The only doubt that can arise anywhere is, whether in the third case—­the case of the supernatural,—­truth is of the same consequence to us.  Such a doubt, however, begs the whole question at issue.  If the truth be of no consequence here, it is because we shall never be landed in any reality corresponding to what is declared:  that the nature of the future life is purely imaginary and not to be converted into fact; in other words, that there is no future life; that there is merely a land of dreams and fiction, which can never be proved true and never proved false.  It would then be a projection of thought from the present life, and would cease with that life.  All that people could claim in the matter would be the liberty of imagination; and this being so, we are not to be committed to any one form.  In short, we are to picture what we please in a world that cannot be made out to exist.  The point is not, to be true or false; it is, to be well or ill imagined.

What, then, is to be the criterion of proper or improper imagination?  On what grounds are we to make our preference between the different schemes of the supersensible world?  Is each one of us to be free to imagine for ourselves, or are we to submit to the dictation of others?  These questions lead up to another.  How far are the interests of the present life concerned in the form given to our conceptions of a future life?

It would seem to be an unanswerable assumption that, in all the three situations above supposed, we should do the very best that the case admits of.  In the order of nature we should get, as far as possible, the truth and the whole truth; in the choice of ends for this life we should embrace the best ends; in the shaping of another life we should be free to follow out whatever may be the course suitable to the operation.

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[EARLY SOURCES OF INTOLERANCE.]

The means for arriving at truth in the order of nature is an active search according to certain well-known methods.  It farther involves the negative condition of perfect freedom to canvass, to controvert, or to refute, every received doctrine or opinion.  There is no use in going after new facts, or in rising to new generalities, if we are not to be allowed to displace errors.  This is now conceded, except at the points of contact of the natural and the supernatural.  In spite of the wide separation of the two worlds—­the world of fact and the world of imagination,—­we cannot conceive the second except in terms of the first; and if the shaping of the supernatural acquires fixity and consecration, the natural facts made use of in the fabric acquire a corresponding fixity, even although the rendering is found to be inaccurate.  The prevailing conception of a future life needs a view of the separate and independent subsistence of the mental powers of man, very difficult to reconcile with present knowledge.

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