Whether the inferior animals will exist again after death is a more doubtful point. There is certainly nothing in Scripture decisive against their future existence; for the passage in Psalms which says, that _man that is in honor and abideth not is like the brutes that perish_, if understood to mean the annihilation of animals, would prove also the annihilation of wicked men. And while most men of learning and piety have suspended their opinion on the existence of the inferior animals after death, for want of evidence, some have been decided advocates of the future happy existence of all beings, who exhibit a spark of intelligence. Not a few distinguished German theologians and philosophers regard the whole visible creation, both animate and inanimate, as at present in a confined and depressed state, and struggling for freedom. On this principle Tholuck explains that most difficult passage in Romans, which declares _that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain until now_. He supposes this "bound or fettered state of nature," both animate and inanimate, to have a casual connection with sin, and the death accompanying it among men; and, therefore, when men are freed from sin and death, _the creation itself, also, shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God_. The kingdom of God, according to Tholuck, Martin Luther, and many other distinguished theologians, will not be transferred to heaven at the end of the world, but be established on earth, where all these transformations of the animate and inanimate creation will take place. This exposition surely carries with it a great deal of naturalness and probability; and if it be true, death to the inferior animals must surely be an indication of great benevolence on the part of the Deity, since it introduces them to a higher state of existence. But if it be rejected, still the general principle is eminently applicable to the case of man.