3 88 DEATH AND PROGRESS. 



edge any being as superior to themselves, even though the ground on which they base 

 that superiority may not be of the most elevated description. For all power, of what- 

 ever kind, is in its essence spiritual, however material and even revolting its outer 

 manifestations may appear, and is therefore an attribute of the Supreme, although 

 misunderstood and misapplied. 



In reality, the attribute which we call Destruction ought to be termed Conservation 

 and Progression, for without its beneficent influence all things would be limited in their 

 number and manifestation as soon as they first came into existence, and there would 

 be no improvement in physical, moral, or spiritual natures. In such sad case, it would 

 be possible to find a centre and circumference to creation, whereas it is truly as unlim- 

 ited as the very being of its Creator. 



Suppose, for example, that the huge Saurians of the geological eras had been permitted 

 to retain their place upon the earth, and that the land and water were overrun with 

 megatheria, iguanodons, and other creatures of like nature. Suppose, to take our own 

 island as a limited example, that the land was peopled with the naked and painted 

 savages of its ancient times, unchanged in numbers, in habits, and in customs. It is 

 evident that in either case the country would be unable to retain the higher animals 

 and the loftier humanity of the present day, and that in order to escape absolute stagna- 

 tion it is a necessity that old things should pass away and that the new should take 

 their place. How limited would not the human race be were it not subject to physical 

 death ! But a very few years and the earth would be over-peopled, setting aside the 

 question of bodily nourishment, which requires the destruction of other beings, either 

 animal or vegetable. The same rule holds good with regard to moral as well as physical 

 improvement, for it is necessary that all mental progress should be caused by a continual 

 destruction, a death of erroneous ideas, before the corresponding truths can obtain 

 entrance into the mind. 



Apply the same principle to the entire creation, and it will become evident that the 

 destructive attribute is essentially the preserver and the improver. Death, so-called, 

 is the best guardian of the human race, and its preserver from the most terrible selfish- 

 ness, and the direst immorality. If men were unable to form any conception of a future 

 state, and were forced to continue in the present phase of existence to all eternity, they 

 would naturally turn their endeavors to collecting as much as possible of the things 

 which afford sensual pleasure, and each would lead an individual and selfish life, with 

 no future for which to hope, and no aim to which to aspire. 



The popular error respecting the destructive principle is, that it is supposed to be 

 identical with annihilation, than which notion nothing can be more false in itself, 

 or more libellous to the Supreme Creator of all things. Death is to every man a terror, 

 an abasement, or an exaltation, as the case may be ; but, in truth,, to those who are 

 capable of grasping this most beautiful subject, destruction is shown as transmutation, 

 and death becomes birth. Nothing that is once brought into existence can ever be 

 annihilated, for the simple reason that it is an emanation of the Deity, who is life it- 

 self, essential, eternal, and universal. The form is constantly liable to mutation, but 

 the substance always remains. 



In every pebble that lies unheeded on the ground are pent sundry gaseous sub- 

 stances, which only await the delivering hand of the analyzer to be liberated and ex- 

 panded ; possessing in their free and etherealized existence many powers and proper- 

 ties which they were debarred from exercising while imprisoned in their condensed 

 and materialized form. To the ordinary observer, the stone thus transmuted in its 

 form appears to be destroyed, but its apparent death is in reality the beginning of a 

 new life, with extended powers and more ethereal substance. Thus it is that physical 

 diith acts upon mankind, and in that light is it regarded by the true and brave spirit, 

 with whom to live is toil, and death is a new birth into life, of which he is conscious 

 even here. Death is to such minds the greatest boon that could be conferred 

 upon them, for just as the destruction or death of the pebble etherealizes and 

 expands the elements of its being, so by the death or destruction of the body, the 

 spirit is liberated from its material prison, and humanity is divinized through 

 death. 



