To this it will be objected that there is destruction of identity where memory does not exist, and that expiation, in order to be profitable to the guilty soul, must co-exist with the remembrance of faults committed in the previous existence, for the man is not punished who does not know that he is punished. We may remark here that we do not use the word "expiation" precisely as theologians employ it, but rather as a new dwelling conferred on the soul, in order that it may resume the interrupted course of its advance towards perfection. We believe that the remembrance of our previous life, forbidden to us during our terrestrial sojourn, will come back when we shall have attained the happy realms of ether, in which we shall pass through the existences which are to succeed our life on earth. Among the number of the perfections and moral faculties forming the attributes of the superhuman being, the memory of his anterior lives will be included. Identity will be born again for him. Having suffered a momentary collapse, his individuality will be restored to him, with his conscience and his liberty.
Let us hearken awhile to Jean Reynaud, as he tells us in his fine book, _Terre et Ciel_, the marvels of that memory which shall be restored to man after his being shall have undergone a series of changes.
"The integral restitution of our recollections," says Jean Reynaud, "seems to us one of the inherent principal conditions of our future happiness. We cannot fully enjoy life, until we become, like Janus, kings of time, until we know how to concentrate in us, not only the sentiment of the present, but that of the future and the past. Then, if perfect life be one day given to us, perfect memory must also be given to us. And now, let us try to think of the infinite treasures of a mind enriched by the recollections of an innumerable series of existences, entirely different from each other, and yet admirably linked together by a continual dependence. To this marvellous garland of metempsychoses, encircling the universe, let us add, if the perspective seem worthy of our ambition, a clear perception of the particular influence of our life upon the ulterior changes of each of the worlds which we shall have successively inhabited; let us aggrandize our life in immortalizing it, and wed our history grandly with the history of the heavens. Let us confidently collect together every material of happiness, since thus the all-powerful bounty of the Creator wills it, and let us construct the existence which the future reserves for virtuous souls; let us plunge into the past by our faith, while we are waiting for more light, even as by our faith we plunge into the future. Let us banish the idea of disorder from the earth, by opening the gates of time beyond our birth, as we have banished the idea of injustice by opening other gates beyond the tomb; let us stretch duration in every direction, and, notwithstanding the obscurity which rests upon our two horizons, let us glorify the Creator in glorifying ourselves, who are God's ministers on earth, let us remember, with pious pride, that we are the younger brethren of the angels."