FUTURE LIFE, a life to succeed this one; a life beyond the tomb.
Ethnic Faiths.—The belief in a future life is very widely spread. In its early form no distinction is drawn between the souls of men and brutes; for both another state of existence is reserved. In the lowest form of Animism, a figure of a deceased friend appearing to a sur vivor in a dream is supposed to be the actual soul of the person dead, whence faith in another state of existence be comes natural and easy. Two distinct forms of belief now diverge, the one leading in the direction of the transmi gration of souls, the other maintaining the independent existence of the personal soul after the death of the body. Among the lower races, the moral element in the doctrine of a future life is almost wholly wanting.
Judaism.—There are but few allusions to a future life in the Old Testament.
The most notable one is, "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting con tempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteous ness as the stars forever and ever" (Dan. xii: 2, 3).
Christianity.—"Jesus Christ," says St. Paul, "bath abolished death, and bath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel" (II Tim. i: 10). The doctrine in this case is not merely that of the immortality of the soul, not trans migrated, but retaining its separate in dividuality (see IMMORTALITY) ; there is superadded to this the resurrection and transformation of the body (see RESURRECTION ) . The moral element in the doctrine of a future life is here all in all.