MIND AND SOUL 215 



being a more perfect likeness of God, when we have perfectly 

 evolved them, our evolution will be complete, and as the like- 

 ness would not be complete (as God is immortal) unless we also 

 became immortal, it follows that those who are able to evolve 

 to the highest standard of human perfection, must also become 

 immortal. But as our soul is the final development, it is 

 also illogical to suppose that it has always been and always 

 must be immortal. And it also appears to me that if life 

 and soul are immortal, then what we call death can only be a 

 temporarily dormant stage of evolution, and that as the great 

 distinguishing mark of creation is visibility, and of infinity 

 invisibility, it is only in accordance with the uniform plan of 

 creation that the immortality of the soul should be disguised 

 from our puerile eyes by the cloak of death till we have evolved 

 our souls to a stage of perfection that our physical existence 

 becomes subordinate to our psychological one. 



It therefore seems to me that the life of our soul can no 

 more cease with the life of our bodies or be a separate life and 

 existence than ducks can grow from trees, nor can it roam 

 about irrespective of the material creation from which it was 

 evolved, as many of our scientific forefathers considered, but 

 must be one continuous life running through from body to 

 body in one undying, unbroken stream as does the life of the 

 animal and plant from which it has been evolved, and must 

 continue in one unbroken and undying stream divided for an 

 instant only by the rocks of death as the waters of a river are 

 divided by the rocks and stones in its course, so likewise the 

 life of the soul flows along the river bed of existence to re- 

 mingle together as each rock of death is passed, till the river 

 of our family existence shall flow into the sea of immortality, 

 there to unite in the sea of kindred souls who have evolved 

 above the narrow-minded banks and confines of indolence, 

 greed and waste, and at last have reached the ocean of a per- 

 fect existence devoted to Use, Charity and Mercy where they 

 can disport themselves under conditions of Joy, Pleasure and 

 Happiness undisturbed by the noisy clamour of the breakers 

 of jealousy, slander and hate which marred their passage down 

 the river-bed of the struggle for existence, but which struggle 

 has fitted them to struggle for the life of others rather than 

 for their own, which is the aim and object for which they were 

 created to live henceforth in the ocean of a well-regulated 



