h
individuals are born favour or impede the development of their
faculties. There its influence stops; it can intensify inequality, but
does not create it.

Inequality of condition arises, above all else, from the continuity of
what might be called creation. Atoms are incessantly being formed in
the womb of the Virgin Mother,[22] by the might of the divine vortex
perceived by seers in ecstatic vision, and which theosophy has named
the Great Breath; ceaselessly are these atoms entering into multitudes
of organisms, ceaselessly is the plan of evolution being worked--some
ending, others beginning the great Pilgrimage. It is the existence of
this circuit which creates and keeps complete the hierarchy of beings,
brings into existence and perpetuates the known and the unknown
kingdoms of Nature; souls ascend slowly from one kingdom to another,
whilst the places they leave are filled by new-comers, by younger
souls.

A second cause of human inequality is the difference in effort and
deed accomplished by the will of human beings who have reached a
certain point in evolution. As soon as this will is guided by
intelligence and the moral sense, it hastens or delays individual
evolution, makes it easy when it acts in harmony with divine Law--by
doing what is called "good"--or disturbs evolution by pain, when it
opposes this Law, by doing "evil." By modifying the direction of the
Law, the Soul engenders beneficent or maleficent forces, which, after
having played in the universe within the limit the law has imposed on
them, return to their starting point--man. From that time, one
understands that the balance of the scales in different individuals
becomes unequal. These effects of the will influence to a noticeable
degree the life during which they have originated; they are preserved
in a latent condition after death, and appear again in future returns
to earth.

Thus are men born laden with the results of their past and in
possession of the capacities they have developed in the course of
their evolution. Those whom the difficulties of life have filled with
energy in the past return to existence on earth possessed of that
might which the world admires; now it is perseverance or courage; now
patient calm or violence, which is the stronger, according to the
aspect of the energy developed. Others, again, are born feeble and
devoid of energy; their former lives have been too easy. Men are
philosophers or mathematicians, artists or _s