29. Who cannot see from reason, if he is willing to see, that man after death is not a breath? of which there is no other idea than as of a puff of wind or as of air or ether; a breath, namely, which or in which is a man's soul, desiring and awaiting conjunction with its body that it may have the enjoyment of its senses and the delights thereof, as before in the world. Who cannot see that if such were the case with man after death, his state would be worse than that of fishes and birds and of animals of the earth, whose souls do not live, and who therefore are not in such anxiety from desire and expectation. If, after death, man were such a breath and puff of wind, then he must either be flitting about in the universe or, according to the traditions of some, be reserved in some Pu,* or, according to the Fathers, in limbo, until the Last Judgment. Who cannot thence conclude from reason, that those who have lived since first creation--a period computed to be six thousand years--would still be in a like anxious state, and progressively more anxious; for all expectation from desire causes anxiety and from time to time increases it. They would then either be still flitting about in the universe or be kept shut up in Pu, and so would be in extreme misery. Such would be the case with Adam and his wife; with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and likewise with all others since that time. Hence it would follow that nothing would be more lamentable than to be born a man. On the contrary, it is provided by the Lord, who is Jehovah from eternity and the Creator of the universe, that the state of the man who conjoins himself with Him by a life according to His Commandments, is more blessed and happy after death than before it in the world; and that it is the more blessed and happy from the fact that the man is then spiritual, and the spiritual man sensates and perceives spiritual delight, which is pre-eminently above natural delight, exceeding it a thousandfold.
* Pu and Ubi are respectively the Greek and Latin words meaning "Somewhere". They were formerly used as theological terms to designate the abode of souls while waiting for reunion with their bodies. Such souls were also said to be "in limbo" (in the border land).
