Jinarajadasa, C - Theosophy and Modern Thought

7/28/2019 Jinarajadasa, C - Theosophy and Modern Thought

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THEOSOPHYMODERN THOUGHT

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Cornell University LibraryBP 567.J61Theosophy and modern thought; four lectur

3 1924 010 667 941


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^h Cornell Universityf Library

The original of tliis book is intine Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions inthe United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924010667941


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BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR

First Principles of TlieosopliyHow We Remember Our Past LivesThe Nature of MysticismArt and tlie Emotions

Christ and BuddhaIn His NameFlowers and GardensWhat We Shall Teach" I Promise " : Talks to Young DisciplesChrist the Logos

The Message of the FutureThe Lord's WorkThe Faith that is Life


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THEOSOPHYAND

MODERN THOUGHT


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Copyright RegisteredAll Rights Reserved

For permission to translate apply toTHEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING HOUSE

Adyar, Madras, India


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THEOSOPHYAND

MODERN THOUGHT{Four Leeturea delivered at. the Thirty-ninth Annual Conventionof the Theosophical Society, held at Adyar, Madras, December, 1914)

C. JINARAJADASA, M. A.ST. JOHN'S COLL., CAMB.

(^Second Edition), ^

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THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING HOUSEAdyab, Madbav India

T.P.H., London; Bbnarbb; Kbotona, HonTwoob, Cal.Indian Book Dhpot, Bombast, ', r i ,

1081


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CONTENTS* ,Paoe

I. Theosophy and the Problem of Heredity . 1II. History in the Lig[ht of Reincarnation . 57

III. The Basis of Art Expression ... 95IV, The Search for Reality . . .133


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THEOSOPHY AND THE PROBLEMOF HEREDITY

{Sunday, December 27th, 1914)


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THEOSOPHY AND THE PROBLEMOF HEREDITY

Theee is one idea that is woven in with the thoughtof the intelligent people of the world to-day, and it isEvolution. Let us first try to grasp what Evolution is.

If we look at an elephant, a horse, a deer and aboar, we see that they are distinct types of creatures,having very little in common. Yet these, and others,we know are related (Pig. 1). Bones have been dugup of the ancestral forms of these creatures, and by astudy of them we know that long ago they were notso widely different as they are to-day. Zoologiststell us that far back in the Eocene age there existedthe ancestral types out of which they have descendedthese ancestral types (Condylarthra) not only differedless among themselves than do their descendants, butalso there were fewer of them. Out of a few typespossessing many common characteristics, there have


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4 THEOSOPHY AND MODERN THODGHTbeen " evolved " many dissimilar types. Some havedisappeared, and only their fossils remain. But ofthose that remain, how has it happened that a deer

ORIGIN OF SPECIESPRESENT

EOCENE CONOYLARTHRAFig. 1 \_After Goodrich]

and a gira(,fEe, having a common ancestry, shoulddiffer so much to-day ?It is the explanation of how these differences arise

that is the crux of the problem of Heredity. Manytheories have been propounded, and the first to enteron the scene was that of Lamarck, a Frenchman.

Lahabckish

Lamarck's explanation can be summed up in the *word Adaptation. Some antediluvian member of the


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THE PROBLEM OF HEREDITY OCondylarthra found his food at an abnormal heightover his head, and had to stretch it day after dayto^et his dinner ; years so passing, little by little hisneck grew longer. His offspring then inherited theextra length of neck of their parent, and lengthenedtheir necks also, because of the need for them too tostretch out their necks for food ; and so, slowly, theoriginal type differentiated into the new species, theGiraffes. Other Condylarthra developed a tendencyto butting, and the irritated bony part of the headthickened, and, this thickness being transmitted fromparent to offspring, slowly there arose antlers on thehead, and so came the new species, the Deer.Any special adjustment needed in the life of anorganism brought about a modification in its struc-

ture, and this was passed on. Similarly too, by non-use, changes took place, and these also were passedon ; thus the original four-legged land creature whowas chased to the sea-shore and began to adapt itselfto life on the water, slowly lost his legs, and fromhim we have the present whales.

This theory of Lamarck's seemed at first sightmost logical. Use and disuse do make changes.But the question then aroseDoes any adaptationdue to use or disuse pass on to a descendant ? Experi-ments began to be made, and they cut off the tailsof puppies to see if their descendants would be borntail-less ; and it was found that the puppies of the newgeneration had the normal tails. We need but look


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6 THBOSOPHY AND MODERN THOUGHTround us to see that Lamarck's theory is not borneout by fact ; for generations the feet of the high-classChinese women have been mutilated, but whena Chinese girl-baby is born, her feet are like the feetof normal babies. In South America, certain Indiantribes thought it fashionable to have elongated heads,and every baby's head was artificially pressed out intothe required form ; but his children did not inheritthe new shape, and generation after generation themutilation was kept up, without influencing at allthe shape of the babies' heads. Here in SouthIndia, you shave your heads in your peculiar fashion,as your fathers and grandfathers before you ; butI have yet to hear of a boy-baby who was bornwith his head half-bald.Lamarck was right that use and disuse do bring about

modifications, but these are strictly limited in extent.A muscle can be made bigger by use, but beyond acertain point it will not grow. Similarly, withinnarrow limits, changes can be brought about in anymember, up to the " response capacity " innate in theorganism. But this limit is fixed by nature ; we donot add one brain cell to the number we are bornwith, because we go to school or college ; we maymake use of all our brain cells because we prefer tobe intellectual, and others may let most of theirs liefallow because it is their wish not to be learned, butin either case not one cell is added or destroyed. Toeach type of brain nature fixes the number of cells


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THE PEOBLBM OF HEREDITY 7and their capacities, and beyond that limit we can-not go.

So similarly with every organ ; there is a naturallimit to the modifications possible in it by use ordisuse ; the neck of the Condylarthra could be madelonger by effort, perhaps to one hundredth the lengthof the giraffe's neck ; the bone on the head mightthicken a fraction of an inch because of the habit ofbutting, but it could not grow antlers. So Jjamarck'stheory failed to account for the origin of species.

Darwinism

Next there came on the scene an Englishman,Charles Darwin, and his magic formula was NaturalSelection. He laid emphasis on a fact Lamarck hadnoted and brushed aside as of no consequence,because it seemed so insignificant ; but on this insig-nificant thing Darwin based his whole theory. Darwinshowed that in nature there is a tendency to Variation jno two leaves on a branch are the same, for there areminute differences of length and breadth and marking,and so on. No two animals of one litter are the same,we can note a dozen or more points of difference.Now this tendency to variation is a fact in nature,

though why nature should vary at all no scientist hasas yet explained ; but, said Darwin, in variation wehare the clue to the origin of species. When varia-tions arisequite spontaneously, and not due to any


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O THEOSOPHY AND MODEBK THOUGHTLamarckian adaptationit is obvious that some olthem are more helpful for the life of the organism, forany particular environment, than others ; and in thegeneral struggle for existence, only the favourablevariations would survive " by natural selection ". Thesefavourable variations are those which protect theorganism from its natural enemies, help it to gainmore food, and give it more opportunities forpropagation.

Darwin's theory of variation we can understand byglancing at our next chart (Fig. 2). In A, B, andD, we have four leaves which look as though theybelonged to plants of different species ; the only thing

VARIATION

Fia. 2

which they have in common would seem to be thecolour green. Yet they are leaves of four kinds of


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THE PEOBLBM OF HEBEDITY 9Hart's Tongue Fern. The original type is that repre-sented by leaf A ; how did the other types arise ?How, for instance, did leaf B arise from leaf A ?

Darwin's explanation is as follows. Leaves of typeA would continually show slight variations, as tolength and breadth, shape of tip and edge, andso on.Some of these variations would be favourable to aparticular plant, for the environment in which it wascast, and others would not. Suppose then a plantbegan to have leaves with a slight indentation, asin a ; suppose then it found this slight freakishnessmade life easier for itself. According to Darwin,in the given environment, only plants thus varyingwould survive. The evolutionary fitness of thisvariation would permeate the whole plant, and suchseeds as were produced after the variation wasestablished would have then as a hereditary characterthis freakishness of one indentation. Now, when theseeds grow, the one indentation is no more freakishit is the natural thing. But once more nature comesin with variations ; among the leaves from the newseeds there would again be freaks, perhaps with twoindentations as in h, and also variations of otherkinds. Once "again, the environment works on theplant and eliminates all variations except that of twoindentations. The seeds from this generation wouldhave as a hereditary character the quality of makingleaves with two indentations. And so on, generationafter generation, each generation varying, but nature


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10 THKOSOPHT AND MODBRN THOUGHTsteadily selecting out of them only such variationsas add to the original variation and change thespecies in a definite direction. Thus from leaf A wehave leaf B.

