PRE-EXISTENCE.--It has been taught that the ego, the immortal part, is from God, and at death returns to God who gave it. The eternal existence in the past of spirits, is presupposed, and that they await the development of bodies for them to enter, and earth-life, therefore, to them is a probationary state. The history of this theory is of profound interest, as it is wrought into the tissue of received theology, and its beginning traced to the conjectures of primitive man. It ignores the rule of law, and makes the birth of every child a miracle. The ancient doctrine of re-incarnation, lately revived, meets the same objection. A spirit, perfect in its individuality, through a germ becomes clad in flesh. It does not do this because the mortal state is preferable; for the spirit constantly desires to escape from its thraldom. It is compelled by a direct mandate of God to undergo this metamorphosis as a punishment, and means of atonement. According to this view, the development of man becomes entirely different from that of animals. There is no law, order or unity of organic forms. Creation is an ever-enacting miracle. When this scheme is referred to fixed laws in the spirit realm, the known causes acting in the physical world are but transferred to the spiritual, where they at once pass beyond recognition. It is needless to say that with such speculations, an explanation having any claim to scientific accuracy has nothing in common. ORIGIN OF SPIRIT.--If there is an immortal spirit, whether its duration be eternal or measured by time, as we can not go beyond the realm of law--by which we mean the fixed order of causation--it must date its beginning with that of the body. The history of the development of the germ is a correspondence of that of the spirit. If the parents have immortal spirits as well as mortal bodies, then while their physical bodies support the corporeal being, their spiritual natures must in an equal measure support the spirit of the fetus, and the growth of its dual nature be similar, both receiving nourishment from the mother. The two forms mature together; one pervading and being the exact copy of the other.