We are conscious of some artificial straining of the argument in this place, and shortly perceive that the mention of the soul of Dionysius is intended to prepare the way for a discussion on the immortality of the soul. Plutarch cannot believe that the gods would show so much protective care for man—would give so many oracles, enjoin so many sacrifices and honours for the dead—if they knew that the souls of the dead perished straightway, leaving the body like a wreath of mist or smoke, as the Epicureans believed.[226] He shrinks from the thought that the Deity would take so much account of us, if our souls were as brief in their bloom as the forced and delicate plants that women grow in their fragile flower-pots, their short-lived Gardens of Adonis. He is convinced that the belief in the after-existence of the soul stands or falls with the belief in the Providence of God.[227] If there is a Providence, there is existence after death; and if there is existence after death, then there is stronger reason for supposing that every soul receives its due reward or punishment for its life on Earth. But here Plutarch, after just touching one of the cardinal principles of Christian teaching, the dogma of Heaven and Hell, starts away from the consequence which almost seems inevitable, and which Christianity accepted to the full—the belief that our life here should be modelled in relation to the joys and penalties that await us in the other world. He clearly believed that their ethical effect upon life is small.[228] The rewards and punishments of the soul hereafter are nothing to us here. Perhaps we do not believe them, and in any case we cannot be certain that they will come. This is the position at which Plutarch arrives in the course of rational argument, and he at once returns to the sphere of our present life to find surer sanctions for goodness. Such punishments as are inflicted in this world on the descendants of an evil race are conspicuous to all that come hereafter, and deter many from wickedness. Besides, God does not punish indiscriminately. He has a watchful care even over the children of those who have been notorious for evildoing, and instead of delaying the punishment in their case, early checks their hereditary disposition to vice by appropriate restraints born of His intimate knowledge of the character and inclination of the human heart. But if, in spite of this, a man persists in the sinful courses of his ancestors, it is right that he should inherit their punishment as he has inherited their crimes.