DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 171 



it is a demand of thought itself.* Ap- 

 plied to spiritual substance, which can 

 exist only in the form of living indi- 

 viduals, the law may be expressed, 

 "All living beings are immortal." If 

 therefore the cell-generations that in 

 the past composed man's organism can 

 no more be annihilated than the future 

 generations can be created from noth- 

 ing, this implies that man has an indi- 

 vidual existence not only after but 

 before his entrance into this world. If 

 such be the case we must be able to 

 derive and explain our earthly life from 

 this pre-existence. Can it now be 

 shown that man's conditions in his 

 pre-existence are such that he needs 

 and must go through an evolution in 

 time? In that case history may per- 

 haps give us a hint how to answer the 

 question, or would this pre-existence be 

 an entirely new thought? By no means. 

 Pre-existence is and must be a funda- 



*Bj5rklund might here properly have referred to 

 his previous demonstration of the fact that life has 

 no roots in time, consequently is independent of this 

 principle — i. e., immortal. — Translator's note. 



