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individual plunges into the mass-the soul takes a new mask, its old personalities are effaced for a time.
Nevertheless, across the centuries great figures of the past can be recognized-Krishna in Christ, Virgil in
Lamartine, Caesar in Napoleon. In a beggar with altered features, crouched at some door in Rome, covered
with ulcers and begging of passers-by, may not one recognize Messalina through our spiritual vision? Doctor
Thomas Pascal in The Law of Destiny says: 'The study of the former lives of certain men particularly afflicted,
reveals strange secrets. One who has been guilty of treason causing a massacre, centuries later suffers a lifelong
malady caused by an injury received when a child during a mutiny. Another who took part in an
inquisition, returns with a body suffering from youth to age.' These cases are more numerous than we suppose,
and we must recognize in them the application of an inflexible law. All our acts, following their nature, are
translated into an increase or diminution of liberty. The problems of the lives of individuals and society are
explained only by this law of rebirth. All the mystery of being is there. By it our past is made clear and our
future is enlarged-our personality attains an unexpected amplitude. We understand that we did not arrive
yesterday in the universe, but that our point of origin dates back to the profound depths of time. We feel
ourselves united to humanity by a thousand ties woven by the centuries. Its history is ours, and we have
journeyed with it upon the ocean of the ages, confronted the same perils, met the same reverses. Forgetfulness
of those things is but temporary, for one day a whole world of memories will awaken in us. The past, the
future-all history will assume a new character in our eyes, an interest profound. Divine laws will seem greater,
more sublime, and life itself will become beautiful and desirable in spite of its trials and its evils.
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