elements of which are in a dormant state; his mental
and sense organisms are scarcely more than masses of substance that have
not yet been vitalised--a sort of collection of germs of good or of
evil, which will yield fruit when they awake. The passional and mental
vibrations of the parents play on the matter capable of responding to
them in the invisible bodies of the child; they vivify it, attract atoms
of the same nature taken from the finer atmosphere around, and awake in
it passional and mental centres which, but for them, might have remained
latent, or, at all events, would only have developed at a later stage,
when the Ego, master of its vehicles, would be in a position to struggle
against the outer evil influences and not permit them to have effect
save within the limits imposed by will. In this way, it is possible to
bring to birth evil instincts in a child, and intensify them to a
considerable extent, before a single virtue has succeeded in expressing
itself on the new instrument in course of development. This mental
action is so strong that it colours vividly, if not altogether, the
morality of the little ones living beneath its influence, and even older
children are still so sensitive to it that whole classes are seen to
reflect the moral character of the teacher who has charge of them. This
influence, too, does not cease with childhood, it weighs--though far
less heavily--on the man during the whole of his life; and families,
nations, nay, even races, each see through the prism of their own
special atmosphere. Mighty and subtle is this illusion which man, in the
course of his pilgrimage towards divine Unity, must succeed in piercing
and finally entirely dissipating.

Our responsibility towards children is all the more serious in that,
to the deep impression which thought makes on the subtle, plastic, and
defenceless mental bodies of the little ones, is added the fact that,
could one prevent the development of the germs of evil in the course
of one incarnation, these germs, not having fructified, would transmit
nothing to the _causal body_ after death, and would disappear[74] with
the disintegration of the matter of which they were composed.
Consequently, with regard to children especially, we should cultivate
none but noble emotions and lofty thoughts, so as to create centres of
pure and worthy activity within their vehicles in course of
reconstruction, and to turn their early impulses in the direction of
g