Part 9 (1/2)
OBJECTION.
Reincarnation is not necessary, it has been alleged; the soul's evolution is continued after death in the invisible worlds in finer bodies; consequently it is needless to return to the denser bodies of earth.
In our opinion, the trials of life, so exhausting to the will, must have given rise to this theory, for not only have those who advance it never given the slightest proof of its truth, but it is utterly opposed to the law of evolution.
In a world which prefers the flights of imagination to logical reasoning we are too accustomed to regard man as a being apart in Nature; we are only too p.r.o.ne to make exceptions on his behalf. The patient scientific researches of all ages have laid down this universally accepted axiom: _Nature does not proceed by leaps_. It has not so far entered anyone's mind--we think not at all events--to teach that the development of the mineral, the vegetable, and even of the animal kingdom, comes to a sudden halt on this planet, once the forms in these kingdoms are dispersed, to be completed in finer worlds; but regarding man other thoughts have prevailed, as though his intelligence and his heart had learnt all the lessons this earth is capable of teaching! From the most undeveloped of savages up to those glorious Spirits that have been the Manu, the Buddha, and the Christ, we find every step occupied on the long ladder of humanity. In the lower kingdoms all the stages exist also and are utilised, each link receiving something from its neighbours and giving them something in return, thus expressing on the visible plane that gracious unity which is divine Love: love that is instinctive and imperative in beings of a low degree of evolution; obeyed by those who, without loving it, understand its good services, and actually lived by such souls as have entered upon the path of sacrifice--souls that comprehend the Unity of beings. If this earth has been capable of teaching the Saviours of the world, why should divine Wisdom send thereon only for one short life this ma.s.s of imperfect men, to hurl them afterwards on to other worlds, like careless b.u.t.terflies flitting from flower to flower?
Can the evolutionary effort be so easy and simple; is divine energy of such slight value that it can thus be squandered to no purpose; is the process of creation the sport of an infant G.o.d; is the Logos, sacrificing himself in order to give life to the Universe, a prodigal, working without rhyme or reason, sending forth His intelligence and might in aimless sport and leaving evolution at the mercy of His caprice; did not Brahma, by means of meditation, which, as the Oriental scriptures tell us, preceded creation, practise the gentlest, the most rapid, and the easiest method of guiding beings to the Goal?
Is it not sheer blasphemy to attribute such folly to the Soul of the world? Does not the study of Nature, at each step, belie this insensate waste, of which no human being would be guilty? Everywhere with the minimum of force, Nature produces the maximum of effect; everywhere energy is consolidated with one end in view; and yet, amid the general order around, is the evolution of man to form a solitary, an incomprehensible exception?
No, we cannot believe it for a moment. American spiritists,[77]
however--for it is they who have given out this hypothesis--are not in agreement with the school of Allan Kardec on this fundamental point, and this fact is by no means calculated to strengthen, the authority for this doctrine. Did we not know that disincarnate beings are as ignorant in the life beyond as they were on earth; that they tend to group themselves, as they did here below, with those who think as they do, whilst remaining aloof from such as profess hostile opinions; that the Hindu remains a Hindu, the Christian a Christian, and the Mussulman a Mussulman; that sceptics are still sceptics; and atheists, atheists; we should think that spirit ”communications” with their incessant contradictions were unparalleled nonsense, since the ”spirits” are by no means agreed on the very things regarding which they pretend to p.r.o.nounce a judgment from which there is no appeal.
Fortunately, there is a reason for these divergences. Death neither lifts the veil of Isis nor brings the soul into the presence of omniscient Light; man remains what he was, with all his former beliefs, opinions, pa.s.sions, qualities, sympathies, and antipathies.
True, he knows a little more than he did upon earth; no more has he doubts as to the after-life, he regains a precise memory of the whole of his life here, and the recollection of many a forgotten fact comes back to him; he understands better, for his intelligence is being served by a much finer body--but that is all. Therefore ”spirits”
reflect both the morality and the mentality of the nation to which they belonged on earth, and in the other life are to be found friends and enemies, believers and unbelievers, reincarnationists and non-reincarnationists.
