It has been said by a Master that if we could see with the eye of the Spirit the generation of the human being, his ante-natal life, we should understand the generation of worlds, the generation of universes.

And that, again, is a general principle.

Let us see one or two lessons that we may draw from it at the moment.
Take the evolution of a seed into a plant, and what do you find?
A tiny germ surrounded by a mass of nutrient matter; and before that tiny germ will show itself in root, and stem, and leaf above the ground and become visible to the eye of the observer on the earth, that nutrient material must be absorbed by the growing germ, and changed into the exquisite tissues of the plant that is to be.

And so, if you take the growing germ, animal or human, how unlike is that budding creature from the animal or the man that shall be! How lacking in beauty in many of the methods of its growth, of its nutrition, of its gradual shaping! And by what marvellous alchemy of inspiring life does the living germ gather into itself all the nutrient matter that surrounds it, and shapes it into organ after organ, until the perfect creature is ready to be born into the world.

And as in these cases, so with the growth of a sub-race, of which the germ is planted now.