There are some other questions which are disturbing to us because we have
no answer to them. What is to become of the animals in a future state?
Have we not seen dogs more faithful and intelligent than men, and men who
are more stupid and brutal than any animals? Does their life cease at
death, or is there some 'better thing reserved' also for them? They may be
said to have a shadow or imitation of morality, and imperfect moral claims
upon the benevolence of man and upon the justice of God. We cannot think
of the least or lowest of them, the insect, the bird, the inhabitants of
the sea or the desert, as having any place in a future world, and if not
all, why should those who are specially attached to man be deemed worthy of
any exceptional privilege? When we reason about such a subject, almost at
once we degenerate into nonsense. It is a passing thought which has no
real hold on the mind. We may argue for the existence of animals in a
future state from the attributes of God, or from texts of Scripture ('Are
not two sparrows sold for one farthing?' etc.), but the truth is that we
are only filling up the void of another world with our own fancies. Again,
we often talk about the origin of evil, that great bugbear of theologians,
by which they frighten us into believing any superstition. What answer can
be made to the old commonplace, 'Is not God the author of evil, if he
knowingly permitted, but could have prevented it?' Even if we assume that
the inequalities of this life are rectified by some transposition of human
beings in another, still the existence of the very least evil if it could
have been avoided, seems to be at variance with the love and justice of
God. And so we arrive at the conclusion that we are carrying logic too
far, and that the attempt to frame the world according to a rule of divine
perfection is opposed to experience and had better be given up. The case
of the animals is our own. We must admit that the Divine Being, although
perfect himself, has placed us in a state of life in which we may work
together with him for good, but we are very far from having attained to it.