162 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 



and descended from the animals ; of like bodily structure 

 with some of them, and nourished as they upon earthly 

 elements; that he sleeps and feeds and continues his 

 kind even as they; and finally, his functions fulfilled, 

 that he, as they, falls back upon the breast of the earth, 

 the common nourisher and mother, for his final and 

 eternal rest. The energy locked up in his frame, as in 

 theirs, is let loose ; the energy which was only borrowed, 

 but never created, and which in the wondrous bodily 

 machine was transmuted into chemical, mechanical, 

 electrical, vital, and mental forms, is now restored to the 

 vast and universal reservoir of Nature, thence to be re- 

 distributed, and to cycle again in new or old forms of 

 life, in man, or bird, or beast, or flower. The man dies 

 as the brute ; the imprisoned physical and chemical 

 forces escape; but there is no imprisoned soul set free, 

 that goes forth (as in the dream of Shakespeare's Clar- 

 ence) to " seek the empty, vast, and wandering air." He 

 dies, and there is an end; and, were he only wise, he 

 should be thankful indeed that it is so determined. 

 While grateful to Nature for the life he has had, he 

 should, if happily constituted and circumstanced, be more 

 grateful for this her crowning act of grace and, indemnity 

 shown in affording a secure final harbour of perfect rest 

 and peace, an escape from the strife and turmoil of life, 

 into the quiet regions of non-existence the peaceful 

 shores of Nirvana, that Buddha promised as special 

 reward only to the wise and good who had earned it 

 on earth by severest virtue. Above all, he should be 

 thankful to Science for having at last, but only in our 

 days, finished the work of Lucretius and Epicurus, by 

 delivering men from the superstitions and vain terrors, 

 the fear of the gods and of death, that so long had 

 tormented and oppressed them ; for showing us what 



