_Inference often drawn from these Facts._--Certain writers have inferred, from the recurrence of things long forgotten, as in the cases now cited, that all knowledge is indestructible and that all which is necessary to the entire reproduction of the past life is the quickened activity of the mental powers an effect which is produced in the delirium of disease. From this they have derived an argument for future retribution Coleridge has made such use of it, and has been followed by Upham, and in part, at least, though with more caution, by Wayland. _The true Inference._--It may be doubted, perhaps, whether the absolute indestructibility of all human knowledge is a legitimate inference from these facts. The most that can with certainty be concluded from them, is, not that all our past thoughts and consciousness _must_ or _will_ return, but that much of it _may_--perhaps all of it; and this is all we need to know in order to perceive the _possibility_ of a future retribution. It is enough to know, that in the constitution of the mind _means exist_ for recalling, in some way to us mysterious, and under certain conditions not by us fully understood, the objects of our former consciousness, in all the freshness and vividness of their past cognizance, long after they seem to have passed finally from the memory. _Importance of a well-spent Life._--This simple fact, together with the well-known tendency of the mind in advancing age to revert to the scenes and incidents of early life, certainly presents in the clearest light the importance of a well-spent life, of a mind stored with such recollections as shall cast a cheerful radiance over the past, and brighten the uncertain future in those hours of gloom and despondency when the shadows lengthen upon the path of earthly pilgrimage, and life is drawing to a close. If the thoughts and impressions of the passing moment are liable, by some casual association, by some mysterious law of our being, under conditions which may at any moment be fulfilled, to recur at any time to subsequent consciousness, with all the minuteness and power of present reality, it becomes us, as we regard our own highest interests, to guard well the avenues of thought and feeling against the first approach of that which we shall not be pleased to meet again, when it will not be in our power to escape its _presence_, or avoid its recognition. VII. INFLUENCE OF MEMORY ON THE HAPPINESS OF LIFE.