204 THE PORTAL OF EVOLUTION 



not loss of life, so in such cases these transmogrifications are 

 not absolutely a birth and death but rather a rebirth of fresh 

 visible re-appearance of one continuous recurring life. So our 

 use of the words life and death is erroneous, for the death of 

 our body is only the changing of the dress or habiliment when 

 our soul puts on a new suit of clothes as the last suit becomes 

 worn out. 



It is only when the seed germinates under conditions of 

 poor soil or unfit temperature that prevent it from growing 

 and becoming a plant that death really takes place, and once 

 you destroy life or vitality it is impossible to re-create it, either 

 in plant, body or soul. So when we, by neglected opportuni- 

 ties or by repeated crimes, become cursed to the extent that our 

 family or a branch of our family dies out because they have be- 

 come useless to their fellow-men, it is only then that death 

 really takes place or that it can be said that our soul dies and 

 we are damned for all eternity, so that our life no longer exists. 

 So likewise in the mind and life of animals and men, under 

 adverse circumstances or by neglect of opportunities and 

 abuses of their constitution or mental qualities, they destroy 

 their power of the re-creation of vitality or of breeding mental 

 wisdom, and thereby bring down the extinction and deteriora- 

 tion of the race or species. This alone is death. 



It is therefore only logical to conclude that mind and soul 

 are evolved on the same lines as animals and plants and that 

 the loss of the life of the soul does not take place at the death 

 of the individual but only upon the extinction of the family or 

 race represented by any such individual existence or combina- 

 tion of like family existences we call species or races or fami- 

 lies, and that such extinction is the damnation of such soul 

 or souls which by abuse or want of energy lose all chance or 

 claim to the powers of re-creation. Now when we find that 

 trees are becoming diseased or deteriorated, we prune the limbs 

 or pull off the faded and dead leaves, or winnow out the weak 

 and under-grown seeds from the strong and healthy ones. So 

 it appears to me that God weeds the bad souls from the good 

 as he finds their crimes are no longer of use to the evolution 

 of the virtues of their fellow-men, and permits their crimes so 

 long as they act as an incentive to the virtues of others. It 

 also appears to my mind that the soul of the father blooms 

 afresh in the souls of the children, weeded and pruned by the 



