There are apparently but three ways in which anybody has attempted to explain the origin of the race. If two of these are shown to be impossible we have no course open to us but to accept the one which remains. One of the three theories is that of the materialist. Another is the common belief that God created an original human pair and continues to create souls for babies. The third hypothesis is that of the evolution of the soul.

The materialist's position seems to be, briefly, that the forces of nature, with no directive intelligence, are sufficient to account for man as we see him; that a continuing consciousness in the human being is a delusion; that immortality is a vain dream and that humanity has neither a past nor a future. Yet the very facts of science to which the materialist appeals contradict such conclusions.

This materialistic belief regards the human body as a self-sufficient machine whose brain generates thought. But the savage has a completely evolved physical body with eyes, ears and other organs like our own. His brain under the microscope shows no trace of difference in its material constitution from the brain of civilized man. Indeed, his physical body is not only as complete a machine as ours but is likely to be materially sounder. Why, then, if the brain produces thought, does not this savage produce the thoughts of a philosopher? If there is no directing soul back of the brain, why the marvelous difference in the product of the two brains?

Materialists go too far in the assumption that they can explain the phenomena of life. They can talk learnedly about it but they must stop short of the source of life. Everything about anatomy and physiology they know, but the life that flows through the human machine remains unexplained. They can trace the circulation of the blood from the heart through the arteries, from the arteries across to the veins, from the veins back to the heart, but the greatest mind the race has produced cannot say what makes the heart beat. Life has not been explained and cannot be explained from the materialist's viewpoint. Every human being is a miracle. A fingernail is a mystery of evolution. It is formed from the same food that makes the flesh and it will continue to be formed regardless of the variety or quality of the food. Why do certain particles become flesh or nails? Who can draw the division line between them? With marvelous instruments and wondrous skill science has explored and mapped and charted the "tabernacle of clay," but it cannot throw a single ray of light upon the intelligence that animates it.

Materialism fails sadly enough in that direction, but still worse as a satisfactory interpretation of the panorama of the life about us. It is a philosophy of the gloomiest fatalism. It holds that we simply chance to be that which we are; that we are what we are merely because of fortuitous chemical and mechanical combinations. Had the combinations chanced to be something different we should not be in existence. Chance is the king of the materialist's world.

According to this theory all abilities are the gifts of nature and all lack of them is the blind award of chance. No credit whatever is due to anybody for what he is, nor can anybody be logically blamed for his deficiencies. All are like men who, with closed eyes, draw something from a bag under compulsion. It is not to the credit of one that he got a prize nor to the discredit of another that he drew a blank. This hypothesis holds that recently we were not and that presently we shall cease to be; that we appear by chance, live our brief period, suffer or enjoy as it may happen and then pass to the oblivion of eternal silence; that all the thought, all the toil and the striving, all the effort and endurance were for nothing, and accomplished nothing. Such a philosophy will not long survive the progress of our age. It lacks the balance of nature's principle of conservation. It lacks the completeness of universal law. It lacks the element of justice that is enthroned in every human consciousness and without which life would be a meaningless mockery and the world a chaos of despair.

But the materialist's philosophy has no monopoly of bad points or undesirable beliefs. The old popular idea of a mechanical creation is equally at war with both fact and reason. That belief is that God created the world as men build houses, and added the human beings as men furnish their houses when built. It is the belief that He is still making souls as fast as bodies are being born in the world, that these souls begin their existence at birth, live here but one life and then pass on into either endless bliss or eternal pain.

This idea differs from materialism in the matter of a governing intelligence and on immortality but it is remarkably like it in other ways. Like materialism it is fatalistic because it makes man the helpless subject of resistless power. It merely puts an intelligent force as first cause where the materialist postulates blind force.

The materialist says that all human characteristics are the gift of nature while according to the popular belief they are the gifts of God. In either case one class of human beings gets abilities that they have not earned and others get defects that they do not deserve. The intellectual man is favored without reason and the fool is handicapped without mercy. Some come into the world with salvation assured by being well born while others are foredoomed to failure. Predestination goes logically with such ideas.

Happily the world has long been growing away from the once wide-spread belief in predestination because it is too shocking to the modern sense of justice. But is the world at the same time catching the point that if there is but one life on earth and the soul is created at birth, then the very essence of predestination remains, because some are created with the wisdom to attain salvation and others are created without it?

If the soul has no pre-existence it can have no responsibility at the time of birth. Neither can it have any merit. One is born with a sound mind and moral insight. These qualities may lead to salvation but the man has done nothing to earn them. Another is born with cruel and vicious tendencies and poor intellect. He may therefore miss salvation, but if he had no pre-existence he can have done nothing to deserve such a start in life. If we are really here for the first time then justice can be done only by giving us equal equipment at the start and equal opportunities afterward.

Think for a moment of the sweeping difference between human beings at birth. There is every degree of vice and virtue from the savage to the saint and every mental variation from the fool to the philosopher. If God really creates the soul at birth, then one is created wise and kind though he did nothing to earn it. Another is created vicious and depraved. He did nothing to deserve it. One is showered with natural gifts to which he is not justly entitled. Another is blighted with a stupidity he did nothing to incur; and we are asked to believe that God made them thus! Such a belief is contrary to reason and to justice.