Consider now leaf 0, and how it arose. We willsuppose that among the original variations in leafA, there was one with a broad tip, as in c. Theplant with this particular freakishness found that itthrived in its environment, and that the more squatit could make its leaves the better it thrived ; in itsseeds the tendency to be short and round would beimbedded as a hereditary trait. Those seeds wouldgive leaves which were rounder than the leaves of theirparent; and becoming rounder still, as the seasonspassed, slowly, generation after generation, we haveleaves of type C. So too with leaf D ; variationsfrom leaf A, slowly passed on and accumulating,would bring this type also.The principal point in the Darwinian theory is that

once a variation arises which is found useful, it is takenup by nature as the starting-point for developmenttowards the new species ; among the many variations,it alone is the " fittest to survive ". Nature then addsto this variation, and passes on to the seed the originalvariation plus the addition ; the next generation addsyet more, and so on, generation after generation. Theadditions to the original normal character are knownas " acquired characters ". Darwin's theory supposesthat an acquired character is transmitted by the


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THE PROBLEM OF HEREDITY 11parent, who acquired it, to his offspring. On this sup-position Darwin's theory rests. But the later develop-ments in Biology show that it can no longer be held,and that we must seek for the Origin of Specieselsewhere than in Variation, and not in hereditythrough transmission of acquired characters.

Weismann's Theory op the Germ-CellThe dethroning of Darwinism has been largely due

to a German, an Englishman, a Dutchman, a^nd anAustrian. The first to question Darwin's facts was theGerman, August Weismann, who showed that accord-img to all knowledge we have in Biology, thetransmission of acquired characters is impossible. Tounderstand Weismann we must study the life historyof cells, and that is what we have in our next figures.Here is the picture of a typical cell (Fig. 3). It

is a sphere of living matter, and the spherical mass iscalled the cytoplasm(cp), and in this cyto- y^ -S^î/i^^s.plasm there float two / ^'^^T^î-^ \bodies. These are the / n''.^fy^ \nucleus (w), and the f V?$'^*^"Tcentrosome (cs). The \ xî>^ /nucleus is separated \ /from the cytoplasm by \^ .. >/a lining known as the "9*unclear membrane, and Fio. 3


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12 THEOSOPHY AND MODERN THOUGHTwithin the nucleus are found tiny granules of asubstance called chromatin ; the centrosome appearsas a mere speck not far from the nucleus. (Noattempt has been made to draw according to the realproportions, and both the nucleus and the centrosomeare drawn larger than they are in reality within thecell.)

After the cell has come to a certain stage in itsnutrition, it begins the process of duplication. Thefirst stage we have in Fig. 4; the centrosome hasdoubled, the nuclear membrane has disappeared, andthe chromatin has arranged itself into a continuouscoiled thread. At the next stage (Fig. 5), we findthat the two centrosomes have taken up positions as at

Fig. 4 Pio. 5

opposite poles, and that the chromatin coil has brokenup into a number of pieces. These pieces are nowcalled chromosomes, and their number in a celldiffers in various organisms. In the cell of the


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THE PEOBLBM OF HEEKDITT 13Ascaris thread-worm there are 2, or 4 ; that of thegrasshopper has 12; the cells of some sharkshave 16, and there are as many as 168 in the cell ofthe crastacean Artemisia. The human cell is saidto have 16, an honour man shares with the ox, theguinea-pig and the onion. In our figure we havea cell with 8 chromosomes.At the next stage, the chromosomes arrangethemselves roughly in a plane between the two

centrosomes (Fig. 6) ; and now follows a remarkableprocess. Each of the eight chromosomes splitslongitudinally, and duplicates itself, just as oneribbon may be split into two of the same length bycutting it longitudinally (Fig. 7). We have now 16chromosomes ; half of them gather round one

Fig. 6 I'ig. 1centrosome, and the remaining half round the other.Note here that, as the sixteen separate into twogroups of eight, each chromosome round oneoentrosome has its split-ofE twin round the other.


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14 THEOSOPHT ANB MODEEN THOUGHTBy this time the cytoplasm, that is the yolk

material of the cell, has grown in size, and when eachcentrosome has gathered to itself the same number ofchromosomes as the original cell had, that is, eight,there appears a faint boundary in the middle ofthe cytoplasm (Fig. 8), obviously the line of division.

When the finaldivision takesplace, we have twodaughter cellsidentical with theoriginal mothercell, having sharedbetween them allthat was in the

YiG. 8 mother cell.At the last stage, we have a reversion to the first

stage (Fig. 3) ; in each daughter cell the nuclearmembrane has appeared again, and within it thechromosomes have reverted to the state of chromatin.

This process is repeated generation after generation jeach cell divides into two, the two into four, the fourinto eight, and so on. The main thing to note in all thisprocess is that, though new material is being utilisedto build new cells, that material is being built up inthe model of the first cell. There is thus a continuityof structure and function from the first cell of allcreation to the cells in existence to-day.


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THB PKOBLEM OF HBREDITT 15Now we come to a more complicated idea about

cell life. When one organism is to give rise to another,there are two methods that nature adopts. Thesimplest method is that just described, when one cellbecomes two ; this is known as the uni-sexual method,and it is found only in very low organisms like theYeast cell. Bacteria, Amoeba and others. For higherorganisms, nature adopts the bi-sexual method. Inthis process we have a male cell and a female cell,and they " conjugate," that is, unite their materials,to form the new organism.You will remember I pointed out that when a new

cell finally appears to begin its separate life, it has thesame number of chromosomes as its parent cell ; andthis rule holds good whether the method of propagationis uni-sexual or bi-sexual. If the parent cell had 8 chro-mosomes, then by the uni-sexual method I havedescribed, the daughter cell will have the same number.But what will happen when two cells, each having 8,will conjugate in the bi-sexual method to give birth tothe offspring? As they mingle their materials, thenew organism will be a cell with 16 chromosomes andtwo centrosomes ; but when nature determines on onecentrosome and 8 chromosomes for the species shewill have no doubling. Hence she adopts a mostingenious method, and this is to arrange that themarrying cells shall each reduce the number of theirchromosomes by one half, and that the centrosome inthe female cell shall disappear before they conjugate.


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16 THEOSOPHY AKD MODERN THOUGHTHow these reduction processes in the nuclei of themarrying cells take place no one knows ; but by thismethod nature keeps the stability of the new cell,even if the parents who produced it have to undergoreduction.Each marrying cell is called a gamete, and the

offspring is called the zygote. The male gamete ismarked with S , the sign of Mars, and the femalewith 2 , the sign of Venus.

It is these facts that underlie the theory- ofWeismann, which we can understand with the help ofour next chart (Pig. 9). We will take the case of thehuman embryo. As the human cell has 16 chromo-somes, and as the embryo when it starts its life is butone cell made up of the materials contributed by thefather-cell (spermatozoon) and the mother-cell (ovum),it follows that the father-cell, at the time of conjuga-tion, will have only 8 chromosomes, and the mother-cell the same number. The male gamete_ $ with 8 thenconjugates with the female ? with 8, and the resultis the new creature, the zygote with 16 chromosomes.Now we know that, as the embryo develops fromthis zygote, it is by a process of duplication such asI have described in Figures 38. Quickly the newcells are specialised into three main layers known asthe Ectoderm, the Mesoderm and the Entoderm.From these three groups' of cells, known as thesomatic or body cells, all the parts of the new crea-ture are produced.


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THE PROBLEM OF HEEEDITT 17

HEREDITY of GERM CELL

Pig. 9


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18 THEOSOPHY AND MODERN THOUGHTNow it was Weismann's great discovery that the

original zygote, from the commencement of its life,puts aside a part of its material for a special type ofcell known as the germ-cell ; and that when the newindividual comes to maturity, and propagates, it isonly one of these germ-cells that is used for mating.We can follow the process best by looking at thechart.We will suppose that the conjugation of a malegamete and a female gamete has taken place, andthat we have the new entity, the zygote with 16chromosomes. This zygote of 16 (Zj-m) gives offtwo types of cells, the somatic or body cells, and thegerm-cells. They have each of them 16 chromo-somes. The germ-cells are carefully put aside,while the body cells are at once differentiatedinto the Ectoderm cells which give rise to theskin, the hair, the nervous system, the mem-brane of the mouth amd the nose, etc. ; intothe Mesoderm cells which give rise to the muscles,the bones, the connective tissues of the body, etc.and into the Entoderm cells which give rise to thelinings of the trachea and lungs, the cells of the liver,pancreas, thyroid, etc. These body cells then havethe task of building up the organism, and old cellsare broken up and new ones made in the wear andtear of living.What, in the meantime, are the germ-cells doing ?

