CHAPTER III.

THERE CAN BE NO MORALITY IF THERE BE NO FUTURE STATEPRESUMPTION IN FAVOR OF THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL DEDUCED FROM THE RESPECT OF MAN FOR TOMBS.

MORALITY is the basis of society; but if man is a mere mass of matter, there is in reality neither vice nor virtue, and of course morality is a mere sham. Our laws, which are ever relative and variable, cannot serve as the support of morals, which are always absolute and unalterable; they must, therefore, rest on something more permanent than the present life, and have better guarantees than uncertain rewards or transient punishments. Some philosophers have supposed that religion was invented in order to uphold morality: they were not aware that they were taking the effect for the cause. It is not religion that springs from morals, but morals that spring from religion; since it is certain, as we have just observed, that morals cannot have their principle in physical man or mere matter; and that men no sooner divest themselves of the idea of a God than they rush into every species of crime, in spite of laws and of executioners.

It is well known that a religion which recently aspired to erect itself on the ruins of Christianity, and fancied that it could surpass the gospel, enforced in our churches that precept of the Decalogue: Children, honor your parents. But why did the Theophilanthropists retrench the latter part of this precept,—that ye may live long? Because a secret sense of poverty taught them that the man who has nothing can give nothing away. How could he have promised length of years who is not sure himself of living two minutes? We might with justice have said to him, "Thou makest me a present of life, and perceivest not that thou art thyself sinking into dust? Like Jehovah, thou assurest me

I The Theophilanthropists, hardly deserving the name of a religious sect, arose out of the infatuation of the French revolution. Their system was partly positive and partly negative; they were advocates of some scraps of morality, and they denied the doctrine of the resurrection. K.

a protracted existence, but where is thy eternity like his from which to dispense it? Thoughtless mortal! even the present rapid hour is not thine own; thine only inheritance is death: what then but nothingness canst thou draw forth from the bottom of thy sepulchre to recompense my virtue?"

There is another moral proof of the immortality of the soul on which it is necessary to insist,—that is, the veneration of mankind for tombs. By an invisible charm, life and death are here linked together, and human nature proves itself superior to the rest of the creation, and appears in all its high destinies. Does the brute know any thing about a coffin, or does he concern himself about his remains? What to him are the bones of his parent, or, rather, can he distinguish his parent after the cares of infancy are past? Whence comes, then, the powerful impression that is made upon us by the tomb? Are a few grains of dust deserving of our veneration? Certainly not; we respect the ashes of our ancestors for this reason only-because a secret voice whispers to us that all is not extinguished in them. It is this that confers a sacred character on the funeral ceremony among all the nations of the globe; all are alike persuaded that the sleep even of the tomb is not everlasting, and that death is but a glorious transfiguration.

CHAPTER IV.

OF CERTAIN OBJECTIONS.

WITHOUT entering too deeply into metaphysical proofs, which we have studiously avoided, we shall nevertheless endeavor to answer certain objections which are incessantly brought forward. Cicero has asserted, after Plato, that there is no people among whom there exists not some notion of the Deity. But this universal consent of nations, which the ancient philosophers considered as a law of nature, has been denied by modern infidels, who maintain that certain tribes of savages have no idea of God. In vain do atheists strive to conceal the weakness of their cause. The result of all their arguments is that their system is grounded

on exceptions alone, whereas the belief of a God forms the general rule. If you assert that all mankind believe in a Supreme Being, the infidel first objects to you some particular tribe of savages, then some particular individual, or himself, who are of a different opinion. If you assert that chance could not have formed the world, because there could have been but one single favorable chance against innumerable impossibilities, the infidel admits the position, but replies that this chance actually did exist; and the same mode of reasoning he pursues on every subject. Thus, according to the atheist, nature is a book in which truth is to be found only in the notes and never in the text; a language the genius and essence of which consist in its barbarisms.

When we come to examine these pretended exceptions, we discover either that they arise from local causes, or that they even fall under the established law. In the case alleged, for example, it is false that there are any savages who have no notion of a Deity. The early travellers who advanced this assertion have been contradicted by others who were better informed. Among the infidels of the forest were numbered the Canadian hordes; but we have seen these sophists of the cabin, who were supposed to have read in the book of nature, as our sophists have in theirs, that there is no God, nor any future state for man; and we must say that these Indians are absurd barbarians, who perceive the soul of an infant in a dove, and that of a little girl in the sensitive plant. Mothers among them are so silly as to sprinkle their milk upon a grave; and they give to man in the sepulchre the same attitude which he had in the maternal womb. May not this be done to intimate that death is but a second mother, by whom we are brought forth into another life? Atheism will never make any thing of those nations which are indebted to Providence for lodging, food, and raiment; and we would advise the infidel to beware of these bribed allies, who secretly receive presents from the enemy.

