The Pulpit Commentary — Ecclesiastes — Section 102

the resignation ot those who believe the.t the government of the world is regular and unche.ngee.ble, because unerring wisdom gnides him who is the Creator and Preserver of all things. Their faith can sustain them in the greatest trials, when God's ways seem most inscrutable; they can hope against hope, and, in spite of all apparent contra- dictions, believe that" all things work together for good to them that love God."-J. W. Vere. 18-22.-77ie darkness of the grave. In these words our author reaches the very lowest depth of misery and despair. His observation of the facts of human life leads him to the humiliating conclusion that it is almost hopeless to assign to man a higher nature and a more noble destiny than those which beloug to the beasts that perish. The moral inequalities of the world, the injustice that goes unpunished, the hopes by which men are deluded, the uncertainty of life, the doubtfulness of immortality,,seem to justify the assertion" that a man bath no pre-eminence over a beast." 'l'he special point of comparison on which he dwells is the common mortality of both. Man and beast are possessed of bo<lies composed of the same elements, nourished by the same food, liable to the same accidents, and destined to return to the kindred dust from which they sprang. Both are ignorant of the period of life assigned to them; a moment before the stroke of death falls on them they may be unconscious that evil is at hand, and when they realize the fact they are equally powerless to avert it. What there is in common between them is manifest to all, while the evidence to be adduced in favour of the superiority of man is, from its very nature, less convincing. The spiritually minded will attach great weight to arguments against which the natural reason may draw up plausible objections. Let us, then, see the case stated at its very worst, and consider if there are any redeeming circumstances which are calculated to relieve the gloom which a cursory reading of the words calls up. I. The first statement is that MEN, LIKE BEASTS, ARE CREATURES o~· ACCIDENT. (Ver. 19a.) Not that they are both tlJe results of blind chance; but that, "being conditioned by circumstances over which there can be no control, they are subject, in respect to their whole being, actions, and sufferings, as far as mere human observation can extend, to the law of chance, and are alike destined to undergo the same fate, i.e. <leath " (Wright). A parallel to the thought of this verse is to be found in the very striking words of Solon to Crcesus (Herodotus, i. 32), " Man is altogether a chance;" and ia Ps. xlix. 14, 20, "Like sheep they are laid in the grave. . . . Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish." II. 'l'he second statement is that AS IS THE DEA'l.'H OF THE ONE, so IS THE DEATH OF THE OTHER (ver. 19b), for in both is the breath of life, and this departs from them in like manner. So that any superiority on the part of man over the beast is incredible in the face of this fact, that death annuls distinctions between them. One resting-place receives them all at last-the earth from which they sprang (ver. 20). A belief in the immortality of the soul of man would at once have relieved the gloom, and convinced the Preacher that the humiliating comparison he institutes only reaches to a certain point, and is based upon the external accidents of humai life, and that the true dignity and value of human nature remain unaffected by the m ,rtality of the corporeal part of our being. "Put aside the belief in the prolongation of existence after death, that what has been begun here may be completed, and what has gone wrong here may be set right, and man is but a more highly organized animal, the 'cunningest of nature's clocks,' and the high words which men speak as to his greatness are found hollow. 'l'hey too aro • vanity,' He differs from the brutes around him only, or chiefly, in having, whnt they have not, the burden of unsatisfied desires, the longing after an eternity which nfter all is denied him" (Plumptre). Ill. 'l'he third statement is the saddest of all-that of THE UNOERTAI:-."'TY or KNOWLEDGE AB '1.'0 WHETHER, AFTER ALL, THERE IS THIS HIGHER ELEMENT IN HUMAN NATURE-" a spirit that at death goeth upward "-or whether the living principles of both man and beast perish when their bodies are laid in the dust (vcr. 21). 1t is quite fruitless to deny that it is a sceptical question that is asked-If the spirit of the beast goeth downward to the earth, who knows that that of man goeth upward? Attempts have been made _to obliterate _the scepticis~ of the passage, as may be ~een in the Massoretic punctuation followed m the Authorized Version of our English H1ble, but departed from in the Revised Version," Who knoweth the spirit of ma.-, t.ll.at 86 ECCLESIASTES; on, 'l'HE PREACHER. [en. m. 1-2~.