It is easy to see why, in this old view of the relationship between God and man, salvation was to be by faith. It was impossible for a person to be saved by his merit because, if his qualities were given to him by God at birth, he had no merit. His very ability to comprehend spiritual truth and his moral strength to resist temptation, were conferred upon him, not earned by him. If this popular view is sound, human beings should be neither praised nor censured. They are simply human automata operated by such degree of mental and moral ability as God chose to assign to them. If this be true, genius should have no credit for its accomplishments, indolence no frown of disapproval, cowardice no lash of condemnation, tolerance no need of praise, cruelty no rebuke, virtue no applause and heroism no fame for its selfless sacrifice. And yet this absurd and illogical belief lingers in the minds of millions of people. It is believed because it always has been believed.

If materialism is an impossible philosophy, then the popular belief that the soul is created at birth is also impossible. It is a theory that encumbers its belief in immortality with conditions that destroy justice and defy logic. That old form of belief has outlived its day. It was possible at any time only because there was too little information and, like the old belief that the world was flat, it must yield place to the newer knowledge. The truth of evolution is the stanchest friend of religion. It is the foundation on which may be built a scientific belief in a Supreme Being, a rational faith in immortality and a brotherhood of man that has a basis in nature itself. The very idea that was hastily thought to be destructive of a belief in God and heaven and immortality is rapidly becoming the most important witness to the truth of them all. While it is true that in the earliest days of evolution the most eminent scientists were agnostic, it is equally true that today the most eminent scientists of the world believe in the existence of the soul, and in its immortality, and base that belief upon scientific grounds.

What is the essence of the facts of evolution and how does it give evidence against materialism and for immortality? Evolution is an orderly unfolding from the single to the diversified, from the simple to the complex, in which process life evolves by passing from lower to higher forms and storing within itself the gist of the experiences gained in each.

One of the vital facts that evolution establishes is that slow building is the order of creation. The horse is an example. He is traced backward with certainty to a small creature that resembles him very little indeed. Ages were required to evolve the horse into his present intelligence and utility. Another profoundly important fact in evolution is the continuity of life from body to body. The butterfly is frequently used as an illustration, but the principle holds with all the higher order of insects like ants, flies and bees. In the metamorphosis of the caterpillar we have a phenomenon so common that most people have personally observed it. Watch, in imagination, its transformation that contradicts materialistic philosophy. The worm is a physical body occupied by an evolving life or intelligence. Its physical body perishes and becomes part of the dust of the street. The life enters the grave of the chrysalis. The scientist takes that chrysalis, packs it in an ice house and leaves it frozen for a number of years. Now a mere frost will kill either caterpillar or butterfly, but when the chrysalis is removed from the ice and brought into a higher temperature the triumphant life emerges in the form of the butterfly. This phenomenon proves that life does survive the loss of the body. The body of the caterpillar is dead and has turned to dust years ago, but the caterpillar that lived in it is not dead. It now lives again in the physical world in a physical body of a higher type.

Here, in an order of existence almost infinitely below man, we have an individual life existing in a physical form, passing from it and, after a number of years, taking possession of another form and living in that. Who can admit such continuity of life for the insect and deny it for man? Can there be a deathless something in a worm and not in a human being? Even without the mass of physical evidence that exists upon the subject the logic of nature would lead us to confident conclusions. The knowledge of evolution which science has so far accumulated leads to four natural inferences. One is that man is immortal. Another is that he has, like all creatures, slowly evolved to what he now is. A third is that both life, and the forms it uses, are evolving together, and the fourth is that lower orders evolve into higher and continually higher ones. The human soul evolves from the savage to the saint—from animal instincts to the self-sacrifice of martyrs and heroes. We cannot escape the conclusion that the race has evolved, is evolving and will continue to evolve until mental and moral perfection has been attained.

If neither the theory of the materialist nor the popular notion that the soul is created at birth is satisfactory, we have only reincarnation left as a working hypothesis; and if we accept the evolution of the soul as a natural truth, then reincarnation becomes a necessity in explaining the known facts of life.

But there are some students of life who appear to refuse the hypothesis of reincarnation while wishing to accept the idea of the evolution of the soul. But how would that be possible? If the soul is evolving it is under the necessity of developing by the laws of growth. They were discussed in Chapter IX.

Those who desire to put their ideas about the soul and its immortality into harmony with the facts of evolution sometimes ask why it would not be possible for the soul to leave the material plane forever at the death of the physical body and then pursue its evolution on higher planes. In the vast universe there must be opportunity for all possible development, it is argued.

But why go on into other regions when the lessons here have not been learned? That would be a violation of nature's law of the conservation of energy. The average human being is in the elementary grades, with scores of incarnations ahead of him before he will be in a position even to take advantage of his opportunities and thus make fairly rapid progress. To talk of going on to higher planes for further evolution is like proposing that a child shall leave the kindergarten and enter the university.

