382 LESSONS FROM NATURE. [CHAP. XIII. 



great gain to have a somewhat higher notion more widely 

 spread, and the general dissemination of controversy respect 

 ing &quot; the Unknowable &quot; cannot fail to spread wider, concep 

 tions of a higher character. Not but that &quot; the Unknowable,&quot; 

 as represented by Mr. Spencer, devoid of personality, is, in 

 reality, lower instead of higher than the popular conception 

 of God ; but at the same time, while those who are indis 

 posed to Theism may thus be confirmed in their negations, 

 those who are Theists cannot but have their Theism improved 

 and their conceptions raised by a careful and detailed con 

 sideration of the hopeless inadequacy of all symbols to convey 

 to us a knowledge of our Creator as He is. 



Another consequence that follows from the foregoing con- 

 Theimmor- sideration is that the doctrine of the continued 

 souif existence of the soul after death is true. If the 

 universe is governed by a just God who is also all-wise 

 and all-powerful, it follows that each man must meet with 

 reward or chastisement according to his deserts. But that 

 such is not the case in this life it needs but a small 

 knowledge of history, or indeed experience of the world, 

 in order to perceive. There are, it is true, some writers 

 (mostly possessed of a good share of this world s advan 

 tages) who, owing to the exigencies of their philosophical 

 position, venture to assert that each man during this life 

 receives minute and exact retribution for every act, word, 

 and thought. Such a doctrine, however, is a mere gra 

 tuitous and, indeed, superstitious dogma, utterly incapable 

 of proof, opposed to the almost universally expressed con 

 viction of mankind, and opposed also to the moral conscious 

 ness of many as to the events of their own lives. Our 

 perception of what is just demands then for us, as moral 

 beings, an existence after death. But does physical science, 

 especially physiology, negative this belief? If so, in the 

 presence of conflicting truths we are reduced to scepticism. 

 But in fact no refinement of modern science affects it one 

 jot or tittle more than does the fact known to every savage, 

 &quot; that when the brains were out the man would die.&quot; We 



