THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SPIRIT. 4O5 



our phenomenal existences, and in what sense can 

 these be said to have a future Hfe ? Upon the 

 answer to this question it will depend whether we 

 can continue to speak of ou}" future life in any 

 ordinary sense. 



Now, that the Insufficiency of our data renders 

 the question a difficult one, it would be affectation 

 to deny. And the reflection that with a little more 

 knowledge the greatest obscurities would seem plain 

 and self-evident fails also to assist our fainting 

 imagination. But we may perhaps convey some 

 idea of the facts by the aid of a simile. 



If the world-process aims at impressing the divine 

 image upon the hard metal of the Ego, then each 

 phenomenal life may be supposed to stamp some 

 faint impression on its substance. And as the Im- 

 pressions are multiplied, they gradually mould the 

 Ego Into the required shape, and each successive 

 impress, working upon material already more com- 

 pletely fitted Into shape, produces a more definite 

 impression of itself, and also fashions more definitely 

 that which it Impresses. As the material comes 

 nearer to its final shape its resistance becomes less,, 

 and each impress produces fewer features which must . 

 be erased as divergent from the ideal. Or, in other 

 words, the spiritual value of the lower stages of 

 consciousness is small ; they produce their effect 

 only by their repetition and multiplication. But as 

 the higher grades of Individuality are reached, the 

 spiritual significance of a single phenomenal life is 

 intensified, and it leaves a more enduring mark, 

 upon the nature of the spirit. If, therefore, we ask 

 In what sense the phenomenal phases of the spirit's, 

 development persist and continue, we must answer 

 generally, that they persist as factors in the develop- 



