It has been shown, that the teachings of reason as to the immortality of
the soul, and our risks and dangers after death, are indispensable to a
true standard of morality, and to the decision of innumerable moral
questions of the highest moment.
The next attempt, therefore, will be to set forth what can be learned by
reason and experience, independently of revelation, in regard to the
future destiny of man.
The first question relates to the existence of the soul after death, and
its immortality. Here we have to guide us that great principle of common
sense, which regulates mankind in all the practical business of life,
viz., _things are, and will continue according to past experience, until
there is evidence of a change_.
By the aid of this, we go forward in all practical affairs, believing that
the beings and things around us are continued in existence till we have
evidence that they are not. If any man were to talk and act as if every
person was destroyed, and every town and village annihilated, as soon as
the evidence of his senses failed, he would be deemed one who had “lost
his reason.”
This same principle tends to the belief that the soul of man continues to
exist after the dissolution of the body. We have _no evidence_ that the
separation of soul and body is an event that either injures or destroys
the spiritual part. On the contrary, there are many analogies in nature
that would lead to the impression that death gives new strength and powers
to the disembodied spirit.
This being so, we have the same reason to believe that the soul of man
exists after death as we have for believing that our friends are living
when they leave us on a journey, and we have no evidence of their death.
We can not see them, hear them, or feel them, and yet we believe they are
living, we know not exactly where, because we have no evidence of their
death. And so, after the dissolution of the body, though all evidence of
sense as to the existence of their immaterial part ceases, we believe the
same thinking, sentient spirits continue to exist, because we have no
evidence that they have ceased to do so.
We have perfect evidence that the body ceases to exist as a body, for it
moulders to dust. We have no evidence at all that the soul is either
injured or destroyed. Such a thing as the destruction or annihilation of a
spirit was never known or heard of from any quarter of earth or heaven.
We therefore conclude, that at the moment of death the soul is still
existing with all its powers unchanged.
The same argument goes on still further, and leads to the immortality of
the soul. We know of no cause or reason for the destruction of the soul at
any future period. We never have known or heard that any soul ever ceased
to exist. And so we infer, that the soul will keep on a perpetuated
existence, by the same principle as that which leads us to believe the
earth and the heavens will remain to future ages.
In regard to the _character and condition_ of departed spirits, again we
have the same principle to guide us. Without revelation, the _past
experience_ of mind is our sole beacon to give light as to its future
destiny.
Our next inquiry, then, is, what does the past experience of mind teach us
as to its condition beyond the grave? In pursuing this inquiry, we must
recall, in brief forms, some of the points of mental experience set forth
in previous chapters.
Some of the most important of these relate to the principle of _habit_ by
which the exercise of all our faculties becomes more and more easy by use.
This is true of the intellect, by which we gain our knowledge of what will
secure _the most_ happiness; of the _social_ nature, by which we give
happiness to other minds and receive the same from them; of our _moral_
nature, by which we are guided to justice, equity, and the rule of
conscience; of our _voluntary_ nature, by which we regulate all our other
powers. Each and all are developed, strengthened, and facilitated in right
action, by being exercised according to the laws of God.
The legitimate use of all our faculties induces also not only increased
facility, but increased _enjoyment_. The more the intellect is trained,
the more agreeable its exercise. The more our social nature is developed
by use, the more its powers are developed and its _blessed_ influence
increased. The more our moral nature is exercised, the more vigorous
becomes our sense of justice and the sensibilities of conscience, and the
more pleasing their exercise. And the more the will is exercised in
controlling every other faculty by the rules of rectitude, the more easy
and delightful is this power of self‐control.
The influence of habit in regard to the great law of _sacrifice_ for the
_best_ good of all, is especially to be regarded. Such is its power that,
in many cases, self‐sacrifices that at first were annoying, or even
painful, become sources of the highest and noblest enjoyment.
Another not less important influence of habit is, in regard to those modes
of enjoyment which are most important to the commonwealth, and most
happifying. The pursuit of these increases both desire and capacity for
gratification, while those less important and more dangerous, if made the
leading object of pursuit, diminish capacity while desire is increased.
Thus the happiness gained in giving and receiving affection, in causing
happiness to others, and in rectitude of action, all increase both the
desire and the capacity for these important and elevated modes of
enjoyments. Nor is there any danger of excess in forming habits in these
directions. But the pleasures of the senses and the pursuit of power,
honor, and other enjoyments that terminate in self, are liable to excess,
and this excess diminishes the capacity for enjoyment, while the ceaseless
craving of desire remains.
Thus it appears that a mind that forms habits of happiness‐making
according to right rules, becomes more and more strongly drawn to that
course by finding more and more enjoyment in it, while a mind that pursues
as a chief end the enjoyments that terminate in self, constantly loses
capacity for such good, and yet the desire for it drives on to vain and
cheerless efforts.
