________________
RE-INOARNATION.
817
So far as instincts are concerned, their variations cannot be explained by environmental conditions and influences, for we see children in the same family--even twins-differing radically from each other in respect of their temperaments, instincts, emotions and the like.
The whole of the past experience, ante-natal and that acquired since the physical birth, is stored up in the constitution of the soul in the shape of tendencies, emotions, feelings, and inclinations,-in short, as character.
"What are we," writes Bergson, " in fact, what is our character, if not the condensation of the history that we have lived from our birth--nay, even before our birth, since we bring with us pre-natal dispositions? Doubtless we think with only a small part of our past, but it is with our entire past, including the original bent of our soul, that we desire, will and act. Our past, then, as a whole, is made manifest to us in its impulse; it is felt in the form of tendency, although a small part of it only is known in the form of idea...... We could not live over again a single moment, for we should have to begin by effacing the memory of all that had followed. Even could we erase this memory from our intellect, we could not from our will" (Creative Evolution, pp. 5 & 6).
The parents are inerely a channel for the passage of the soul from one condition into another; they do not manufacture it or its character in their own bodies. There must be a substratum of individuality, at the very outset, to be acted upon and affected by variations of surroundings and environment. But this is what is generally lost sight of by Christian and Muslim writers, whose preconceived notions of their misunderstood creeds have prejudiced their minds, in some cases consciously, but mostly unconsciously, against the only theory which can offer a satisfactory explanation of all
67
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org