more difficult for me to believe in the creation of new souls than in the creation of new matter.  Science has shown us that there is no actual addition made to the sum of matter, and that the apparent creation of new forms of plants or animals is nothing more than a rearrangement of existing particles—­that if a new form appears in one place, it merely means that so much matter is transferred thither from another place.  I find it, I say, hard to believe that the sum total of life is actually increased.  To put it very simply for the sake of clearness, and accepting the assumption that human life had some time a beginning on this planet, it seems impossible to think that when, let us say, the two first progenitors of the race died, there were but two souls in heaven; that when the next generation died there were, let us say, ten souls in heaven; and that this number has been added to by thousands and millions, until the unseen world is peopled, as it must be now, if no reincarnation is possible, by myriads of human identities, who, after a single brief taste of incarnate life, join some vast community of spirits in which they eternally reside.  I do not say that this latter belief may not be true; I only say that in default of evidence, it seems to me a difficult faith to hold; while a reincarnation of spirits, if one could believe it, would seem to me both to equalise the inequalities of human experience, and give one a lively belief in the virtue and worth of human endeavour.  But all this is set down, as I say, in a tentative and not in a philosophical form.

And I have also in these pages kept advisedly clear of Christian doctrines and beliefs; not because I do not believe wholeheartedly in the divine origin and unexhausted vitality of the Christian revelation, but because I do not intend to lay rash and profane hands upon the highest and holiest of mysteries.

I will add one word about the genesis of the book.  Some time ago I wrote a number of short tales of an allegorical type.  It was a curious experience.  I seemed to have come upon them in my mind, as one comes upon a covey of birds in a field.  One by one they took wings and flew; and when I had finished, though I was anxious to write more tales, I could not discover any more, though I beat the covert patiently to dislodge them.

This particular tale rose unbidden in my mind.  I was never conscious of creating any of its incidents.  It seemed to be all there from the beginning; and I felt throughout like a man making his way along a road, and describing what he sees as he goes.  The road stretched ahead of me; I could not see beyond the next turn at any moment; it just unrolled itself inevitably and, I will add, very swiftly to my view, and was thus a strange and momentous experience.