3388 DEATH AND. PROGRESS. 
acknowledge any being as superior to themselves, even though the ground on which 
they base that superiority may not be of the most elevated description. For all power, of 
whatever kind, is in its essence spiritual, however material and even revolting its outer 
manifestations may appear, and is therefore an attribute of the Supreme, although 
misunderstood and misapplied. 
In reality, the attribute which we call Destruction, ought to be termed Conservation 
and Progression, for without its beneficent influence all things would be limited in their 
number and manifestation as soon as they first came into existence, and there would be 
no improvement in physical, moral, or spiritual natures. In such sad case, it would be 
possible to find a centre and circumference to creation, whereas it is truly as unlimited as 
the very being of its Creator. 
Suppose, for ex xample, that the huge Saurians of the geological eras had been permitted 
to retain their place upon the earth, and that the land and water were overrun with 
megatheria, iguanodons, and other creatures of like nature. Suppose, to take our own 
island as a limited example, that the land was peopled with the naked and painted 
savages of its ancient times, unchanged in numbers, in habits, and in customs. — It 
1s evident that in either case the country would be unable to retain the higher animals 
and the loftier humanity of the present day, and that in order to escape absolute 
stagnation it is a necessity that old things should pass away and that the new should 
take their place. How lmited would not the human race be were it not subject to 
physical death! But avery few years and the earth would be over-peopled. setting aside 
the question of bodily nourishment, which requires the destruction of other beings, either 
animal or vegetable. The same rule holds good with regard to moral as well as “phy sical 
improvement, for it is necessary that all mental progress should be caused by a 
continual destruction, a death of erroneous ideas, before the corresponding truths can 
obtain entrance into the mind. 
Apply the same principle to the entire creation, and it will become evident that 
the destructive attribute is essentially the preserver and the improver. Death, so-called, 
is the best guardian of the human race, and its preserver from the most terrible selfishness, 
and the direst immorality. If men were unable to form any conception of a future state, 
and were forced to continue in the present phase of existence to all eternity, they would 
naturally turn their endeavours to collecting as much as possible of the things which 
afford sensual pleasure, and each would lead an individual and selfish life, with no future 
for which to hope, and no aim to which to aspire. 
The popular error respecting the destructive principle is, that it is supposed to be 
identical with annihilation, than which notion nothing can be more false in itself, 
or more libellous to the Supreme Creator of all things. Death is to every man a terror, 
an abasement, or an exaltation, as the case may be; but, in truth, to those who are 
capable of grasping this most beautiful subject, destruction is shown as transmutation, 
and death becomes birth. Nothing that is once brought into existence can ever be 
annihilated, for the simple reason that it is an emanation ‘of the Deity, who is life itself, 
essential, eternal, and universal. ‘The form is constantly lable to mutation, but the 
substance always remains. 
In every pebble that lies unheeded on the ground are pent sundry gaseous substances, 
which onl await the delivering hand of the analyzer to be liberated and expanded ; 
possessing in their free and etherealized existence, many powers and properties which 
they were debarred from exercising while imprisoned in their condensed and materialized 
form. To the ordinary observer, the stone thus transmuted in its form appears to 
be destroyed, but its apparent death is in reality the beginning of a new life, with 
extended powers and more ethereal substance. Thus it is that physical death acts upon 
mankind, and in that light is it regarded by the true and brave spirit, with whom to live 
is toil, and death is a new birth into life, of which he is conscious even here. * Death is to 
such minds the greatest boon that could be conferred upon them, for just as the destruction 
or death of the pebble etherealizes and expands the elements of its being, so by the death 
or destruction of the body, the spirit is liberated from its material prison, and humanity is 
divinized through death. 
