Into the processes of generation and birth there enter many different factors, each of which calls for study, if we would know the truth and arrive at safe and practical conclusions. Even plants and animals have what may be called _vital souls_ or _monads_, which, working behind physical matter, cause it to grow and develop. In the case of man there is still more, for such a process would produce merely an idiot. There is the human Soul, and this has its own character and destiny--its Karma--brought from its previous lives. This Karma is a potent determining influence in heredity, and it operates much more powerfully in some individuals than in others, this depending upon the stage of development which the particular Soul has reached. The principle of heredity, as defined by most biologists, is incomplete and needs the Theosophical teachings to complete it. It is often wrongly supposed to conflict with the Theosophical teachings, but so far as it conforms to facts it cannot do this. Theosophists may find themselves unable to accept all the speculations of biologists, but they can never have any quarrel with the facts. In biological and anthropological works, in quasi-scientific or quasi-sociologic novels by immature and frequently morbid thinkers, and to some extent even in stage plays, we see the speculations of theorists brought forward as the basis for proposed social polities; and bad indeed would be our case should such experimenters ever attain the influence they covet. Frightful doctrines regarding marriage and parentage, inhuman suggestions as to the treatment of malefactors and weaklings, and other horrors, now growing familiar, will readily suggest themselves to the reader. And as these signs spring from a misuse of science, which science itself seems unable to prevent; while no religious organization seems competent to deal with the problem; the importance of teachings which really can tell us something about our own nature is evident. But it is not of new dogmas that we speak; the teachings referred to are of the nature of demonstrations. When anyone is _shown_ something which he did not before perceive, and recognizes it for a truth, and makes effectual use of it, then he is satisfied and needs not inquire into its authenticity. The purpose of Theosophy is to _demonstrate_ the laws of human nature and nature in general. Its appeal is to the understanding. INCORRODIBLE BRONZE: by Travers