Chapter III: Reincarnation and Science (1)

The secret of the Universe lies in observation; it is for man to develop his senses and patiently to search into the hidden things of Nature.

All science proceeds thus, and the reason that savants have not unearthed the precious object for which they seek with such wonderful perseverance is that the physical senses, even when aided by the most delicate instruments, are able to cognise only a portion of the physical Universe--the denser portion. This is proved by the fact that when man has succeeded in directing into a channel some subtle force, he remains as ignorant of its essence as he was before chaining it down, so to speak; he has not the slightest knowledge of it. He can utilise but he cannot dominate it, for he has not discovered its source. This source is not in the physical world, but on the finer planes of being, which will remain unknown to us, so long as our senses are incapable of responding to their vibrations.

Because physical observation reveals only the bark, the outer crust of the Cosmos, man sees nothing but the surface of the world, and remains in ignorance of the heart and vital plexus that give it life; consequently, he calls the disintegration following upon disincarnation by the senseless name of "death."

He who has lifted the veil of Isis sees divine Life everywhere, the Life that animates forms, builds them up, uses them, and finally breaks them to pieces when they have ceased to be of use; and this Life--God--thus spread about in numberless forms, by means of its many rays, develops in itself centres--souls--which gradually grow and awaken their infinite potentialities[41] in the course of these successive incarnations.

Still, though the eye of the god-man alone can penetrate this wonderful mechanism and study it in all its astonishing details, the savant whose mind is unprejudiced can judge of the concealed mechanism by examining its outer manifestations, and it is on this ground we now place ourselves with the object of setting forth another series of proofs of reincarnation.

THE EVOLUTIONARY SERIES.

If we look attentively at the totality of beings we perceive a progressive series of forms expressing a parallel series of qualities and states of consciousness. The portion of this scale we are able to compass extends from the amorphous state[42]--which represents the minimum of consciousness--up to those organic complexities which have allowed of a terrestrial expression being given to the soul of the Saviours of the world. In this glorious hierarchy each step forms so delicate a transition between the one preceding and the one following that on the borders of the different kingdoms it becomes impossible to trace a line of demarcation between different beings; thus one does not know whether such or such a family should be classed among minerals, or vegetables or animals. It is this that science has called the evolutionary series.[43]

THE CYCLIC PROCESS OF EVOLUTION.

Another fact strikes the observer: the cyclic march of evolution. After action comes reaction; after activity, rest; after winter, summer; after day, night; after inspiration--the breath of life during which universal Movement works in a molecular aggregate and there condenses in the form of vitality--expiration--the breath of death, which causes the individualised life to flow back into the ocean of cosmic energy; after the systole, which drives the blood into every part of the body, comes the diastole, which breathes back the vital liquid into the central reservoir; after the waking state comes sleep; life here and life hereafter; the leaves sprout and fall away periodically, with the rising and descending of the sap; annual plants die at the end of the season, persisting in germinal state within a bulb, a rhizome, or a root before coming again to the light; in "metamorphoses," we find that the germ (_the egg_) becomes a larva (_a worm_), and then dies as a chrysalis, to be reborn as a butterfly.

Ideas also have their successive cycles of glory and decadence; is not the present theosophical movement the renaissance of the Neoplatonic movement which brought the light to Greece and Egypt fifteen hundred years ago? In 1875 H. P. Blavatsky restored it to life, whilst its previous birth look place in the time of Ammonius Saccas, the theosophist, in the Schools of Alexandria. Those who have acquired the power to read the cosmic records[44] will easily recognise amongst the present pioneers of theosophy many a champion who in a former age struggled and fought in the same sublime cause.

Races are born and grow up, die and are born again; pass through a state of childhood, of youth, of maturity, and of old age. They flourish in all their splendour when the vital movement which animates them is at its height; when it leaves them and passes to other portions of the globe, they gradually fall into old age; then the more developed Egos--those incarnated in these races during their maturity--come down into the advanced nations, living on the continents animated by the "life-wave," whilst the less evolved go to form the so-called degenerate races vegetating in obscure parts of the world. Look now at the adolescence of Russia, the youth of America, the old age of France, and the decrepitude of Turkey. Look backwards at the glorious Egypt of bygone ages; nothing remains but deserts of sand on which imperishable structures still testify to the greatness of her past; the race that witnessed the majesty of the Hierophants and the divine Dynasties is now inhabiting other lands.

Continents submit to the same law; history and science show how they pass through a series of immersions and emersions; after Lemuria, which bore the third race, came Atlantis, the mother of the fourth; Europe and America now hold the various branches of the fifth; and later on, when this old land of ours is again sunk beneath the waters, new lands will have emerged from the ocean depths to bear the future race, the sixth.

The very planets, too, come under this law; issuing as nebulæ from the great womb of the Universe at the beginning of the evolution of a solar system they are absorbed back again when the hour of their dissolution strikes. Finally, the very Universes go forth from the breast of Brahmâ when he out-breathes, and return to him when he in-breathes again.

Everything, then, in appearance is born and dies. In reality, each thing springs from its germ, makes an effort--the effort of the divine Will incarnated in this germ--develops its potentialities up to a certain step in the ladder of evolution, then garners the acquired qualities and again returns to activity in continuous cycles of life until its full development is reached.

