Were it necessary to hunt out every possible combination of opinion, I
should have to inquire whether the doctrine of another world might not
be understood in such a sense as to involve no distortion of our views.
The future world may be so arranged that the effect of the two sets of
motives upon our minds may be always coincident. Our interest in our
descendants might be strengthened without being distracted by a belief
in our own future existence. Of such a theory I have now only space to
say that it is not that which really occurs in practice: and that the
instincts which make us cling to a vivid belief in the future always
spring from a vehement revolt against the present. Meanwhile, however,
the answers generally given to sceptics are apparently contradictory. To
limit our hopes to this world, it is sometimes said, is to encourage
mere grovelling materialism; in the same breath it is added that to ask
for an interest in the fate of our fellow-creatures here, instead of
ourselves hereafter, is to make excessive demands upon human
selfishness. The doctrine it seems is at once too elevated and too
grovelling.
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