REBIRTH: ITS NECESSITY
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.