PROGRESS.

The observer of Nature makes a third discovery. Every fresh cycle of life is characterised by an advance on the preceding cycle; every stage brings the end nearer. This represents progress, and it is seen everywhere; when it does not appear, it is because our limited vision cannot pierce its veil. Minerals slowly develop in the bowels of the earth, and miners well know when the ore is more or less "ripe,"[45] and that certain portions, now in a transition stage, will in a certain number of centuries have become pure gold; experiments[46] have proved that metals are liable to "fatigue" from excessive tension; and that, after a rest, they acquire greater power of resistance than before; magnets "are fed," _i.e._, they increase their power of attraction, by exercise; cultivation improves and sometimes altogether transforms certain species of vegetables; the rapid mental development of domestic animals by contact with man is a striking instance of the heights to which progress may attain when it is aided, whilst the influence of teaching and education on the development of individuals as well as of races is even more striking.[47]

THE GOAL OF EVOLUTION.

_The Formation of Centres of Consciousness that become "Egos."_

Through innumerable wanderings this general progress traces a clear, unwavering line. Those capable of following evolution on the planes of finer matter at once perceive, as it were, wide-spreading centres forming in the sea of divine Essence, which is projected by the Logos into the Universe. As the ages pass, these centres are sub-divided into more restricted centres, into clearer and clearer "blocks" in which consciousness, that is, the faculty of receiving vibrations from without, is gradually developed, and when this consciousness within them reaches its limit, they begin to differentiate from their surroundings, to feel the idea of the "I" spring up within them. From that time, there is added to the power of receiving vibrations consciously, that of generating them voluntarily; no longer are they passive centres, but rather beings that have become capable of receiving and giving freely, individualities recognising and affirming themselves more day by day; "I's," who henceforth regard themselves as separated from the rest of the Universe; this stage is that of the Heresy of Separateness. Regarding this heresy, however, one may well say: _Felix culpa._

Fortunate error, indeed, for it is the condition, _sine quâ non_ of future divinity, of salvation. It is self-consciousness; man is born; man, the centre of evolution, set midway between the divine fragment which is beginning and that which is ending its unfoldment, at the turning point of the arc which leads the most elementary of the various kingdoms of Nature to the most divine of Hierarchies. This stage is a terrible one, because it is that which represents egoism, _i.e._ combat, the cause of every evil that afflicts the world, but it is a necessary evil, for there can be no _individual_ wisdom, power, and immortality without the formation of an "I." This ego is nothing but the first shoot, or bud, of the individual soul; it is only one of its first faculties; the finest show themselves subsequently. This bud is to blossom into a sweet-smelling flower; love and compassion, devotion, and self-sacrifice will come into manifestation, and the "centre of consciousness," after passing through the primitive stages--often called the elemental kingdoms--after being sheathed in mineral, vegetable, and animal forms, after having thought, reasoned, and willed in human forms and looked upon itself as separated from its fellow-creatures, comes finally to understand that it is only a breath of the spirit, momentarily clad in a frail garment of matter, recognises its oneness with all and everything, passes into the angelic state, is born as Christ and so ends as a finished, perfected soul--a World-Saviour.

Such is the Goal of life, the wherefore of the Universes, the explanation of these startling evolutions of souls in the various worlds, the solution of the problem regarding the diversity in the development of beings, the justification of Providence before the blasphemy of the inequality of conditions.

A FEW DEDUCTIONS.

_The Germ._

From the facts established in the course of this comprehensive view of the Universe, we are enabled to draw important deductions.

For instance, as the basis of every "cycle of life" is found the egg or germ, that strange microcosm which appears to contain within itself the entire organism from which it proceeds and which seems capable of manifesting it in its entirety. The first embryologic discovery we make as the result of this study--a discovery of the utmost importance--is that germs are one in essence, and are all endowed with the same possibilities and potentialities. The only difference that can be found in them is that the more evolved have acquired the power of developing, in the same cycle, a greater number of links, so to speak, in the chain of forms that proceeds from the atom to the sheath, or envelope, of the Gods-Men. Thus, the highest germ which the microscope enables us to follow--the human ovule--is first a kind of mineral represented by the nucleus (the point, unity) of its germinal cell; then it takes the vegetable form--a radicle, crowned by two cotyledons (duality); afterwards it becomes a fish (multiplicity), which is successively transformed into a batrachian, then a bird, afterwards assuming more and more complex animal forms, until, about the third month of foetal life, it appears in the human form.

The process of transformation is more rapid when Nature has repeated it a certain number of times; it then represents a more extensive portion of the ladder of evolution, but, be it noted, the process is the same for all, and for all the ladder is composed of the same number of steps; beings start from the same point, follow the same path and halt at the same stages; nothing but their age causes their inequalities. They are more than brothers, they are all representatives of the One, that which is at the root of the Universe, Divinity, supreme Being.

