Excerpt from Of a Novitiate
For centuries the question, what am I, whither am I going, and what shall I be? have thrilled human hearts and dominated human thought. Clement, an illustrious Roman and one of the founders of the Christian Church, in speaking of himself has told the story of the world's seeking:
"From my earliest youth, doubts, of whose origin I was uncertain, perplexed me. Shall I exist after death no longer, and will no one bestow a thought upon me while ceaseless time is burying all human things in forgetfulness? Will it be the same with me as if I had never been born? When was the world created, and what existed before the world was? If it existed from eternity, then it will be everlasting. If it had a beginning it will also have an end. And what will there be after the end of the world, unless the stillness of death? Or perhaps there will be something which it is now impossible to think of.
"Having been troubled with such thoughts from my youth, I frequented the schools of the philosophers in order to discover something certain; but I saw there little else than the advancement and destruction of theories - controversies and counter controversies - first, the proposition was demonstrated, and believed, that the soul is immortal; then again, that it is mortal. When the first prevailed, I rejoiced; but when the other, I was dispirited.
"Thus was I driven about by opposing propositions, and was at last compelled to admit that these things did not appear in their true light, but only as they were presented by the opposing views of different persons. I was then seized with a greater perplexity of mind, and groaned from the very depth of my soul."
He then determined to travel to the land of mysteries and search out in Egypt a magician who would conjure up for him a spirit, thinking thus to secure satisfactory evidence of the immortality of the soul, but a friendly philosopher withheld him from thus seeking the truth by the practice of the unlawful art, fearing that he might never again enjoy peace of mind.
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