ose which will, later on, precipitate themselves
into the mortal life, and that will be "knowing the future." That is to
say, if we can read our spiritual past, we then know our earthly future;
for that which _has_ been, in the inner experience, _shall be_, in the
outer experience. Mr. Maeterlinck says:--

"I cannot think that we are not qualified to know beforehand the
disturbances of the elements, the destiny of the planets, of the
earth, of empires, peoples, and races. All this does not touch us
directly, and we know it in the past, thanks only to the artifices
of history. But that which regards us, that which is within our
reach, that which is to unfold itself within the little sphere of
years, a secretion of our spiritual organism, that envelops us in
Time, even as the shell or the cocoon envelops the mollusc or the
insect in space; that, together with all the external events
relating to it, is probably recorded in that sphere. In any case,
it would be much more natural that it were so recorded than
comprehensible that it be not. There we have realities struggling
with an illusion; and there is nothing to prevent us from believing
that, here as elsewhere, realities will end by overcoming illusion.
Realities are what will happen to us, having already happened in
the history that overhangs our own, the motionless and superhuman
history of the universe. Illusion is the opaque veil woven with the
ephemeral threads called Yesterday, To-day, and To-morrow, which we
embroider on those realities. But it is not indispensable that our
existence should continue the eternal dupe of that illusion. We may
even ask ourselves whether our extraordinary unfitness for knowing
a thing so simple, so incontestable, so perfect and so necessary as
the future, would not form one of the greatest subjects for
astonishment to an inhabitant of another star who should visit
us....

"Moreover, we must not believe that the march of events would be
completely upset if we knew it beforehand. First, only they would
know the future, or a part of the future, who would take the
trouble to learn it; even as only they know the past, or a part of
their own present, who have the courage and the intelligence to
examine it. We should quickly accommodate ourselves to the lessons
of this new science, e