654 AN ESSAY ON THE FUTURE EXISTENCE 
sician is in the wrong, than to set him right. The best philoso*- 
phical chemist may fail in analyzing the elements of the mind ; for 
as well might we grasp the sunbeam, or seize the ever-varying 
hue of the opal, as define this bright untangible reality — this me- 
teor which rises suddenly from the dark void of a past eternity, to 
blaze awhile in our sight, and again plunge into the unknown 
depths of a future eternity. 
With regard to ourselves, we know if we do err, and rely 
“ On the evasive spirit of the marsh 
Whose lantern beams, and vanishes, and flits 
O’er bog, and rock, and pit, and hollow way,” 
that misery and mortification will await us; — but, as it respects 
that deep and mysterious problem in the Divine government, — 
“ the future existence of the lower animals,” — whatever opinions 
we may entertain respecting it it can only l|e regarded as a harm- 
less speculation, and may be very fairly considered, in parlia- 
mentary language, by all sects and denominations, as an “ open 
question,” since it involves no religious dispute, and has nothing 
whatever to do with controversial divinity. 
It has been maintained that a belief in the future existence of 
animals cannot possibly be of any service to the animals them- 
selves. We very much doubt the truth of this, since one of the 
principal sources of inhumanity and cruelty to animals proceeds 
from this very belief, that the Great Father of all 
“ Gave the Nubian lion but to live 
To rage its hour, and perish; but on man 
He lavish’d immortality, and heaven. 
The eagle falls from her aerial tower, 
And mingles with irrevocable dust; 
But man from death springs joyful, 
Springs up to life and to eternity.” 
Racine the younger, in two poetical epistles to the Duchess of 
N , believes that, in defending the opinions of Des Cartes, 
all the lower animals are mere machines ; and that all the phe- 
nomena they exhibit are purely the effects of mechanical structure ; 
that he is justifying the ways of God to man by supposing that 
Divine benevolence would never have subjected the lower animals 
to such hardships and cruelties were they any thing more than 
insensible automatons. 
Hence it should necessarily follow, that no treatment whatever 
of animals can be considered as allied to cruelty; and that we may, 
Majendie-like, vivisect them without any feelings of remorse. 
There are other obvious advantages besides this. “Who,” he asks, 
“ is the man that would ever consent to adopt the opinion that 
