odies: mental, astral, and physical.]

[Footnote 265: The Ego (soul) in the causal body.]

CONCLUSION.

We have now come to the end of our study: a task to which we have
certainly not been equal, so far is it beyond our powers. As, however,
we have drawn inspiration from our predecessors, so have we also, in
our turn, endeavoured to shed a few more rays of light on certain
points of this important subject, and indicate fresh paths that may be
followed by such as enter upon this line of investigation in the
future.

It is our most ardent desire to see this fertile soil well tilled, for
it will yield an abundant harvest. Mankind is dying in strife and
despair; the torrent of human activity is everywhere seething and
foaming. Here ignorance buries its victims in a noisome den of slime
and filth; there, the strong and ruthless, veritable vampires, batten
on the labour and drain away the very life of the weak and helpless;
farther away, science stumbles against the wall of the Unknown;
philosophy takes up its stand on the cold barren glacier of
intellectualism; religions are stifled and struggle for existence
beneath the age-long accumulations of the "letter that killeth." More
now than ever before do we need to find a reason for morality, a guide
for science, an Ariadne's thread for philosophy, a torch to throw
light on religion, and Love over all, for if mankind continues to
devote the whole of its strength to the pursuit of material benefits,
if its most glorious conquests become instruments to advance
selfishness, if its progress merely increases physical wretchedness
and makes moral decadence more terrible than before, if the head
continues to silence the appeals of the heart, then divine Compassion
will have no alternative but to destroy beneath the waters of another
flood this cruel, implacable civilisation, which has transformed earth
into an inferno.

Amongst the most pressing and urgent truths, the most fruitful
teachings, the most illuminating doctrines, the most comforting
promises, we have no hesitation in placing the Law of Rebirths in the
very front. It is supported by ethics, by reason, and by science; it
offers an explanation of the enigma of life, it alone solves almost
all the problems that have harassed the mind of man throughout the
ages; and so we hope that, in spite of its many imperfections, this
work of ours will induce many a reader to say: _Reincarnation must be
true, if could not be