ws[230]:

"The question may well be asked whether the talents, the good and the
evil tendencies man brings with him at birth may not be the fruit of
acquired intelligence, of qualities and vices gained in one or many
former existences. Is there a previous life the elements of which have
prepared the conditions of the life now being lived by each of us?
People in ancient times thought so. Inborn dispositions, so different
in children, caused them to believe in impressions left by previous
existences in the imperishable germ of man. From the time when
intelligence begins to show itself in children we faintly discern a
general attitude towards things, which is very like a memory thereof.
It would appear that, according to this system, no one is unconnected
with the elements he introduces into life at each birth.

"All the same, rebirth in humanity constitutes no more than an initial
circle of tests. When, after one or several incarnations, man has
attained to the degree of perfection necessary to cause a change, he
passes to another life, and, in another sphere, begins an existence of
which we know nothing, though it is possible for us to regard it as
linked to the present life by the closest of bonds....

"The limit to the progress man must have attained to, before entering
upon another circle of tests in another sphere, is at present unknown
to us; science and philosophy will doubtless succeed in determining
this limit later on.

"They alone are reborn to earthly flesh who have in no way raised the
immortal principle of their nature to a degree of perfection that will
enable them to be reborn in glory....

"I affirm the perpetual union of the soul to organic bodies; these
bodies succeed each other, being born from one another, and fitting
themselves for the constitutive forms of the worlds traversed by the
immortal ego in its successive existences. The principle of life,
extended to divers evolutions of rebirth, is ever for the Creator
nothing more than a continuation of one and the same state. God does
not regard the duration of a being as limited to the interval between
birth and death; he includes all possible segments of existence, the
succession of which, after many interruptions and renewals, forms the
real unity of life. Must souls, when they leave our globe, put on,
from sphere to sphere, an existence hidden from us, whose organic
elements would continually be fitting themselves for the characters
and natur