Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

God the Known and God the Unknown by Samuel Butler
page 47 of 56 (83%)
once their individual life is ended, so it is God who knows of
their life thenceforward and not themselves; and we urge that
this immortality, this entrance into the joy of the Lord, this
being ever with God, is true, and can be apprehended by all men,
and that the perception of it should and will tend to make them
lead happier, healthier lives; whereas the commonly received
opinion is true with a stage truth only, and has little permanent
effect upon those who are best worth considering. Nevertheless
the expressions in common use among the orthodox fit in so
perfectly with facts, which we must all acknowledge, that it is
impossible not to regard the expressions as founded upon a
prophetic perception of the facts.

Two things stand out with sufficient clearness. The first is the
rarity of suicide even among those who rail at life most
bitterly. The other is the little eagerness with which those who
cry out most loudly for a resurrection desire to begin their new
life. When comforting a husband upon the loss of his wife we do
not tell him we hope he will soon join her; but we should
certainly do this if we could even pretend we thought the husband
would like it. I can never remember having felt or witnessed any
pain, bodily or mental, which would have made me or anyone else
receive a suggestion that we had better commit suicide without
indignantly asking how our adviser would like to commit suicide
himself. Yet there are so many and such easy ways of dying that
indignation at being advised to commit suicide arises more from
enjoyment of life than from fear of the mere physical pain of
dying. Granted that there is much deplorable pain in the world
from ill-health, loss of money, loss of reputation, misconduct of
those nearest to us, or what not, and granted that in some cases
DigitalOcean Referral Badge