Practically nothing. The germ-cells are carefully


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THE PROBLEM OF HEREDITY 19pat away in certain protected sexual glands, andremain in abeyance till the time of puberty. Thenthey multiply, but still keep together in their ownplace and do not mingle with the rest of theorganism.What happens when the time comes for conjugation

is here illustrated in our chart. The male zygote(Z,m) has lived to maturity, and built up an organismwith body cells and germ-cells ; similarly a femalezygote (Zjf) has built an individual with Ecto-, Meso-,and Bnto-derm cells, and also germ-cells. The germ-cells of both parents now get ready for propagation,and give ofE some marrying cells or gametes, in whichthe chromosomes are reduced by one half, and thefemale gametes have lost their centrosomes.Then a male gamete, with centrosome and 8

chromosomes ( 3' GA 8), conjugates with a femalegamete, without centrosome but with the same numberof chromosomes ( 2 GrA 8). The resulting zygote, Z^,of the second generation, has one centrosome and 16chromosomes, the proper number foi-'the cells whichit is going to build, according to the usual process ofcell-building, illustrated in Figs. 38.

This new zygote Z, now begins its independentexistence ; it duplicates itself and differentiates itscells into the two main groups, the body cells andthe germ-cells. When the newly built organism isready for propagation, some of its germ-cells undergoreduction and appear as gametes with 8 chromosomes.


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20 THEOSOPHY AND MODERN THOUaHTBut before conjugation can take place, each of thesegametes has to meet with a gamete given off from thegerm-cells of another organism of the opposite sex.When two gametes thus meet and conjugate, we havethe zygote of the third generation, Z, on our chart.You will see that in propagation by this bi-sexual

method, it is only the germ-cells that are called uponto do the work j and they are put apart for thatspecial purpose the moment the organism has comeinto existence as a zygote. The hard work of livingis done by the body cells; it is they who endureheat and cold, hunger and thirst and injury, andhave the wear and tear of the struggle for existenceit is they who become more expert in living bytaking advantage of variations which arise in thestructures they build. Meanwhile, the germ-cells donothing ; they live a pampered existence, carefullyprotected from the rough usage of the world.Now all such experiences as make an organism

" fittest to survive " are experiences of the body cells,which in the skin, and nerves, and the various organs,are affected by changes in food and climate, byaccidents, and so on. Suppose then that these externalconditions have something fundamental to do withthe origin of species ; they must then produce changesin the internal arrangement of the body cells ; butthe body cells cannot pass on these modifications,because they have no part in the propagation of theirspecies. The only way they can affect the next


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THB PEOBLBM OF HEBEDITT 21generation is by influeneing the germ-cells ; but theirconnection with the latter is only through the zygotewhich gave rise to both body cells and germ-cells,and this zygote vanished out of existence in givingrise to them !Now you will see why Darwin's theory of thetransmission of acquired characters breaks down.Any acquired character, arising as it must only in thebody cells, must be passed on first to the germ-cells,if it is to affect the new generation, and by themto the gametes ; but how ? There is no communicationbetween the body cells and the gametes, exceptthrough the original zygote which has vanished. Ofcourse, the body cells may pass on their modificationsto the general fluids which bathe all cells in the body,including the germ-cells. The germ-cells may, inthis indirect fashion, be affected by the acquiredcharacter of the body cells. But this is only a theory,and no facts have been shown to prove the existenceof any link between the body cells and the germ-cells, through the connecting medium of such fluids.You see then that Darwin's idea of how species

arose is no longer tenable in the light of the newfacts of Biology.

Bateson and VakiationsThe next step in ushering in the new theories of

heredity was from William Bateson of Cambridge.


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22 THEOSOPHY AND MODERN THOUGHTIn 1894 he challenged Darwin's conception of theorigin of species in its vital point. According toDarwin, species must arise very slowly ; one or morevariations first arise spontaneously j then nature"selects" one of them as the fittest to survive j thisvariation then is added to, and the addition is passedon to the next generation. It is therefore only by aslow process of additions that the characters whichmark the new species can arise. Nature, saidDarwin, does not make leaps, but creeps along.But Bateson showed, with sufiicient instances in

nature, that species do not vary gradually one fromanother, but by sharp and specific differences. Where-as according to Darwin a chain of intermediate formsmust link by minute and progressive variations onespecies with another, Bateson showed a discontinuitybetween species, and that nature did " leap ".Bateson's argument and challenge was fully borneout by the work of a Dutchman, Hugo De Vries, whoin 1901 presented a new series of facts as to variations.

Mutation

In 1886 De Vries found in a field in Hilversum thata common field flower, the Evening Primrose, gaveoff spontaneously several striking variations. Forbetter observation, he transplanted it to the Bota-nical Gardens in Amsterdam, What happenedwe have described in our next chart (Fig. 10)


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THE PKOBLRM OP HEREDITY 23

MUTATIONEVENING PRIMROSE

RUBICA4.YX

OBLONGAALBIOA

RUBINERVIS

NANELLA

LAEVIFOLIA

LAMARCKIANA

GIGAS

SCINT1LLANS

LATA

BREVISTYLIS

OENOTHERA LAMARCKIANA18 6 6Fig. 10


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24 THBOSOPHT AKD MODERN THOUGHTIn 1887, in its wild state, there appeared twovarieties, one -smooth-leaved, and the other with apeculiarly short style. After transplantation, theoriginal stock and the two new species gave riseto other new forms, in 1889 to a dwarf varietyand one with broad leaves, in 1891 to one withred-veined leaves; in 1895 there were fourvarieties, one of which is a giant form ; in 1907 therewas another new form. All these new forms are truespecies, and are constant ; they are not sports whichappear once, but permanent species that are now beingcultivated. This process De Vries called Mutation.Now there was no struggle for existence, and no

survival of the fittest in a process of elimination ;nature did not bring the new species by accumulationsof small variations. Out of the inner recess of itsbeing, the Evening Primrose prodjices, by " leaps,"many variations ; some are transients, but others aretrue species, and it is noteworthy of these latter thatthey appear as species full-fledged.

It is significant how a new development in scientifictheory often starts from facts one generation ofscientists think as of no value. Lamarck knew ofvariations, but saw nothing in them ; but it was thephenomena of variation, noted by Darwin, that dis-proved Lamarckism. Darwin knew of the facts of these" discontinuous variations " or Mutations; in 1590, inthe garden of an apothecary in Heidelberg, the cat-leaved Celandine arose spontaneously as a new variety,


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THE PEOBLKM OF HEEEDITY 25out of the ordinary plant, the greater Celandine ; and1791 there suddenly arose among a flock of ordinarysheep a new variety that is now known as the Anconsheep. But Darwin saw no significance in these twoisolated facts ; for him, they had nothing to do withthe origin of species. But we now know exactly thecontrary, that the clue we seek is to be found inMutation, and not in the Darwinian variations."The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the

children's teeth are set on edge." This is the trans-mission of acquired characters, and not only has noproof yet been brought that such a thing has actuallyhappened, but we see on the other hand, from the studyof cell life, that such a thing is impossible. The practi-cal consequence of this is, for human heredity, that achild inherits only what his father inherited from hisgrandfather, and his grandfather from the great-grandfather, and so on right up to the first germ-cellof all ; not a single ancestor has added anything byhis experiences and acquirements to the original stockof quality that was in the first germ-cell ; on the otherhand, he has not diminished the original quantity inany way. Out of the common stock passed on fromgeneration to generation, nature " selects," urgedby the environment, this or that quality to make anindividual ; the individual passes to his offspring thatcommon stock, no more and also no less. For eachindividual in each generation, nature goes throughthis process of selection out of the common stock.


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26 THEOSOPHY AND MODERN THOUGHTTherefore a | drunkard's child does not inherit

drunkenness ; what he can inherit is only what hisfather inheriteda malformation or weakness ofstructure that was inherent in the first germ-cell,which now results in a craving for stimulants. So toothe child of a genius will not inherit his father's ac-quirements, for the parent cannot pass on what wasadded by experiment and experience during his life-time to the tendency to genius with which he wasborn. It is quite true that the zygote which producedthe child of the genius will have the original geniustendency of the first germ-cell ; but nature may notselect that tendency to come out in the child, andmay indeed select instead tendencies in the germ-cellwhich make him commonplace or even an idiot.We cannot thus throw on to our parents, as theresults of heredity, the virtues or vices which we havesimilarly we shall not pass onhappily or unhappilyto our descendants what we have gained ofcapacity by labour and experience. Napoleon'sretort " / am an ancestor " to those who twitted himwith lack of noble ancestors acquires a new meaningeach one of us can proudly say, " I am an ancestor ".

So the Darwinian explanation of heredity and ofthe origin of species has gone by the board. As thePresident of the British Association said this year inMelbourne : " We go to Darwin for his incomparablecollection of facts. We would fain emulate hisscholarship, his width and his power of exposition.


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THE PROBLEM OP HEKEDITY 27but to us he speaks no more with philosophic authority.We read his scheme of evolution as we would thoseof Lucretius or of Lamarck, delighting in theirsimplicity and their courage "but not their truth.