We also see that progress, the result of the conservation of qualities, offers us repeated instances of these stages in the reappearance, at each step of the ladder, of the forms preceding it in the natural series. In the course of its evolution, the germ of an animal passes through the mineral and vegetable forms; if the animal is a bird, its final embryological form will be preceded by the animal forms, which, in the evolutionary series, make their appearance before the avian type; if we are dealing with a mammifer, the animal will be the summit of all the lower types; when it is the human germ that we are following in its development, we see that it also has contained within itself and is successively reproducing the potentialities of the whole preceding series. The microscope is able to show only clearly marked stages and the most characteristic types, for evolution runs through its initial stages with a rapidity defying the closest physical observation. If only Nature would slacken her pace in order to humour our incapacity, we should see in an even more striking fashion that she preserves everything she has attained and develops the power of reconstruction with ever-increasing rapidity and perfection.

True, each cycle of incarnation realises only an infinitesimal fraction of the total progress made, each being advances only one step at a time along this interminable series; but then, are not these minor "cycles" in the course of which brings grow and advance towards the final Goal, the visible, material expression, the tangible and indisputable proof of the strict, the inexorable Law of Rebirths?

_What the Germ contains._

Now let us examine a little more carefully this process of physical germination and attempt to discover an important secret from it; let us see whether the material germ contains the whole being, or whether, as the ancient wisdom teaches, the vehicles of the divine Spark in evolution are as numerous as the germs which respectively effect their development and preservation.

Although here, too, the doctrine of the Christian churches is inadequate, we cannot altogether pass it by in silence. We will, therefore, state it, recommending the reader to compare it with the theory of science and the teachings of theosophy.

The Churches deny evolution. They say: one single body, one single state of development for each human being. For the lower kingdoms a state of nothingness before birth and after death, whatever may have been the fate of these beings during the short life imposed upon them; for man a single body for which God creates a single soul and to which He gives a single incarnation on a single planet,[48] the Earth.

It is our ardent wish that the signs of the growing acceptance of the idea of evolution now manifesting themselves in Christian teaching may increase, and that the Church, whatever be the influence that induces her to take the step, will in the end loyally hold out her hand to Science. Instead of remaining hostile, the two will then help each other to mount the ladder of Truth; and divine Life, the light of all sciences, philosophies, and religions, will illumine the dark path they are treading, and guide their steps towards that One Truth which is both without and within them.

Scientific materialism says:

Yes, everything is born again from its germ--thus is progress made, but that is the limit of my concessions. Everything is matter; the soul has no existence. There is evolution of matter, for matter, and by matter. When a form is destroyed, its qualities, like its power of rebirth, are stored away in a latent condition, within the germs it has produced during its period of activity. Along with the disappearance of matter, everything disappears--qualities, thoughts, "ego"--and passes into a latent slate within the germ; along with the return of the form, qualities and attributes gradually reappear without any hypothetical soul whatever having any concern in the matter. So long as the form is in its germ stage, the being is nothing more than a mass of potentialities; when fully developed its faculties reappear, but they remain strictly attached to the form, and if the latter changes, the faculties echo the change, so to speak, with the utmost fidelity. Matter is the parent of intelligence, the brain manufactures thought, and the heart distills love, just as the liver secretes bile; such is the language of present-day science.

This theory accepts the idea of universal injustice in its entirety; we shall shortly prove that, notwithstanding its apparent logic, it explains only one side of evolution, and that if matter is the condition _sine quâ non_ of the manifestation of spirit, it is at least curious that the latter acts so powerfully upon it, and is, beyond the possibility of a doubt, its real master.[49]

Modern Theosophy, as well as the Wisdom of old, says in its turn:

Spirit is the All, the one Being, the only Being that exists.

Force-matter[50] is nothing but the product of the spirit's activity; in it we find many and divers properties--density, weight, temperature, volume, elasticity, cohesion, &c., because we judge it from our sense perceptions; but in reality, we know it so little, that the greatest thinkers have called it "a state of consciousness," _i.e._, an impression produced by it within ourselves.[51] It is the result of the will of the supreme Spirit, which creates "differences" (forms) in unfathomable homogeneous Unity, which is incarnated in them and produces the modifications necessary for the development of its powers, in other words, for the accomplishment of their evolution. As this evolution takes place in the finite--for the Infinite can effect its "sacrifice," _i.e._ its incarnation,[52] only by limiting itself--it is progressive, proceeding from the simple to the complex. Each incarnate, divine "fragment"[53] at first develops the simpler qualities and acquires the higher ones only by degrees; these qualities can appear only by means of a vehicle of matter, just as the colour-producing properties of a ray of light only become manifest with the aid of a prism. Form plays the part of the revealer of the qualities latent in the divine germ (the soul); the more complex this form becomes, the more atomic divisions it has in a state of activity; the greater the number of senses it has awake, the greater the number of qualities it expresses.

In this process, we see at work, three main factors; _Spirit_,[54] awakening within itself _vibrations_,[55] which assume _divers appearances_.[56] These three factors are one; force-matter and form cannot exist without the all-powerful, divine Will (Spirit), for this is the supreme Being, who, by his Will, creates force matter, by his Intelligence gives it a form, and animates it with his Love.