Another ominous fact in our mental nature is, the effect of habit in
diminishing the control of the voluntary power. When any excessive or
illegitimate mode of exercising the faculties becomes a ruling passion,
the _change_ of a habit thus formed becomes more and more difficult in
exact proportion to the continuous repetition. Even when men see and feel
that a habit is formed that increases their sorrow and diminishes their
enjoyment, and that another course would render them every way nobler and
happier, they find their purposes of change often are powerless. The
control of the will continually yields to the force of habit, and so they
are hopelessly driven on in their fetal pursuits.
Again, the effect of wrong action on the susceptibilities is as ominous as
it is on the power of choice. We have seen that the design of painful
emotions is to stimulate to the formation of good habits, and that when
this legitimate object is not effected these emotions continually decrease
in strength and vividness, so that the designed benefit is lost. Thus
_fear_ is designed to induce habits of caution, but if no such habits are
the result, danger ceases to excite this emotion, and a man becomes at
once fearless and careless. So with sympathy in the sufferings of others;
if no habits of benevolent efforts to relieve are induced, that
sensibility diminishes, and men become at once unsympathising, hard and
cruel. So it is with _shame_; if it does not lead to habits of honor and
duty, the susceptibility continually diminishes. And so it is with
_remorse_; if habits of rectitude are not induced by its emotions, the
conscience becomes “seared as with hot iron.”
But the most deteriorating effect of wrong action is seen in regard to
that fundamental point of the mental constitution which makes it a source
of happiness to be the cause of happiness to others. It is a universal
fact that the tendency of disagreeable emotions is to lead to the
infliction of pain on others. This propensity to inflict pain on whoever
is the cause of pain, when regulated by the rules of rectitude, is the
source of justice in the family and state, and leads only to good. But
when it is indulged and unregulated, it is the most fearful feature in our
mental constitution. The records of history exhibit many monsters of our
race, whose mental constitution has become so disordered by habits of
fatal indulgence, that all love of happiness‐making for others seems
destroyed, and the baleful pleasure of tormenting becomes a ruling
passion.
Another feature of our mental conformation which directly bears on this
subject, is the fact, that all those good qualities and benevolent acts
which naturally tend to please and awaken the desire of good to others,
may become sources of pain and ill‐will. This is the case when the lovely
and benevolent traits of other minds are contrasted with opposite traits
in self. Thus it is that the selfish, cruel and malignant hate and are
powerfully repelled from the generous, just and virtuous, while the good
as instinctively fly from the wicked.
The natural result of these features in the nature of mind, is a continual
tendency toward a separation of the good and the bad, the righteous and
the wicked.
According to the teachings of experience, a mind that forms habits of
selfishness and sin is constantly tending to a deterioration of its nature
in all directions. And the course of obedience to the grand law of self‐
sacrifice for the _best_ good of all, becomes more and more difficult and
improbable. As the natural result the good are more and more attracted
toward each other, and the bad are more and more repelled.
These tendencies, so plainly exhibited here, reasoning from experience, we
infer are to continue after death, until the final result must be the
entire exclusion of the evil from the good, whenever power exists to
compel the separation. This power, all must feel is held and will be
exercised by the Author of all minds, whose great plan, so far as reason
teaches, can be carried to perfection only by such a consummation.
One point in the history of our race has a mournful pertinence to this
question. We find that the improvement and the safety of the great
commonwealth is always, more or less, promoted by the ruin of individuals.
Multitudes are deterred from evil courses by the miserable end of those
who pursue them; so that the good are often preserved by the destruction
of the bad.
So, too, we find exhibitions of the fact that minds are utterly ruined,
and ruined _for ever_, so far as we can perceive. The man who has
stultified his intellect, ruined his health, seared his conscience, and
blunted all his generous and benevolent sensibilities by a course of
debauchery, cruelty and crime, is a wreck as total and irretrievable, so
far as we can see, as a watch whose springs and pivots are crushed beneath
the hammer, or a human body whose every lineament is effaced beneath the
rushing locomotive train.
The common language of life expresses such mental facts in precisely the
same terms as are applied to physical catastrophes. Thus, a man who is
given up to debauchery, intemperance and crime, is said to be a “total
wreck”—“entirely destroyed,”—“utterly ruined.”
Add to this the teaching of experience, that when men are bad, the
increase of blessings only increases indulgence and crime. At the same
time punishment does not tend to reformation. The more men suffer for
their folly and guilt, the more hardened they become. The victims of
licentiousness and intemperance, though they suffer such miseries, have
ever been regarded as the farthest removed from the probabilities of
reformation.