Rebirths can be established only by personal proof, by memory; now, the soul that has entered the life beyond, after disincarnation, has not reached the end of its pilgrimage; it is learning that it must, by self-purification, pa.s.s from world to world until it attains to a state of supreme and final rest; but when this latter has been reached, it has lost its lower sheaths and the memory they gave it, and when the Law brings it back to earth, it puts on new bodies, which, having had no partic.i.p.ation in preceding events, are ignorant of the past.
Remembrance, we shall see later on, is preserved in the cosmic Memory, but until the soul has readied a sufficient development, it cannot summon it forth, and even could it do so, it would succeed in leaving its impress on the brain only when the physical, the astral, and the mental bodies have submitted to a process of purification which harmonises[78] them and binds them closely together. Then only does man know that Reincarnation is true, and takes place on earth until this latter pa.s.ses into a slate of obscuration,[79] or, at all events, until the development of the soul enables it to utilise for its evolution some environment on the planet, other than the physical one.[80]
We shall be told that we are now proving what we before denied. No, we are simply stating an exception which happens in very few cases and only then to the pioneers of the race--an exception which is nothing but an apparent one and finds its place in the progressive order which unifies all the beings in the planetary chain to which we belong.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 41: Each part possesses in a potential state the properties of the whole.]
[Footnote 42: The kingdoms that are invisible to physical sight are as interesting as those we see, but we have no occasion to speak of them here. Logic compels us to acknowledge them until the time comes when human development enables them to be discovered and affords direct proof of their existence.]
[Footnote 43: We do not mean to affirm that evolutionists have not committed serious errors in their theory of development. But the law they have set prominently forth is one of the fundamental expressions of the working of G.o.d in the Universe.]
[Footnote 44: The vibratory impressions that const.i.tute the memory of the Universe. See in Chapter 4, the final _Objection._]
[Footnote 45: See _L'or et la Trans.m.u.tation des metaux_, by Tiffereau.]
[Footnote 46: Such as the one with the magnet which, if too great a weight is suspended to its armature, loses strength, and this it only regains by degrees when ”fed” with successively stronger charges. A steel spring that has borne too great a weight loses strength, and may break if subjected anew to the same weight that ”fatigued” it. Pieces of iron break after being ”fatigued” by a weight they easily carried before. Professor Kennedy made very useful experiments regarding the ”fatigue” of metals at the time when metallic bridges were continually breaking, thus causing great perplexity in the engineering world.]
[Footnote 47: There has been much discussion as to the causes of Evolution.
In his _Progress and Poverty_, Henry George endeavours to show that Evolution is in no way brought about by individual or collective heredity. He says that the factors of Progress are: First, the mind, which causes the advance of civilisation when not exercised solely in the ”struggle for life,” or in frequent conflicts between nation and nation; second, a.s.sociation or combination, which ensures all the benefits to be derived from division of work; third, justice, which harmonises the units of the social body, and without which civilisation decays and dies.
H. George saw only these elements in evolution; consequently, he could neither solve the problem of progress nor explain the rise and fall of empires. Indeed, egoism and war are in no way, as he says they are, the sole causes of the fall of races: the soil cannot feed a great nation for an indefinite period even if the country is prevented by emigration from becoming over-populated; the very nature itself of the civilisation of the time prevents it from continuing for ever. Modern western races, for instance, have for centuries past been developing energy and intelligence; a limit must be fixed to that particular line of progress, under penalty of destroying equilibrium both in the individual and the race.
If, indeed, man is to learn strength and intelligence, he must also develop love, or he will fail. The Elder Brothers behind Evolution control the advance of the races in accordance with the plan of G.o.d, whose servants they are.
The real cause of evolution does not lie in environment, as H. George and his school would have it: it is in the divine Will, incarnate in the Universe. It is G.o.d who creates the world, G.o.d who fills it with life, guides it and permits its development. All the laws of Nature are the expression of the supreme Intelligence; all progress is nothing but the realisation of the possibilities of the divine Will.
The evolutionary edifice is based on solidarity, and here environment is undoubtedly an indispensable factor in development; still, it only acts as the field or soil, and soil without seed remains barren.