Reincarnation – Preexistence.

One of our correspondents saw fit to send us the following extracts from the preamble of the History of the French Revolution, by Louis Blanc. n As they are entirely in conformity with the principles of Spiritist philosophy, we judged it a duty to communicate them to our readers.

“But what! even when the pure sovereignty of the idea is being debated, one sees blood! always blood! What then is this law which, in every great progress, has as a consequence some great disaster? Like the plough, revolutions do not make the soil fruitful except by tearing it open; why? Whence comes it that time is but destruction that prolongs and renews itself? Whence comes to death this power of making life germinate, when, in a society that crumbles, thousands of individuals perish crushed beneath its ruins? What does it matter? we say. The species advances slowly. But is it just that entire races be tormented and annihilated, in order that one day, later, at a given time, different races may come to enjoy the labors accomplished and the evils suffered? This immense and arbitrary immolation of the beings of yesterday by those of today and those of today by those of tomorrow—is it not capable of stirring the conscience in its most intimate depths? And to the unfortunate who fall, slaughtered before the altar of progress, will not progress appear a sinister idol, an execrable and false divinity? “It must be admitted that these would be terrible questions, if, to resolve them, there did not exist these two beliefs: Solidarity of the races, immortality of the human race. For, when one admits that everything transforms and that nothing is destroyed; when one believes in the impotence of death; when one is convinced that the successive generations are variable modes of one same universal life which, in improving itself, continues; when, finally, one adopts this admirable definition that the genius of Pascal let escape: ‘Humanity is a man who lives always and who learns incessantly,’ then the spectacle of so many accumulated catastrophes loses what it had that was distressing to the conscience; one no longer doubts the wisdom of the general laws, of eternal justice; and, without growing pale, without humbling oneself, one follows the periods of this long and painful gestation of truth, which is called History.” [A. DESLIENS.]

[1] [l’Histoire de la Révolution française, par Louis Blanc – Google books.]