Produced by Edmund Dejowski

THE DESTINY OF THE SOUL.

A CRITICAL HISTORYOF THEDOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE,

BYWILLIAM 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, ANDDESTINY OF THE SOUL. THE TITLES CLASSIFIED AND ARRANGEDCHRONOLOGICALLY, WITH NOTES, AND INDEXES OF THE AUTHORS ANDSUBJECTS.

BY EZRA ABBOT,

PROFESSOR OF NEW TESTAMENT CRITICISM AND INTERPRETATION INTHE 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.

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 ofprint now for nearly a year. During the twenty years which haveelapsed since it was written, the question of immortality, thefaith and opinions of men and the drift of criticism and doubtconcerning it, have been a subject of dominant interest to me, andhave occupied a large space in my reading and reflection.Accordingly, now that my publisher, moved by the constant demandfor the volume, urges the preparation of a new edition introducingsuch additional materials as my continued researches have gatheredor 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 orconventicle, but in the spirit and interest of science andhumanity. Orthodoxy insists on doctrines whose irrationality intheir current forms is such that they can never be a basis for theunion of all men. Therefore, to discredit these, in preparationfor more reasonable and auspicious views, is a service to thewhole human race. This is my justification for the controversialquality which may frequently strike the reader.

Looking back over his pages, after nearly a quarter of a centurymore of investigation and experience, the author is grateful thathe finds nothing to retract or expunge. He has but to add suchthoughts and illustrations as have occurred to him in the courseof his subsequent studies. He hopes that the supplementarychapters now published will be found more suggestive and maturethan the preceding ones, while the same in aim and tone. For hestill believes, as he did in his earlier time, that there is muchof error and superstition, bigotry and cruelty, to be purged outof the prevailing theological creed and sentiment of Christendom.And he still hopes, as he did then, to contribute something ofgood influence in this direction. The large circulation of thework, the many letters of thanks for it received by the authorfrom laymen and clergymen of different denominations, the numerousavowed and unavowed quotations from it in recent publications,all show that it has not been produced in vain, but has bornefruit in missionary service for reason, liberty, and charity.

This ventilating and illumining function of fearless andreverential critical thought will need to be fulfilled much longerin many quarter

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