J. D. Beresford

“ Someone had to counter Mallett's dogmatism, and I looked at Graves, who nobly responded.
"I don't agree," he said. "It has always seemed to me a final argument against reincarnation, this oblivion of the past. If we progress we must progress by the accumulation of knowledge. What good is it to me to have suffered for faults in the past, if I have no consciousness left of the penalty paid; or what good to punish me in this life for the long forgotten faults of the past? Do you wait till next week to punish a child or a dog for its misdemeanours?" ”

“ AN EFFECT OF REINCARNATION "THE argument applies with equal force to the past," declaimed Mallett, in his autocratic way. "If we have lived before, it is part of the essential scheme of things that we should have no recollection of past lives, the memory of them would be unendurable." ”

“ After all, this theory of reincarnation was as sane as any other theory. It might be possible for a man to learn something of a previous existence. And here was Birch, so completely convinced and honest; so altered, moreover, by his conviction. ...
We all thought he was altered,—not by any means for the better. Mallett tried to laugh him out of it; argued with him, was,—I admit,—quite brilliant in his attack.
But Tommy was immovable. He opposed, finally, the one insuperable reply of the believer. ”