226 THE PORTAL OF EVOLUTION 



eternity, and those whose vices exceed their virtues will con- 

 tinue to live on in the soul of the bad members of their families, 

 so increasing their vices till God destroys their powers of rein- 

 carnation, when the wiser and better evolved members of 

 mankind will exterminate those whom God does not previously 

 destroy by bodily degeneration, the outcome of vicious habits 

 carried to the excess of folly. Death is a necessity to remove 

 the bad until the unfit in soul become extinct and the wise 

 only remain, whose wisdom will at last have become so great 

 that they will be able to prolong their lives even into immor- 

 tality by scientific prevention of disease, when the world being 

 at last fully populated with an all-wise population, able to live 

 in perfect Charity, Peace and Comfort, with perfect modera- 

 tion and temperance, shall never more abuse their health and 

 strength, and so, attaining perpetual youth, live for all eter- 

 nity, the immortal successes evolved out of mortal failures, as 

 fit inhabitants for an eternal kingdom. 



Before closing this chapter, to confute such ideas as have 

 prevailed in the past, I must say that the whole of evolution 

 is opposed to the supposition that a departed soul can pass into 

 any other habitation than that of the family from which it 

 comes, any more than an oak tree could be clothed with syca- 

 more leaves or an ash or pine tree burst forth for a single 

 season decorated with oak leaves, and then return to pine spurs 

 the following season. 



It is probable that in the majority of mankind the soul of 

 wisdom is not yet sufficiently evolved to receive such ethics of 

 religion or revelation as this hypothesis has revealed to me, 

 and it may be centuries yet before they can be transferred 

 from the abstract ideals to the more complex concrete realms 

 of practical utility in daily life. But there may be a few 

 amongst the most highly developed minds of to-day who can 

 turn them to practical use by aiming through their means at 

 higher ideals than they have hitherto been able to grasp, and 

 I feel confident that by the slow-going clock of evolution the 

 time is not far distant when they must become the foundation 

 stones of future religions, society and governments, as the per- 

 centage of true wisdom grows in the minds of the people. This 

 must be my excuse for what at first sight may appear a 

 blasphemous insult to past beliefs. At the time of Christ the 

 ethics of Christianity were as much in advance of human de- 



