If the life we live be a kindergarten or infancy of a larger and better life somewhere else, Nature defeats her own ends, because myriads pass on, leave here, with the most dwarfed intellects, utterly unprepared to live here, and much less prepared to live in a higher state and on a more lofty plane.
Were such a condition true, that this is but a transitory existence, we should all have to go through the same schooling of life, and be indelibly impressed with its lesson, with conviction and understanding that the same mistakes would never be repeated, or the acquired knowledge would be constantly and forever used.
There would be no deaths in infancy, as each child born would be purposely sent here; neither would there be premature deaths, as no one could leave without "learning his lesson."
There would be a fixed standard of knowledge and development that we would be required to attain. Knowledge, or whatever condition Nature imposed, would be our destiny, and we would devote our entire life to its acquirement.
As it is, we bend our efforts and use our strength to avoid and to escape the acquisition of knowledge.
If our life were given to us in order to pass through a school of experience, the simplest truths would immediately manifest themselves to our minds, and conviction would be instant and permanent.
But how sadly untrue is this premise!
For thousands, aye, for millions of years, the people have been stupefied with the most ignorant and foolish superstition. An instance that will present with great force an illustration of the utter folly of the contention that we are living on this planet as a lesson in school, lies in the fact that for thousands of years people not only believed but religiously guarded the belief that the earth was flat.
Even to-day, with irrefutable demonstrations of the truth, there are some people who either cannot, or will not, accept it.
As desirable as this theory of a transitory state may be, it is even contrary to Nature herself. The entire scheme of Nature seems to be fashioned upon the same principle as our life. The fearful struggle of the elements involved squares identically with our own existence. Even the gigantic constellations, flying with an incalculable velocity, leaving destruction and desolation in their tracks, meet in their ignorant and blind journey the same fate as we meet. Recent astronomical discoveries speak of a struggle constantly taking place in those areas.