And we must remember that thoughts and motives are material, and at times marvellously potent material, forces, and we may then begin to comprehend why the hero, sacrificing his life on pure altruistic grounds, sinks as his life-blood ebbs away into a sweet dream, wherein

    All that he wishes and all that he loves,
    Come smiling round his sunny way,

only to wake into active or objective consciousness when reborn in the Region of Happiness, while the poor unhappy and misguided mortal who, seeking to elude fate, selfishly loosens the silver string and breaks the golden bowl, finds himself terribly alive and awake, instinct with all the evil cravings and desires that embittered his world-life, without a body in which to gratify these, and capable of only such partial alleviation as is possible by more or less vicarious gratification, and this only at the cost of the ultimate complete rupture with his sixth and seventh principles, and consequent ultimate annihilation after, alas! prolonged periods of suffering.

Let it not be supposed that there is no hope for this class—­the sane deliberate suicide.  If, bearing steadfastly his cross, he suffers patiently his punishment, striving against carnal appetites still alive in him, in all their intensity, though, of course, each in proportion to the degree to which it had been indulged in earth-life.  If, we say, he bears this humbly, never allowing himself to be tempted here or there into unlawful gratifications of unholy desires, then when his fated death-hour strikes, his four higher principles reunite, and, in the final separation that then ensues, it may well be that all may be well with him, and that he passes on to the gestation period and its subsequent developments.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 1:  Book ii., from lines 666-789.  The whole passage bristles with horrors.]

[Footnote 2:  xii. 85.  Trans., of Burnell and Hopkins.]

[Footnote 3:  From the translation of Dhunjeebhoy Jamsetjee Medhora, Zoroastrian and some other Ancient Systems, xxvii.]

[Footnote 4:  Trans., by Mirza Mohamed Hadi. The Platonist, 306.]

[Footnote 5:  The Sacred Books of the East, iii, 109, 110.]

[Footnote 6:  Secret Doctrine, vol. i. p. 281.]

[Footnote 7:  See ibid., p. 283.]

[Footnote 8:  Isis Unveiled, vol. i. p. 480.]

[Footnote 9:  Theosophical Manuals, No. 1.]

[Footnote 10:  The Heroic Enthusiasts, Trans., by L. Williams. part ii. pp. 22, 23.]

[Footnote 11:  Cremation, Theosophical Siftings, vol. iii.]

[Footnote 12:  Man:  Fragments of Forgotten History, pp. 119, 120.]

[Footnote 13:  Key to Theosophy, H.P.  Blavatsky, p. 109.  Third Edition.]

[Footnote 14:  Magic, White and Black, Dr. Franz Hartmann, pp. 109, 110.  Third Edition.]