Part 37
Turning to Ecclesiastes, in which book occurs the solitary passage which is held to disprove a future existence to the lower animals, there are passages which are even more emphatic as to the immortality of man. Read what is declared: “I said in my heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them. As the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath, so that a man has no preëminence over a beast: for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.” Further it is said: “For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.” “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest.” Literally interpreted, no one can doubt the import of these words from Ecclesiastes, for they definitely state that, as regards a future life, there is no distinction between man and beast, and that when they die they all go to the same place. It is also distinctly stated that after death man can do no work, know nothing, nor receive any reward. Were we to deduce our ideas of the condition of man after death from the irrepressibly sad and gloomy passages from Job and Ecclesiastes, most deplorable and hopeless would be the very thought of dissolution. But we do not accept them in this light. They are written symbolically, and there underlies them a spiritual sense. It is not, however, the latter sense that concerns us at present, but the literal meaning of the translation, and, according to that literal meaning, if we take two texts to prove that beasts have no future life, we are compelled by no less than fourteen passages to believe that man, in common with beasts, has no better prospect. We have no right to say which passages are to be taken literally, and which parabolically, but must apply the same test to all alike, and treat all in a similar manner.
All classical readers are familiar with that wonderful eleventh book of Homer’s Odyssey, called the Necyomanteia, or Invocation of the Dead, in which Ulysses is depicted as descending into the regions of departed spirits for the purpose of invoking them and obtaining advice as to his future adventures. Dreary, and horrible indeed, are the revelations which the whole of the strange history makes of the condition of the future life. All is wild and dark, and hunger, thirst and discontent prevail. Nothing is heard of elysian fields, where piety, wisdom and virtue abound. Gloom, misery and vain regrets for earth pervade the entire episode. When is considered this heathen poet’s ideas concerning the future state of man, it is no wonder that sensual pleasures should be held as the principal object of his life when he is to look forward to such a future, a future from which neither wisdom, nor virtue, nor piety could save him, and where there is nothing but an eternity of gloom, remorse and hopeless despondency. Sad as this picture is, yet it is far brighter than that of the Psalmist, the Preacher, or Job. Those who have passed into the world of spirits still retain their individuality after death, being distinguished in the spirit as they had been in the flesh. Memory survives the body’s death. Naught of their earthly career is forgotten. They still have an interest in their friends that remain in the body whom they love, and over whose well-being they unceasingly watch. No such consolation, as has been described, exists in the future state of man if the passages of Scripture that have been quoted are taken in a literal sense. Man, in that event, passes at death into a place of darkness, forgetfulness and silence, where there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, and where even his very thoughts perish. No other interpretation, if taken literally, can be put upon them, for the statements are too explicit to be explained away or softened.
In the outward sense of their writings the Psalmist, Job and the Preacher are on an equality with Horace in their absolute unbelief in a future existence, and in a consequent desire to snatch what fleeting pleasures they can from earth before the inexorable law of fate consigns them to dark oblivion. Startling as it may seem to compare the teachings of a Greek idolater and of a Latin Epicurean heathen with those of sacred writers, yet it is still more startling to show that the teachings of the Epicurean sensualist are not a whit wiser than those of the Scriptural writer, while those of the Greek poet are very much better. Such, however, is the fact, and, if we are to be bound by the literal interpretation of the Scriptures, there is no possibility of denying it without doing violence to reason and common-sense.
