REBIRTH AND THELAW OFCONSEQUENCE 155
easily regaining a former proficiency, while the efforts of
the other have been started only in the present incarnation,
and in consequence we see the uphill work. But, if the latter
persist, he may, even in the present life, become superior to
the former unless the former constantly improves.
That we do not remember the effort made in acquiring a
faculty by hard work is immaterial, it does not alter the fact
that the faculty remains with us.
Genius is the hallmark of the advanced soul, which by
hard work in many previous lives has developed itself in
some direction beyond the normal achievements of the race.
It reveals a glimpse of the degree of attainment which will
be the common possession of the coming Race. It cannot be
accounted for by heredity, which applies only in part to the
dense body and not to qualities of the soul. If genius could
be accounted for by heredity, why is there not a long line of
mechanical ancestry previous to Thomas Edison, each more
capable than his predecessor? Why does not genius
propagate itself? Why is not Siegfried the son, greater than
Richard Wagner, the father?
In cases where the expression of genius depends upon
the possession of specially constructed organs, requiring
ages of development, the Ego naturally incarnates in a
family the Egos of which have, for generations, labored to
build a similar organism. That is why twenty-nine musicians
of more or less genius incarnated in the Bach family during
a period of two hundred and fifty years. That genius is an
expression of the soul and not of the body is shown by the
fact that it did not gradually improve and reach efflorescence
in the person of John Sebastian Bach, but that the
proficiency which reached its highest expression in him
towered high above ancestors and descendants alike.