.. As we are all bound
together in solidarity, we shall all, little by little, gather the
fruits of our travail." According to this mode of imagining and
thinking, since nobody is born, nobody dies, no single soul has finished
its struggle but many times has been plunged into the midst of the human
struggle "ever since the type of embryo corresponding with the same
consciousness was represented in the succession of human phenomena." It
is obvious that since Bonnefon begins by denying personal individuality,
he leaves out of account our real longing, which is to save our
individuality; but on the other hand, since he, Bonnefon, is a personal
individual and feels this longing, he has recourse to the distinction
between the called and the chosen, and to the idea of representative
spirits, and he concedes to a certain number of men this representative
individual immortality. Of these elect he says that "they will be
somewhat more necessary to God than we ourselves." And he closes this
splendid dream by supposing that "it is not impossible that we shall
arrive by a series of ascensions at the supreme happiness, and that our
life shall be merged in the perfect Life as a drop of water in the sea.
Then we shall understand," he continues, "that everything was
necessary, that every philosophy and every religion had its hour of
truth, and that in all our wanderings and errors and in the darkest
moments of our history we discerned the light of the distant beacon, and
that we were all predestined to participate in the Eternal Light.
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