IX. Theosophical Doctrine of the Soul II: Soul and Human Destiny

We find a perfect analogy for the interrelationship between soul and destiny in nature. We find an analogy in what we encounter in nature as species, as generic structures of living beings. A living being is not formed in any arbitrary way. Every living being is shaped according to its germ. According to its germ, the lion is a lion and the frog is a frog, because the germ contains the power for the particular form, and because the germ inherits this power from its ancestors. That is why the animal is shaped according to its particular species. These laws of heredity prevail in plant and animal species; they prevail according to what they have inherited in terms of limbs in order to be able to function. A life is determined by the development of the organs that have been inherited by the being. This law of heredity is the great law that determines the species and genera in the animal and plant world and also in the physical human world. This law of species and genus, this law of heredity and development, is the law of destiny for species and genera. Only in accordance with the law of heredity can the individual being function. Very similar is what the individual human being experiences as pleasure and pain in relation to his or her prevailing destiny. Just as animals have inherited the form of their genus from their ancestors, so we encounter human beings in a very specific way, endowed with predispositions and character traits that determine the extent of their pleasure and pain, that contain the measure of these, and that determine their life.