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Solomon seems to have been of our opinion, and could not see the differance between the Souls of Men and Brutes.
Eccl iii 18. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea they have all one breath; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast. All go unto one place, all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.
Such doctrines had, no doubt, been the talk of the learned in Solomon’s time as well as now,—and he very properly comes to the point:
Eccl. iii. 21. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of beast that goeth downward to the earth?
The vulgar error of Souls going up and down still holds its ground. The centripetal and centrifugal forces, to and from a centre, which maintain the Planets in their orbits, may explain the idea of the Righteous going up to Heaven, and the Wicked down to Hell,—the centre of the earth.
That the Apostle Paul was firmly in the belief that Brutes would share in the glorious resurrection, read the 8th chap, of Romans, beginning at the 19th verse.
FINIS.
