ABSTRACT
As to man’s future state many very different views have been held and are held by different peoples. To some it appears but a continuation of the present life, for others it involves a retribution for what has been done in this world; and each of these theories has many varieties. The retribution may consist in a simple reversal of this life’s lot, so that those who have fared ill here will be well off in the next world, and vice versd; or the better lot in the next world may be reserved either for those who in this were persons of quality, or for those who distinguished themselves by their valour, or by their virtue, or by their piety. Or the next life may be for all men alike a continuance of this, under more pleasant conditions, or under more gloomy conditions, but in either case the rank and occupation of the deceased will be what they were in this life, even the scars and mutilations of the body surviving with the other marks of personal identity. Or, again, life may be continued, but in such a way that personal identity is concealed, as for instance by the trans migration of the soul into an animal body, or is forgotten, as by the souls that drink the waters of Lethe before being re born, or merged in the divine essence. Or the soul may not survive death at all-only the fruit of its moral or immoral acts may be transmitted.
