216 THE PORTAL OF EVOLUTION 



national community where the wise men, not the fools as is the 



case to-day, preponderate in the management of the state. 



So the life of the body is but an individual leaf of the tree 

 of the family soul, just as the leaf is to the tree or plant, and 

 our lives which are committed to our care to be cultivated and 

 fostered by acts of use and good employment, thus to bring 

 about a more perfect development of more perfect ideals which 

 are to bloom in our children and grandchildren. 



Again, our thoughts are not our own, they can only be the 

 re-incarnation of the thoughts and experiences of our ancestors 

 which we are permitted to reproduce. Like the operator of a 

 magic lantern reproduces upon a sheet the pictures on the slide 

 he inserts in his lantern, so we reproduce in our life as like 

 occasions recall them, a few of the varied pictures of the past 

 knowledge and experience of our ancestors; so in the same 

 manner we are able to recall from the granaries of their past 

 memories, or from the knowledge of the memories and experi- 

 ments of others and of their ancestors by the knowledge we 

 may be able to acquire by the study of the wisdom of past 

 ages. Prior to the printing of books we were entirely depen- 

 dent upon the memories of our family. 



But I also take it that just as in the plant past cultivation 

 decides the vigour of the present growth, so the past good or 

 bad acts of our ancestors decide our capabilities for good or 

 evil, and to some extent what our talents may be ; but as I 

 have already stated, the latter largely depends on the acts of 

 our parents at the time of our conception. Also the circum- 

 stances of the age of evolution in which we live, and the par- 

 ticular circumstances and surroundings of each particular act, 

 and the effect our acts have in regard to our duties to our 

 neighbour decide in God's eyes the amount of our virtues or 

 the enormity of any offence we may commit, and that the 

 right or wrong of our acts is measured by the duties we owe 

 to the family, race or community to which we belong, and 

 amongst whom we live. I am also of opinion that the power of 

 choice or of self-direction of our acts which God permits us 

 are of very limited extent and are confined to our deciding 

 at a few of the most critical moments of our lives the course 

 we shall pursue, except in the merest insignificant details of 

 our actions, but that in accordance with the decisions we 

 make for right or wrong upon these two or three critical 



