If you want a safe compass to guide you through life, and to banish
all doubt as to the right way of looking at it, you cannot do better
than accustom yourself to regard this world as a penitentiary, a
sort of a penal colony, or [Greek: ergastaerion] as the earliest
philosopher called it.[1] Amongst the Christian Fathers, Origen, with
praiseworthy courage, took this view,[2] which is further justified by
certain objective theories of life. I refer, not to my own philosophy
alone, but to the wisdom of all ages, as expressed in Brahmanism and
Buddhism, and in the sayings of Greek philosophers like Empedocles and
Pythagoras; as also by Cicero, in his remark that the wise men of old
used to teach that we come into this world to pay the penalty of crime
committed in another state of existence--a doctrine which formed
part of the initiation into the mysteries.[3] And Vanini--whom his
contemporaries burned, finding that an easier task than to confute
him--puts the same thing in a very forcible way. _Man_, he says, _is
so full of every kind of misery that, were it not repugnant to the
Christian religion, I should venture to affirm that if evil spirits
exist at all, they have posed into human form and are now atoning for
their crimes_.[4] And true Christianity--using the word in its right
sense--also regards our existence as the consequence of sin and error.

[Footnote 1: Cf. Clem. Alex. Strom. L. iii, c, 3, p. 399.]

[Footnote 2: Augustine _de cìvitate Dei_., L. xi. c. 23.]

[Footnote 3: Cf. _Fragmenta de philosophia_.]

[Footnote: 4: _De admirandis naturae arcanis_; dial L. p. 35.]

If you accustom yourself to this view of life you will regulate your