There are, however, other arguments commonly brought forward in favour of the immortality of man, which are to my mind not only delusive but mischievous.  The one is the notion that the moral government of the world is imperfect without a system of future rewards and punishments.  The other is:  that such a system is indispensable to practical morality.  I believe that both these dogmas are very mischievous lies.

With respect to the first, I am no optimist, but I have the firmest belief that the Divine Government (if we may use such a phrase to express the sum of the “customs of matter”) is wholly just.  The more I know intimately of the lives of other men (to say nothing of my own), the more obvious it is to me that the wicked does not flourish nor is the righteous punished.  But for this to be clear we must bear in mind what almost all forget, that the rewards of life are contingent upon obedience to the whole law—­physical as well as moral—­and that moral obedience will not atone for physical sin, or vice versa.

The ledger of the Almighty is strictly kept, and every one of us has the balance of his operations paid over to him at the end of every minute of his existence.

Life cannot exist without a certain conformity to the surrounding universe—­that conformity involves a certain amount of happiness in excess of pain.  In short, as we live we are paid for living.

And it is to be recollected in view of the apparent discrepancy between men’s acts and their rewards that Nature is juster than we.  She takes into account what a man brings with him into the world, which human justice cannot do.  If I, born a bloodthirsty and savage brute, inheriting these qualities from others, kill you, my fellow-men will very justly hang me, but I shall not be visited with the horrible remorse which would be my real punishment if, my nature being higher, I had done the same thing.

The absolute justice of the system of things is as clear to me as any scientific fact.  The gravitation of sin to sorrow is as certain as that of the earth to the sun, and more so—­for experimental proof of the fact is within reach of us all—­nay, is before us all in our own lives, if we had but the eyes to see it.

Not only, then, do I disbelieve in the need for compensation, but I believe that the seeking for rewards and punishments out of this life leads men to a ruinous ignorance of the fact that their inevitable rewards and punishments are here.

If the expectation of hell hereafter can keep me from evil-doing, surely a fortiori the certainty of hell now will do so?  If a man could be firmly impressed with the belief that stealing damaged him as much as swallowing arsenic would do (and it does), would not the dissuasive force of that belief be greater than that of any based on mere future expectations?

And this leads me to my other point.