devoted one’s incarnation to discharging the liabilities of one part 
of one’s previous character. For instance, one might devote a 
lifetime to settling the bill run up b y Napoléon for causing un- 
necessary suffering, with the object of starting afresh, clear of 
debt, in a life devoted to reaping the reward of the Corsican’s 
invaluable services to the race. 
The Master Therion, in fact, rernembers several incarnations 
of almost uncompensated wretchedness, anguish and humiliation, 
voluntarily undertaken so that he might résumé his work un- 
hampered by spiritual creditors. 
These are the stigmata. Memory is hall-marked by its corre- 
spondence with the facts actually observed in the présent. This 
correspondence may be of two kinds. It is rare (and it is unimpor- 
tant for the reasons stated above) that one s memory should be 
confirmed by what may be called, contemptuously, external 
evidence. It was indeed a reliable contribution to psychology to 
remark that an evil and adulterous génération sought for a sign. 
(Even so, the permanent value of the observation is to trace the 
genealogy of the Pharisee — from Caiaphas to the modem 
Christian.) 
Signs mislead, from “Painless Dentistry” upwards. The fact 
that anything is intelligible proves that it is addressed to the wrong 
quarter, because the very existence of language présupposés 
impotence to communicate directly. When Walter Raleigh flung 
his cloak upon the muddy road, he merely expressed, in a cipher 
contrived by a combination of circumstances, his otherwise inex- 
pressible wish to get on good terms with Queen Elizabeth. The 
significance of his action was determined by the concourse of 
circumstances. The reality can hâve no reason for reproducing 
itself exclusively in that especial form. It can hâve no reason for 
remembering that so extravagant a ritual happened to be necessary 
to worship. Therefore, however well a man might remember his 
incarnation as Julius Caesar, there is no necessity for his 
representing his power to set ail upon the hazard of a die by 
imagining the Rubicon. Any spiritual State can be symbolized 
by an infinité variety of actions in an infinité variety of circum¬ 
stances. One should recollect only those events which happen to 
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