MIND AND SOUL 225 



to pride and arrogance, but in woman immorality is the 

 greatest crime of all crimes. Women must remember that 

 their fallen sister who lives with a man whom she is unable 

 to marry is less of a sinner, provided she be a loving and 

 devoted helpmate and brings up their children as she should, 

 and will be rewarded by God for the correct performance of the 

 duties of the marriage state ; whereas the woman who remains 

 faithful, but who ceases to love her husband or loves another 

 who does not support her, is little better than an adultress or 

 harlot in the eyes of God if she neglects her marriage obliga- 

 tions or leaves his home, and, no matter how chaste she may 

 remain, will incur God's heaviest punishment both on herself 

 and upon her children ; whereas the former woman, although 

 the greater sinner, may be punished in this life by poverty, 

 but not with unhappiness nor discontent, and will be rewarded 

 for all eternity in her children, perhaps with higher rewards 

 than are granted to the saint. And remember that infidelity 

 on the part of a woman is a worse form of immorality than 

 polygamy on the part of a man. 



So the rules of the survival of the fittest must apply to the 

 soul as well as to the body, and this can only lead us to the 

 conclusion that God will in the future give greater vitality to 

 the souls of those who foster virtue rather than crime, by 

 rewarding the good deeds of men by higher powers of produc- 

 tion of body, brain and soul in the same manner that he has 

 in the past rewarded those possessed of physical vitality and 

 bodily energy with higher powers of production and reincar- 

 nation than those excelling in mental ability and genius. This 

 brings me to the conclusion that true immortality is not the 

 immortal existence of any individual life and body, but of 

 families and nations. The teaching of bodily immortality is 

 an Egyptian teaching, which went so far as to teach that we 

 should live again with the same bodies, but we have one 

 mummy in the British Museum seven thousand years old, and 

 no soul has come for it yet, nor is the owner likely to. 



Hence it is far more probable that immortality lies in the 

 fact that our souls live in our children, and that our souls at 

 death pass into the souls of our children so far as to influence 

 their lives for good or bad, according to the lives we lead. 

 Thus those whose virtues exceed their vices will continue to 

 improve the lives of the good amongst their descendants for all 



p 



