d simple
explanation of all such phenomena. The youngest have the knowledge of
the oldest because they are attached to the same group-soul, or source
of consciousness. The young quails of this season come back to rebirth
from the group-soul that is the storehouse of the experiences of the
quails that were killed by men in past seasons, and thus all young
things know the common enemy. In the remote regions referred to the
killing proclivities of the human being have not become known and there
is no "instinct" to warn.

An excellent bit of evidence on the subject of the group-soul is the
fact, often chronicled but not explained, that when telephone or
telegraph lines are built in new countries the birds fly against the
wires and are killed by thousands, the first season. But when the next
season's birds are hatched they are wise and avoid the wires! If the
group-soul were not a fact in nature it would naturally require a long
time for wire education. No such sudden adjustment would be possible.

Reincarnation represents continuous evolution with no waste of time or
loss of energy. Death is not the sudden break in the life program that
the popular belief pictures it. The common view of death is as erroneous
as the common view of birth. If death were what most people believe it
to be it would constitute a blunder of nature--an irrational
interruption of orderly development. In nature's economy there is
conservation of energy and no loss can arise through the change called
death. If the popular belief that at death we go far away to a totally
different kind of existence were sound then death would usually mean an
enormous waste. A young man is educated for some particular work,
engineering, architecture or statecraft, and graduates only perhaps to
die soon afterward. All that time and energy spent in getting such an
education would be largely lost either if death ends all, or is the
last he will know of the material world. But nature does not thus
blunder. Her law of conservation is always operative. All the skill and
wisdom acquired will be brought back in rebirth and will be used in the
future incarnations.

A child in school is a fair analogy for a soul in evolution. The child
cannot get an education in a term nor in a year. He must return often to
the same school, after the rest of regular vacations. He may use new
books with higher lessons but he returns periodically to the same
environment. Continuous attendance wou