DESTRUCTION AND PRESERVATION. 65 



Suppose, for example, that the huge saui'ians of the geological 

 eras had been permitted to retain their place upon the eai*th, and 

 that the land and water were overrun with megatheria, iguano- 

 dons, and other creatures of like nature. Suppose, to take our own 

 island as a limited example, that the land were peopled with the 

 naked and painted savages of its ancient times, unchanged in 

 numbers, in habits, and in customs. It is 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 oi'der to escape 

 absolute stagnation it is a necessity that old things should pass away, 

 and that the new should take their place. How limited would the 

 human race be were it not subject to physical death ! But a very 

 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 physical 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 pre- 

 server 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 at 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 