We are now brought face to face with the point previously mentioned. Does the authorized version give a full and correct interpretation of the original? It is claimed that it does not. The word “perish,” it is said, does not occur at all in the Hebrew text, nor is even the idea expressed. No such translation as “beasts that perish,” which appears twice in our version, is justified by the Hebrew, the words of the original implying “dumb beasts.” The idea of perishing, in the sense of annihilation, does not seem to be implied. Let us take the Jewish Bible, which is acknowledged to be the best and closest translation in the English language, and examine it. Both in verses 12 and 20 of Psalm XLIX, where the passage occurs, the rendering reads: “Man _that is_ in honor, and understandeth _this_ not, is like the beasts _that are_ irrational.” As an alternative reading for “irrational,” the word “dumb” is given in a footnote. A somewhat similar reading is found in the Septuagint, which, according to Brunton, runs as follows: “Man that is in honor understands not; he is compared to the senseless cattle, and is like them.” In Wycliffe’s Bible, which is a translation from the Vulgate, the passage is rendered: “A man whanne he was in honour understood not; he is comparisoned to unwise beestis, and is maad lijk to tho.” The “Douay” Bible, made by the English Roman Catholic College of Douay, and which is the version accepted by that branch of the Church in England, renders the passage: “Man, when he was in honor, did not understand; he hath been compared to senseless beasts and made like to them.” Numerous other translations might be adduced, and it is safe to say that scarcely any of them imply the idea of perishing in the sense of being reduced to nothing. Even supposing that the word “perish” is translated correctly, it does not therefore follow that annihilation is meant. Take the tenth verse of the same Psalm in our authorized version: “For he seeth that wise men die, and likewise the fool and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth to others.” Surely no sensible, intelligent person would construe this passage into a declaration that the wise and fool and brutish had no existence after the death of the body.
That the last verse of the Psalm is a summary of the whole poem, seems not improbable. A vivid picture of the true object of man’s life in this world is drawn by the Psalmist, and also of his tendency to lose sight thereof. In it he sets forth the shortness of human existence, and shows that neither riches, station in life, nor fame, which appertain to the mere earthly career of man, can endure after his death. He, therefore, reasonably concludes that men who fix their hearts upon these earthly vanities ignore the honor of their manhood, and degrade themselves to the plane of the dumb beasts, whose operations are, as far as we know, restricted to this present world.
From what has been adduced it will at once be evident that the idea that beasts are said by the Psalmist to have no future life may be dismissed from our minds, and that the passage may be rejected as totally irrelevant to the subject. This is of the greatest importance, as the passage in question is the only one which even appears to make any definite statement as to the condition of the lower animals after death. Every reasonable person will now see how essential it is that the true meaning of the Hebrew text should be known, and that the Psalmist should not be charged with the introduction of a doctrine to which, whether true or false, he makes not the slightest reference.
Having settled beyond the possibility of refutation the true meaning implied by the “beasts that perish,” we will now turn to the passage in Ecclesiastes, which, as has been seen, is the only one which contains any direct reference to the future of the lower orders of animal existence: “Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?”--exclaimeth the Preacher. Here we have an admission that, whether the spirit ascend or descend, both man and beasts do have spirits, and these are undoubtedly the same in essence, for the Hebrew word is identical is both cases. In the Jewish Bible the rendering is _verbatim_ the same as that of our authorized version. Read, instead of an isolated verse, the entire passage:--
“I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.
“For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even the one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preëminence above a beast: for all is vanity.
“All go to one place; all are of the same dust, and all turn to dust again.
“Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?
“Wherefore I perceive that _there_ is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that _is_ his portion; for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?”
Every page of Ecclesiastes breathes of the self-reproach of the Preacher for a wasted life. Speaking from his own sad, bitter experience, he shows that riches, glory, pleasure and even wisdom are nothing but utter emptiness. The same theme pervades the forty-ninth Psalm, but the Psalmist treats it with grave solemnity, admonishing his hearers of the shortness of human life, and showing that if a man forgets the glory of his manhood, made in the image of God, he puts himself on the level of the dumb brutes. Though reaching the same conclusion, yet the Preacher views the subject from a different standpoint. Employing biting sarcasm rather than solemn warning, he exposes the vanity of all worldly and selfish pleasures, and the miserable fate that awaits the voluptuary, and then ironically advises his readers to place in such their entire happiness.
So palpable is the bitter irony of the author throughout the book, and even in the twenty-first verse of the third chapter, yet by no manner of interpretation can this specialized text be made to mean that beasts are annihilated after death, while men rise again and soar above earthly things to honor and glory. Ironically the writer assumes in it that his readers do not know the difference between the spirit of man and that of beast, and, reasoning from that position, advises them that “_there is_ nothing better for a man _than that_ he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor.”
From what has been shown, it is evident that the passage from Psalms does not even contain the idea of annihilation as regards beasts, and that the one from Ecclesiastes is entirely misapprehended. That they have no bearing upon the subject must now be manifest. We cannot, therefore, resist the conclusion that the Scriptures do not deny future life to the inferior animals.