Mbndelism

The next to enter on the scene to carry on theevolutionary theory is an Austrian. In 1865, six yearsafter Darwin had published his Origin of Species,Gregor ' Mendel, a Roman Catholic priest of Briinn inAustria, published the results of many experiments inthe crossing of peas ; he sent his paper to the NaturalHistory Society of Briinn, which published it in itsProceedings, and that was all. Mendel died in 1884,and no one knew that he had given the death-blow toDarwinism. Then in 1900, three botanists, De Vriesthe Dutchman, Correns a German, and Tschermakan Austrian, who had all three discovered in theirexperiments certain novel facts in hybridising,simultaneously brought to light Mendel's paper ; theythen knew that what they had discovered Mendelhad not only discovered before them, but had alsoexplained with an illuminating theory. So, afterMendel, we have the new theories of heredity knownas Mendelism.Here is Mendel's Law briefly summarised in thischart (Fig. H), and it illustrates his original experi-ments with peas. There are two varieties of peas,


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28 THBOSOPHT AND MODERN THOUGHTone a tall variety measuring six to seven feet inheight, and a dwarf variety which grows to onlyabout eighteen inches. The difference between themlies in the fact that the internodes or joints betweensuccessive leaves are long in the- tall variety, andshort in the dwarf. These plants produce seed byself-fertilisation ; the male and female gametes areboth found in the same flower, the one in the pollen,and the other in the ovules j the wind and bees andother insects help the male gametes to come in con-tact with the female.Now Mendel crossed these two varieties, mating

the male gametes of one variety with the female ofthe other, and vice versa. When he raised plantsfrom seeds produced by this hybridisation, he foundthat the plants of the new generation were all tall.

Tall >C Dwarf [Parents]

Tails [1st Generation]

The flowers of these tall plants he allowed tofertilise by themselves, and he planted their seeds.Then he found that, in the second generation,there were both tall and dwarf plants ; the tailswere the same height as their tall parents andtall grandparent, and the dwarfs the same height astheir dwarf grandparent ; there were no plants ofintermediate height. Moreover, the remarkablething was that the dwarf plants of this second


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THE PROBLEM OF HEEEDITT 29generation were exactly one-fourth in number of allthe plants of that generation.

[Parents]

[Ist Generation]

J Tails i Dwarfs [2nd Greneration]It is obvious that the first generation tails were not

" pure " tails ; they had dwarfness latent in them, forin the second generation the dwarfness appears againthough they arose from a tall parent and a dwarfparent, the tallness of one parent predominated in theoffspring. Mendel therefore called Tallness dominant,and Dwarfness recessive.

Mendel now planted the self-fertilised seeds fromhis second generation ; he found that the dwarfs pro-duced only dwarfs in the third generation and in allsubsequent generations. But when the seeds fromthe tails grew up, one-third of their number producedtails only in the third generation, while two-thirdsproduced both tails and dwarfs, in equal proportions.

Tails [Ist Generation]

I Talis i Dwarfs [2nd Generation]

i Tailsonly i Tails i Dwarfs

allDwarfs [3rd Generation]


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30 THE080PHY AND MODERN THOUGHTThe plants which produced only one variety, either

tall or dwarf, Mendel called " pure " ; those whichproduced both varieties he called "impure ". Lookingat all the plants of the second generation, we findthat there were ^ pure tails, i pure dwarfs, and 4impure tails (see Fig. 11).

Furthermore, whenever impure tall seeds areplanted, the resulting plants are always found to be Jpure tails, J pure dwarfs, and ^ impure tails.

Impure Tails [Parents]

i Pnre Tails J Impure i Dwarfs [Ist Generation]Tails

This peculiar phenomenon has been tested indozens of different ways, since Mendel's paper wasdiscovered, by the crossing of plants, and also ofanimEbls; why it should be so has been worked outmost carefully by the Mendelian School of biologists,and is now an accepted part of modern science. Inthese pea plants, tallness is a " factor," due to some-thing present in the germrcells of the pure tails ; theabsence of this " factor " in germ-cells of the dwarfsmakes them lack tallness. This is why tallness isdominant, and dwarfness recessive. "When in thereproductive germ-cells the factor and its absencemeet and conjugate, we have this Law of Mendeldominant, J recesi^ve, and ^ dominant with recessivelatent.


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1=^ci5'

ta


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THE PROBLEM OF HEREDITY 31In the peas we dealt with one factor onlytallness.

Now see what happens when two factors appear inthe gametes. Jt has been found by experiment thatwhen hornless cattle are mated with horned, theoffspring are all hornless; hornleasness then is adominant factor, and it is the absence of it that makescattle horned. Similarly it has been found that thecolour black is dominant in cattle to the colour red.When cattle which are both hornless and black aremated with cattle which are both horned and red, theoffspring are both hornless and black (Fig. 12).Both dominant factors appear in the first generation,as we should expect ; but the offspring are " impure ".For when they mate among themselves, the offspringof the second generation are as follows: ^ hornlessand black ; ^^ hornless and red ; ^^^ horned and blackand ^ horned and red.

This is exactly what Mendel's Law states theoreti-cally for two factors : j^ with both dominants, -f^ withone dominant,^ with the other dominant, and^ withboth recessives.

Naturally with each additional factor, the lawbecomes more complicated ; thus when there arethree dominant factors, only 1 in 64 will have allthree recessive characters, and with four dominantfactors only 1 in 256 will have all four recessives.

Since Mendel's paper was discovered in 1900,much work has been done in crossing plants andanfmals ; up to 1913 there have been discovered


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32 THEOSOPHY AND MODEKN THOUGHTthirty-six factors in plants, and twenty-five in animalsamong them are these, the first of each pair beingdominant.

Plants

Tallness or dwarfness (pea).Round seed or wrinkled seed (pea, maize).Long pollen or round pollen (sweet pea).Fertility or sterility of anthers (sweet pea).Beardless or bearded ears (wheat).Susceptibility or immunity to rust (wheat).Prickliness or smoothness of fruit (Datura)." Palm " leaf or " fern " leaf (Primula).Purple flowers or red flowers (sweet pea, stock).Hairiness or smoothness (Lychnis, stock).Also the colours of flowers and seeds.

Animals

" Rose " comb or " single " comb (fowls).Grey coat or black coat (rabbits, mice)Bay coat or chestnut coat (horses).Polled or horned (cattle).Pigmentation or albinism (rabbits, rats, mice).Normal behaviour or waltzing tendency (mice).Broodiness or normal behaviour (hens).Five-banded shell or bandless shell (snails).Also various colour characters in moths, beetles,

snails.


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THE PEqBLEM OF HBEEDITT 33What makes a " factor " is not definitely known ;

it may be, as Bateson suggests, " some phenomenon ofarrangement " of the chromosomes of the germ-cellor a factor may be due to one or more things in indi-vidual chromosomes which influence the chemicalcomposition of the sap and the blood. Thus some-thing is present in the germ-cells of round seed peasand maize which changes the reserve material of theseed into starch as it ripens, and so, on drying, theseed is round ; where this factor is absent the reservematerial remains sugar, and on drying, the seedwrinkles. The wrinkled seed variety is thus a recess-ive variety to the dominant round seed.

Factors are slowly being discovered in man too.Obviously experiments cannot yet be made in matingmen and women to discover factors ; what knowledgethere is about factors in men has been gathered bystudying the physical and mental characteristics ofindividuals, generation after generation. We often notehow a certain character in one parent is passed on to theoffspring, without being modified by the other parent.We say that a child has his father's nose or his mother'seyes. We have in these cases factors. Already weknow that the colouring of the eyes is a Mendelianfactor; eye colour is due to the presence or absenceof a pigment in the iris of the eyes, and when thepigment is absent the eyes are blue, and when presentthey are black, brown, or brown yellow, and greenish.Blue eyes are recessive to pigmented eyes. Other

3


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34 THEOSOPHY AND MODEEK THOUGHTfactors already noted in man are colour-blindness,night-blindness (due to loss of visual purple), two-jointedness in fingers, haemophilia (bleeding sickness),hare-lip, Polydactyly (six fingers or toes), deaf-mutism, and certain diseases like albuminuria andalcaptonuria, which arise from changes in the cells.The way that the deaf-mute factor manifests itself

.we see from this chart (Fig. 13). Here is a pedigreeof certain individuals ; squares are men and circles

HEREDITY IN MANFACTORS: OEAF- MUTISM

axoH

Fig. 13 [After Davenpcn-t]

women, and black signifies an affected individual, adeaf-mute, and white a normal person, not deaf-mute.Here in A we have a normal woman ; but notethat'"her ;brother ,B is a deaf-mute, and so there isa taint of deaf-mutism in her ancestry ; the tainthowever is suppressed in her. She marries C,a' normal man, and her daughter D is normal.This daughter D marries a normal man B,