Force-matter is the blind giant, who, in the Sankhya philosophy, carries on his shoulders the lame man who can see--a giant, for it is activity itself; and blind, because this activity is directed only by the intelligent Will of the Spirit. The latter is lame, because when it has not at its disposal an instrument of form-matter, it cannot act, it cannot appear, it is no longer manifested, having disappeared with the great periodical dissolution of things which the poetical East calls the inbreathing of Brahmâ.

Form--all form--creates a germ which reproduces it. The germ is an aggregate containing, in a very high state of vitalisation, all the atomic types that will enter into the tissues of the form it has to build up. These types serve as centres of attraction for the atoms which are to collect round them when, under the influence of the "vital fire,"[57] creative activity has been roused in the germ. Each atomic type now attracts from the immediate surroundings the atoms that resemble it, the process of segmentation which constitutes germination begins, and the particular tissues represented by the different atomic types are formed; in this way the fibrous, osseous, muscular, nervous, epithelial, and other tissues are reproduced.

The creative activity that builds up tissues, if left to itself, could create nothing but formless masses; it must have the help of the intelligence to organise the atoms into molecules, the molecules into tissues, and these again into organs capable of a corporate life as a single organism, supplied with centres of sensation and action. This intelligence cannot proceed from the mind bodies of the various beings, for the latter manifest their qualities only when they possess a fully-developed form--which is not the case with the germs; moreover, the lower kingdoms show nothing but instinct, and even the superior animals possess only a rudimentary form of mentality. The most skilful human anatomist knows nothing more than the eye can teach him regarding the forms he dissects, though even if he were acquainted with their whole structure, he would none the less be quite incapable of creating the simplest sense organ. The Form is the expression of cosmic intelligence, of God incarnated in the Universe, the Soul of the world, which, after creating matter, aggregates it into divers types, to which it assigns a certain duration. The type of the form varies with the stage of development of the being (_the soul_) incarnated therein, for the instrument must be adapted to the artist's capacity; the latter could not use an instrument either too imperfect or too perfect for his degree of skill. What could the rudimentary musician of a savage tribe do if seated before the complex organ of one of our cathedrals; whilst, on the other hand, what kind of harmony could a Wagner produce from a shepherd's pipe? The Cosmic intelligence would appear to have created a single, radical form-type, which gradually develops and at each step produces an apparently new form, until its series has reached the finished type of evolution. It stops the evolutionary process of each germ at the requisite point in the scale; in the case of the most rudimentary souls it allows a single step to be taken, thus supplying an instrument that possesses the requisite simplicity; the process is continued longer for the more advanced souls, but stops just when the form has become a suitable instrument. When it does not furnish the fecundated germ with the "model" which is to serve as a ground-plan for atomic deposits, segmentation takes place in a formless mass, and in this the tissues are shown without organisation; it is then a môle, a false conception.

It is the same cosmic Intelligence that derides the period during which the form shall remain in a state of activity in the world. Until a soul has learnt the lesson that incarnation in a form must teach it, this form is necessary, and is given to it again and again until the soul has assimilated the experience that form had to supply; when it has nothing more to learn from the form, on returning to incarnation it passes into one that is more complex. The soul learns only by degrees, beginning with the letters of the alphabet of Wisdom, and gradually passing to more complex matter; thus the stages of evolution are innumerable and the transition from one to the other imperceptible; modern science states this fact, though without explaining it, when she says that "Nature makes no leaps."

The building up of forms is effected by numerous Beings, forming an uninterrupted chain that descends from the mighty Architect, God, to the humblest, tiniest, least conscious of the "builders."[58] God, the universal Spirit, directs evolution, and could accomplish every detail of it directly; but it is necessary, for their own development, that the souls, whatever stage they have reached, should work in the whole of creation, and therein play the part, whether consciously or unconsciously, that they are fitted to play. Consequently they are employed at every stage; and, in order to avoid mistakes, their activity is guided by more advanced souls, themselves the agents of higher cosmic Entities, right on up to God, the sovereign controller of the hierarchies. Consequently there are no mistakes--if, indeed, there are any real ones at all--in Nature, except those that are compatible with evolution and of which the results are necessary for the instruction of souls; but the Law is continually correcting them in order to restore the balance. Such, in general outline, is the reason for the intervention of beings in the evolutionary process.

So far as man is concerned, the highest of these Beings supply the ideal type of the form which is to give the soul, when reincarnated, the best means of expression; others take charge of these models and entrust them to entities whose sole mission is to keep them before their mental eyes and guide the thousands of "builders" who build round them the atoms which are to form the tabernacle of flesh in its minutest details; these Liliputian builders may be seen at work by the inner eye; they are as real as the workmen who construct material edifices in accordance with an architect's plans.

