Page:The Other Life.djvu/266

 in the race? Effects are never spontaneous or accidental, but always the legitimate products of efficient causes. Were they the fruit of the seed which was planted by the philosophy and theology of the Middle Ages? No. They sprang into being when the hereditary incubus of the Middle Ages was lifted from the human mind. How was it lifted? By the judgment in the world of spirits, which sent all the old kings and priests and nobles and knights and philosophers and leaders of thought in every department, to heaven or to hell according to their interior natures. When their spheres were removed from the world of spirits, they were removed also from the minds of men; and these latter acquired greater freedom and activity of thought from the new light descending out of heaven.

This is why so many rapid changes are taking place; why the world progresses so fast; why the old landmarks are forsaken; why the old appeals to the traditions of the fathers and to the authority of great names are ineffectual; why revolutions in government, science and religion are so frequent and general that few thinking men have arrived at middle age without having changed their opinions and shifted their positions. The conservatives of