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THE PEOBMM Of HEREDITY 35and now we find that the original deaf-mute factorfrom her mother's side asserts itself, for half of hersix children are deaf-mutes. One of these deaf-mutedaughters, F, marries a normal man, but of her threechildren two are deaf-mutes ; but a second deaf-mutedaughter Gr marries a deaf-mute, and strange to saythe child is normal. The third deaf-mute daughterH marries twice ; by her first husband who is normal,she has a normal child ; but in her second marriageshe marries a deaf-mute, and all her children, threegirls and one boy, are deaf-mutes. In the case of Gwho married a deaf-mute, the husband was notrelated ; but in the case of H, the husband is a cousin,that is, one who has the taint from the common deaf-mute ancestor. When the two deaf-mute cousinsmarry, we have as it were a double dose of thefactor, and all other inhibiting factors are brushedaside, and deaf-mutism becomes dominant. It isknown by statistics that, when both parents are deaf-mutes, 30 per cent of the children are deaf-mutes, andonly 15 per cent when one parent alone is affected.A more interesting factor in man is colour-blindness.This is a defect of vision of some people who are" red-blind," in which case red appears to them as adark-green or greenish-yellow, or who may be " green-blind," and then they see greeiu as pale-yellow.Colour-blindness is congenital, and is caused by someanknown condition of the retina or nerve centres.A curious fact about this defect is that it is extremely


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36 THEOSOPHT AHD MODERN THOUGHTrare in women, though about four per cent of men aremore or less colour-blind. How colour-blindness istransmitted is seen in this next chart (Fig. 14). Thereare two brothers, one of whom is colour-blind and

HEREDITY IN MANFACTOR: COLOUR-BLINDNESS

UHxODx6 nx6u

Fig. 14 [^After Davenpoi-f]

the other is not. The first marries and has two daugh-ters and a son. None of them are affected. The elderdaughter marries an unaffected husband, and ofher seven children none of the daughters are affected>but three of the four sons are colour-blind. Theyounger daughter marries an unaffected husband andof four children three are boys and they are all colour*blind. If we look at the chart we see that no femaleis colour-blind and only the males of the secondgeneration ; and about these latter we note that thetaint comes through their mothers, who are howeverunaffected. Colour-blindness then is transmitted by


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THS PROBLEM OF HEREDITY 37a man to a grandson through his unaffected daughter,{A colour-blind father will have a colour-blind sononly if his wife has colour-blindness latent in her.)There are one or two other diseases whose

heredity is like that of colour-blindness ; the factoris dormant for a generation, biit it is transmittedby the females of that generation to some of theirmale children.

This peculiar inhibition of a factor because theindividual is female seems to show that sex itself is afactor ; so far as facts have been gathered, femalenessseems to be dominant to maleness ; the presence ofthe factor for femaleness inhibits the manifestation ofthe factors for colour-blindness, haemophilia, andother such factors which affect only males.

In man there seem to be factors for the shape ofhead, nose and mouth, and several factors for thecolour of the eye and for colour and texture of skinand hair ; and so probably there is a factor for everypart of the body. A psychical factor in man has beenestablished in the musical sense or temperament,which seems to exist in all men, ibut does not manifestin most because it is overridden by an unknown in-hibiting factpr J and probably presently we shall findmore factors of a psychical nature like this to help ussolve the riddle of temperaments.

Factors work independently of each other. Thusin man, if both parents have the same factor for eye-csolour, the child is " pure-bred " for that factor, and


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38 THEOSOPHT AND MODEKN THOUGHTwill have eyes like his parents ; but" if one parent, themother in this case, has colour-blindness latent in her,then the son may be colour-blind, -while having thecolour of his parents' eyes. If, however, a father hasbrown eyes, and the mother with colour-blindnesslatent in her has blue eyes, then we shall have bothdominant factors asserting themselves in the colour-blind son, whose eyes will be brown and colour-blind.A man may be pure-bred for one factor, if he derivesit from both parents, and cross-bred if he derives thefactor from only one ; " a man, for example, may bepure-bred in respect of his musical ability and cross-bred in respect of the colour of his eyes or the shapeof his mouth". (Bateson.)

Slowly, steadily, by experiment, factors arebeing discovered in plants, animals, and men. Therevolution that is coming about since the discoveryof factors cannot be better seen than by contrast-ing the Darwinian and the Mendelian theoriesas to the origin of species. Take, as an ex-ample, apples. There are now some 2,000 kinds ofapples, but they have all come from the wild variety,the crab-apple. They differ in size, in colour, intexture of skin, in sweetness, as regards the fruit, andin many ways also as to the tree. Now according toDarwin, the crab-apple tree long ago began to vary,and one variation after another cumulating, therecame as a summing up of all these variationsthe second species of apple ; this species too then


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THE PROBLEM OP HEREDITY 3dvaried, and an accumulation of little variationsbrought additiqpal species ; and so on during thecenturies the existing species have arisen. Butaccording to the Mendelian theory of factors, allthe existing (and future possible) varieties of apple-trees are due to a certain definite number of factorsas to size, colouring, sweetness and so on, which existfrom the beginning in the germ-cells of the crab-apples ; in the course of centuries these factorscombine, and it is their permutations and combinationsthat have given rise to the two thousand odd varietieswhich we have to-day. Natureor the cultivatorshave only combined pre-existing factors j they haveadded nothing to the original wild crab-apple, whichfrom the beginning was like an invisible horticulturalexhibit of all apples that were ever to be.

Similarly, too, in the case of the sun-flower, we cansee the difference of conception between the Dar-winian and Mendelian theories of evolution. As weall know, the sun-flower is yellow ; but occasionally

this flower has varied and shown red markings. Bycareful selection and ci-ossing, one botanist hasproduced a new variety of sun-flower which is red.According to Darwin, the original species is yellow ;but as nature varies, little red markings appear in theflower ; then these I'ed variations slowly accumulategeneration after generation, and presently there is afully red flower. What would have happened in thecourse of decades by natural selection, our botanist


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40 THEOSOPHY AND MODERN THOUGHThas accomplished by artificial selection in a few years.But see how different is the Mendelian explanation ofwhat has happened. The Mendelians hold that theoriginal germ-cell of the sun-flower plant had in ittwo factors, one for yellow flowers and the other forred flowers ; and in this plant yellow is dominant tored. As both red and yellow flowering plants grew,there came by natural hybridising pure yellows(dominant), pure reds (recessive), and impure yellowswhich though yellovv would have the red latent inthem. Now after these distinct varieties had appeared,natural selection began to work, and owing to causesnot known to us the red flower variety disappeared,leaving only the pure yellows and the impure yellows.Our botanist noted impure yellows in the yellowflowers with red markings j he then bred them amongthemselves and, strictly according to Mendel'smethod, extracted the red-flowering variety out ofthe impure yellows, and so gave back to nature aspecies she once had.According to Darwin, species arise by nature add-

ing from outside ; protoplasm becomes the cell, the onepell the multicellular, and these multicellular organismsslowly become complex in structure till we have theladder of evolution. All this change from indefinite-ness to definiteness, simplicity to complexity, chaos toorder, happens because the environment changes andthe demands of nature for keener living are respond-ed to by the organisms by complexity of structure.


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THE PROBLEM OF HEREDITY 41It is simplicity becoming complexity, age by age, andso nature evolves. But the exact reverse of this isthe Mendelian theory ; nature starts complex, andcomplexity is simplified ; factors for all possibilitiesin evolution pre-exist; "Shakespeare once existedas a speck of protoplasm not so big as a smallpin's head " (Bateson). Man*a achievements in artare not due to nature refining herself and to civilisa-tion inventing new faculties of self-expression. Theseart modes existed in the beginning as factors,but are only lately manifesting themselves, because itis only now that certain inhibiting factors, whicTiexisted at the same time, are being eliminated out ofhuman organisms. Each man is a Shakespeare, amusical genius, everything that evolution will evermake out of men ; but every man is not a genius inactuality, because of the existence still in him ofinhibiting factors. We do not need to becomegeniuses by adding faculty to faculty ; the facultiesare there, but unreleased, because of the inhibitingfactors. Bateson in his presidential address at theBritish Association this year proclaims the newconception of man according to the latest facts ofheredity as follows :

" I have confidence that the artistic gifts of man-^kind will prove to be due not to sotnething added tothe make-up of an ordinary man, but to the absence offactors which in the normal person inhibit thedevelopment of these gifts. They are almost beyond


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42 THEOSOPHT AND MODERN THOUGHTdoubt to be looked upon as releases of powersnormally suppressed. The instrument is there, bubit is ' stoppftd down '."You will all see what a revolution is necessary in

our thought if we are to accept the speculations ofthe Mendelians. It means that the possibilities ofevolution were fixed from the beginning, and that thefirst speck of living matter had in it, not as mereessence, but as definite attributes or " factors," allthat evolution has fashioned. No wonder Batesoasays that we must be ready " to reverse our habitualmodes of thought " if, as seems almost certain fromthe facts of Mendelism coming to light, evolution isnot a process as biologists have hitherto thought it,but " the other way about ". Bateson sees clearlywhat such a reversal of thought implies : " At first itmay seem rank absurdity to suppose that theprimordial form or forms of protoplasm could havecontained complexity enough to produce the diversetypes of life." Bat if this sounds like " a largeorder," what other theory is left us ? Only thatnature has added to the constituents of protoplasm.Bat how has this been done ? How did the additionscome into the germ-cells ? As Bateson pertinentlyasks, " But is it easier to imagine that thesepowers could have been conveyed "by extrinsicadditions ? Of what nature could these additionsbe ? Additions of material cannot surelj' be inquestion."


