Now, in all these three departments of opinion, the interest of mankind
lies in obtaining the best views that can possibly be obtained. As
regards the first and third--- the region of true and false, one in the
sensible, the other in the supersensible world--we are clearly
interested in getting the truth. As regards the second--the region of
ends--if there be one class of ends preferable to another, we should
find out that class.
The only doubt that can arise anywhere is, whether in the third case--the
case of the supernatural,--truth is of the same consequence to us. Such
a doubt, however, begs the whole question at issue. If the truth be of
no consequence here, it is because we shall never be landed in any
reality corresponding to what is declared: that the nature of the future
life is purely imaginary and not to be converted into fact; in other
words, that there is no future life; that there is merely a land of
dreams and fiction, which can never be proved true and never proved
false. It would then be a projection of thought from the present life,
and would cease with that life. All that people could claim in the
matter would be the liberty of imagination; and this being so, we are
not to be committed to any one form. In short, we are to picture what we
please in a world that cannot be made out to exist. The point is not, to
be true or false; it is, to be well or ill imagined.
What, then, is to be the criterion of proper or improper imagination? On
what grounds are we to make our preference between the different schemes
of the supersensible world? Is each one of us to be free to imagine for
ourselves, or are we to submit to the dictation of others? These
questions lead up to another. How far are the interests of the present
life concerned in the form given to our conceptions of a future life?
It would seem to be an unanswerable assumption that, in all the three
situations above supposed, we should do the very best that the case
admits of. In the order of nature we should get, as far as possible, the
truth and the whole truth; in the choice of ends for this life we should
embrace the best ends; in the shaping of another life we should be free
to follow out whatever may be the course suitable to the operation.
* * * * *
[EARLY SOURCES OF INTOLERANCE.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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