If some set their feet in the path, they look behind them and presently turn back.

Few decide between the two extremes,--to go or stay, heaven or the mire.

All hesitate.

Weakness leads astray, passion allures into dangerous paths, vice becomes habitual, man flounders in the mud and makes no progress towards a better state.
"All human beings go through a previous life in the sphere of Instinct, where they are brought to see the worthlessness of earthly treasures, to amass which they gave themselves such untold pains! Who can tell how many times the human being lives in the sphere of Instinct before he is prepared to enter the sphere of Abstractions, where thought expends itself on erring science, where mind wearies at last of human language?
for, when Matter is exhausted, Spirit enters.

Who knows how many fleshly forms the heir of heaven occupies before he can be brought to understand the value of that silence and solitude whose starry plains are but the vestibule of Spiritual Worlds?
He feels his way amid the void, makes trial of nothingness, and then at last his eyes revert upon the Path.
Then follow other existences,--all to be lived to reach the place where Light effulgent shines.