Preface. 3 



Referring then to the undeveloped powers and capacities of the so- 

 called brutes, the Bishop could perceive no reason why they should not 

 attain their development in an existence beyond the earth-life. It was 

 in pursuance of this same train of thought that Rev. J. G. Wood was 

 led to show in a work, entitled " Man and Beast Here and Hereafter," 

 that the lower animals do possess those mental and moral characteris- 

 ticsthe attributes of reason, language, memory, moral responsibility, 

 unselfishness and love which we admit in man as belonging to the 

 immortal spirit, rather than to the perishable body. Having previously 

 cleared away the difficulties which certain passages in the Old Testa- 

 ment seemingly interposed, and proved that the Scriptures do not deny 

 futurity of life to lower animals, he very naturally concluded that as 

 man expects to retain these qualities in the future life there is every 

 reason to suppose that they may share his immortality in the Hereafter 

 as in the Now they are partakers of his mortal nature. 



Few minds, unswayed by thoughts materialistic, can study the 

 living works of God, whether vegetal or animal, and fail to be con- 

 vinced that they, as living exponents of Divine conceptions, are as 

 needful in the world of spirit as in the world of matter. While many 

 are disposed to believe that man will share the future life with beast, 

 bird, insect and such like, yet but few, if any, can be found who believe 

 that tree and shrub and flower will be there to continue the life begun 

 on earth and reach out to higher and fuller development. In announc- 

 ing this belief, the author but expresses a conviction as deep as any 

 that could occupy a human mind. The possession of soul and spirit 

 can be predicated no less of plants than of man and the lower animals. 

 They have all one breath or life and one spirit, and as such are living 

 souls, living, breathing frames or bodies of life. From being living, 

 breathing frames, and endowed with the same life and spirit as man 

 and the lower animals, they have all one destiny, for " all go unto one 

 place ; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again." But of the new 

 life which Christ came down to earth to proffer to man that he might 

 inherit the kingdom of God. While to man it was only offered, and 

 had for its purpose the uplifting and improvement of his earth-life by 

 the promise of something higher and better to those who are accounted 

 worthy, yet there can be no doubt that it was equally intended through 



