The Religion of Nature Delineated William Wollaston (my reading book .TXT) 📖

hence, that more may be, and therefore that the objection before us (though we could salve the difficulties in it, and what is supposed here should be all rejected as chimerical) yet ought to be no prejudice against the belief of the immortality of the soul, if there is any (but one) good reason for it.

But if we can, in any tolerable manner (which in our present circumstances is as much as can be expected), account for the difficulties objected, and those the greatest belonging to this matter, and show how it is possible that they may consist with immortality, this will greatly corroborate the arguments for it, if not be one itself. This I hope is done; or, if I have not spoke directly to every part of the objection, from what has been done that defect may easily be supplied.

We may conclude the souls of men to be immortal from the nature of God. For if he is (which sure nobody doubts) a Perfect being, He, as such, can do nothing inconsistent with perfect or right reason. And then no being, nor circumstance of any being, can come, from Him as its cause, which it is not agreeable to such reason should be; or (which is the same): He cannot but deal reasonably with all His dependents. And then again, if we are in the number of these, and the mortality of the human soul does not consist with reason, we may be sure it is immortal: as sure as we can be of anything by the use of our faculties, and that is as sure as we can be of anything. Whether therefore that does consist with reason or not, is to be inquired.

To produce a being into a state of clear happiness, in any degree, can be no injury to it⁠—or into a state of mixed happiness, provided the happiness certainly overbalances the contrary, and the unhappy or suffering part be not greater than what that being would choose in order to obtain the happiness, or rather than lose it. Nor, again, can any wrong be done by producing a being subject to more misery than happiness, if that being has it in his own power to avoid the misery, or so much of it as may leave the remainder of misery not greater than what he would rather sustain than miss the proportion of happiness. The only case then, by which wrong can be done in the production of any being, is when it is necessarily and irremediably to be miserable, without any recompense or balance of that misery:594 and this indeed is a case so grievous, so utterly irreconcilable to all reason, that the heart of a reasoning and considering man can scarce bear the thought of it. So much everyone must understand of the nature of reason and justice, as to allow these things for truths incontestable.

Now then, he who says the soul of man is mortal must say one of these two things: either that God is an unreasonable, unjust, cruel Being; or that no man in respect of this life (which according to him is all), has a greater share of misery, unavoidable, than of happiness. To say the former is to contradict that which I presume has been proved beyond contradiction. To which I may add here that this is to avow such an unworthy, impious notion of the Supreme being, as one would not entertain without caution even of the worst of men; such a one, as even the person himself, who says this, must know to be false. For he cannot but see, and must own, many instances of the reasonableness and beneficence of the Deity, not one of which could be, if cruelty and unreasonableness were His inclination: since He has power to execute His own inclinations thoroughly, and is a Being uniform in his nature. Then to say the latter, is to contradict the whole story of mankind, and even one’s own senses. Consider well the dreadful effects of many wars, and all those barbarous desolations, which we read of: what cruel tyrants there are, and have been, in the world, who (at least in their fits) divert themselves with the pangs and convulsions of their fellow-creatures;595 what slavery is,596 and how men have been brought into that lamentable state; how many have been ruined by accidents unforeseen; how many have suffered or been undone by unjust laws, judges, witnesses, etc.;597 how many have brought incurable diseases, or the causes of them and of great torments, into the world with them; how many more, such bodily infirmities and disadvantages, as have rendered their whole lives uneasy; how many are born to no other inheritance but invincible poverty and trouble? Instances are endless: but, for a little taste of the condition of mankind here, reflect upon that story related by Strabo (from Polybius) and Plutarch, where, even by order of the Roman senate, Paullus Æmylius, one of the best of them too, at one prefixed hour sacked and destroyed seventy cities, unawares, and drove fifteen myriads of innocent persons into captivity, to be sold only to raise pay for the merciless soldiers and their own executioners. Peruse that account of the gold-works in the confines of Egypt given by Diodorus, and think over the circumstances of the unfortunate laborers there, who were not only criminals or men taken in war, but even such as calumny or unjust power had doomed (perhaps for being too good) to that place of torment, many times with all their relations and poor children.598 Or, once for all, take a view of servitude as it is described by Pignorius. To pass over the Sicilian tyrants, him of Pheræ, Apollodorus,599 and the like, of which history supplies plenty; consider those terrible proscriptions among the Romans,600 with the reigns of most of their