Key of Knowledge

SR No.: 006702
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown
Publication Year: 1919
Total Pages: 1204
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

Page 840

RE-INCARNATION.
819
of consciousness had been developed through the adaptation of the ancestral races to their conditions of life. The forms of thought and feeling which are typical of the human race, would therefore be à priori in respect of the individual, that is to say, they could oot bo fully explained by the individual experiences, but these experiences would, on the contrary, be conditioned by an original substratum. However far back we go, the individuals still start always with a certain organization, with certain forms and powers which they have not themselves acquired, consequently with something à priori. At every stage of the great process of evolution there is a given basis, by which the effect of all experiences is determined. It must therefore be true of the race as of the individual, that the external always pre-supposes the internal, that which is acquired is conditioned by what is originally innate. This is a fundamental relation that constantly repeats itself."
Heredity, in truth, explains nothing about disposition ; at best, it only accounts for the modifications of the innate substratum of individuality. We see a few striking resemblances between individuals in a family, or race, and shutting our eyes to a vast majority of equally striking differences, and leaving out of account the part played by common associations, surroundings and education in developing similar characteristics, jump to the conclusion that heredity sufficiently accounts for them all. It may well be that the resemblances are due to the fact that the soul is attracted towards parents and families whose predominant mental propensities accord with its own in which case there would be an agreement in respect of the predominant traits between the individual and the family, but not in respect of other characteristics.
According to the theory of heredity, every individual owes its existence to a germ-plasm, which is a tiny speck of protoplasm. That this germ-plasm is the seed