Happiness in Progress 



to bed ; and these are the only pressing wants likely to occur 

 I am prepared to go through fifty thousand worlds, and with 

 forty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine deaths 

 between, so long as each (whether I can remember or com- 

 pare them or not) be intrinsically better than the one before, 

 and enjoyment continue to bear the same proportion to 

 anxiety. As long as we can imagine any perfection to which 

 we have not attained, we shall not rest completely satisfied. 

 Perfect happiness, like all other perfection, can belong only 

 to the Deity. It is only in the gradual approach and 

 advancement towards this state, that the happiness of inferior 

 natures can consist. We are made after God's own image, 

 which probably means, that the nature of man contains in 

 vague embryo, and much clogged besides with the material 

 engine through which it now has to operate, a germ of all 

 those attributes which, in their fulness and splendour of per- 

 fection, constitute the Being who created him. It is there- 

 fore impossible to over-estimate the height of glory to which 

 man is capable of growing. But we see here that his pro- 

 gress is slow, and the presumption is, there will be many, in 

 fact endless states, ' because,' as Tennyson says in that 

 sublime speculation (the Two Voices) — 'because the scale 

 is infinite.' So we may go on, 'moving up from high to 

 higher,' till ' we lose ourselves in light.' " 



" Well, but what does your theory make of those who go 

 the wrong way ? " 



" Why, of course, they move down from low to lower, till 

 they lose themselves in darkness. As the first become 

 'angels and ministers of grace,' the others become demons 

 and ministers of disgrace ; and as the terminus of the one 

 is perfection, that of the other is annihilation." 



278 



