21. But at the same time the Spirit recovers its consciousness, it loses the remembrance of its past without losing the faculties, qualities, and aptitudes of anterior existences, aptitudes which momentarily remained in a latent state, and which, in resuming their activity, come to aid it, and make it more and better than it was before. It gives new birth to anterior work; it is for it a new starting point, a new ladder to climb, a new field of endeavor. Here again is manifested the goodness of the Creator; for the remembrance of a past often painful or humiliating, adding itself to the bitterness of a new existence, would trouble and detain man. He remembers only that which he has learned, because that is useful to him. If sometimes he preserves a vague recollection of past events, it is like the remembrance of a fugitive dream. He is then a new man, however ancient his Spirit may be; he marches over new fields aided by that which he has acquired. When he re-enters the spiritual life, his past is unrolled before his eyes, and he judges if he has well or ill employed his time.