That everything may be faithfully reproduced in form the entity that controls the building must not lose sight of the model for a single moment. Nor does it do so, generally speaking, for one may say that this being is, as it were, the soul of the model, being one with it and conscious only of the work it has to perform. In many cases, however, it receives certain impressions before birth from the mother's thoughts: an influence capable either of forwarding or hindering its work. The ancient Greeks were well acquainted with this fact when they assisted Nature to create beautiful forms by placing in the mother's room statues of rare plastic perfection, and removing from her sight every suggestion of ugliness. More than this; certain intense emotions of the pregnant woman are capable of momentarily effacing the image of the model which the builder has to reproduce, and replacing certain of its details with images arising from the mother's imagination. If these images are sufficiently vivid, the being follows them; and if they endure for a certain length of time they are definitely incorporated in the building of the body. In this fashion, many birth marks (_naevi materni_) are produced; strawberries or other fruit, eagerly desired at times when they cannot be procured, have appeared on the child's skin; divers objects that have left a vivid impression on the imagination may have the same effect. The clearness and perfection of the impression depend on the intensity and continuance of the mental image; the part where it is to appear depends on the sense impressions of the mother coinciding with the desire which forms the image--for instance, a spot on the body touched rather sharply at the moment. This has given rise to the idea that the "longing" is impressed on that part of the body which the mother is touching during her desire. When the image is particularly strong and persistent considerable modifications of the body have been obtained; in such cases, children are born with animal-like heads, and treatises on teratology relate the case of a foetus born with the head detached from the trunk, because the mother, after witnessing an execution, had been horribly impressed by the sight of the separated heads of the victims. Malebranche, in his _Recherche de la Vérité_, tells of a child that was born with broken limbs because his mother had seen the torture of the wheel. In this case, the image must have been of enormous vibratory power and of considerable persistence.[59]

A general or even a local arrest of development is almost always due to the phenomenon of mental inhibition experienced by the same being; it definitely ceases to see the plan, evolution stops, and the embryo, expelled before the time takes on the form of the evolutionary stage it had reached at that moment; if it ceases to deal with a single detail only that detail remains in _statu quo_, and is often embedded in portions of the organism quite away from the point where it would have been found had it continued to evolve; certain cysts belong to this class.

The third factor, the Spirit, the Soul--or, to be more exact, the incarnated divine ray--follows a line of evolution parallel to that of the matter which constitutes its form, its instrument; this parallelism is so complete that it has deceived observers insufficiently acquainted with the wonders of evolution. It is thus that scientific materialism has taken root. We will endeavour to set forth the mistake that has been made, and call to mind the correctness of the Vedantin symbol, which represents the soul as lame, incapable of acting without the giant, force-matter; though the latter, without the guidance of the former, could not advance along the path of evolution.

This soul is a "no-thing," which, in reality, is everything; a ray of the spiritual sun (_God_), a divine spark incarnated in the vibration (_matter_) produced by the supreme Being, it is a "centre," capable of all its Father's potentialities. These potentialities, which may be grouped together under three general heads--power, love, and wisdom--we may sum up in the one word: consciousness. It is, indeed, a "centre of consciousness" in the germinal state, that is about to blossom forth, realising all its possibilities and becoming a being fully aware of its unity with the Being from which it comes and which it will then have become.

In this development the vibrations of outer matter play the part of the steel, which, on striking flint, causes the life latent within the latter to dart forth. Each vibration which strikes the soul arouses therein a dormant faculty, and when all the vibrations of the universe have touched it, this soul will have developed as many faculties as that universe admits of, until, in the course of successive worlds, it becomes increasingly divine in the one Divine Being. In order that all the vibrations of which a universe is capable may reach the soul the latter must surround itself with all the different types of atoms that exist in the world, for every vibration is an atomic movement, and the nature of the vibration depends on the quality of the atoms in motion. Now, the first part of evolution consists in condensing round vital centres[60] (_souls_) atoms aggregated in combinations of a progressively increasing density, on to those that make up the physical plane; when the soul has thus clothed itself with the elements of all the planes, the resulting form is called a "microcosm"--a small Cosmos--for it contains, in reality, all the elements contained in the Universe. During this progressive development, the soul, which thus effects its "fall" into matter, receives from all the planes through which it passes and from all the forms in which it incarnates, varied vibrations which awake within it correspondingly responsive powers and develop a non-centred, diffused, non-individualised consciousness.

In the second phase of evolution, the forms are limited, the vibrations they receive are transmitted by specialised sensorial groups, and the soul, hitherto endowed with a diffused consciousness, begins to feel varieties of vibrations that grow ever more numerous, to be distinguished from the surrounding world, to separate itself, so to speak, from everything around; in a word, to develop self-consciousness. This separation first takes place on the physical plane; it is made easier by hard, violent contacts, and the forms, in their turn, become more complex, varied, and specialised in proportion as the soul is the more perfectly individualised. When it has developed all the self-conscious responsive powers in the physical body, it begins to develop those faculties which have as their organs of transmission the finer bodies, and as planes of vibration the invisible worlds.

In our planetary system the number of the invisible planes is seven.[61] Each of them in turn supplies the soul with a form; thus, when evolution--which in its second phase successively dematerialises matter, _i.e._, disassociates the atoms from their combinations, beginning with the denser ones--has dissolved the physical plane, the human soul will utilise, as its normal body, a finer one which it is at present using as a link between the mental and the physical bodies. Before this dissolution is effected, however, human beings will have developed, to some extent, several finer bodies, already existing, though hitherto not completely organised.

