spring from such conditions."[L]

A little reasoning about the facts concerning both genius and idiocy
will make it clear that neither is inherited. If it were true that
genius is inherited society would present a different appearance. There
would be famous families of geniuses living in the world, in music, in
poetry, in warfare, in invention, in art, if genius were inherited. The
fact is that it is difficult to find even two geniuses in any family.
The Caesars, Napoleons, Edisons, Lincolns, Wagners, Shakespeares, stand
alone with neither great ancestors nor great descendants. We search in
vain for great ancestors for such men; but if the theory of mental
heredity were sound we should know their ancestors for precisely the
same reason that we know them.

Heredity, then, does not explain whence genius comes; and if anybody had
really traced genius from father, or grandfather, to son or grandson, we
should still have no explanation of what genius is. We could then only
regard it as the result of some strange chance; yet the scientist knows
that laws of nature contain no such element. But the only reason why
genius appears so incomprehensible is because we have not looked at it
in the light of nature's truth. We have erroneously assumed that this is
the only life we live on the physical plane, and therefore the time is
too short for the evolution of genius. A man can become an expert in one
lifetime but not a genius. But if we give him many incarnations to
develop along certain lines he can become a genius of a given type. The
soul that works strenuously at building up a certain faculty through
many incarnations naturally develops qualities in the causal body that
shine out brilliantly upon its return to a physical body and we have the
genius. We evolve our mentality and morality, and there could be no
justice in life if it were otherwise.

There is no element of chance in getting a new physical body in the next
incarnation. The body is the material expression of the self. It is as
much the product of the self as the rose is of the bush, the apple of
the tree, or the tulip of the bulb. The musician can no more get a body
suitable to the blacksmith than the rose bush can produce an apple. We
do not get bodies by lottery, like destitute people drawing clothing by
numbers which might result in grotesque misfits. We do not get bodies at
all, we evolve them, and in each incarnation the new body expresses all
the soul has co