The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant Part 23

But how great would be his astonishment, when he learnt that we were beings not designed to exist in this world above threescore and ten years; and that the greatest part of this busy species fall short even of that age?

6. How would he be lost in horror and admiration, when he should know that this set of creatures, who lay out all their endeavours for this life, which scarce deserves the name of existence, when, I say, he should know that this set of creatures are to exist to all eternity in another life, for winch they make no preparations?

7. Nothing can be a greater disgrace to reason than that men, who are persuaded of these two different states of being, should be perpetually employed in providing for a life of threescore and ten years, and neglecting to make provision for that which, after many myriads of years, will be still new, and still beginning; especially when we consider that our endeavours for making ourselves great, or rich, or honourable, or whatever else we place our happiness in, may, after all, prove unsuccessful; whereas if we constantly and sincerely endeavour to make ourselves happy in the other life, we are sure that our endeavours will succeed, and that we shall not be disappointed of our hope.

8. The following question is started by one of the school-men: Supposing the whole body of the earth were a great ball or ma.s.s of the finest sand, and that a single grain or particle of this sand should be annihilated every thousand years. Supposing then that you had it in your choice to be happy all the while this prodigious ma.s.s of sand was consuming by this slow method till there was not a grain, of it left, on condition you were to be miserable for ever after; or supposing that you might be happy for ever after, on condition you would be miserable till the whole ma.s.s of sand were thus annihilated at the rate of one sand in a thousand years: which of these two cases would you make your choice?

9. It must be confessed in this case, so many thousands of years are to the imagination as a kind of eternity, though in reality they do not bear so great a proportion to that duration which is to follow them, as an unit does to the greatest number which you can put together in figures, or as one of those sands to the supposed heap. Reason therefore tells us, without any manner of hesitation, which would be the better part in this choice.

10. However, as I have before intimated, our reason might in such a case be so overset by the imagination, as to dispose some persons to sink under the consideration of the great length of the first part of this duration, and of the great distance of that second duration, which is to succeed it. The mind, I say, might give itself up to that happiness which is at hand, considering that it is so very near, and that it would last so very long.

11. But when the choice we actually have before us, is this, whether we will chuse to be happy for the s.p.a.ce of only threescore and ten, nay, perhaps of only twenty or ten years, I might say of only a day or an hour, and miserable to all eternity; or, on the contrary, miserable for this short term of years, and happy for a whole eternity; what words are sufficient to express that folly and want of consideration which in such a case makes a wrong choice?

12. I here put the case even at the worst, by supposing (what seldom happens) that a course of virtue makes us miserable in this life: but if we suppose (as it generally happens) that virtue will make us more happy even in this life than a contrary course of vice; how can we sufficiently admire the stupidity or madness of those persons who are capable of making so absurd a choice?

13. Every wise man, therefore, will consider this life only as it may conduce to the happiness of the other, and cheerfully sacrifice the pleasures of a few years to those of an eternity.

_On the Immortality of the Soul_.

SPECTATOR, No. 111.

1. I was yesterday walking alone in one of my friend's woods, and lost myself in it very agreeably, as I was running over in my mind the several arguments that establish this great point, which is the basis of morality, and the source of all the pleasing hopes and secret joys that can arise in the heart of a reasonable creature.

2. I considered those several proofs drawn: _First_, From the nature of the soul itself, and particualrly its immateriality; which, though not absolutely necessary to the eternity of its duration, has, I think, been evinced to almost a demonstration.

_Secondly_, From its pa.s.sions and sentiments, as particularly from, its love of existence; its horror of annihilation, and its hopes of immortality, with that secret satisfaction which it finds in the practice of virtue, and that uneasiness which follows in it upon the commission of vice.

3. _Thirdly_, From the nature of the Supreme Being, whose justice, goodness, wisdom and veraveracity, are all concerned in this point.

But among these and other excellent arguments for the immortality of the soul, there is one drawn from the perpetual progress of the soul to its perfection, without a possibility of ever arriving at it; which is a hint that I do not remember to have seen opened and improved by others who have written on this subject, though it seeras to me to carry a very great weight with it.