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THE PROBLEM OP HEKEDITY 43So we have the latest theory of evolution, better

justified by facts than any other theory hitherto inmodern science, that nature starts with a host offactors, each factor being composed of a pair, apositive character and its absence. These factorscombine, and some combinations are found usefuland so persist in the struggle for existence, and othersdisappear. The growth from protoplasm to man,and from the savage to the genius, is by a process oflosing inhibiting factors ; and by loss of factorsfaculties are released. Nature is a Prometheus boundin chains, but though bound and helpless he knowsin what way' his release' and victory will finally be,and as time passes he achieves both and stands forthas the God.

These are the Mendelian conclusions and they areindeed most fascinating ; but we need anotherconception of what nature is than what modernscience gives us, to make a reasonable backgroundfor all these theories. It is just this that we have forthe world in Theosophy, and what that theory is weshall now see.

The Hidden Side of Evototion

This process that we call life has two phases, onevisible and the other invisible. On the visible sidewe see the forms around us of minerals, plants, animals,and men. This is the form side of life. On this form


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44 THK080PHT AND MODEKN THOUGHTside there is continually Changea process of build-ing up and breaking down which we call Evolution.But Evolution, as the visible process, is only the lasteffect of a chain of causes which are in the invisibleside of life. This is the life side of evolution, and itis from there that we must look at the outer andvisible process, if we are to understand the meaningof it all.Here in this chart (Fig. 15) we have in a diagram

the main facts. On this lower, the form side, we haveindividuals, and whether they are plants, animals ormen it does not for the moment matter. Theseindividuals are built up of " factors " which are ingerm-cells ; it is the combinations of factors which giverise to variations and mutations and, to what resultsfrom them, relatively permanent species. But thesefactors do not find themselves in germ-cells by a" fortuitous concourse of atoms "; they are implantedin the cells by forces in the life side of evolution.On this invisible life side, there is an indestructible

life in connection with each form ; it is not a vaguetheoretical something, but a force working in invisiblematter, whose effects are as measurable as those ofelectricity. As the electricity of a pocket batterybecomes light when the button is pressed and contactmade, but when the button is released and contactbroken, though the light goes out, the electricityremains, so is it with the life force energising invisiblematter. When it makes contact with a visible


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THB PKOBLBM OF HEREDITY

ORIGIN OF SPECIESARCHETYPESA\

PARTICULAR TYPES REQUIRED

45

DEVA BUILDERS

Fia. 15


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40 THEOSOPHT AND MODERN THOUGHTindividual made up of factors, we say that individual" lives " ; but when contact is broken, the individualasform " dies," and is mere inert mass ; but as life hepersists, for that life has only withdrawn into itsabode in invisible matter.Each type of life has its own invisible encasement.We call it " the group-soul ". To each river and

stream and rivulet of life there is its appropriategroup-sonl ; in plant and animal life we have group-souls divisible into phyla, classes, orders, families,genera, species and even smaller units. Bach unitgroup-soul has contact with the individuals of itsgroup ; through the life they live in a struggle forexistence, it slowly unfolds its latent possibilities ofevolution. It makes contact with them and they"live"; it breaks contact and they"" die"; but itremains ever life, slowly releasing through eachcontact something of its imprisoned possibilities.Man differs from animals and plants, in that

he does not belong to a group-soul which heshares with several fellow men ; each man is as itwere a group-soul by himself, and we call it simplythe Soul. While the soul makes contact with the body,the man " lives " ; at the breaking of contact the man" dies ". But whether the body is living or dead, theSoul, the true Man, lives in his invisible encasement.He " lives " to our eyes only to release by experimentand experience the hidden possibilities of hisSpirit.


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THl PROBLEM OW HBEEDITY 47This release of the possibilities of life and growth is

not a mechanical happening ; it is guided by Intelli-gences. These we call the Deva Builders. They areas the celestial horticulturists in a Divine Gardenthey have in their charge the evolution of the formside of things, and they bring it about by producingchanges from the life side in each group-soul.

These Deva Builders work according to a plan ; theyhave before them models, according to which they areto fashion the forms in the visible world. Thesemodels are called " archetypes " ; they are theThoughts of God Himself as He determines the essen-tial natures and structures of the forms to be. Thearchetypes are then worked out into particular typesby the Deva Builders.

Thus, as an example, from the beginning thereexists the archetype of the horse thought out byGod ; it is that essential life and structure of allthe perfect horses that have been or shall be. Ourminds cannot see the archetype, except when it isreflected here and there in a particular horse whichwe consider beautiful for this or that quality. Havingthe archetype before them, the Deva Builders withtheir intelligence particularise it into the variousspecies 'which are to arise, in order to release in thehorse group-soul its latent possibilities.To each unit group-soul there are predetermined

factors, similar to the axes of structure and growthIB atoms and crystals ; they are like the tattvcis and


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48 THEOSOPHY AND MODERN THOUGHTtanmatras which Indian philosophies proclaim to bethe groundwork of all forms. We need not for themoment consider the appearance of these factors inthe group-soul ; long ages of evolution as minerallife, and before that in invisible forms of matter, havereleased them from latency, and their factorial natureshave been settled in the group-soul by the DevaBuilders, according to the needs of building particulartypes which are to reflect an archetype. The factorsin the group-soul affect the material of the germ-cells,and make those physical factors which are beingdiscovered in Mendel ism.We can now follow the occult conception of theorigin of species. Let us imagine that long ago therewas born a Oondylarthron, that ancestral creaturewho was neither horse, elephant, ox or deer, buthad the making of all (Fig. 1). An individualOondylarthron has in his germ-cells many factors,and on the form side he seems a thing apart from therest of creation. But in reality he is like a tentacleof the group-soul; his position to the group-soul isnot dissimilar to that one-eighth of an iceberg whichis visible above the water, yet whose individuality tous as an iceberg depends on the position of the seven-eighths which is unseen below the water.Now we will suppose that a (Pig. 15) has five off-

spring, b, c, d, e,f. As these five were fashion'ed out ofthe male and female gametes of their parents, eachzygote became a tentacle of the group-soul, and life


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THE PROBLEM OF HEEEDITT 49was poured into each, so that the zygote grew fromone cell to many. All the time the group-soul is beinginfluenced by the Deva Builders, who are attemptingnew combinations of factors, in order that Oon-dylarthra might vary in the direction of the particulartype before them. We will suppose that a DevaBuilder desires to bring about the horse.As b, c, d, e,/ are being built, from the group-soulbehind there is a pressure on their germ-cell factors ;

the factors are re-grouped and there arise as a resultvariations. The five offspring will then tend to varyfrom their parents. Natural selection now works,because the Deva Builder cannot control all naturein its larger aspect, with its winds and weathers andcataclysms, and the struggle for existence due toenemy creatures and the insufficiency of food. Hefinds that b, d, and e die out in the struggle, but c and/ live and mate with other Condylarthra, and eachhas progeny.

Evidently the factorial combinations in c and / areso far successful towards bringing about the horse.As next g, h, i, and/ are born, the Deva Builder repeatsthe variations found successful in c and /, andhe produces yet more variations by working upon thegroup-soul which energises the new zygotes g, h, i,and j. Again natural selection works, and h and jdie out.Now b, d, and e, of the first generation that died

have ceased to be as forms, but as life they have4


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50 THE080PHT AND MODERN THOUGHTreturned to the group-soul with, their experiences.Similarly too, h and j return to the group-soul, butthey carry back as their experience the uselessness ofvarying away from c and/, in the direction of h andj\When we come to the next generation, g has k,

and i has Z, but k dies. By the time I has progeny, thelife of the creatures b, d, and e is ready to reincarnate,and will appear in the forms m, n, o. But as theyappear, they will bring back withthem as an " acquire-ment " the habit of varying in the direction of c and i.We need not carry on our picture further till thehorse appears on the scene. It is the Deva Builderswho originate variations ; those they find useful fortheir purpose they vary yet again by new factorialchanges, till slowly there is built a habit in the group-soul, and through it in the germ-cells, of combiningfactors in a certain new way. The elimination ofinhibiting factors, and the release of potentialities, areguided by these invisible Mendelian experimenters*who have a model before them of what they mean tobring about in the course of ages. There iscompetition among the Builders of the various speciesand types, as if each Builder desired the world tobe populated by his type alone, and he is lavish inthe propagation of his species ; but the competition isnot of hostile rivals but of co-workers in a divinescheme, who know that, since death is only resur-rection. He who made all is careful not only of thetype but of the individual life too.


