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punishment, but only of cause and effect. Anyone can see this in connection
with mechanics or chemistry; the clairvoyant sees it equally clearly with
regard to the problems of evolution. The same law obtains in the higher as
in the lower worlds; there, as here, the angle of reflection is always
equal to the angle of incidence. It is a law of mechanics that action and
reaction are equal and opposite. In the almost infinitely finer matter of
the higher worlds the reaction is by no means always instantaneous; it may
sometimes be spread over long periods of time, but it returns inevitably
and exactly.

Just as certain in its working as the mechanical law in the physical world
is the higher law, according to which the man who sends out a good thought
or does a good action receives good in return, while the man who sends out
an evil thought or does an evil action, receives evil in return with equal
accuracy--once more, not in the least a reward or punishment administered
by some external will, but simply as the definite and mechanical result of
his own activity. Man has learnt to appreciate a mechanical result in the
physical world, because the reaction is usually almost immediate and can be
seen by him. He does not invariably understand the reaction in the higher
worlds because that takes a wider sweep, and often returns not in this
physical life, but in some future one.

The action of this law affords the explanation of a number of the problems
of ordinary life. It accounts for the different destinies imposed upon
people, and also for the differences in the people themselves. If one man
is clever in a certain direction and another is stupid, it is because in a
previous life the clever man has devoted much effort to practise in that
particular direction, while the stupid man is trying it for the first time.
The genius and the precocious child are examples not of the favouritism of
some deity but of the result produced by previous lives of application. All
the varied circumstances which surrounded us are the result of our own
actions in the past, precisely as are the qualities of which we find
ourselves in possession. We are what we have made ourselves, and our
circumstances are such as we have deserved.

There is, however, a certain adjustment or apportionment of these effects.
Though the law is a natural law and mechanical in its operation, there are
nevertheless certain great Angels who are concerned with its
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