4. How can it enter into the thoughts of man, that the soul which is capable of such immense perfection, and of receiving new improvements to all eternity, shall fall away into nothing almost as soon as it is created? are such abilities made for no purpose? A brute arrives at a point of perfection that he can never pa.s.s: in a few years he has all the endowments he is capable of; and were he to live ten thousand more, would be the same thing he is at present.

5. Were a human soul thus at a stand in her accomplishments, were her faculties to be full blown, and incapable of further enlargements, I could imagine it might fall away insensibly; and drop at once into a state of annihilation.

6. But can we believe a thinking being; that is in a perpetual progress of improvements, and travelling on from perfection to perfection, after having just looked abroad into the works of its Creator, and made a few discoveries of his infinite goodness, wisdom and power, must perish at her first setting out, and in the very beginning of her enquiries?

A man considered in his present state, seems only sent into the world to propagate his kind. He provides himself with a successor, and immediately quits his post to make room for him.

----_Haeres.

Haeredem alterius velut unda supervenit undam._

HOR. Ep. 2. 1. 2. v. 175

----Heir crowds heir, as in a rolling flood Wave urges wave.

CREECH.

7. He does net seem born to enjoy life, but to deliver it down to others. This is not surprising to consider in animals, which are formed for our use, and can finish their business in a short life. The silk-worm, after having spun her task, lays her eggs and dies. But a man can never have taken in his full measure of knowledge, has not time to subdue his pa.s.sions, establish his soul in virtue, and come up to the perfection of his nature, before he is hurried off the stage.

8. Would an infinitely wise Being make such glorious creatures for so mean a purpose? Can he delight in the production of such abortive intelligences, such short-lived reasonable beings? Would he give us talents that are not to be exerted? capacities that are never to be gratified? How can we find that wisdom which s.h.i.+nes through all his works, in the formation of man, without looking on this world as only a nursery for the next, and believing that the several generations of rational creatures, which rise up and disappear in such quick successions, are only to receive the first rudiments of existence here, and afterwards to be transplanted into a more friendly climate, where they may spread and flourish to all eternity.

9. There is not, in my opinion, a more pleasing and triumphant consideration in religion than this of the perpetual progress which the soul makes towards the perfection of its nature, without ever arriving at a period in it. To look upon the soul as going on from strength to strength, to consider that she is to s.h.i.+ne for ever with new accessions of glory, and brighten to all eternity; that she will be still adding virtue to virtue, and knowledge to knowledge; carries in it something wonderfully agreeable to that ambition which is natural to the mind of man. Nay, it must be a prospect pleasing to G.o.d himself, to see his creation of ever beautifying his eyes, and drawing nearer to him, by greater degrees of resemblance.

10. Methinks this single consideration, of the progress of a finite spirit to perfection, will be sufficient to extinguish all envy in inferior natures, and all contempt in superior That cherubim, which now appears as a G.o.d to a human soul, knows very well that the period will come about in eternity when the human soul shall be as perfect as he himself now is: nay, when she shall look down upon that degree of perfection as much as she now falls short of it. It is true, the higher nature still advances, and by that means preserves his distance and superiority in the scale of being; but he knows that, how high soever the station is of which he stands possessed at present, the inferior nature will at length mount up to it, and s.h.i.+ne forth in the same degree of glory.

11. With what astonishment and veneration may we look into our own soul, where there are such hidden stores of virtue and knowledge, such inexhausted sources of perfection! We know not yet what we shall be, nor will it ever enter into the heart of man to conceive the glory that will be always in reserve for him. The soul considered with its Creator, is like one of those mathematical lines that may draw nearer to another for all eternity, without a possibility of touching it: and can there be a thought so transporting, as to consider ourselves in these perpetual approaches to him, who is not only the standard of perfection, but of happiness!

_On the Animal World, and the Scale of Beings_.

SPECTATOR, No. 519.

1. Though there is a great deal of pleasure in contemplating the material world, by which I mean that system of bodies into which nature has so curiously wrought the ma.s.s of dead matter, with the several relations which, those bodies bear to one another; there is still, methinks, something more wonderful and surprising in contemplations on the world of life, by which I mean all those animals with which every part of the universe is furnished.

The material world, is only the sh.e.l.l of the universe: the world of life are its inhabitants.

