by her; indeed,
everything comes from this cellular mass, the elements drawn from the
amniotic fluid and the blood, the milk, which, after birth, continues
for long months to build up the child's body and the magnetic fluid,
the "atoms of life," which are continually escaping from it and which
the babe absorbs whilst receiving incessant attention from his mother.

This exchange of atoms is of the utmost importance, for these
ultra-microscopic particles are charged with our mental and moral
tendencies as well as with the physical qualities; personally, I have
had many direct proofs of this, but the most striking came at a
critical period of my life. One day, when nervous exhaustion, steadily
increased by overwork, had reached an extreme stage, a great
Being--not a Mahatma, but a Soul at a very lofty stage of
evolution--sent to me by destiny at the time, poured into my shattered
body a portion of his physical life. Shortly afterwards a real
transformation took place, far more of a moral than of a physical
nature, and for a few hours I felt myself the "copy" or counterpart of
that great Soul, and the divine influence lasted twenty-four hours
before it gradually died away.

I then understood, better than by any other demonstration, the
influence of the physical upon the moral nature and the method of the
subtle contagion often effected by mesmerism. _A man is known by the
friends he keeps_ is an old proverb.

If atoms of life can have so marked an influence upon a man nearly
forty years of age, _i.e._, at a period when he is in full possession
of himself, how much more powerful is this influence when exercised
upon the child--a delicate, sensitive body, almost entirely lacking
the control of the soul? This is the reason hired nurses often
transmit to the child their own physical features and countless moral
tendencies which last some time after weaning; orphans, too, morally,
often resemble the strangers who have brought them up. Like physical
tendencies these moral propensities disappear only by degrees,
according to change of environment, and especially to the degree in
which the body is controlled by the reincarnated soul.[73]

The most important, however, of the moral influences at work on the
being again brought into touch with earth-life is connected with the
emotions, the passions and thoughts of those around. The child--and
under this name must be included the embryo and the foetus--possesses
bodies the subtle