Add to all this, the deductions of reason as to the moral nature of the
Creator and Governor of all minds. He has power to separate the good and
bad; his great design, of which we here see only the _tendencies_, makes
it indispensable to the perfect happiness of the good that they be
separated from the bad—a _perfectly_ happy commonwealth can not be
attained where the bad form a part—while the _sense of justice_ exists in
God on a scale far above ours, demanding _added_ penalties for the known
and willful destruction of happiness. He, like his children on earth,
feels that craving for retributive justice, which can never rest till the
guilty and remorseless monster receives the just recompense for his
cruelty and crimes.
These teachings of reason and experience lead to the conclusion, not only
that there is to be a grand consummation in which all sin and suffering
shall be ended in a perfected commonwealth, but also to the conclusion
that those excluded from this community of the good are to continue their
existence in sin and its natural results for ever.
That any portion, either of matter or mind, is to be annihilated, can not
be inferred from any past experience. All that we can learn are the laws
of perpetual _succession_ and _change_. One single fact of annihilation
has never yet been made known to man by any process of reasoning, or any
recorded experience.
There is another question in reference to this awful subject, which is of
deepest interest. Although the deductions of reason lead to the doctrine
of the eventual separation of mankind into two distinct communities, the
good and the evil, what are its teachings as to the _immediate_ state of
each individual soul after the event of death?
Here, as before, we have only the nature and past history of mind, from
which the future is to be deduced. In this world we have found the changes
in the character of individuals and of communities to proceed by slow and
imperceptible movement. We have nothing in the past to lead to the belief
that this slow process of discipline, culture and change may not proceed
on for ages. As in this life, multitudes have the impress and direction of
character given in early life, so that the first few years determine all
their future history in this world, so the career of this short life may
fix the future through eternal years. And yet the process of change to the
full consummation of character may involve ages.
In studying the works of the Creator, we find that every thing goes
forward on a system of _developments_. Nothing comes into being in full
perfection, and unless there is an interruption of the natural tendencies
of things, every thing reaches its full and perfected state before its
existence ends. And the nobler, larger, and grander the existence, the
slower it proceeds to its consummated perfection. The oak and the palm
demand centuries ere they reach their perfected prime. The highest grades
of animal life are slowest in gaining their full development. The horse,
the elephant, and the camel, are going forward to perfection for years
after the feebler tribes that started with them have perfected and
perished.
Guided, then, by the analogies of experience, we should infer that _mind_,
the noblest work of its Creator’s hand—mind, that begins its career in
such low and feeble development, is not to form the mournful exception to
the general rule.
On the contrary, we infer from all past experience, both of matter and
mind, that the soul, when it lays aside its outer covering, proceeds
onward in its career of development. And if its period of progressive
development is proportioned to its relative value in comparison with all
other created things, the fleeting years of this life in relation to the
ages previous to its prime, may be but as the first days of puling infancy
to the whole career of manhood.
But this subject is imperfectly treated, if we neglect to consider the
fact, that the soul, so far as we can perceive, is _disembodied_ at death.
We have perfect evidence, that the material part is destroyed, as to its
organized existence. We have the same sort of evidence that the soul
continues to exist, and will continue to exist, as we have that the sun
exists when all evidence of sight ceases. But what is the experience of a
disembodied spirit, we have no means of learning. It may be that its
powers of knowledge and action are greatly increased, when freed from its
earthly prison. If this be so, the experience of this life leads to the
inference that its dangers and temptations are increased in exact
proportion. Increase of civilization is only increase in sources of
knowledge and enjoyment, and each addition brings new temptations, new
rules, and the need of new penalties. It may be the same in the future
life.
We can suppose the body a veil to hide our mind from another, and that
death makes every soul “open and naked,” in all its thoughts and feelings,
to every other disembodied spirit. What would be the effect of such a
revelation, no one could say. But we should fear rather than hope.
If men are exasperated by words that exhibit only a portion of the scorn,
contempt, and disgust felt toward the base and mean, not only by the pure
and good, but by the wicked themselves, such a _full revelation of all
minds to all minds_ presents a theme for awful forebodings to the guilty.
And even the purest might tremble to encounter such an ordeal. But over
such terrific conjectures rest the darkness and silence of the grave.
The following, then, are the deductions of reason and experience as to the
future condition of our race after death.
The soul, at the dissolution of the body, remains unchanged in its tastes,
habits and character. The _tendencies_ indicated in this life are
continued indefinitely, and eventually will result in the separation of
the good and the bad into two separate communities, the one, being
obedient to all the laws of God, will be for ever and perfectly happy, and
the other are to reap the natural results of disobedience, and whatever
added penalties the best good of the universe may demand.
The final consummation in which this separation will be achieved, may be
at the distance of ages, and in the meantime all those minds that have
passed, or will pass from this life, are in the same process of culture,
discipline, and upward or downward progress, which exists in this life.
Whether these advantages and temptations will be greater or less in the
disembodied state, we have no data for inference or conjecture.
The conduct and character formed in this life will have an abiding
influence on the character and happiness of every mind through eternal
ages.(10)