8 EVOLUTION AND NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



teaching on the subject certainly imply that he 

 believed in gradations of both rewards and 

 punishments* (Mattli. xi. 22; Luke xii. 47, 48, 

 xix. 17-2G; John xiv. 2). Nor can we for a 

 moment rationally suppose that even the highest 

 and noblest of our race can reach the presence 

 of the Infinite itself at one bound, from a world 

 so low as this. Bather let us acknowledge with 

 the Buddhists, the much greater probability 

 that ages of progress, and possibly a great 

 variety of stages of existence, separate us from 

 Nirvana. f 



Swedenborg's assertion that the sun of this 

 world corresponds to the black centre of the 

 infernal world, like his counter statement, in 

 which most mystics of all ages have concurred, 

 that God himself is the sun of the Spiritual 

 Universe, J or at least of the heavens, as opposed 

 to the hells, is obviously allegorical ; but more 

 than one writer of this and the last century 

 seriously put forward the monstrous proposition 



* The NeAV Testament doctrine of a future state is misrepresented in 

 the English translation. The word " heavens " has always Leen ren- 

 dered by the singular, and the word "Hades," which simply means the 

 world of spirits, generally by " hell." 



t See note B at the end of chapter. 



\ See note C at end of chapter. 



