r reasoning faculties, were as
children, so far as the past was concerned. A well-known writer, when in
this state, was wont to read the books that he had written, enjoying
them very much and not dreaming that he was their author. Professor
Knight says of this matter: "Memory of the details of the past is
absolutely impossible."

"The power of the conservative faculty, though relatively great, is
extremely limited. We forget the larger portion of experience soon after
we have passed through it, and we should be able to recall the
particulars of our past years, filling all the missing links of
consciousness since we entered on the present life, before we were in a
position to remember our ante-natal experience. Birth must necessarily
be preceded by crossing the river of oblivion, while the capacity for
fresh acquisition survives, and the garnered wealth of old experience
determines the amount and characters of the new." Loss of memory is not
loss of being--or even loss of individuality or character.

In this connection, we must mention the various instances of Double
Personality, or Lost Personality, noted in the recent books on
Psychology. There are a number of well authenticated cases in which
people, from severe mental strain, overwork, etc., have lost the thread
of Personality and forgotten even their own names and who have taken up
life anew under new circumstances, which they would continue until
something would occur to bring about a restoration of memory, when the
past in all of its details would come back in a flash. The annals of the
English Society for Psychical Research contain quite a number of such
cases, which are recognized as typical. Now, would one be justified in
asserting that such a person, while living in the secondary personality
and consequently in entire ignorance of his past life, had really
experienced no previous life? The same "I" was there--the same Ego--and
yet, the personality was entirely different! Is it not perfectly fair
and reasonable to consider these cases as similar to the absence of
memory in cases of Reincarnation?

Let the reader lay down this book, and then endeavor to remember what
happened in his twelfth year. He will not remember more than one or two,
or a half dozen, events in that year--perhaps not one, in the absence of
a diary, or perhaps even with the aid of one. The majority of the
happenings of the three hundred and sixty-five days of that year are as
a blank--as i