The Age of Reason - Thomas Paine (read aloud books TXT) 📗

over in silence, and they will abuse me for bringing it into notice. Private Thoughts of a Future State

I have said, in the first part of the Age of Reason, that “I hope for happiness after this life.” This hope is comfortable to me, and I presume not to go beyond the comfortable idea of hope, with respect to a future state.

I consider myself in the hands of my Creator, that he will dispose of me after this life consistently with his justice arid goodness. I leave all these matters to him as my Creator and friend, and I hold it to be presumption in man to make an article of faith as to what the Creator will do with us hereafter.

I do not believe, because a man and a woman make a child, that it imposes on the Creator the unavoidable obligation of keeping the being so made in eternal existence hereafter. It is in his power to do so, or not to do so, and it is not in our power to decide which he will do.

The book called the New Testament, which I hold to be fabulous, and have shown to be false, gives an account, in the 25th chapter of Matthew, of what is there called the last day, or the day of judgment. The whole world, according to the account, is divided into two parts, the righteous and the unrighteous, figuratively called the sheep and the goats. They are then to receive their sentence. To the one, figuratively called the sheep, it says, “Come, ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” To the other, figuratively called the goats, it says, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”

Now the case is, the world cannot be thus divided⁠—the moral world, like the physical world, is composed of numerous degrees of character, running imperceptibly one into another, in such a manner that no fixed point of division can be found in either, that point is nowhere or is everywhere. The whole world might be divided into two parts, numerically, but not as to moral character; and therefore the metaphor of dividing them, as sheep and goats can be divided, whose difference is marked by their external figure, is absurd. All sheep are still sheep; all goats are still goats; it is their physical nature to be so. But one part of the world are not all good alike, nor the other part all wicked alike. There are some exceedingly good; others exceedingly wicked. There is another description of men who cannot be ranked with either the one or the other. They belong neither to the sheep nor the goats; and there is still another description of them, who are so very insignificant both in character and conduct, as not to be worth the trouble of damning or saving, or of raising from the dead.

My own opinion is, that those whose lives have been spent in doing good, and endeavoring to make their fellow-mortals happy⁠—for this is the only way in which we can serve God⁠—will be happy hereafter; and that the very wicked will meet with some punishment. But those who are neither good nor bad, or are not too insignificant for notice, will be dropped entirely. This is my opinion. It is consistent with my idea of God’s justice, and with the reason that God has given me, and I gratefully know he has given me a large share of that divine gift.

Endnotes

Science and Christian Tradition, p. 18 (Lon. ed., 1894). ↩

It is, however, necessary to except the declamation which says that God “visits the sins of the fathers upon the children.” This is contrary to every principle of moral justice. ↩

The French work has here: Quoi qu’il en soit, ce verteux réformateur, ce révolutionnaire trop peu imité, trop oublié, trop méconnu, perdit la vie pour l’une ou pour l’autre de ces suppositions. “However this may be, for one or the other of these suppositions this virtuous reformer, this revolutionist, too little imitated, too much forgotten, too much misunderstood, lost his life.” —⁠Conway ↩

The French work has: cédant à une gourmandise effrénée. “yielding to an unrestrained appetite.” —⁠Conway ↩

The French work has aveugle et (“blind and”) preceding “dismal.” —⁠Conway ↩

The French work has frédaine (“prank”). —⁠Conway ↩

It must be borne in mind that by the “Bible” Paine always means the Old Testament alone. —⁠Conway ↩

As there are many readers who do not see that a composition is poetry, unless it be in rhyme, it is for their information that I add this note.

Poetry consists principally in two things⁠—imagery and composition. The composition of poetry differs from that of prose in the manner of mixing long and short syllables together. Take a long syllable out of a line of poetry, and put a short one in the room of it, or put a long syllable where a short one should be, and that line will lose its poetical harmony. It will have an effect upon the line like that of misplacing a note in a song.

The imagery in those books called the Prophets appertains altogether to poetry. It is fictitious, and often extravagant, and not admissible in any other kind of writing than poetry.

To show that these writings are composed in poetical numbers, I will take ten syllables, as they stand in the book, and make a line of the same number of syllables, (heroic measure) that shall rhyme with the last word. It will then be seen that the composition of those books is poetical measure. The instance I shall first produce is from Isaiah:⁠—

“Hear, O ye heavens, and give ear,