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469 beliefs in common, and are differentiated together, by these beliefs, from the commonplace materialistic crowd, as also from the large number of persons who are precluded, by their own ignorance of all but the physical plane, from even comprehending the dogmas of their own religion. ‘There ought to be a better feeling than that which at present exists between the two bodies, and this may spring up by degrees, if misunderstandings are cleared away on both sides. The Theosophist must be very far advanced as an occult student if the experi- ences of spiritualism do not give him abundant food for reflection, and admirable exercises in Theosophical thinking concerning the conditions of human progress after death are to be found in attempts to explain spiritualistic phenomena, as bearing on the life after death, in all their complicated varieties. Meanwhile the spiritualist will be enabled to realise from the explanation I have given as to the origin of modern spiritualism, that true Theosophists cannot look with hostility, or with the contempt they have sometimes been supposed to entertain, on a movement that has been supported by advanced initiates who, in setting it on foot, were undoubtedly actuated by sincere devotion to the spiritual welfare of mankind. 470 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. CHAPTER XVII. INDIVIDUALITY. SOME problems of consciousness that seem at the first glance to lie on the threshold of philosophical inquiry into the nature and destinies of man are so intricate in reality that they can only be considered in the light of extensive knowledge. This is emphatically the case with reference to the state of consciousness we call Individuality. One might suppose it would be reason- able to treat that first in endeavouring to trace the course of human evolution, but the subject cannot be handled without cross references to all phases of evolu- tion. We must keep the manifold planes of Nature in view and lower states of consciousness that do not present the phenomenon of individuality and the system to which we belong as a whole, in the attempt to appreciate correctly the genesis and destinies of individuality. The utter nonsense made of the subject by conventional speculation shows how impossible it is to deal with it intelligently without a tolerably com- plete grasp of Theosophic teaching at large. Simple ignorance of the most primitive type—dis- yuised in scholarship and intoxicated with erudition— is accountable for the notion that the creation of a human soul is a single simple act of Divine Will, accom- INDIVIDUALITY. 471 plishable at any moment when it pleases two already existent human beings to furnish certain conditions. That line of thought does not exalt Divine omnipotence ; it merely excludes all perceptions of Divine methods and exhibits a ludicrously inadequate notion concerning the magnitude of the task under consideration. Higher knowledge shows us that the creation of human souls —the development of individuality in universal con- sciousness—is the purpose of the whole system to which we belong, or one of its great concurrent purposes, and typical of them all. If it was a simple task for Omnipotence, the organisation of systems and chains of planets with all their kingdoms of nature and so forth, would be the most deplorable waste of energy the mind could conceive. Supreme wisdom cannot be wasteful in that manner,—or it would not be supreme wisdom, —so that by the time we acquire knowledge of the way human individuality is tended and-cultivated from its earliest stages of growth, and by the time we come to combine that knowledge with some appreciation of the destinies to which it may ultimately be conducted, we are led to appreciate this idea—that the evolution of an Individuality would be a stupendous task even for Omnipotence. Apparently it can only be accomplished by this tremendously circuitous and elaborate process that we call the descent of spirit into matter,—a process which divides itself into three great stages, the preparation of the material planes, the growth of consciousness thereon into individualisation, and the training of the individu- ality towards the complete realisation of its potential- 472 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. ities,—without which after all it is the mere beginning of an individuality. In some way that it is easier to talk about than to understand, the earliest manifestations of matter repre- sent the consciousness or some part of the consciousness of the spirit by which they have been engendered. But neither in the fluctuating aspects of the elemental kingdoms nor in the condensed manifestations of the mineral world as it emerges from nebulous beginnings do we trace any consciousness of the individualised order. When we advance a step and observe in the beginning of the vegetable kingdom the first pulsations we can recognise as life, we still find spiritual energy vaguely diffused through great orders of manifestation. We may talk now of the monadic essence that animates the vegetable world as something distinct from the monadic essence that animates the mineral creation ; but the development of individuality is still far from having been accomplished. Across immeasurable ages of effort the animal manifestation of spirit emerges from the vegetable; but still the achievement falls short of the object in view. The animal kingdom is an immensely higher form of consciousness than its Immediate predecessor in evolution, but it is still a collective manifestation. Monadic essence is converg- ing towards specific foci, but it has not yet converged. By what process in the beginning of the whole system—in the earliest Manvantaras of its earliest schemes—the concentration of consciousness into single individualities was accomplished, we need not pause to inquire. For the purpose of understanding individu- INDIVIDUALITY. 473 ality it is enough to trace its genesis at such periods of evolution as we can handle in thought more con- veniently than those belonging to the initial periods of Nature’s activity. Slowly, slowly the monadic essence animating the superior subdivisions of the animal kingdom gathers in the experience of consciousness that such life as it inspires can afford. Then at last comes the touch of a more advanced consciousness affecting it in some one of its incarnate manifestations. In plainer language, and looking at the process as it works after the human kingdom has been evolved, an animal on the physical plane of the world becomes personally attached to a superior being—one already an individualised human creature. And to convey the idea first of all in what may be rather its poetical than its scientific presentation—but not the less a truthful presentation on that account—the result of this attach- ment, the result of this first movement within the con- sciousness of the animal of the great love principle in its upward aspiring aspect, focalises the spiritual force within its nature and engenders individuality. From that moment there is a definite something— a film, a centre, a point, call 1t what we like—on the spiritual plane that is a Re-incarnating individuality. It is marvellously, almost inconceivably, faint in its outlines, so to speak, but it is a something that has separated itself from the general volume of monadic essence that inspired the animal when it entered on the critical life. It is an independent spiritual energy. which is now competent in itself to find’ expression in a new physical form. But just because that is so, it 474 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. can no longer find expression in an animal form. By the act of individualisation it has passed into a new kingdom of Nature, and belongs henceforward to the human species. A correct appreciation of this turning point in evolu- tion is not only necessary as a factor in the appreciation of the growth of the soul from the beginning, but is at the same time illuminating in a high degree with refer- ence to all the problems of animal instinct so blindly blundered about as a rule. At any given moment of its life an animal of any given species has as much wisdom and no more than the other animals of its class. The same intelligence, the same soul, so to speak, is behind them all, ‘The experience of all previous animals of that class is equally at the service of each, but there is no other experience available, and the physical brain of no one animal in the series is equal to the task of seeking out new experience differing very widely from that with which it has been used to deal. It assimilates in some measure that which comes in its way, and thus a process of growth is poing on, so to speak, within the common soul of the whole family. The monadic essence is in process of development. A familiar though a painful illustration of this may be found in the well-known fact that in new previously undiscovered countries the animals and birds will, at first, be found to show no timidity in presence of man. But when man, the undeveloped savage man, comes amongst them either with a club or a breechloader, they quickly learn that he is a terrible enemy. It is not merely the unfortunate victims of his ferocity who INDIVIDUALITY. 475 learn this; their conscious soul becomes aware of the fact, and the new apprehension thrills through every one of its subsequent manifestations. We must not make the mistake of thinking of the common soul of an animal family as invested with spiritual wisdom. It represents consciousness on the upward path but at an early stage of its upward growth. It is not greater and wiser than the animals it ensouls ; it is accurately represented by them as regards its mental evolution.