MIND AND SOUL 217 



occasions, so is decided the rest of the fate of our lives and 

 whether or no we are to be the useful members of the com- 

 munity, to rise or to fall in the social scale, and, last but not 

 least, whether or no we are to be the degenerate members of 

 our family who are to pay the penalty of expiating the past 

 sins and failures of our ancestors. 



I also consider that our acts are weighed by the good or evil 

 we do to others, not by our social success or failure, and that 

 if our good deeds exceed our bad ones in proportions of, say, 

 seven to three, and that we have ten children, then three of 

 our children will be doomed to go to the bad and seven to the 

 good, or to advance, or vice versa to failure, and this decides 

 the fates which they have to choose between. 



But as the reader will have realised when he read the chapter 

 on Virtue and Crime, both good and bad are equally useful 

 in the production of a more perfect state of evolution in the 

 future, but that the tendency to good or wise acts will increase 

 as evolution advances. Thus if upon these two or three occa- 

 sions we choose for evil, we are destined to go to the bad there- 

 after, or our lives are destined to be good and useful if we 

 choose aright, according to the proportion decided by the sins 

 of our parents ; all the rest of our lives is controlled by fate for 

 the good of the community as a whole, we being only allowed 

 thereafter to decide how we are able to act in mere details and 

 to a limited extent, and our lot in the social scale, our poverty, 

 wealth, strength, or ill-health is decided by God in accordance 

 with the particular duty He intends us to perform in His work 

 of evolution, either as a reward or punishment of the efficiency 

 or otherwise with which we perform the acts our fate imposes 

 upon us in proportion as wealth or poverty, strength or 

 debility tend to act as a means of advancement or retrogression 

 of the community in accordance with whatever may be the 

 order of evolution at the particular period in the particular 

 nation, or what will make our lives most conducive to the public 

 good. 



But on the other hand so much of the control of our lives 

 is left in our hands as will permit us to decide for good or 

 evil the lives of our children, and whether their lives are to 

 be for good or evil ; so, He is the God of the living, not of the 

 dead. But to us is left the decision as to whether or not the 

 future leaves of our family tree are to wither and die, or 



