g 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 pronounce 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, passions, 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-purificat