CHAPTER XXVIII. THE DESTINY OF MAN IN THE FUTURE LIFE.

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)