y[227] describes as follows the conditions of immortality
and a succession of lives by means of reincarnation:

"In proportion as its soul is developed by successive lives, the body
to which it is to be united will necessarily be superior to those it
has worn out; otherwise there would be no harmony between these two
elements of human existence; the means given to the soul would bear
no relation to the development of its power. This body, gifted with
more perfect and numerous senses, could not have an equal value for
all....

"Besides, these natural inequalities are also advantageous for
individual progress in another way; the errors resulting therefrom
cause truths to be discovered; vices laid bare almost form a reason
for the practice of virtue by all men, or at all events they protect
one from vice by reason of the horror they inspire; the ignorance of
some arouses the love of science in others; the very idleness which
dishonours some men inspires others with a love for work.

"So that these inequalities, inevitable because they are necessary,
are present in the successive lives we pass through. There is nothing
in them contrary to universal harmony; rather, they are a means for
effecting this harmony, and are the inevitable result of the
difference in value that bodies possess. Besides, no man remains
stationary; all advance at a more or less rapid rate of progress....

"When faith is born, it is an illumination. Since man's immortality is
one progressive advance, and, to effect this, he prepares the life he
enters by the life he is leaving; since, in short, there are
necessarily two worlds, one material, the other intellectual, these
two worlds, which make up the life to come, must be in harmonious
relationship with our own.

"Man's work will, therefore, be a continuation of his past work....

"I would never believe that our intelligence, which begins to develop
in this life, comes to a halt after such an imperfect growth, and is
not exercised or perfected after death....

"... Nature always advances, always labours, because God is life and
he is eternal, and life is the progressive movement in the direction
of the supreme good, which is God himself. Could man alone in the
whole of nature, man so imperfect and full of faults, stop in his
onward course, either to be annihilated, or suddenly, without
participating in it, though he was created free, find that he was as
perfect as he could possibly be? This is