This admission gives courage for a step still further forward. Man’s latest achievement is to conceive that all existence is a unit. One spirit pervades the whole natural world, an emanation from the Spirit of Him who sitteth enthroned in the Eternal Heavens, and who not only is, as Moses declares, “God of the spirits of all flesh,” but God of the spirits of all animate nature. We cannot divorce the two great kingdoms of nature. If there is a futurity of existence for man, whom we are told was “made a little lower than the angels,” but who in these latter days seems to have deteriorated, and who in thousands of instances displays a character far less noble and honorable than that of the dog which he kennels and feeds, then there must be for the so-called brute, the companion of his joys and his sorrows. If for beast, bird, reptile, fish and insect, and none can be so foolish in the face of the most indubitable evidence to deny it, then there must be for tree, shrub and flower, for God, who is infinite in love, mercy and charity, would not be God if solely concerned with the future of the smallest fractional part of His children. Man is psychically related to all life. There is soul, in some sort of development, in everything; and certainly God meant in His grand scheme of redemption to lift the world, not a portion of it, but the entire world, out of its lower ideas into its higher beauties and realities.
FUTURE LIFE.
That the Scriptures, contrary to popular tradition, do not deny a future life to the lower animals has already been conclusively shown. But do they declare anything in favor of another world for beast as well as for man? This is a question which we shall now endeavor to answer. As to man’s immortality, the Old Testament Scriptures teach the doctrine by inference rather than by direct assertion, for the reason, as has been presumed, that the writers of the several books, which were selected at a comparatively late period from among many others and formed into the volume popularly designated the Bible, assumed as a matter of course that man was immortal, and therefore did not concern themselves about a matter which they supposed everybody knew. But as far as the Old Testament goes, inference tells more strongly in favor of the beast’s immortality than that of man. Although in either case there does not appear to be any definite assertion of a futurity of existence, yet there is no such denial of the immortality of the beast as has already been shown in the case of the man.
Beasts, as readers of the Old Testament only too well know, were included in the merciful provision of the Sabbath, which, in its essence, was a spiritual and not simply a physical ordinance. And, again, we find many provisions in the ancient Scriptures against maltreating the lower animals, or giving them unnecessary pain, and these provisions stand side by side in the Divine Law with those which apply to man. All are familiar with the prohibition of “seething a kid in its mother’s milk,” and the non-muzzling of the ox in treading out the corn lest he should suffer the pangs of hunger in the presence of the food which he may not eat. Even bird’s nesting was regulated by Divine Law. “If a bird’s nest chance to be before thee in the way in any tree, or on the ground, _whether they_ be young ones, or eggs, and the dam sitting upon the young, or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young: _But_ thou shalt in any wise let the dam go, and take the young to thee; that it may be well with thee, and _that_ thou mayest prolong _thy_ days.” Moreover, as many animals must be killed daily, some for sacrifice and others solely for food, the strictest regulations were enjoined that their death should be sharp and quick, and that the whole of their blood should be poured out upon the ground lest they suffer lingering pain.
In keeping with the same consideration felt by Deity towards the kid and ox and bird, as expressed in the Law, we would refer to the few concluding sentences of the Book of Jonah:--
“Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not labored, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night.
“And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; _and also much cattle_?”
“Every beast of the forest is mine,” saith the Lord, “and the cattle upon a thousand hills.” And again, “I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine.” Similar passages, in which God announces himself as the protector of the beast as well as of man, could be given, for the Scriptures are full of them. Who does not recall the well-known saying of our Lord respecting the lives of the sparrows: “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without the notice of your Father.”
Cowper in his “Task,” makes allusion to this branch of our subject in the following lines:--
“Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, But God will never. When He charged the Jew To assist his foe’s down-fallen beast to rise; And when the bush-exploring boy, that seized The young, to let the parent-bird go free; Proved He not plainly that His meaner works, Are yet His care, and have an interest all-- All in the universal Father’s love?”
One passage there is which certainly does point to a future for the beast as well as for man, and which places them both on the very same plane. It is found in Genesis, ninth chapter and fifth verse, and constitutes a part of the law which was delivered to Noah, and which was subsequently incorporated in the fuller law given through Moses. “And surely your blood of your lives will I require,” said God to Noah and his sons, “at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of every man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man.” In Exodus, chapter twenty-one and twenty-eighth verse, we read, “If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox _shall be_ quit.”
