professional life rests upon these physical plane
necessities and, engaged in solving the problems of civilization, the
race evolves intellect. Such problems do not, of course, exist on higher
planes.

While the mentality is thus being pushed along in evolution by our
material necessities, the heart qualities are developed by the family
ties in a way that could not be done elsewhere. In the nature of things
the entrance of the soul to the physical plane is attended with
helplessness. From the beginning it must have material necessities or
die, and yet it can do nothing in its new infant body. Again, as a rule,
long before it leaves the physical plane old age has once more rendered
it helpless. Thus every human being must depend on the assistance of
others at two critical periods of each incarnation. The help it
receives, in infancy and old age, it pays back to the race, in the care
of both the helpless young and the helpless old, when it is in the vigor
of mature physical life. It is obvious that such experience develops the
qualities of sympathy and compassion as no phase of business life could.
The relationship of parent and child, husband and wife, evolves the
heart qualities in a way that would be impossible in the totally
different environment of higher planes. Naturally enough, each plane has
a specific work to do in the soul's evolution. We can no more learn in
the highest planes the lessons the material world is designed to teach
us than a pupil can acquire a knowledge of mathematics from his lessons
in geography. Hence the necessity for a periodical return to this life
until its experiences have developed in us the qualities we lack.

Not only has each plane its special adaptability to particular needs of
the soul in its evolution, but the two kinds of physical
bodies--masculine and feminine--through which the soul functions, afford
special advantages for acquiring the lessons of life. The soul on its
home plane is, of course, sexless. Sex, as we know it, is a
differentiation arising from the soul's expression on lower planes. All
characteristics of the soul itself, like intelligence, love, or
devotion, are common to both sexes.

The ego functioning through the masculine body has the opportunity of
certain experiences that would be impossible in the feminine body,
while, of course, the feminine form enables the ego to get experience
that could not be known through the masculine body. A consideration of
the w