necessity of providing for the body will not interfere with mental
improvement; when the physical frame may be strengthened and developed; and
the religion of all men may become a reasonable service.

Nothing therefore, either in the present state of man or in the tendencies
of the future, as far as we can entertain conjecture of them, would lead us
to suppose that God governs us vindictively in this world, and therefore we
have no reason to infer that he will govern us vindictively in another.
The true argument from analogy is not, 'This life is a mixed state of
justice and injustice, of great waste, of sudden casualties, of
disproportionate punishments, and therefore the like inconsistencies,
irregularities, injustices are to be expected in another;' but 'This life
is subject to law, and is in a state of progress, and therefore law and
progress may be believed to be the governing principles of another.' All
the analogies of this world would be against unmeaning punishments
inflicted a hundred or a thousand years after an offence had been
committed. Suffering there might be as a part of education, but not
hopeless or protracted; as there might be a retrogression of individuals or
of bodies of men, yet not such as to interfere with a plan for the
improvement of the whole (compare Laws.)

9. But some one will say: That we cannot reason from the seen to the
unseen, and that we are creating another world after the image of this,
just as men in former ages have created gods in their own likeness. And
we, like the companions of Socrates, may feel discouraged at hearing our
favourite 'argument from analogy' thus summarily disposed of. Like
himself, too, we may adduce other arguments in which he seems to have
anticipated us, though he expresses them in different language. For we
feel that the soul partakes of the ideal and invisible; and can never fall
into the error of confusing the external circumstances of man with his