emed moving with
the utmost velocity; in a limited sphere of vision, in a kind of red hazy
light similar to that which first broke in upon me in the Colosaeum, I
saw moving round me globes which appeared composed of different kinds of
flame and of different colours. In some of these globes I recognised
figures which put me in mind of the human countenance, but the
resemblance was so awful and unnatural that I endeavoured to withdraw my
view from them. "You are now," said the Genius, "in a cometary system;
those globes of light surrounding you are material forms, such as in one
of your systems of religious faith have been attributed to seraphs; they
live in that element which to you would be destruction; they communicate
by powers which would convert your organised frame into ashes; they are
now in the height of their enjoyment, being about to enter into the blaze
of the solar atmosphere. These beings so grand, so glorious, with
functions to you incomprehensible, once belonged to the earth; their
spiritual natures have risen through different stages of planetary life,
leaving their dust behind them, carrying with them only their
intellectual power. You ask me if they have any knowledge or
reminiscence of their transitions; tell me of your own recollections in
the womb of your mother and I will answer you. It is the law of divine
wisdom that no spirit carries with it into another state and being any
habit or mental qualities except those which may be connected with its
new wants or enjoyments; and knowledge relating to the earth would be no
more useful to these glorified beings than their earthly system of
organised dust, which would be instantly resolved into its ultimate atoms
at such a temperature; even on the earth the butterfly does not transport
with it into the air the organs or the appetites of the crawling worm
from which it sprung. There is, however, one sentiment or passion which
the monad or spiritual essence carries with it into all its stages of
being, and which in these happy and elevated creatures is continually
exalted; the love of knowledge or of intellectual power, which is, in
fact, in its ultimate and most perfect development the love of infinite
wisdom and unbounded power, or the love of God. Even in the imperfect
life that belongs to the earth this passion exists in a considerable
degree, increases even with age, outlives the perfection of the corporeal
faculties, and at the moment of death is