The first of these bodies, the astral--a very inappropriate name, though here used because it is so well known--is a copy, more or less, of the physical form in its general aspect; the resemblance and clearness of the features are pronounced in proportion to the intellectual development of the person, for thought-vibration has great influence over the building up of the centres of force and of sensation in this body.[62]

The second is an even finer aggregate, composed of mental substance and assuming, during incarnation, the form of a smaller or larger ovoid--the causal body--surrounding the physical form.[63] At its centre, and plunged in the astral body during incarnation, is another kind of ovoid not so large and composed of denser substance--the mental body.[64]

Above these states of matter, at the present stage there appears no form to the consciousness of human beings, though perfect seers can perceive, within the causal body, still higher grades of matter, which will only subsequently become centres of self-consciousness.

During incarnation, the soul, in the majority of men, is clearly conscious of itself and of its surroundings only when it is functioning through the nervous system (the brain); when it leaves the denser body, during sleep, its consciousness is in the astral body, and there it thinks,[65] but without being conscious of what is taking place around it. After disincarnation, it generally becomes highly conscious in its astral body, where it passes its purgatorial life; and this latter endures until the soul leaves the astral body. As soon as the latter is thrown off, consciousness centres in the mental body; this is the period of _Devachan_ or Heaven. When the mental body is put off, paradise is at an end, and the soul, sheathed only in the causal body, finds itself on a very lofty plane, but here, consciousness is vague, when we are dealing with a man of average development. Instead of laying aside this garment, as so far it has done with the rest, it recommences, after the lapse of a certain time, another descent into the matter of the lower planes and a new incarnation begins.

To the centre of the causal body are drawn atoms from the inner mental plane; these represent a new mental body.[66] When this latter has been formed, there are attracted to it atoms of the astral plane, and these form a new astral body; the soul, clothed in these two sheaths, if one may so express it, is brought into conscious or unconscious relation, according to its degree of development, with the two corresponding planes, lives there generally for a short time, and is directed to a mother's womb, in which is created the visible body of flesh within the centre of its astral body.

This force of atomic attraction has its centre in the causal body, a kind of sensitive plate on which are registered all those vibrations which disturb or affect human vehicles during incarnation. This body is, in effect, the present abode of the soul, it represents the terminal point of human consciousness,[67] the real centre of man.[68] It receives all the impressions of the plane on which it finds itself, as well as those which come to it from the lower planes, and responds to them the more readily as it has now attained a fuller development. It possesses the power to attract and to repel; a microcosm, it has its outbreathing and inbreathing, as has the Macrocosm; like Brahmâ, it creates its bodies and destroys them, although in the vast majority of mankind it exercises this power more or less unconsciously and under the irresistible impulsion of the force of evolution--the divine Will. When it attracts, it causes to recur within itself the vibrations it has received and registered--like a phonographic roll--during the past incarnations; these vibrations reverberate in the outer world, and certain of them attract from this world[69]--in this case the mental world--the atoms capable of responding to them. When they have created the mental body, other vibrations can be transmitted through this body to the astral world and attract atoms which will form the body bearing the same name--the astral--and finally other vibrations, making use of these two bodies as a means of transmission, will affect the physical plane and attract atoms which will assist in the building up of the denser body.

Everywhere the formative power of vibration is guided by cosmic intelligence, but it is effected far more easily in the reconstruction of the higher bodies, that precedes incarnation properly so-called, than in the creation of the now physical body. Indeed, in the astral and mental bodies, nothing is produced but an atomic mass, the many elements of which will be aggregated into complete organisms only during incarnation properly so-called, whilst the construction of the visible body admits of a mass of extremely delicate and important details. It is for this reason that we have seen this work of construction entrusted to special Beings who prepare, control and watch over it unceasingly.

It is because the causal body registers every vibration the personality[70] has generated or received in the course of its series of incarnations, that the vices and virtues are preserved, as is the case with the faults or the good qualities of the physical body. The man who has created for himself a coarse astral body by feeding the passions and thoughts which specially vivify the coarser matter of this body will on returning to earth find a new astral body composed of the same elements, though then in a dormant state. He who, by the cultivation of a lofty intellect, has built up a refined mental body, will return to incarnation with a like mental body, whilst the one who, by meditation and the practice of devotion which bring into being the noblest qualities of the heart, has set vibrating the purest portions of the causal body and of the divine essence (Âtmâ-Buddhi, as it is named in Sanskrit), with which it is filled, will return to birth endowed with those qualities which make apostles and saints, the Saviours of the world.

In other words:

Matter has more remote boundaries than science recognises; the numberless grades of atoms of which it consists, their powers of aggregation, the multiplicity and duration of the bodies they form, are not even suspected by materialism.

Materialism sees nothing but the part played by matter; it denies that intelligence plays any part, and will by no means admit--in spite of evolution and progress--that above man there exists an almost endless chain of higher and higher Beings, whilst below him are kingdoms of an increasingly restricted range of consciousness. By refusing to believe in the multiplicity of the vehicles which the human soul uses, it is unable to understand individual survival or to solve the problem of heredity. Indeed, evolution is only partially explained by the physical germ; the latter, in order to act alone and of itself in the development of the human embryo should possess a degree of intelligence considerably superior to that of man. This is the opposite of what we find, however, and we are brought face to face with the absurd fact of a cause vastly inferior to its effect. Indeed, the intelligence shown by the germ is not its own; it is that of the cosmic Mind reflected by mighty Beings, its willing servants. Besides, this germ contains only the qualities that belong to physical matter, and, as we shall show, the moral, mental, and spiritual qualities are preserved by the finer--the causal--body, which represents the real man at the present time.

THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN HEREDITY.

If materialism were the whole truth, it ought to explain the whole of heredity; instead of that it clashes with almost all the problems of life. Physical substance offers for analysis none but physical phenomena: attraction, repulsion, heat, electricity, magnetism, vital movement; the anatomical constitution of the highest--the nerve--tissue, presents only the slightest differences in the animal series, if these differences are compared with the enormous distinctions in the qualities it expresses. Differences of form, visible to the microscope, are at times important, we shall be told, and those that affect the atomic activity and groupings[71] are perhaps even more important. That is true, especially in whatever concerns man.

Intelligence cannot always be explained by the complexity of the brain--though this complexity is the condition of faculty, as a rule--insects such as ants, bees, and spiders, whose brains are nothing but simple nerve ganglia, display prodigies of foresight, architectural ability and social qualities; whilst along with these dwarfs of the animal kingdom, we see giants that manifest only a rudimentary mind, in spite of their large, convoluted brains. Among the higher animals, there is not one that could imitate the beaver--which, all the same, is far from being at the head of the animal series--in building for itself a house in a river and storing provisions therein.

There is a vast gulf, in the zoological series, before and after these insects, as there is before and after the beaver; whilst an even wider gulf separates the highest specimens of the animal world from man himself.

Nor do the weight and volume of the brain afford any better explanation of the difference in intellect than does its structural complexity.

The weight relations between the brain and the body of different animals have been estimated as follows by Debierre (_La Moëlle et l' Encéphale_):--

Rabbit 1 of brain for 140 of body. Cat 1 " 156 " Fox 1 " 205 " Dog 1 " 351 " Horse 1 " 800 "

If matter were the only condition _sine quâ non_ of intelligence, we should have to admit that the rabbit was more intelligent than the cat, the fox, the dog, and even than the horse.

In the same work the following figures express the average size of the brain in different races of men.

Pariahs of India 1332 cubic centimetres. Australians 1338 " Polynesians 1500 " Ancient Egyptians 1500 " Merovingians 1537 " Modern Parisians 1559 "

This would prove that the people who built Karnac and the Pyramids, who raised to an elevation of about 500 feet blocks of granite, one of which would require fifteen horses to drag it along a level road, who placed these enormous stones side by side without mortar or cement of any kind and with almost invisible joints, who possessed the secret of malleable glass and of painting in colours that have not faded even after the lapse of centuries ... that such a race of men were inferior to the rude, uncultured Merovingians, and scarcely the equals of the Polynesians!

Science also tells us that in a child five years of age the human brain weighs, on an average, 1250 grammes--this, too, would bear no relation whatever with the intellectual and moral development of a child of that age and that of an adult man.

Though Cuvier's brain weighed 1830 grammes, and Cromwell's 2230, that of Tiedemann, the great anatomist, when placed on the scales, weighed no more than 1254, and that of Gambetta only 1246.

The physical body of itself can give no reason for a host of psychological phenomena on which, however, a flood of light is shed if one recognises the existence of other vehicles of consciousness possessing more far-reaching vibrations, and consequently capable of expressing higher faculties. During sleep, for instance, which is characterised by the Ego having left his physical body, reason is absent, and what we call dreams are generally nothing but a tissue of nonsense, at which the dreamer feels astonishment only when returning to his body on awaking. On the other hand, as we have seen in Chapter I., when the Ego succeeds in imprinting on the brain the vibrations of the higher consciousness, it is able to regain the memory of facts long forgotten and to solve problems that could not be solved during the waking state. There are madmen who have ceased to be mad during somnambulism; persons of rudimentary intelligence have proved themselves to be profound thinkers during the mesmeric trance; when under somnambulism vision is possible to those born blind and certain people can see things that are happening a great distance away, and their reports have been proved correct; certain phenomena of double-consciousness cannot be explained without the plurality--the duality, at all events--of the vehicles of consciousness.

To return to the _rôle_ played by the germ in the question of heredity, we repeat that the physical germ, of itself alone, explains only a portion of man; it throws light on the physical side of heredity, but leaves in as great darkness as ever the problem of intellectual and moral faculty. If it represented the whole man, one would expect to find in any individual the qualities manifested in his progenitors or parents--never any other; these qualities could not exceed the amount possessed by the parents, whereas we find criminals from birth in the most respectable families and saints born to parents who are the very scum of society. You may come across twins, _i.e._, beings born from the same germs, under the same conditions of time and environment, one of whom is an angel and the other a demon, though their physical forms closely resemble each other.

Child prodigies are sufficiently numerous to frequently trouble the thinker with the problem of heredity. Whence came that irresistible impulse towards poetry in Ovid which showed itself from his earliest youth and in the end overcame the vigorous opposition of his parents?

