8
If we do not accept reincarnation, Karma none the less exists: a mutilated Karma, it is true; a diminished Karma, devoid of spaciousness, with an horizon limited by death, beginning its work and doing its best in the brief spell of time which it has before it, but less negligible, less impotent, less inactive and ineffective than is supposed. Acting within its narrow sphere, it gives us a fairly accurate albeit very incomplete idea of what it would accomplish in the wider sphere which we deny it. But this would lead us back to the highly debatable question of mundane justice. It is almost insoluble, because its decisive operations, being inward and secret, escape observation. Following many others, who, for the rest, have explained it better than I, I have spoken of it elsewhere, particularly in Wisdom and Destiny and in The Mystery of Justice;[3] but, as Queen Scheherazade might say, it would serve no useful purpose to repeat it.