t we have seen this work of
construction entrusted to special Beings who prepare, control and
watch over it unceasingly.

It is because the causal body registers every vibration the
personality[70] has generated or received in the course of its series
of incarnations, that the vices and virtues are preserved, as is the
case with the faults or the good qualities of the physical body. The
man who has created for himself a coarse astral body by feeding the
passions and thoughts which specially vivify the coarser matter of
this body will on returning to earth find a new astral body composed
of the same elements, though then in a dormant state. He who, by the
cultivation of a lofty intellect, has built up a refined mental body,
will return to incarnation with a like mental body, whilst the one
who, by meditation and the practice of devotion which bring into being
the noblest qualities of the heart, has set vibrating the purest
portions of the causal body and of the divine essence (Atma-Buddhi, as
it is named in Sanskrit), with which it is filled, will return to
birth endowed with those qualities which make apostles and saints, the
Saviours of the world.

In other words:

Matter has more remote boundaries than science recognises; the
numberless grades of atoms of which it consists, their powers of
aggregation, the multiplicity and duration of the bodies they form,
are not even suspected by materialism.

Materialism sees nothing but the part played by matter; it denies that
intelligence plays any part, and will by no means admit--in spite of
evolution and progress--that above man there exists an almost endless
chain of higher and higher Beings, whilst below him are kingdoms of an
increasingly restricted range of consciousness. By refusing to believe
in the multiplicity of the vehicles which the human soul uses, it is
unable to understand individual survival or to solve the problem of
heredity. Indeed, evolution is only partially explained by the
physical germ; the latter, in order to act alone and of itself in the
development of the human embryo should possess a degree of
intelligence considerably superior to that of man. This is the
opposite of what we find, however, and we are brought face to face
with the absurd fact of a cause vastly inferior to its effect. Indeed,
the intelligence shown by the germ is not its own; it is that of the
cosmic Mind reflected by mighty Beings, its willing servants. Besides,
this germ cont