Social idealism / by R. Dimsdale Stocker.

  • Richard Dimsdale Stocker
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Social idealism / by R. Dimsdale Stocker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    89/262 page 77
    I myself am heaven and hell. Yes, here is the modern view. Heaven and hell are not future states—they are not far distant in time, nor are they remote from us in space. They are not miraculous abodes wherein the righteous and the wicked are to be supernaturally re- warded and punished. Heaven is not to be the reward of well-doing ; hell is not the penalty incurred by evil-doing. No, if they mean anything, heaven h well-doing. Hell is wickedness. This dynamic conception of hell and heaven, as states of one’s own inner being, gains marvel- lously by being thus attached to human ex- perience. And assuredly, we could ill afford to dispense with such an impressive interpreta- tion. Ever more and more, it would seem, do we need to apprehend the solemn truth, that, as moral or immoral causes beget identical or similar effects, so virtue or vice can alone be their own reward. Such a realisation it is that enables us to see that man is at once his own star, his judge and deliverer. For, implanted in the human breast, is the Inward Monitor,
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