parallel throughout, and
that our destiny, too, is annihilation. The course of thought on
this subject has been extremely curious, illustrating, on the one
hand, that "where our egotism begins, there the laws of logic
break," and, on the other hand, that often when fancy gets scent
of a theory the voice and lash of reason are futile to restrain it
until the theory is run into the ground. Des Cartes, and after him
Malebranche and a few other writers, gave no slight currency to
the notion that brutes are mere machines, moved by prearranged
influences and utterly destitute of intelligence, will, or
consciousness. This scheme gave rise to many controversies, but
has now passed into complete neglect.23 Of late years the tendency
has been to assimilate instead of separating man and beast.
Touching the outer sphere, we have Oken's homologies