If, however, these considerations be not accepted as valid, there is another, which, to our mind, perfectly explains the absence of a remembrance of our former existences. It is, we believe, by a premeditated decree of nature, that the memory of our past lives is denied to us while we are on the earth. M. André Pezzani, the author of an excellent book called "Pluralité des existences de l'âme," replies to the argument of oblivion, thus:
"Our terrestrial sojourn is only a new trial, as Dupont de Nemours, that wonderful writer of the eighteenth century, who outstripped all modern beliefs, has said. If this be so, can we not perceive that the remembrance of past lives would embarrass these trials by removing the greater part of their difficulties, and, in proportion, of their merit, and destroying their spontaneity? We live in a world in which free-will is all powerful, the inviolable law of the advancement and the progressive initiation of men. If past existences were known, the soul would know the meaning and the bearing of the trials reserved for it here below; indolent and idle, it would harden itself against the designs of Providence, and would be either paralyzed by its despair of overcoming them, or, if better disposed and more virile, it would accept and accomplish them unfailingly. But neither one nor the other of these positions is fitting. Our efforts must be free, voluntary, sheltered from the influences of the past; the field of strife must be seemingly untrodden, so that the athlete shall show and exercise his virtue. Previously gained experience, the energies which he has acquired, help him in the new strife, but in a latent way of which he is unconscious, for the imperfect soul undergoes these re-incarnations, in order to develop its previously manifested qualities, and to strip itself of those vices and defects which oppose themselves to the law of its ascension. What would happen if all men remembered their previous lives? The order of the earth would be overturned, or at least, it would not remain in its present condition. Léthé, like free-will, is a law of the world as it is."[18]
To this it will be objected that there is destruction of identity where memory does not exist, and that expiation, in order to be profitable to the guilty soul, must co-exist with the remembrance of faults committed in the previous existence, for the man is not punished who does not know that he is punished. We may remark here that we do not use the word "expiation" precisely as theologians employ it, but rather as a new dwelling conferred on the soul, in order that it may resume the interrupted course of its advance towards perfection. We believe that the remembrance of our previous life, forbidden to us during our terrestrial sojourn, will come back when we shall have attained the happy realms of ether, in which we shall pass through the existences which are to succeed our life on earth. Among the number of the perfections and moral faculties forming the attributes of the superhuman being, the memory of his anterior lives will be included. Identity will be born again for him. Having suffered a momentary collapse, his individuality will be restored to him, with his conscience and his liberty.
Let us hearken awhile to Jean Reynaud, as he tells us in his fine book, Terre et Ciel, the marvels of that memory which shall be restored to man after his being shall have undergone a series of changes.
"The integral restitution of our recollections," says Jean Reynaud, "seems to us one of the inherent principal conditions of our future happiness. We cannot fully enjoy life, until we become, like Janus, kings of time, until we know how to concentrate in us, not only the sentiment of the present, but that of the future and the past. Then, if perfect life be one day given to us, perfect memory must also be given to us. And now, let us try to think of the infinite treasures of a mind enriched by the recollections of an innumerable series of existences, entirely different from each other, and yet admirably linked together by a continual dependence. To this marvellous garland of metempsychoses, encircling the universe, let us add, if the perspective seem worthy of our ambition, a clear perception of the particular influence of our life upon the ulterior changes of each of the worlds which we shall have successively inhabited; let us aggrandize our life in immortalizing it, and wed our history grandly with the history of the heavens. Let us confidently collect together every material of happiness, since thus the all-powerful bounty of the Creator wills it, and let us construct the existence which the future reserves for virtuous souls; let us plunge into the past by our faith, while we are waiting for more light, even as by our faith we plunge into the future. Let us banish the idea of disorder from the earth, by opening the gates of time beyond our birth, as we have banished the idea of injustice by opening other gates beyond the tomb; let us stretch duration in every direction, and, notwithstanding the obscurity which rests upon our two horizons, let us glorify the Creator in glorifying ourselves, who are God's ministers on earth, let us remember, with pious pride, that we are the younger brethren of the angels."
Under what condition does the soul regain the remembrance of its entire past? Jean Reynaud specifies two periods. 1. That which is fulfilled, as the Druids hold, in the world of journeys and trials, of which the earth forms a part. 2. The period during which the soul, set free from the miseries and vicissitudes of the terrestrial life, pursues its destinies in the ever widening and progressive circle of happiness; a period which passes outside of the earth. In the first period there is an eclipse of the memory at each passage into a new sphere; in the second period, whatever may be the displacements and transfigurations of the person, the memory is preserved full and entire. This theory of Reynaud's is admitted by M. Pezzani.
With the exception of that eclipse of the memory at each passage into a new sphere, which seems to us incomprehensible and useless, we think, with Jean Reynaud, that the complete remembrance of our previous existences will return to the soul when it shall inhabit the ethereal regions, the sojourn of the superhuman being. In this manner only, in our opinion, can the defect of man's memory, concerning his previous existences, be explained. Thus, the argument from that defect of memory does not remain without reply. Writers who have preceded us, and have meditated on this question, had already found the solution which we offer. This objection is not, then, of a nature to throw doubt on the doctrine of plurality of existences. Let us conclude, with M. Pezzani, that it is by a design of nature, that man, during this life, loses the remembrance of what he formerly was. If we retained the recollection of our anterior existences, if we had before our eyes, as if seen in a mirror, all that we had done during our former lives, we should be much troubled by the remembrance, which would harass the greater part of our actions, and deprive us of our complete free will.
Why is an invincible dread of death common to all men? Death is not, in reality, very dreadful, since it is not a termination, but a simple change of condition. If man feels terror of death to such an extent, we may be sure that nature imposes that sentiment upon him, in the interests of the preservation of his species. Thus, in our belief, the fear of death and the absence of memory of our former lives are referable to the same cause. The first is a salutary illusion imposed by God upon the weakness of humanity; the second is a means of securing to man full liberty of action.
Another objection will be made to our doctrine. It will be said: The re-incarnation of souls is not a new idea; it is, on the contrary, an idea as old as humanity itself. It is the metempsychosis, which from the Indians passed to the Egyptians, from the Egyptians to the Greeks, and which was afterwards professed by the Druids.
The metempsychosis is, in fact, the most ancient of philosophical conceptions; it is the first theory imagined by men, in order to explain the origin and the destiny of our race. We do not recognize an argument against our system of nature in this remark, but rather indeed a confirmation of it. An idea does not pass down from age to age, and find acceptance during five or six centuries, by the picked men of successive generations, unless it rests upon some serious foundation. We are not called upon to defend ourselves because our opinions harmonize with the philosophical ideas which date from the most distant time in the history of the peoples. The first observers, and the oriental philosophers in particular, who are the most ancient thinkers of all whose writings we possess, had not, like us, their minds warped, prejudiced, turned aside by routine, or trammelled by the words of teachers. They were placed very close to nature, and they beheld its realities, without any preconceived ideas, derived from education in particular schools. We cannot, therefore, but applaud ourselves when we find that the logical deduction of our ideas has led us back to the antique conception of Indian wisdom.