Another objection is this: "Since the mind acquires and loses its energies with age,-since it follows all the alterations of matter, it must be of a material nature, consequently divisible and liable to perish."

Either the mind and the body are two distinct beings, or they are but one and the same substance. If there are two, you must

admit that the mind is comprehended in the body; hence it follows that, as long as this union lasts, the mind cannot but be affected in a certain degree by the bonds in which it is held. It will appear to be elevated or depressed in the same proportion as its mortal tabernacle. The objection, therefore, is done away in the hypothesis by which the mind and the body are considered as two distinct substances.

If you suppose that they form but one and the same substance, partaking alike of life and death, you are bound to prove the assertion. But it has long been demonstrated that the mind is essentially different from motion and the other properties of matter, being susceptible neither of extension nor division.

Thus the objection falls entirely to the ground, since the only point to be ascertained is, whether matter and thought be one and the same thing: a position which cannot be maintained without absurdity.

Let it not be imagined that, in having recourse to prescription for the solution of this difficulty, we are, therefore, unable to sap its very foundation. It may be proved that even when the mind seems to follow the contingencies of the body, it retains the distinguishing characters of its essence. For instance, atheists triumphantly adduce, in support of their views, insanity, injuries of the brain, and delirious fevers. To prop their wretched system, these unfortunate men are obliged to enrol all the ills of humanity as allies in their cause. Well, then, what, after all, is proved by these fevers, this insanity, which atheism—that is to say, the genius of evil-so properly summons in its defence? I see a disordered imagination connected with a sound understanding. The lunatic and the delirious perceive objects which have no existence; but do they reason falsely respecting those objects? They only draw logical conclusions from unsound premises.

The same thing happens to the patient in a paroxysm of fever. His mind is beclouded in that part in which images are reflected, because the senses, from their imbecility, transmit only fallacious notions; but the region of ideas remains uninjured and unalterable. As a flame kindled with a substance ever so vile is nevertheless pure fire, though fed with impure aliments, so the mind, a celestial flame, rises incorruptible and immortal from the midst of corruption and of death.

With respect to the influence of climate upon the mind, which has been alleged as a proof of the material nature of the soul, we request the particular attention of the reader to our reply; for, instead of answering a mere objection, we shall deduce from the very point that is urged against us a remarkable evidence of the immortality of the soul.

It has been observed that nature displays superior energies in the north and in the south; that between the tropics we meet with the largest quadrupeds, the largest reptiles, the largest birds, the largest rivers, the highest mountains; that in the northern regions we find the mighty cetaceous tribes, the enormous fucus, and the gigantic pine. If all things are the effects of matter, combinations of the elements, products of the solar rays, the result of cold and heat, moisture and drought, why is man alone excepted from this general law? Why is not his physical and moral capacity expanded with that of the elephant under the line and of the whale at the poles? While all nature is changed. by the latitude under which it is placed, why does man alone remain everywhere the same? Will you reply that man, like the ox, is a native of every region? The ox, we answer, retains his instinct in every climate; and we find that, in respect to man, the case is very different.

Instead of conforming to the general law of nature,—instead of acquiring higher energy in those climates where matter is. supposed to be most active,―man, on the contrary, dwindles in the same ratio as the animal creation around him is enlarged. In proof of this, we may mention the Indian, the Peruvian, the Negro, in the south; the Esquimaux and the Laplander in the north. Nay, more: America, where the mixture of mud and water imparts to vegetation all the vigor of a primitive soilAmerica is pernicious to the race of man, though it is daily becoming less so in proportion as the activity of the material principle is reduced. Man possesses not all his energies except in those regions where the elements, being more temperate, allow a freer scope to the mind; where that mind, being in a manner released from its terrestrial clothing, is not restrained in any of its motions or in any of its faculties.

Here, then, we cannot but discover something in direct opposition to passive nature. Now this something is our immortal