in the work of doing good to others.

But I ask, what is all this to me after I have ceased to exist as a conscious being? Promises of this kind are neither more nor less than the administration of a little flattery to my vanity, a hundred pounds of which are not worth a few ounces of real present enjoyment, from whatever source derived.

But further I ask, how is it possible to get this principle of altruism into operation? Man is naturally a selfish being. Having got rid of all the moral power which a belief in God as the moral Governor of the universe, Christianity, and a future state supply, what is the moral force which you possess that is capable of overbearing man's natural love of those pleasures which terminate in self, and of converting his natural selfishness into the altruistic love of others? The only possible answer is, that man will become wiser and better through a gradual process of evolution, aided by the self-sacrifice of numberless future generations for the good of others more future still. To this the answer is obvious. Your assertion is destitute of proof. Your principle of evolution means not the survival of the fittest, but the survival of the strongest. Will it be pretended that the strongest are the morally fittest to survive? Who were the fittest to survive, Socrates, or his accusers and judges; the Christian saints, or their persecutors who cast them to the lions; the inquisitor, with his apparatus of torture, or those who perished under his torturing hand? The truth is, the mild and benevolent virtues have no chance of survival in the struggle for existence against the fierce passions of such men. But further, the theory which affirms that the natural course of evolution necessarily leads to the production of the nobler and the better, when applied to man breaks down against the facts of authentic history. What, I ask, has been the effect of three thousand years of evolution on the Negro race? Has the present Hindoo race attained any appreciable degree of moral

elevation above their ancestors three thousand years ago? Which is the more elevated character, the modern or the ancient Greek; the Roman of the growth of the republic, or the Roman of the fall of the empire; the ancient Egyptian, or the modern Copt? Has the progress of the Chinese been one of gradual moral elevation? Is the modern Arab an improvement on the ancient one? If the races in whose veins flow some mixture of Aryan blood are instances of an evolution upwards, most of those above referred to are instances of an evolution downwards. The prospect that mankind will gradually become more and more elevated, wiser, and better through the action of the principle of evolution, as it has been propounded by modern unbelievers, derives little encouragement from the facts of authentic history; in other words, it is a theory destitute of proof.

But the theory in question lies open to an objection which is absolutely fatal. It is impossible to prove on the principles of Atheistic, Pantheistic, and Agnostic systems of philosophy, that the sacrifice of oneself for the good of others. is a duty, for these systems evaporate the idea of duty of all meaning. I ask, To whom is this duty due? If to myself, it resolves itself into the pursuit of one's greatest happiness. If to others, what right have they to claim it on the prin ciples of these philosophies? Consequently a moral law, speaking with authority and saying to man, You ought to do this, it is your duty to do that, becomes an impossibility. What, I ask, does "ought" mean in such a case? Not that there is a moral obligation on you to do so, but you owe it to your own happiness so to do. What means duty? That you owe it to future generations so to do. Full well may it be asked, "What are future generations to me, after my personal self-conscious being has been swallowed up in the immensity of things?"

The above considerations, therefore, prove that if death

involves the termination of our conscious existence, this world is devoid of a righteous moral Governor, or in other words that the moral world is a chaos and not a cosmos.

On the other hand, it follows as a necessary consequence that if there is a righteous moral Governor of the world there must be a state of things beyond the grave in which man will continue to exist as a personal conscious being, and where the present inequalities of the moral government of the world will not only be redressed, but will be shown to have been in harmony with the justice and benevolence of God.

Such then are the grounds which reason furnishes for believing in man's personal existence after death. It will be objected that they do not amount to demonstrations. It wil be readily conceded that they are not demonstrations in the sense in which that term is employed either by mathematicians or scientists. But there are other kinds of evidence though not demonstrative in the strict scientific sense, which leave no doubt in any rational mind. For example, in the administration of justice a man is often convicted of crime on evidence which no mathematician or scientist would call demonstrative; yet who, from want of evidence of this kind, would say that the fact was not proved when it amounts to a moral certainty? Demonstrative evidence is not to be had in the ordinary affairs of life, and if men were to forbear acting until they could get it, the business of the world would be brought to a standstill. I submit, therefore, that the four reasons above adduced, although they are not demonstrations in a scientific sense, whether taken separately or together, are such as to leave no doubt in a rational mind that man will survive the stroke of death. Of these the last amounts to a moral certainty, while the others amount to a very high degree of probability.

It is a remarkable fact that while the question of man's

G

survival formed one of the chief subjects of discussion among the ancient philosophers, the three last of the arguments we have considered seem never to have attracted their attention. The reason of this is obvious. They rest on the belief that a personal God exists, who is all-powerful and all-wise, and the righteous moral Governor of the universe. On this subject the views of the ancient philosophers were extremely hazy. Very few recognised the First Cause of the universe as a moral being, or had a firm belief in the unity of the Godhead; nor did the phenomena of the moral world afford proof that it was under the government of a righteous moral Governor. This being so, they were unable to make use of the above arguments, and were compelled to rely on those derived from the supposed metaphysical nature of the soul. Of all the philosophers of the ancient world, Socrates was the one who clung most strongly to the belief that man would not perish with the body, and that there would be a state of retribution, in which it would be well with the righteous; but when we read his arguments for this belief, as they are set forth in the Phædo," and elsewhere, we immediately become sensible of their inherent weakness. He himself confesses that they only suggested a hope, and were far from amounting to a moral certainty. This being so, the position which he takes is that death would either be a perpetual sleep, undisturbed even by a dream, or that it would introduce him to the society of the good gods and of the heroes and philosophers of his race, with the latter of whom he would, without let or hindrance, be able to discuss the subjects which his judges refused to permit him to discuss here. Speaking generally, the views of those philosophers who argued most strongly that men would survive the death of the body, amounted only to a vague hope, and never reached to such a conviction as could exert a powerful influence on conduct. Consequently the moral power which such a belief was capable of

exerting was extremely small, and the subject was far more interesting as affording matter for philosophical discussion than as having a direct bearing on the realities of life. The reason of this is clear. The evidence for a future state is inconclusive, except on the assumption of the existence of a personal God, who is the all-wise Creator and the righteous moral Governor of the world.

On the other hand, the popular ideas of the ancient world on this subject assumed the existence of an underworld which was the abode of the spirits of the dead, but ideas respecting their condition there were vague in the extreme. Impious offenders against the gods were believed to be punished in a department of it called Tartarus, and according to some of the later poets those who had lived pure and holy lives rested peacefully in the Elysian fields until the time arrived when fate required that they should pass from these regions of repose, drink the waters of forgetfulness, and animate new bodies in the upper world. But the earlier ideas, which as long as the multitude retained any faith at all continued to be the popular ones, were gloomy in the extreme. The ghost was believed to be a mere shadow of man's former self, devoid of power, and requiring that its recollection should be refreshed by tasting blood. Even mighty heroes passed in Hades an existence compared with which, in their own opinion, the lowest condition in the upper world was preferable. Such ideas, therefore, were incapable of exercising any practical influence on conduct, because while they admitted that the soul survived the stroke of death, they included no belief in the existence of one who, as the righteous Governor of the world, is not indifferent to human conduct, but who will call every individual into judgment for his conduct here, and will reward or punish him according to his works.

I readily admit that the reasons which prove that man will