While there are no passages of Scripture, as has been seen, which deny immortality of life to the lower animals, yet there are certainly some which tend to show it by inference. But the Scriptures were written for human beings, and not for the lower animals, and therefore it could hardly be expected that any information could be gained therefrom on the subject. As we find so few direct references to the future state of man, it is not at all to be expected that we should receive direct instruction upon the after-life of the beast.
But just as man has had within himself for untold ages an intuitive witness to his own immortality, yet there are those, lovers and friends of the so-called brute, who have an instinctive sense that animals, some of whom surpass in love, unselfishness, generosity, conscience and self-sacrifice many of their human brethren, must share with him in addition to these virtues an immortal spirit in which they take their rise. No more eminent personage than Bishop Butler was a believer in this idea. Substantially he asserts that the Scriptures give no reasons why the lower animals should not possess immortal souls. Similar sentiments have been voiced by equally distinguished writers.
Southey, writing of the death of a favorite spaniel that had been the companion of his boyhood, says:--
“Ah, poor companion! when thou followedst last Thy master’s parting footsteps to the gate Which closed forever on him, thou didst lose Thy best friend, and none was left to plead For the old age of brute fidelity. But fare thee well. Mine is no narrowed creed; And He who gave thee being did not frame The mystery of Life to be the sport Of merciless man. There is another world For all that live and move--a better one! Where the proud bipeds, who would fain confine Infinite Goodness to the little bounds Of their own charity, may envy thee.”
Thus does Lamartine, in “Jocelyn’s Episode,” beautifully express himself in addressing a faithful and affectionate canine by the name of Fido:--
“I cannot, will not, deem thee a deceiving, Illusive mockery of human feeling, A body organized, by fond caress Warmed into seeming tenderness; A mere automaton, on which our love Plays, as on puppets, when their wires we move. No! when that feeling quits thy glazing eye, ’Twill live in some blest world beyond the sky.”
Not by man alone have these higher qualities been accorded to the brute. Women have praised the good within the lower animals, and been quite as willing to share with them the benefits of an immortal life. Eugenie de Guérin, a woman distinguished for her devotional piety, and an author of no mean repute, was, like the most of her sex, quite passionately fond of pets. Hers was a turtle-dove. Its voice was the first to greet her in the morning. There was a pleasure in its soft, gentle cooings, as they fell upon her ear, that sent a sweet consolation to her busy, thinking soul. But the time came at last when she must part with her treasure. The morn dawned bright, an August morning, and the bird was well and happy, but, with the falling of the shadows at even-tide, its little life went out. A bitter trial it was for the mistress, who loved with a perfect love her feathered friend. While wrestling with her intense sorrow, and after she had sincerely placed its mortal remains in a dainty cavity beneath the roses, it was that she wrote: “I have a tolerably strong belief in the souls of animals, and I should even like there to be a little paradise for the good and gentle, like turtle-doves, dogs and lambs. But what to do with wolves and other wicked animals? To damn them?--that embarrasses me.”
Less devotional, perhaps, and looking rather to logic than to intuition, was the mind of Mrs. Somerville. With such a difference in constitution between the two women, we would naturally look for the greatest divergence of opinion upon a matter of this kind, but, astonishing to relate, there is noticeable a marked unanimity. Speaking of death, and the accompanying change of environing objects, this gifted writer, in her eighty-ninth year, says in her “Memoirs”:--
“I shall regret the sky, the sea, with all their beautiful coloring; the earth, with its verdure and flowers; but far more shall I grieve to leave animals that have followed our steps affectionately for years, without knowing for certainty their ultimate fate, though I firmly believe that the living principle is never extinguished. Since the atoms of matter are indestructible, as far as we know, it is difficult to believe that the span which gives to their union life, memory, affection, intelligence and fidelity is evanescent.
“Every atom in the human frame, as well as in that of animals, undergoes a periodical change by continual waste and renovation: the abode is changed, not its inhabitant. If animals have no future, the existence of many is most wretched. Multitudes are starved, cruelly beaten, and loaded during life; many die under a barbarous vivisection.
“I cannot believe that any creature was created for uncompensated misery: it would be contrary to the attributes of God’s mercy and justice. I am sincerely happy to find that I am not the only believer in the immortality of the lower animals.”