From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



He will but catch a glimpse of that dream-country 

 between the tombs which border the way tombs of 

 ancestors, of parents, of dearest friends, sometimes of his 

 children, and straight before him there will be his own, 

 which will gape, great and terrifying, growing larger 

 at every step he takes and hiding the view and the 

 horizon. At every turn and stage of life, in the midst 

 of every joy, his ear will hear the knell * Brother, 

 thou must die.* 



In order that the vision may change; that the thought 

 of death may lose its sterilising character and its apparent 

 curse, the evolutionary idea must receive its natural 

 complement the teaching of re-birth. Then all becomes 

 clear the tombs are no longer tombs; they are but 

 transitory harbours after the voyage of life, beds of 

 repose for the closing day. They will neither inspire 

 fear nor hide the horizon ; they only mark a stage accom- 

 plished in the blessed ascent towards consciousness and 

 life. Beyond the tomb, with unfailing prescience we 

 see henceforth the march resumed, less weary, with new 

 horizons, a larger outlook in a more intimate, purer, 

 happier communion with the Infinite. 



And as with the idea of palingenesis the funereal 

 attributes of death disappear, so also the monument of 

 injustice raised by classical evolution crumbles down. 

 In evolution there are no longer those who are sacri- 

 ficed and those who are privileged. All the efforts, 

 both individual and collective, all the sufferings will 

 have ended in the building up of happiness and the 

 realisation of justice; but a happiness and a justice for 

 all. 



The end and purpose of life are henceforth com- 

 prehensible, and we find them conformable to our dearest 

 hopes. 



In our concept of the universe there is no place for 

 a pessimist philosophy which was derived only from a 



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