Pascal in his youth met with keen opposition from his parents, who forbade him to think of mathematics and geometry. He besought his father to tell him, at all events, "what was that science of which he was forbidden to think, and what it treated of." The answer was given to him that "it is the method of making correct figures and finding out the proportions they bear to each other." With nothing more than this information and the aid of reflection, he discovered for himself the first thirty-two propositions of Euclid by means of "circles and lines" traced in secret.

Mozart, at the age of three, learnt the clavecin by watching his sister play; a year afterwards he composed admirably, at the age of seven he played the violin at first sight without having had any teacher, and proved himself a composer of genius before he reached his twelfth birthday.

Pepito Ariola, the little Spaniard, was only three years of age when, about ten years ago, he filled with astonishment the Court of Madrid by his wonderful playing on the piano.

In the lineage of these prodigies has there been found a single ancestor capable of explaining these faculties, as astonishing as they are premature? If to the absence of a cause in their progenitors is added the fact that genius is not hereditary, that Mozarts, Beethovens, and Dantes have left no children stamped from birth as prodigies of genius, we shall be forced to the conclusion that, within the limits it has taken up, materialism is unable to explain heredity.

A few more words must be said on physical heredity to explain why moral qualities in men of average development are often on a par with the same in their parents.

In reality, the physical germs only multiply the organic elements of the ovule, and as this latter contains the cell-types of all the tissues, it follows that these cell-types will possess the qualities of the tissues that exist in the parents. For instance, germs of sufferers from arterio-sclerosis will supply a vascular apparatus predisposed to arterio-sclerosis; tuberculous subjects will supply germs in which the vital vibrations and cellular solidity will be below the normal, and bring about those degenerate tendencies which characterise the tuberculous subject; those of sanguine constitution will transmit a faculty for vital assimilation and considerable corpuscular production, and so on.[72]

In this transmission there are two main factors: the male and the female germs. The former represents force, it imprints on the ovule the initial vital vibration which is to be that of each of the cells of the organism in course of construction. The function of this germ may be studied more easily in animals, because their heredity is not complicated by the individual differences due to the mental vehicle. The stallion supplies the vital qualities--the blood, _i.e._, the vivacity, _brio_, pace; physical resistance comes from the mare. To sum up, the modalities of matter are supplied by the feminine germ.

Peculiarities of form proceed from several causes. Phrenology and physiognomy are sciences, though the studies hitherto known by these names are almost valueless because they have not been carried on with the necessary scientific precision. Doubtless Gall and Lavater possessed the gift of penetrating both mind and heart, as was also the case with Mlle. Lenormand Desbarolles and the genuine graphologists; but this gift was not the result of mathematical deduction, but rather a psychometric or prophetic faculty; for this reason neither they nor their books have produced pupils worthy of the name. The main features and lines only of the human form have a known meaning--and not always a very precise one--for every physical, passional, mental, or spiritual force possesses an organ of expression in the visible body, and the varieties of form of this organ enable one to judge of the degrees of force they express on the earth plane. On this basis, peculiarities of form mainly stand; and the intensity of certain defects or qualities is at times expressed so strongly that it completely modifies the tendencies it would seem that heredity ought to pass on. The similarity of form between parent and child is not exact, because it proceeds from the peculiarities of the individual in incarnation far more than from the collective tendencies of the embryonic cells in process of proliferation.

The being charged with building the body can, in turn, considerably modify its form, copying specially striking features found in the mother's thought; certain characteristic family traits, the Bourbon nose, for instance; those belonging to strangers in continual relationship with the mother, and those that a babe, fed and brought up away from home, takes from his nurse or from the surroundings amid which he lives; all these probably leave their impress in the same way. In this case, indeed, the "builder"--who, it must be added, ceases the work of construction only when it is on its way to completion, which happens about the age of seven--is influenced by the forms of the new surroundings, and at times copies them, more or less, and we may ask ourselves if the unexplained fact of negro children being born to a white woman--the widow of a negro--remarried to a white man is in no way connected with the reproduction of a mental image of the coloured children of a former marriage.

Another fact: observers have noticed that almost all great men have had as their mother a woman of lofty character. This preponderance of the maternal influence will be understood if we remember that the cellular mass that composes the child's body belongs to the mother, not only because this mass originates from the proliferation of the ovule, and, consequently, is only the multiplication of the maternal substance, but also because the materials that have formed it and have been transmuted into flesh have been supplied by her; indeed, everything comes from this cellular mass, the elements drawn from the amniotic fluid and the blood, the milk, which, after birth, continues for long months to build up the child's body and the magnetic fluid, the "atoms of life," which are continually escaping from it and which the babe absorbs whilst receiving incessant attention from his mother.

This exchange of atoms is of the utmost importance, for these ultra-microscopic particles are charged with our mental and moral tendencies as well as with the physical qualities; personally, I have had many direct proofs of this, but the most striking came at a critical period of my life. One day, when nervous exhaustion, steadily increased by overwork, had reached an extreme stage, a great Being--not a Mahatma, but a Soul at a very lofty stage of evolution--sent to me by destiny at the time, poured into my shattered body a portion of his physical life. Shortly afterwards a real transformation took place, far more of a moral than of a physical nature, and for a few hours I felt myself the "copy" or counterpart of that great Soul, and the divine influence lasted twenty-four hours before it gradually died away.