The Destiny of the Soul

Destiny of the Soul, by William
Rounseville Alger

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Title: The Destiny of the Soul A Critical History of the Doctrine of a
Future Life
Author: William Rounseville Alger
Release Date: August 19, 2006 [EBook #19082]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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DESTINY OF THE SOUL ***

Produced by Edmund Dejowski

THE DESTINY OF THE SOUL.
A CRITICAL HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE,

BY WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER.
TENTH EDITION,
WITH SIX NEW CHAPTERS, AND
A Complete Bibliography of the Subject. [Note: bibliography not
included here]
COMPRISING 4977 BOOKS RELATING TO THE NATURE,
ORIGIN, AND DESTINY OF THE SOUL. THE TITLES
CLASSIFIED AND ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY, WITH
NOTES, AND INDEXES OF THE AUTHORS AND SUBJECTS.
BY EZRA ABBOT,
PROFESSOR OF NEW TESTAMENT CRITICISM AND
INTERPRETATION IN THE DIVINITY SCHOOL OF HARVARD
UNIVERSITY.
BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1880
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by WILLIAM
ROUNSEVILLE ALGER, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of
the United States for the District of Massachusetts.
Copyright 1878, W.R. Alger
ELECTROTYPED BY JOHNSON & CO., PHILADA.
University Press: John Wilson & Son, Cambridge.
PREFACE TO THE TENTH EDITION.
THIS work has passed through nine editions, and has been out of print
now for nearly a year. During the twenty years which have elapsed
since it was written, the question of immortality, the faith and opinions
of men and the drift of criticism and doubt concerning it, have been a
subject of dominant interest to me, and have occupied a large space in

my reading and reflection. Accordingly, now that my publisher, moved
by the constant demand for the volume, urges the preparation of a new
edition introducing such additional materials as my continued
researches have gathered or constructed, I gladly comply with his
request.
The present work is not only historic but it is also polemic; polemic,
however, not in the spirit or interest of any party or conventicle, but in
the spirit and interest of science and humanity. Orthodoxy insists on
doctrines whose irrationality in their current forms is such that they can
never be a basis for the union of all men. Therefore, to discredit these,
in preparation for more reasonable and auspicious views, is a service to
the whole human race. This is my justification for the controversial
quality which may frequently strike the reader.
Looking back over his pages, after nearly a quarter of a century more of
investigation and experience, the author is grateful that he finds nothing
to retract or expunge. He has but to add such thoughts and illustrations
as have occurred to him in the course of his subsequent studies. He
hopes that the supplementary chapters now published will be found
more suggestive and mature than the preceding ones, while the same in
aim and tone. For he still believes, as he did in his earlier time, that
there is much of error and superstition, bigotry and cruelty, to be
purged out of the prevailing theological creed and sentiment of
Christendom. And he still hopes, as he did then, to contribute
something of good influence in this direction. The large circulation of
the work, the many letters of thanks for it received by the author from
laymen and clergymen of different denominations, the numerous
avowed and unavowed quotations from it in recent publications, all
show that it has not been produced in vain, but has borne fruit in
missionary service for reason, liberty, and charity.
This ventilating and illumining function of fearless and reverential
critical thought will need to be fulfilled much longer in many quarters.
The doctrine of a future life has been made so frightful by the
preponderance in it of the elements of material torture and sectarian
narrowness, that a natural revulsion of generous sentiment joins with

the impulse of materialistic science to produce a growing disbelief in
any life at all beyond the grave. Nothing else will do so much to renew
and extend faith in God and immortality as a noble and beautiful
doctrine of God and immortality, freed from disfiguring terror,
selfishness, and favoritism.
The most popular preacher in England has recently asked his fellow
believers, "Can we go to our beds and sleep while China, India, Japan,
and other nations are being damned?" The proprietor of a great foundry
in Germany, while he talked one day with a workman who was feeding
a furnace, accidentally stepped back, and fell headlong into