A man from the cradle to the grave is but the embryo of a being that may
be born into the world of the dead who still live, or that may die so
soon after entering it as to be practically still-born. The greater
number of the seeds shed, whether by plants or animals, never germinate
and of those that grow few reach maturity, so the greater number of those
that reach death are still-born as regards the truest life of all—I mean
the life that is lived after death in the thoughts and actions of
posterity. Moreover of those who are born into and fill great places in
this invisible world not one is immortal.
We should look on the body as the manifesto of the mind and on posterity
as the manifesto of the dead that live after life. Each is the mechanism
whereby the other exists.
Life, then, is not the having been born—it is rather an effort to be
born. But why should some succeed in attaining to this future life and
others fail? Why should some be born more than others? Why should not
some one in a future state taunt Lazarus with having a good time now and
tell him it will be the turn of Dives in some other and more remote
hereafter? I must have it that neither are the good rewarded nor the bad
punished in a future state, but every one must start anew quite
irrespective of anything they have done here and must try his luck again
and go on trying it again and again _ad infinitum_. Some of our lives,
then, will be lucky and some unlucky and it will resolve itself into one
long eternal life during which we shall change so much that we shall not
remember our antecedents very far back (any more than we remember having
been embryos) nor foresee our future very much, and during which we shall
have our ups and downs _ad infinitum_—effecting a transformation scene at
once as soon as circumstances become unbearable.
Nevertheless, some men’s work does live longer than others. Some achieve
what is very like immortality. Why should they have this piece of good
fortune more than others? The answer is that it would be very unjust if
they knew anything about it, or could enjoy it in any way, but they know
nothing whatever about it, and you, the complainer, do profit by their
labour, so that it is really you, the complainer, who get the fun, not
they, and this should stop your mouth. The only thing they got was a
little hope, which buoyed them up often when there was but little else
that could do so.