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THE PEOBLIM OF HHEEDITY 51Now we come to that part of tbe problem of

evolution which specially affects ua, and that is thelaw of heredity for man. We have its explanation inthis last chart (Fig. 16). Once more the problemresolves itself into happenings in two worlds, the seenand the unseen. On the seen, the form side, wo haveman as a body, and that body has been fashioned byfactors. But these factors are helpful to some andare handicaps to others ; one man is born with asplendid physique, while another has night-blindnessor haemophilia as 'his share ; one may be musical, andanother deaf and dumb. In a family with the factorfor colour-blindness (Fig. 14), we have one son normalbut three are affected ; why are three handicappedthus, but not the fourth ?We must turn to the life side to understand theriddle of man's destiny. Three elements there comeinto play. Of these the first is .that the man is anEgo, an imperishable circle in the sphere of Divinity ;" long, long ago, indeed, he had his birth, he verily isnow within the germ ". He has lived on earth inmany a past life, and there thought and felt andacted both good and evil ; he has set in motion forcesthat help or hinder both himself and others. He isbound, and not free. But he lives on from age to ageto achieve an ideal, which is his Archetype. Justas for plant and animal life there are archetypesof the forms, so are there archetypes for the soulsof men. One shall be a great saint of compassion.


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52 THE080PHT AND MODBRN THOUGHT

HEREDITY IN MANLAW OF KARMA

FACTORS

flCo

'^NERVES'VIRILITYMUSICAL EAR

MATHEMATICAL BRAINPSYCHIC TEMPERAMENTi.DISABLING-FACTORS.ETC.

Fig. 16


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THE PBOELEH OF HBBEDITT 53another a teacher of truth, a third a ruler of menartist and scientist, doer and dreamer, each has setbefore him his Archetype, that Thought of GodHimself of what each man shall be in the perfec-tion of his God-given temperament. And each egoachieves his archetype by finding his work. For thisit is that we as egos come into incarnationtodiscover our work, and to release the hidden powerswithin us, by battling with circumstance as we achieveour work.But to do our work we must have a body of flesh

and the help or the handicap the body is to our workdepends on the factors of which it is made. Here oncemore there is no fortuitous concourse of factorsDeva Builders come to help man with his destiny.These are the Lords of Karma, those invisibleIntelligences who administer the great Law of Bight-eousness which establishes that as a man soweth soshall he reap ; they select, from the factors providedby the parents, those that are most serviceable to theego for the lesson he has to learn, and for the work hehas to do, in that particular body which Karmaallots to him.The Lords of Karma neither punish nor reward

they but adjust the forces of a man's past, sothat those forces in their new groupings shall helpthe man one step nearer his archetype. What-ever the Lords give to a man, joy or sorrow,opportunity or disaster, they keep one thing in mind.


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54 THEOSOPHY AKD MODERN THOUGHTthat man's purpose in life at his present stage isneither to be happy nor miserable, bat to achieve hisarchetype. There is later on untold bliss for him inaction, when he is the archetype in realisation ; buttill that day, it is their duty to press him on fromone experience to another.

After the zygote is made, the Lords of Karmaselect the factors, since as yet the ego cannot do sohimself ; if the next stage in evolution for him isby developing some particular giftas, for instance,that of musicthen they select for him the appro-priate factors ; the musician will need an abnormally,sensitive nervous system and a special development ofthe cells of the ear, and the Lords will pick out thesefactors as the embryo is fashioned. If at the same timethe man's inner strength is to be roused by a handicap,or his nature to be purified by suffering, then anappropriate factor will also appear, some factor per-haps like that which brings about lack of virility or ofresistance to disease. If on the other hand the ego,already a mathematician, is in this life to be a mathe-matical genius, then those factors in the zygote whichbuild the mathematical brain will be brought out, as thezygote grows to be the embryo. Whatever is the workfor the ego, for that the appropriate factors are selectedby the Lords ; virility for the pioneer in new lands,the psychic temperament for .him who can help bycommuning with the invisible, a disabling factor forone who shall grow through suffering, and so on


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THE PROBLEM OF HEREDITY 55factor by factor, the Lords distribute the karma ofmen. With infinite compassion and with infinitewisdom, but swerving not one hair's breadth fromjustice, they build for one soul a body suited forgenius, and for another a body that is like a log ; it isnot theirs to make the man happy or discontented, goodor evil ; their one duty is to guide the man one stepnearer his archetype. Helps and handicaps, joysand pains, opportunities or privations, are thebricks of the ego's own making for his temporaryhabitation ; the Lords of Karma add nothing and takenothing away ; they but adjust the forces of the soul'smaking so that his ultimate destiny, his archetype,shall be achieved as swiftly as may be, as he treadsthe round of births and deaths.We are now at the end of our survey of the pro-blem of heredity ; you see then what Theosophy says.One with science so far as facts are concerned, shediffers from the scientist when he deduces from thema materialistic or mechanical conception of nature.We men and women are not the bubbles on thesurface of a life's sea ; we are children of God andangels in the making, and life is our factory whereindeed we learn to work with factors to realise ourarchetypes. Within us is the Light of the World,but it is now covered over by our ignorance anddelusion, or only partly revealed. There is not oneof us but is a genius unreleased ; and though it takeages before one inhibiting factor after another is


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56 THEOSOPHT AND MODERN THOUGHTremoved, yet " the more the marble wastes the morethe statue grows," and at the end of the ages weshall all stand forth visibly as what we invisiblyalways were, sons of God and partakers of His Glory.

This then is the message concerning Heredity thatTheosophy has for the World, and it is a message ofhope, peace and power.


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II

HISTORY IN THE LIGHTOF REINCARNATION{Monday, December S8th, 1914)


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HISTORY IN THE LIGHTOF REINCARNATION

Who is there among you that as a child did not loveto hear stories ? " Once upon a time " has a mys-terious charm to which happily some of us are stillsusceptible. To love stories is an instinct withchildren ; their world is so near fairyland in itsvalues that a fairy story is the most natural story ofall. After fairy-tales there came next stories ofpiracy, shipwreck, exploration and deeds of derring-do ; it was only later, as we grew up and " shades ofthe prison-house " began to close upon us, that welost the sense of wonder and wanted facts in theirnakedness.

It is this instinct of loving tales that makes historypossible, for what is history but the tale of nations ?It is only to a few that history is philosophy, teachingby examples ; to most, history is the drama of life,to laugh at, sympathise with, and weep for. Yetas civilisation advances, the study of history becomesone of the rudiments of culture. For a cultured man isto some extent one with the past as he is one with a


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60 THEOSOPHY AND MODEBN THOUGHTfuture ; it is history as a science which enables him tofind a part of himself in a past that belongs to others.Hitherto the study of history has been largely aconsideration of the clash of national ideals ; Greecedefeats Persia at Marathon and a new age is bornthe Armada is a failure, but success is assured forliberal thought. All such attempts to understandhistory are instructive to the mind, but they havenothing inspiring to the soul ; a record of plots andcounter-plots, battles and massacres, leaves principallybut one impression, that the march of civilisation isas the pessimist sees it,

"Ks all a Chequer-board of Nights and DaysWhere Destiny with Men for Pieces plays :Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays.And one by one back in the Closet lays.

There is a new way of approaching history, andit is that which I shall outline to you this morning ; itresults from applying the facts of Theosophy to theworld at large. You know that to us man is a soul,and treads the roiind of births and deaths in aprocess of reincarnation ; he comes into life to learna lesson, and departs from life when sufficient islearned for his brief day ; life after life he reincar-nates, now in this nation and now in that, to perfecthimself by gaining experience through experiment.From this fundamental fact of life, there are twogreat principles which we must keep in mind as weBtudy history.


