§ 28: For although the unequal distribution of goods of this life, in which so little attention seems to be paid to virtue and vice, does not afford the strongest proof of the immortality of the soul and of a future life in which this knot might be untangled, it is nevertheless certain that without this knot human understanding would not for a long time, perhaps never, have arrived at better and more convincing proofs. For what would have been able to compel it to seek these better proofs? Mere curiosity?
§ 29: This or that Israelite, to be sure, might have extended to each individual member of the state those divine promises and threats which concerned the state as a whole and might have persisted in the firm belief that whoever is pious must also be happy, and that whoever is, or becomes, unhappy must be bearing the punishment for his misdeeds, a punishment that would immediately transform itself into blessing as soon as he desisted in his transgression. Such a person appears to have written the Book of Job, for its plan is very much in this spirit.
§ 30: But it was impossible for daily experience to confirm this belief, for, had it done so, a people that had undergone such an experience would have forever lost their opportunity to recognize and receive a truth that was still unfamiliar to it. For if the pious man were absolutely happy, and if it were also an essential part of his happiness that his contentment not be interrupted by frightful thoughts of death, that he should die old and completely satisfied with life, how then could he yearn for another life; how could he reflect upon something for which he did not yearn? But if the pious man did not reflect on it, who then would? The villain who felt the punishment of his misdeeds and, if he cursed this life, would also gladly renounce any other?
§ 31: It mattered much less that this or that Israelite directly and explicitly denied the immortality of the soul and future recompense, because the law did not concern itself therewith. The denial of an individual – even if he were a Solomon – did not impede the progress of the common understanding and was already proof in and of itself that the nation had taken a great step toward the truth. For the individual only denies what many are beginning to take into consideration, and to take into consideration something which had previously been of no concern to anyone at all is half the way to knowledge.
§ 32: Let us also acknowledge that it is a heroic obedience to obey the laws of God simply because they are the laws of God, and not because He has promised to reward obedience to them here and in the hereafter; to obey them even though a future reward may be entirely doubtful and an earthly one not quite so certain, either.
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