The Millennium, and Other Poems: To Which is Annexed, a Treatise on the Regeneration and Eternal Duration of Matter — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Millennium, and Other Poems: To Which is Annexed, a Treatise on the Regeneration and Eternal Duration of Matter
John Stuart Mill · en
Matter and Spirit are the two great principles of all existence. Every
thing animate and inanimate is composed of one or the other, or both
of these eternal principles. I say eternal, because the elements are
as durable as the quickening power which exists in them. Matter and
spirit are of equal duration; both are self-existent,--they never began
to exist, and they never can be annihilated. We do not enter upon
this boundless subject as a matter of mere speculative philosophy,
calculated in its nature merely to charm the imagination--to interest
the curious, or to please the learned. So far from this, we consider
it a subject of deep and thrilling interest to all the human family.
A subject equally interesting to Jew, and Christian; Mahommedan and
Pagan; the wise and the simple; the learned, and the ignorant--all--all
are journeying swiftly through time, and are bound to eternity.
All are lovers of life and happiness; all are looking forward with
inexpressible anxiety to the unexplored regions of futurity.
The Jew, as he follows his aged parent, his bosom friend, or his tender
offspring to the sepulchre of his fathers, while his bosom heaves with
anguish, grief and sorrow, is still comforted with sure and certain
hope of their being raised from the dead with the whole of Israel's
race, and clothed upon with flesh; and of their being restored again to
that land which was given to them and their fathers for an everlasting
inheritance: while David takes his seat in the holy city and reigns
over the twelve tribes forever and ever.
The modern Christian when called upon to endure the pangs of grief and
sorrow, in following to the grave his nearest friends, is comforted
with the hope of a spiritual existence, in a world far distant from
his native earth; and far beyond the bounds of time and space, where
spirits mingle in eternal joy and everlasting song; and although the
body should rise from the dead, yet they suppose that the whole will
become spirit unconnected with matter, and soar away to worlds on high,
free from all the elements of which their nature was composed in this
life; and thus enjoy eternal life and happiness, while matter,
Animate and inanimate shall cease to be;
And no more place be found for Heaven, Earth, or Sea.--