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histoet and reincarnation 61Occult Principles in History

The first principle is that a nation comes intobeing, and continues to exist, solely for the pur-pose of giving particular experiences to the soulswho are going to be born in it; they come to itto be taught to do a work. The value of a nationin the larger economy of things lies in how far itsucceeds in teaching its egos their work. Hence itfollows that the length of a nation's life depends onthe work it is meant to do ; ten thousand or moreyears for Egypt, and ten centuries for Greece, do notresult from chance or from economic conditions;when the given number of egos have learned theirlesson and done their work, both Egypt and Greececome to an end, but not till then.The second principle is that nations are guided in

their destinies by superhuman agencies. All nationsare indeed pieces on a Chequer-board, but the boardis not that of a blind destiny, but of an inspiringscheme of evolution. There is indeed a Player of theGame, but when a piece disappears from the board.He does not " back in the closet " for ever lay.A.S men die, they return to birth ; as nationspass away, they reincarnate ages later in other partsof the earth. Just as an individual makes his destinyby his thought, desire and act, so does a nation ; thelaw of sowing and reaping controls a nation's destinyas it does a man's. Sacrifices or unrighteousnesses,


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62 THEOSOPHY AND MODERN THOUGHTidealism or greed, are the material which nations giveHim for His toil ; the Player of the Game adjusts theforces of a nation's making, guiding it to carry outHis plan of evolution. Behind all, there is His ironWill that may not be gainsaid ; He metes out victoryor defeat, opportunities or burdens; tempests andearthquakes, plagues and visitations, are the slaveswho do His bidding. But whether He gives life andlove, or death and destruction. He sheds blessingon all, as He teaches all to serve His purpose.With these two principles to guide us, let us survey

the world. We will not go into the far past ofAtlantis or Chaldea or Assyria; there are not enoughhistorical facts about them as yet, and moreover, in anhour's lecture, I can bring out only the main ideas.So we will first consider India.

India.

For ten thousand years at least India has beenpractically the same; from the Himalayas to CapeComorin, one elemerifc has predominated in the life ofIndian peoples. This is an other-worldliness, asubjective life of introspection, an attempt to graspan inner unchangeable reality in contrast to theillusory changing world of outer circumstance ; andthis element has persisted in spite of political andeconomic changes. Before the Aryans came it washere; conqueror after conqueror swept the land, but


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HISTORY AND EEINCARNATION 63the life remained still the same. The Aryans broughtnew gods, and became the rulers ; the new gods wereadded to the old, but the old search for the One Godamong the many still went on undisturbed. Alexandercame in 327 b.c. ; the Sakas and Sungas after ; theMnhammadans began their rule in 977 ; the Portuguesecame in 1501 and brought Christianity, and the Dutchin 1664. The first English merchants settled i.n Suratin 1608, and slowly English dominion began. In1742 the French entered upon their schemes to possessIndia, but their rule has disappeared, except inPondicherry and Chandernagore, which are still theirs.Invader after invader established himself in India,but India did not change. Why is there this pheno-menon here ?

Because for all these thousands of years thesubjective standpoint to life has been necessary, as atraining school for souls. Millions of souls have beentaaght in this special school, before they went to bereborn in other nations ; some there are among themwho still retain the bent which India gave their minds.In such philosophers as Kant and Fichte, Hegel andSchopenhauer, we see ancient Indian philosophersreborn.

Other nations have other lessons to teach ; but India' has been specialised to teach one particular lesson,and she has persisted in her cultural integrity,because that lesson is still needed in the great worldschool.


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64 THIOSOPHY AND MODERN THOUGHTIndia has persisted for another reason also ; it is

because from of old her destiny was fixed to go hand inhand with England. The English came in 1608; fromthen, piece by piece, India has been annexed, till now itis a part of the British Empire. But the English didnot " come " ; they were brought by the guidingIntelligences who carry out the Great Plan. WhatIndia has gained or lost from her connection withEngland all of you well know ; but both the gain andthe loss are seen in a new aspect, when we considerwhat India has yet to give to England. Thatis exactly what England needs if the Empire is touphold a civilisation which shall last for thousands ofyears, and not pass away after a few centuries, as didthe Empire of Rome.The element that England needs is what India, and

India alone, can givea truer set of values to allcommercial and political activities than Englandpossesses to-day. The Boman Empire soon wentdown, because of just those characteristics ofplutocracy and pride which England has beenshowing since her great commercial expansion ; Romehad no spiritualising India to offset the luxury andmaterialism of Imperial Rome. Christianity was sent,not for Rome, but for the peoples who followed after.England will go Rome's way, for the same elementsare there ; but England has an opportunity Rome didnot have, and that is to get her temperament made moreintuitive and broader-based by Indian spirituality.


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HISTORY AND REINCARNATION 65Because it is a move on the great Chequer-bOard,that there shall last for thousands of years a civi>lisation characteristic of the best of England and ofIndia, for millions of souls to profit therefrom, slowlyIndia and England are being forced to come nearerday by day.At first sight, there could be no two peoples more

diametrically opposed ; but if you will look deeper,you will find that among Indians the insularity andrace-pride which are characteristic of the British arehere in essence though in Indian garb. But thevirtues of the two peoples are complementary, andhence the practicability of bringing them togetherfor a common world work. It is because of this work,which India is yet to do for humanity, that she haslived through the ages, retaining her cultural inte-grity, and waiting her Day.

Ceylon

Let me illustrate by another instance the hiddendrama of nations. Six centuries before Christ, aturbulent Indian princeling of Central Bengal wasexiled by his parents, and sent out of India with hisdisreputable companions to make his fortune. FromBroach in Western India, they sailed down the coast,and finally landed in Ceylon on the day the LordBuddha passed away in North India. A merecoincidence, says the modem historian; yet the

.5


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66 THEOSOPHY AND MODBKN THOUGHTSinhalese historians of Ceylon have for centuriesconsidered it no coincidence at all, but somehow a partof a plan for the welfare of the world. What couldthis plan have been ? To discover that, see what hashappened to Buddhism ; it passed practically awayfrom India, first to the south to Ceylon, when in thethird century B. c. Asoka sent his son and daughteras missionaries to the descendants of this PrinceWijeya who landed in the island the day the Buddhapassed away; and secondly to Tibet, China andJapan by way of Nepal. Now it is from Ceylon thatwe get the Buddhist scriptures in their originalPali tongue ; it disappeared elsewhere in India. Inspite of revolutions and invasions, the people of thelittle island never forgot the custody of the treasuresent to them. Ages pass, and the Portuguese possessthe Island, and then the Dutch, and finally theEnglish. With the coming of the English, theBuddhist scriptures are taken to the West, and theretransliterated, and translated year by year. Thelittle nation has lost its national existence, but ithas retained the gift sent to it, the Wisdom of theBuddha, which now is the whole world's possession.All this, I say, was planned long agothat an Indianadventurer should found a little nation in order that,twenty-five centuries later, his descendants mighthand over to a conqueror from the West the Law ofRighteousness which was sent for its help, and forthe welfare of the world.


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history and eeincaenation 67Geeece

Consider next the position of Greece. The Greekswere a mere handful of people, and they flourished onlya few centuries, but they left behind them an imperish-able tradition. Within a century and a half,practically with nothing before them, they createdmodels in poetry, drama, rhetoric, politics, sculpture,architecture and painting. Even in philosophy theyare original, and owe nothing to India or Egypt. Whydid Greece appear as an exquisite flower in a briefspring ? Why have not other nations flowered withlike beauty ?

Greece was made to be what it was by bringingout of many nations such souls as were ready tousher in the age of Art. A new message was to begiven to humanity, of the synthetic power of theintuition ; the subtle influences of sea and land andsun were utilised to develop the Celtic temperament ofthe Greeks to a high pitch of sensitiveness tothought and emotion. The unseen Guides, the patron" Gods " of many a Greek town and temple, workingunder the Supreme Teacher, cultivated their charges,till the Periclean age was about to dawn. Then wehave the miracle, the sudden efflorescence of Art. Butthis was only possible because of the unseen work ofOne,whobrought down from the DivineMind the arche-types of forms, and inspired the human creators tofashion those works of art which are our models to-day.


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68 THEOSOPHY AND MODBEN THOUGHTWhen that work was doneit took barely a

hundred and fifty yearsthe " glory that was Greece "was over, and she ceased to be a creator, and merelylived on a tradition, till she passed away. But sheleft behind her the message of the Beautiful.The souls who united in a common work in Greece

scattered, and they have since gone forth into manynations. Her sculptors and painters reincarnated inthe Middle Ages in Italy, as the great masters ofpainting; her architects appeared asthegreat cathedralbuilders of Prance, Germany and Italy. A fewof her dramatists were the Elizabethan dramatistsof England ; and in many countries of Europe, thesouls who co-operated in the Renaissance were mainlyegos from Greece. Frequently individual Greeksstill appear in the nations, and their temperament isunmistakable. Goethe, Schiller and Lessing in Ger-many, and Byron, Keats, and Shelley in England,are typical of these returned Greeks. But there isno reincarnation of the Periolean Greeks as a body,making a separate nation ; Greece was as a forcing-house, and .her brilliant egos were selected out of allnations, and were returned to their normal homes, toarry back with them the leaven which Greece gave.

RomeWhen we come to Rome, once again we can see the

liidden meaning in the drama of nations. Except in


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HISTORY AND REINCARNATION 69law, she contributed little to the intellectual advance-ment of the world ; but she served the great worldpurpose in another way, by being the mistress ofnations. It was the temperament of

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