ogy is not, 'This
life is a mixed state of justice and injustice, of great waste, of
sudden casualties, of disproportionate punishments, and therefore the
like inconsistencies, irregularities, injustices are to be expected
in another;' but 'This life is subject to law, and is in a state of
progress, and therefore law and progress may be believed to be the
governing principles of another.' All the analogies of this world would
be against unmeaning punishments inflicted a hundred or a thousand years
after an offence had been committed. Suffering there might be as a
part of education, but not hopeless or protracted; as there might be
a retrogression of individuals or of bodies of men, yet not such as to
interfere with a plan for the improvement of the whole (compare Laws.)

9. But some one will say: That we cannot reason from the seen to the
unseen, and that we are creating another world after the image of this,
just as men in former ages have created gods in their own likeness. And
we, like the companions of Socrates, may feel discouraged at hearing
our favourite 'argument from analogy' thus summarily disposed of. Like
himself, too, we may adduce other arguments in which he seems to have
anticipated us, though he expresses them in different language. For we
feel that the soul partakes of the ideal and invisible; and can never
fall into the error of confusing the external circumstances of man with
his higher self; or his origin with his nature. It is as repugnant to
us as it was to him to imagine that our moral ideas are to be attributed
only to cerebral forces. The value of a human soul, like the value of a
man's life to himself, is inestimable, and cannot be reckoned in earthly
or material things. The human being alone has the consciousness of truth
and justice and love, which is the consciousness of God. And the soul
becoming more conscious of these, becomes more conscious of her own
immortality.

10. The last ground of our belief in immortality, and the strongest, is
the perfection of the divine nature. The mere fact of the existence of
God does not tend to show the continued existence of man. An evil God
or an indifferent God might have had the power, but not the will, to
preserve us. He might have regarded us as fitted to minister to his
service by a succession of existences,--like the animals, without
attributing to each soul an incomparable value. But if he is perfect,
he must will that all rational beings should