viii. The Hyperborean and the Polarean Epoch

Each new form was as much endowed with soul as the mother being. This was due to the fact that it was not a certain number of human souls which entered upon the earthly scene, but rather a kind of soul tree which could produce innumerable single souls from its common root. As a plant sprouts ever anew from innumerable seeds, so the soul life appeared in the countless shoots produced by the continual divisions. It is true that from the beginning there was a narrowly circumscribed number of kinds of souls, of which fact we shall speak later. But within these kinds the development proceeded in the manner which we have described. Each kind of soul put forth innumerable off-shoots.