351 
felt to be a possible future which gives intensity to all anxiety. 
Indeed we cannot close our eyes to the fact, that human 
nature, with its dim hopes and fears, still desires to be. Ex- 
tinction, as a rule, is shrunk from. That perfecting of the 
individual, which has been recognized as the end of probation, 
seems of itself to aim at a future. The law of continuity of 
being (not of phenomena) is keenly felt in our individuality ; 
and no one can study human nature without finding 
this. The conditions of the life to come may be The ]aw of 
different as to the phenomena — (for even in this life Continuity felt 
they are perpetually shifting), but as to the true- duality — not 
always there can be no change. The future life P heuomenal - 
must, together with the inheritance of the past, be a life amidst 
other phenomena ; but our individual consciousness has been 
now, and will be hereafter, in essential relation with the true- 
always. A Philosophy of Duty which omitted to deal with the 
greatest fact of life — its close, and its desire not toclose altogether, 
— must be self- convicted. A Revelation made to us now con- 
cerning that future life, could not but correspond to the inner- 
most desire of conscious agency, still to be. It corresponds too 
with all that is implied in a summing up of the moral system 
of the phenomenal world, by the Supreme Moral Governor. 
134. Thus the “ Life of the world to come ” seems Life of th# 
to be demanded as the inevitable result of a purely world to come 
reasonable examination of the facts of the moral menaT fit : a &l 
life of the present. The conscious agent, already true-aiways. 
in essential relation with the true-always, finds the phenomenal 
to be ever passing from him ; while yet he hastens on, with the 
great work of perfecting his own character for the judgment 
of the Supreme, Whose relation to the true-always is perfect. 
When the illustrious teacher of the nations “ reasoned ” 
before his tyrant, “ of Temperance, Righteousness and Judg- 
ment to come ” — we are told that “ Felix trembled.” He 
would not have trembled, had not the facts of human nature 
been in deep accordance with those verities. 
XIX. 
135. From these beginnings of Religious Faith thus morally 
recognized, we will diverge to some alleged doc- 
trines of Religion which are shut out, a jpriori, by in g oniyYn rl* 
our first principles, and supply no defect in our lation with the 
i it 1 A t ri , • .1 „ phenomenal. 
knowledge or power. In marking the great facts 
as to the Supreme Judgment of moral agents, the law of 
Retribution, and the Life to come, we saw that they were all 
closely allied with the true-always. We shall find it, on the 
VOL. iv. 2 b 
