ditions. Evolution treasures up the causes that have not been able
to germinate in one existence, and, by successive returns to earth,
realises the aims and ends of that Justice which governs the Universe,
the designs of that Love which makes for progress and leads to
perfection.

OBJECTION.

An apparently serious objection to the doctrine of Rebirth is
constantly being made. It is unjust and useless, people say, to be
punished for misdeeds that are forgotten. As this objection has
reference to moral proofs, we must deal with it here.

Does forgetfulness efface faults or destroy their consequences? Could
the assassin, who has lost all memory of the crime committed the
previous evening, change his deed or its results in the slightest
degree? Rebirths are nothing more than the morrows of former lives,
and though the merciful waters of Lethe have effaced their memory, the
forces stored up in the soul, during the ages, perform their work all
the same in the future.

On the other hand, injustice would exist, and that under a very cruel
aspect, were memory to continue; for the painful vision of a past
always full of weaknesses, even when free from the stain of crime,
would be a continual one. And if, too--as our opponents would
prefer--man knew why he was punished, _i.e._, if he knew that each of
these past errors and faults, ever present before his eyes, would
carry with it a particular fruit, and that strict payment would be
exacted at every step in his new life, would not the punishment be far
greater than the sin? Would there not rise from every human heart an
outcry of blasphemy against a God who, by means of memory, transformed
life into an endless torment, destroying all activity or initiative
in the anxiety of expectancy, in a word, stifling the present beneath
the heavy nightmare of the past?

Men, though so unjust and little disposed to pity, have always refused
to inflict on a man condemned to death the torture of anticipation;
only at the last moment is he informed of the rejection of his appeal
for mercy. Could divine Law be less compassionate than human law?

Is it not rash for us, in our profound ignorance, to criticise the
workings of a boundless Wisdom? He who takes only a few steps along
the pathway of Knowledge, or enters, however slightly, into the secret
of the works of God, obtains the proof that Providence leaves no part
of the Cosmos, no being anywhere, deprived of its fatherly care and
prote