KARMA, REINCARNATION, AND IMMORTALITY: by H. T. Edge, B. A. (Cantab.) People habitually discuss the past and the future of the human race with a zeal and interest that clashes strangely with their professed views on the subject of immortality; for what living interest could we have in the drama and prospects of a world if our appearance on the stage were actually limited to the term of a single mortal life? This constitutes the strongest kind of argument against the conventional views, theological or otherwise. It would seem that we are really conscious, though in a dim and undefined way, of our immortality--or, rather, of the immortality of our essence. The same conviction also arises when we consider the readiness with which people will face death, sooner than sacrifice some ideal of love or duty; a readiness quite inconsistent with professed beliefs. While most of that which goes to make up a man has grown together during the period since his birth, and will fall asunder again when he dies, there is an immortal seed which was before and shall be again. What is needed is to make our philosophy agree with our inner convictions, instead of contradicting them. If the consciousness of immortality in the young were preserved, and not destroyed by wrong teachings, the old would not have to spend so much time and energy in trying to solve problems that would never have arisen. We do not sufficiently realize what we owe to centuries of theological dogmatism and other forms of materialism; and consequently we underestimate the effect which would be produced if the rising generations were guided on higher, broader, and more generous lines of thought. Theosophy justly claims that its philosophy enables us to interpret our own intuitions. Its teachings do not contradict our innate conviction of the justice of universal law. Theosophy may be called a science, inasmuch as it interprets nature, studying the effects and unraveling their causes, finding explanations that will account for the facts. It might also be called rationalism, since it imposes no dogmas but points out facts. But both science and reason must be understood in a vastly wider sense than the conventional one. Nature is not limited to her external manifestations; for the body is but the vesture of the soul within--whether in man or in the earth. Nor can the function of science be limited to physics.