2. If we consider those parts of the material world which lie the nearest to us, and are therefore subject to our observations and inquiries, it is amazing to consider the infinity of animals with which it is stocked. Every part of matter is peopled: every green leaf swarms with inhabitants. There is scarce a single humour of the body of a man, or of any other animal, in which our gla.s.ses do not discover myriads of living creatures.

3. The surface of animals, is also covered with other animals, which are in the same manner the basis of other animals that live upon it: nay, we find in the most solid bodies, as in marble itself, innumerable cells and cavities, that are crowded with such imperceptible inhabitants, as are too little for the naked eye to discover. On the other hand, if we look into the more bulky parts of nature, we see the seas, lakes, and rivers teeming with numberless kinds of living creatures; we find every mountain and marsh, wilderness and wood plentifully stocked with birds and beasts, and every part of matter affording proper necessaries and conveniences for the livelihood of mult.i.tudes which, inhabit it.

4. The author of the _Plurality of Worlds_ draws a very good argument from this consideration, for the _peopling_ of every planet: as indeed it seems very probable, from the a.n.a.logy of reason, that if no part of matter, which we are acquainted with, lies waste and useless, those great bodies; which are at such a distance from us, should not be desert and unpeopled, but rather that they should be furnished with beings adapted to their respective situations.

5. Existence is a blessing to those beings only which are endowed with perception, and is in a manner thrown away upon dead matter, any further than it is subservient to beings which are conscious of their existence.

Accordingly we find, from the bodies which lie under our observation, that matter is only made as the basis and support of animals, and that there is no more of the one, than what is necessary for the existence of the other.

6. Infinite goodness is of so communicative a nature, that it seems to delight in the conferring of existence upon every degree of perceptive being. As this is a speculation, which I have often pursued with great pleasure to myself, I shall enlarge further upon it, by considering that part of the scale of beings which comes within our knowledge.

7. There are some living creatures which are raised but just above dead matter. To mention only that species of sh.e.l.l-fish, which are formed in the fas.h.i.+on of a cone, that grow to the surface of several rocks and immediately die upon their being severed from the place where they grow: there are many other creatures but one remove from these, which have no other sense besides that of feeling and taste. Others have still an additional one of hearing; others of smell; and others of sight.

3. It is wonderful, to observe, by what a gradual progress the world of life advances through a prodigious variety of species, before a creature is formed that is complete in all its senses: and even among these there is such a different degree of perfection in the sense which one animal enjoys beyond what appears in another, though the sense in different animals is distinguished by the same common denomination; it seems almost of a different nature.

10. The exuberant and overflowing; goodness of the Supreme Being, whose mercy extends to all his works, is plainly seen, as I have before hinted; from his having made so very little matter, at least what fall within our knowledge, that does not swarm with life: nor is his goodness less seen in the diversity, than in the mult.i.tude of living creatures.

Had he only made one species animals, none of the rest could have enjoyed the happiness of existence; he has therefore _specified_ in his creation every degree of life, every capacity of being.

11. The whole chasm of nature, from a plant to a man, is filled up with divers kinds of creatures, rising one over another, by such a gentle and easy ascent, that the little transitions and deviations from one species to another, are almost insensible. This intermediate s.p.a.ce is so well husbanded and managed, that there is scarce a degree of perception which does not appear in some one part of the world of life. Is the goodness, or wisdom, of the Divine Being, more manifested in this his proceeding?

12. There is a consequence, besides those I have already mentioned, which seems very naturally deducible from the foregoing considerations.

If the scale of being rises by such a regular progress, so high as man, we may by a parity of reason suppose that it still proceeds gradually through those beings which are of a superior nature to him; since there is an infinitely greater s.p.a.ce and room for different degrees of perfection between the Supreme Being and man, than between man and the most despicable insect.

13. The consequence of so great a variety of beings which are superior to us, from that variety which is inferior to us is made by Mr. _Locke_, in a pa.s.sage which I shall here set down, after having premised that notwithstanding there is still infinite room between man and his Maker for the creative power to exert itself in, it is impossible that it should ever be filled up, since there will be still an infinite gap or distance between the highest created being, and the power which produced him.