3:14. I have learned that all the works which God hath made, continue for ever: we cannot add any thing, nor take away from those things which God hath made that he may be feared.
3:15. That which hath been made, the same continueth: the things that shall be, have already been: and God restoreth that which is past.
3:16. I saw under the sun in the place of judgment wickedness, and in the place of justice iniquity.
3:17. And I said in my heart: God shall judge both the just and the wicked, and then shall be the time of every thing.
3:18. I said in my heart concerning the sons of men, that God would prove them, and shew them to be like beasts.
3:19. Therefore the death of man, and of beasts is one, and the condition of them both is equal: as man dieth, so they also die: all things breathe alike, and man hath nothing more than beast: all things are subject to vanity.
Man hath nothing more, etc. . .Viz., as to the life of the body.
3:20. And all things go to one place: of earth they were made, and into earth they return together.
3:21. Who knoweth if the spirit of the children of Adam ascend upward, and if the spirit of the beasts descend downward?
Who knoweth, etc. . .Viz., experimentally: since no one in this life can see a spirit. But as to the spirit of the beasts, which is merely animal, and become extinct by the death of the beast, who can tell the manner it acts so as to give life and motion, and by death to descend downward, that is, to be no more?