Heredity does not explain these instances of genius, for in many of the recorded cases, none of the ancestors manifested any talent or ability.  From whom did Shakespeare inherit his genius?  From whom did Plato derive his wonderful thought?  From what ancestor did Abraham Lincoln inherit his character—­coming from a line of plain, poor, hard-working people, and possessing all of the physical attributes and characteristics of his ancestry, he, nevertheless, manifested a mind which placed him among the foremost of his race.  Does not Metempsychosis give us the only possible key?  Is it not reasonable to suppose that the abilities displayed by the infant genius, and the talent of the men who spring from obscure origin, have their root in the experiences of a previous life?

Then take the cases of children at school.  Children of even the same family manifest different degrees of receptivity to certain studies.  Some “take to” one thing, and some to another.  Some find arithmetic so easy that they almost absorb it intuitively, while grammar is a hard task for them; while their brothers and sisters find the exact reverse to be true.  How many have found that when they would take up some new study, it is almost like recalling something already learned.  Do you student, who are now reading these lines take your own case.  Does not all this Teaching seem to you like the repetition of some lesson learned long ago?  Is it not like remembering something already learned, rather than the learning of some new truth?  Were you not attracted to these studies, in the first place, by a feeling that you had known it all before, somewhere, somehow?  Does not your mind leap ahead of the lesson, and see what is coming next, long before you have turned the pages?  These inward evidences of the fact of pre-existence are so strong that they outweigh the most skillful appeal to the intellect.

This intuitive knowledge of the truth of Metempsychosis explains why the belief in it is sweeping over the Western world at such a rapid rate.  The mere mention of the idea, to many people who have never before heard of it, is sufficient to cause them to recognize its truth.  And though they may not understand the laws of its operation, yet deep down in their consciousness they find a something that convinces them of its truth.  In spite of the objections that are urged against the teaching, it is making steady headway and progress.

The progress of the belief in Metempsychosis however has been greatly retarded by the many theories and dogmas attached to it by some of the teachers.  Not to speak of the degrading ideas of re-birth into the bodies of animals, etc., which have polluted the spring of Truth, there are to be found many other features of teaching and theory which repel people, and cause them to try to kill out of the minds the glimmer of Truth that they find there.  The human soul instinctively revolts against the teaching that it is bound to the wheel or re-birth, willy-nilly,