es of the different worlds? Reason can come to no decision on
this point. Only let us not forget that the soul always carries off a
material germ from one existence to the next, making itself anew, so
to speak, several times, in that endless ascent of lives through the
worlds, wherein it attains, heaven after heaven, a degree of
perfection increasingly linked with the eternal elements of our
growing personality.

"It may be seen, from what is here stated, how vain is the hypothesis
of perfect bliss following on the death of the righteous.

"It is useless for the Christian to soar beyond time, beyond some
limit that separates him from infinite good; he cannot do this by a
single effort. God proportions his intervention and aid to the
totality of the states man must pass through in the course of an
indefinitely long series of existences...."

M. d'Orient, an orthodox Catholic, writes as follows[231]:

"In this doctrine, so evidently based on reason, everything is linked
and held together: the foreknowledge of God and the agreement thereof
with man's free-will. This problem, hitherto impossible to solve, no
longer offers any difficulty, if by it is meant that God, knowing
before birth, by reason of his previous deeds, what there is in the
heart of man, brings man to life and removes him from it in
circumstances that best fit in with the accomplishment of his
purposes....

"We see in this way how it is that God is the controller of all the
main events that take place in the world, for the knowledge he has of
souls in former lives, and his power to dispose of each and all in the
way he pleases, enable him to foresee events in his infinite knowledge
and arrange the whole sequence of things in conformity with his plans,
somewhat as an ingenious, skilful workman, by the aid of various
colours, conceives of and arranges the life-like reproduction of a
mosaic, a picture, or a piece of inlaid work. We understand all his
forecasts of the future, how it was that Daniel foretold so exactly
the greatness of Alexander and his conquests; how Isaiah called Cyrus
by name many centuries before these mighty conquerors appeared to
spread confusion and terror over the world; how God, in order to show
forth his might before the nations and spread abroad the glory of his
name, is said to have hardened Pharaoh's heart and roused his
obstinate will; for all that was needed in order to bring to pass
these various results was for God to call