REBIRTH AND HEREDITY 123 



of a life to corne has created first the idea of the reincarnation 

 of spiritual forms in material bodily forms, because the mind 

 of man was not sufficiently evolved in the childhood of evolu- 

 tion to comprehend the action of spiritual forces (such as the 

 magnetic and electrical influences) that surrounded, permeated 

 and controlled the world of Matter; hence he could not 

 realise nor understand in his primitive and finite existence 

 such a revelation as that the infinity of God's Trinity sur- 

 rounds, permeates and controls the Universe. Now I am con- 

 vinced that unknown to us, the actions of sidereal disturb- 

 ances, comets, etc., are but means used by the all-wise 

 fatality of God to equalise the distribution of the forces that 

 perpetuate the life and existence of the separate planetary 

 systems by equalizing the distribution of the forces of radio- 

 activity, life and energy, of the laws and forces of which we 

 have a very faint conception or knowledge. Hence, it is not 

 to be wondered that our ancestors having less of this know- 

 ledge, conjured up all sorts of fantastic religious beliefs 

 and conceptions of the revelations of rebirth and immortality 

 which they yearned to comprehend but could not understand. 

 I am confident that all such beliefs, religions, and 

 parables contain grains of truth and have all done much to 

 point man's thoughts to the real truths of nature. But we 

 must turn to Evolution for their interpretation. And it is 

 easy to follow the gradual growth of the knowledge of the 

 consciousness of revelation as it dawns in man's mind as 

 his growing soul slowly influences his mind in its yearning 

 for a soul of wisdom that will enable him to comprehend 

 and understand the immortality of the world God has created 

 for him. Thus in the course of the world's evolution we trace 

 the course of religion from fear, surprise and curiosity in 

 the unknown powers of nature up to the present stages of 

 religious beliefs, then from belief and devotion to a yearning 

 to know more than religion can teach of his infinite being. 

 First, man prays to the most prominent visible forces of 

 nature the sun, moon, stars, air, winds and waters and begs 

 them not to destroy the imperfect works of his mind and of 

 his hands ; then as his fellow-men meet and fight the over- 

 whelming forces of nature through the two hundred and twenty 

 thousand years of the Glacial Period, he begins to acknow- 

 ledge the fact that superior birth and breeding, even if it may 



