. In India,
where the natives believe in Reincarnation, such cases are regarded
without astonishment, and efforts are made to prove their truth by
serious investigation, whenever possible. And such proof is often
possible. When a child dies in infancy, before he is able to use his
body intelligently and of his own free will--before being able to
generate karma--the higher sheaths (_the astral and mental bodies_)
are not separated into their component parts. Return to earth quickly
takes place, the memory of the past life exists in the astral
body--which has not changed--and, more especially during the first few
years of life, can be impressed on the new brain with tolerable ease,
if this latter is at all delicately constituted. Then if reincarnation
takes place in the same country and in the neighbourhood of the past
incarnation, it can be proved to be true. Such instances do exist; the
reason they are not mentioned here is that they would add nothing to
the general proofs on which stress has been laid in this work. These
proofs form part of universal Law; they cannot be separated therefrom.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 81: The fifth, or Aryan race, in theosophic nomenclature;
the fourth was that of Atlantis; the third lived on the great southern
continent, Lemuria; the two preceding ones were, so to speak, only the
embryologic preparation for the following races.]

[Footnote 82: The "life-atoms," infinitesimal particles which by
aggregation form the human body. Certain of these atoms are preserved,
on the death of the body, as germs which will facilitate the
reconstruction of the physical body at the next rebirth.]

[Footnote 83: The divine Essence which animates animals, and so, in
another sense the astral bodies of men and animals, bodies whose
particles _transmigrate_ as do the physical atoms.]

[Footnote 84: H. P. Blavatsky, _Secret Doctrine._]

[Footnote 85: These words are relative; they express differences in
the evolution of souls.]

[Footnote 86: The atmosphere of subtle physical elements radiating
round the human body and acting in a defensive _role_ by preventing
the penetration of unhealthy elements from the immediate
surroundings.]

[Footnote 87: The "material sin" of Manu.]

[Footnote 88: One, here means the "life atoms" of a man's body.]

[Footnote 89: The word is here used in a generic sense; in the present
work, it would be more precise to replace it by the word
Resurrection.]

[Footnote 90: T