The acid poured freely into a vessel containing a solution of a hundred alkaline bases will with unerring certainty combine with that, and with that only, for which it has the greatest affinity. How much more surely, then, will the soul seek out its strongest affinities at the moment of reincarnation than the so-called unconscious atoms on a plane so far beneath it!

There is no other theory which will account for the infinite variations of character which appear from the very moment of birth. To say nothing of our material environments, to omit all notice of the manifest injustice which SENDS equally helpless souls to rich or poor, to civilized or cannibalistic, to black or white parents, or any of the other infinite variations of merely physical circumstances, we do not start fair in the race from a moral and intellectual standpoint. One child is born with genius, another an idiot - both of parents of about the same mental capacity, it may be. What cause brought about this great and unjust difference, if neither lived before? One infant comes into the world handicapped by a sullen temper and vicious disposition; another, with the most lovable traits. ( If it is claimed, as materialism erroneously asserts, that each inherits its peculiarities from its parents, even then how can reason accept the black injustice which sends one soul to the pure parents, and the other to the impure ones, if neither had had any previous voice in the matter? We must accept reincarnation if we would ever hope to solve the awful inequalities which attend upon birth.

No man could find it in his heart to condemn his child to be born a poor, innocent victim of such fiendish caprices, such an unavoidable life of temptation, suffering, degradation and death, followed by an eternal hell, as birth to vicious, barbarous, or even ignorant parents almost surely presupposes; yet Christians believe this horrible thing of a Jehovah whom they claim to be of infinite compassion and mercy!) It is the logical outcome, however, of a philosophy whose most learned divines calmly discuss with approval such topics as: "The Loving Kindness of God as Evidenced in the Eternal Punishment of Sinners," * and "The Greatness of God as Shown in the SLOW Christianizing the Earth. †

Again, as we have seen, the fact that no two individuals of the entire human race were ever born with the same character, or ever acquired the same, is one of the strongest logical proofs of the truth of reincarnation. Each babe comes into the world with the stamp of its former desires, appetites and experiences indelibly impressed upon it in the form of this individual character. Materialism claims ante-natal influence within the womb as the cause of this infinite divergence in human character; but the proof that this is not so is too abundant. Were there none other, the cases of twin births would suffice; for here the ante-natal influence must be absolutely the same, yet from the hour of birth twin

* Irenics. Jas. Strong, S. T. D., LL. D.

† A paper by a minister in a Christian magazine. Indexed in "The Review of Reviews." infants often show the most marked differences in disposition and character. It is true that most twins, for obvious reasons - chief among which is the affinity which drew both to the same parents at the same time - display marked similarity in mental and physical characteristics; but a working hypothesis must be one which explains all the phenomena, and these occasional divergences completely nullify ante-natal influence as a factor.

The almost infinite differences in human character have a most profound bearing upon any philosophy of life, and can only be explained by admitting the fact of reincarnation; for the character as displayed by babes from the moment of birth, and which throughout life separates each man from all other men, is the sum of the experiences the Ego, or soul, has already undergone and assimilated, and which experiences remain as indelible impressions upon and modifications of the soul's conscious area, and constitute the differences which distinguish it from other souls. Had all souls similar experiences character would be inconceivable, for all would be alike.

Many of the desires and passions which constitute the larger portion of the soul's activities at any given time are necessarily suspended by the change called death, and therefore remain dormant, or latent, until the soul is compelled by its karmic affinities to again seek incarnation, when they become active with the opportunity afforded by a new body. Just as a man's passions are held in abeyance by sleep, to regain all their former activity upon awakening, so all his desires and appetites which are so gross and earthly as to lie below the planes of Devachan * remain inoperative, but by no means destroyed, until he again awakens to earth life in his new dwelling. It is for this reason that "character" is so important an element in reincarnation. It is simply the old affinities man has himself created acting under molecular conditions, determining the kind of body in which he shall find his new habitation, the family, the nation, the race, the social station, the intellectual trend, the predisposition to disease or long life, and every other conceivable limitation in the environment or circumstances of the new life.

All these limitations are effects resulting from causes set in operation in former lives, which causes have, under the law of Karma, or Cause and Effect, delivered his soul,

* DEVACHAN - The subjective cycle intervening between two earth lives. See chapter on "Post - mortem States." a helpless, unconscious captive, to do with whatsoever this Supreme Law shall determine. For during the subjective, or devachanic, interim between earth lives the human will is in complete abeyance. It becomes a potency during earth life because man has acquired self-consciousness in this state - has, under that which Eastern philosophy terms the Great Heresy, separated Ego from Non-Ego, and in consequence of this delusion too often opposes his will to that of nature. Not so, in Devachan. Here only the spiritual will is consciously functioning, and all the unexpended material or sensuous causes generated in past earth lives, and especially in the last of these, exert their full affinities entirely below the present conscious condition of the Ego; and it only awakens from its devachanic existence to find itself in a body, which, under the karmic law of Cause and Effect, is thus, unconsciously to it, predetermined.

During one incarnation the thousands of thoughts, emotions, and mental states included in our every-day life, and constituting that thread or consciousness which materialism insists is all there is at the base of our "I am I," constantly crystallize into habits, desires, and instinctive tendencies to assume certain mental attitudes to the exclusion of others; all of which enters into the composition of our personal character. This latter, in its larger degree, is again crystallizing into our true or individual character, or that of our reincarnating Ego, or soul. The memory of the myriad states of consciousness by which this permanent character is acquired is left behind at each death of the body; but the result, the sum total, is carried over at reincarnation to the new account. The statue preserves no record of the ten thousand strokes of the chisel by which it was chipped into shape, yet the result is none the less beautiful because of this.

Reincarnation, then, affords the key, and the only key, to the mysteries of the inequalities of birth; for the great divergence of character and mental capacity, ranging from genius to idiocy at birth, accounts for the presence of evil in the world, explains "original sin," makes immortality reasonable by extending the existence of the soul to an infinite past as well as to an eternal future. The last point mentioned - existence in both directions - avoids the absurdity of postulating a semp- or half-eternal being - an existence with but one end, which a soul created at birth and having immortality from that point presupposes. A line must have two ends, whether it be physical or spiritual.

Reincarnation, also, is in perfect accord with the scientific conceptions of the persistence of force and the conservation of energy; and shows how a cause, once set in motion, must have its effect; that energies generated in one life cannot be cut short by death, but must find expression in a future one; that the affinity which guides a soul into the most fitting body to express its characteristics is but an exemplification of the law of energy or force taking the direction of the least resistance.

No effort is lost; soul force, like all other forms of force, is ever conserved. The soul which has longed and struggled for a desired result, finding its efforts cut short by death when, perhaps, on the very point of realization, does not lose the fruit of its toil and self-denial. The energy so generated will accompany, guide, and control the next birth so as to continue its expression in one unbroken line. No effort, whether for good or evil, can be without its results. It is a cause, and in the eternal harmony of nature must have its corresponding effect