as do the laws of
mathematics and chemistry, bringing forth the exact effect from every
cause, and being, above all, questions of good or evil, reward or
punishment, morality or immorality, etc., and acting as a great natural
force above all such questions of human conduct. To those who still
adhere to this conception, Karma is like the Law of Gravitation, which
operates without regard to persons, morals or questions of good and
evil, just as does any other great natural law. In this view the only
"right" or "wrong" would be the effect of an action--that is, whether it
was conducive to one's welfare and that of the race, or the reverse. In
this view, if a child places its hand on a hot stove, the action is
"wrong," because it brings pain and unhappiness, although the act is
neither moral or immoral. And another action is "right" because it
brings happiness, well-being and satisfaction, present and future,
although the act was neither moral nor immoral. In this view there can
be neither reward nor punishment, in the common acceptation of the term,
although in another sense there is a reward for such "right" doing, and
a punishment for such "wrong" doing, as the child with the burnt hand
may testify to.

In this sense of the term, some of the older schools of Reincarnation
accepted Karma as determining the Re-Birth, along the lines of Desire
and Attraction, holding that the souls' character would attract it to
re-birth along the lines of its strongest desires, and in such
environment as would give it the greatest opportunity to work out those
desires into action, taking the pains and pleasures of experience
arising from such action, and thus moulding a new, or fuller character,
which would create new Karma, which would determine the future birth,
etc., and so on, and on. Those holding to this view believed that in
this way the soul would learn its lesson, with many a crack over the
knuckles, and with the pain of many an experience that would tend to
turn it into the road most conducive to spiritual happiness and
well-being; and lead it away from the road of material desires and
pleasures, because the repeated experiences had shown that no true
spiritual well-being was to be obtained therefrom. In other words, the
soul, in its spiritual childhood, was just like a little child in the
physical world, learning by experience that some things worked for its
"good" and others for "bad." This view naturally carried with it the