We are evolving along two lines, the mental and moral, and a little consideration of the matter will make clear two important points—that we have much to learn and that the physical plane is wonderfully arranged for our instruction. We have conditions here for developing mentality that do not exist on higher planes. The absolute necessity of procuring food is an example. Death is the penalty for failure to obtain it. Hunger was the earliest spur to action at the lowest level of evolution and even now at our high point of attainment it is one of the chief factors of racial activity. In providing the necessities of life and in gratifying our multitude of desires mentality is developed. Business and professional life rests upon these physical plane necessities and, engaged in solving the problems of civilization, the race evolves intellect. Such problems do not, of course, exist on higher planes.

While the mentality is thus being pushed along in evolution by our material necessities, the heart qualities are developed by the family ties in a way that could not be done elsewhere. In the nature of things the entrance of the soul to the physical plane is attended with helplessness. From the beginning it must have material necessities or die, and yet it can do nothing in its new infant body. Again, as a rule, long before it leaves the physical plane old age has once more rendered it helpless. Thus every human being must depend on the assistance of others at two critical periods of each incarnation. The help it receives, in infancy and old age, it pays back to the race, in the care of both the helpless young and the helpless old, when it is in the vigor of mature physical life. It is obvious that such experience develops the qualities of sympathy and compassion as no phase of business life could. The relationship of parent and child, husband and wife, evolves the heart qualities in a way that would be impossible in the totally different environment of higher planes. Naturally enough, each plane has a specific work to do in the soul's evolution. We can no more learn in the highest planes the lessons the material world is designed to teach us than a pupil can acquire a knowledge of mathematics from his lessons in geography. Hence the necessity for a periodical return to this life until its experiences have developed in us the qualities we lack.

Not only has each plane its special adaptability to particular needs of the soul in its evolution, but the two kinds of physical bodies—masculine and feminine—through which the soul functions, afford special advantages for acquiring the lessons of life. The soul on its home plane is, of course, sexless. Sex, as we know it, is a differentiation arising from the soul's expression on lower planes. All characteristics of the soul itself, like intelligence, love, or devotion, are common to both sexes.

The ego functioning through the masculine body has the opportunity of certain experiences that would be impossible in the feminine body, while, of course, the feminine form enables the ego to get experience that could not be known through the masculine body. A consideration of the widely different experiences of fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, will show how true this is. The lessons obtained in the masculine body are largely those of the head while in the feminine form they are lessons of the heart.

When the ego puts forth its energies and begins descent into lower planes for another incarnation it is apparently beginning a cycle of experience in which either mentality or spirituality shall be the dominant note for that incarnation, and probably for several others. If it is to evolve for the time being through those experiences related to objective activity, with intellect as the guiding factor, the masculine body can best serve the purpose. But if the dominant note is to be spirituality, rather than mentality and the soul is, for the time, moving along the line of the heart side—the subjective, the intuitive—then the feminine body is the better vehicle in which such experience can be obtained. But to say that mentality is the dominant factor of masculine incarnation does not at all mean that men have a monopoly of the reasoning faculty. Nor does the fact that other souls are being expressed through the feminine body mean that they have a fundamental spiritual advantage. Some women are better reasoners than some men, while some men are more spiritual than some women. What it does mean is that a certain ego can express intellect better through a masculine body and intuition better through a feminine body.

Our ordinary language confirms the truth of the statement that men normally express more the head qualities and women more the heart qualities. We speak of men as being reasoners and of women as being intuitional and depending upon their impressions. The soul in the masculine body is for the time being getting experiences of the outer, objective activities. He is the home builder and protector, the bread winner, the battle fighter. The soul in the feminine body is, for the time, getting experience along the line of the inner, subjective life. She is the wife and mother, and her lessons are of the heart rather than the head.

As we study nature we are more and more impressed with her wonderful mechanism for the evolution of the soul. It soon becomes clear to the student that every individual is, in each incarnation, thrown into precisely the circumstances required for the greatest possible progress of that particular ego. If the qualities of initiative and courage, for example, are to be developed, the masculine body admirably serves the purpose, while if sympathy and compassion need stimulation the feminine form is wonderfully effective for that kind of progress. It requires little reasoning to see that the soul would not continue to incarnate in one sex indefinitely. It must develop all its inner qualities. Both intellect and compassion must reach perfect expression. Such a consummation can, of course, be best attained by alternating sex experiences. But here again there is wide latitude in the operation of the law. The rule seems to be that ordinarily there are not less than three nor more than seven successive incarnations in one sex, and then the ego begins to express itself through a body of the other sex. By that rule it would commonly be for a period of from a few hundred years to some thousands of years, that the ego expresses itself through one sex before it changes to the other. One case is mentioned by the occult investigators in which for about thirty thousand years a certain ego had expressed itself only through the masculine form. At least no trace of a feminine incarnation could be found during that time.

The necessity for rebirth becomes clearer and clearer as we study the nature of the human being and the inherent divine qualities he is unfolding. Reincarnation is the method of evolution at the human level. Only by physical plane experience can man's potential powers be aroused and so tremendous is the evolutionary work to be done that only a mere fragment of it can be accomplished in an ordinary lifetime. The absolute necessity of many rebirths is obvious.