Bishop Butler, in his “Analogy of Religion,” undoubtedly believed
the lower animals capable of a future life. In speaking of them in
this connection in the opening of his work, he says: “It is said
these observations are equally applicable to brutes; and it is
thought an insuperable difficulty that they should be immortal, and
by consequence capable of everlasting happiness. And this manner of
expression is both invidious and weak; but the thing intended by
it is really no difficulty at all, either in the way of natural or
moral consideration.” Referring then to the undeveloped powers and
capacities of the so-called brutes, the Bishop could perceive no reason
why they should not attain their development in an existence beyond
the earth-life. It was in pursuance of this same train of thought that
Rev. J. G. Wood was led to show in a work, entitled “Man and Beast
Here and Hereafter,” that the lower animals do possess those mental
and moral characteristics--the attributes of reason, language, memory,
moral responsibility, unselfishness and love--which we admit in man
as belonging to the immortal spirit, rather than to the perishable
body. Having previously cleared away the difficulties which certain
passages in the Old Testament seemingly interposed, and proved that
the Scriptures do not deny futurity of life to lower animals, he very
naturally concluded that as man expects to retain these qualities in
the future life there is every reason to suppose that they may share
his immortality in the Hereafter as in the Now they are partakers of
his mortal nature.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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