case of some of the smaller insects; but as we rise in the animal kingdom
the number of bodies attached to a single group-soul becomes smaller and
smaller, and therefore the differences between individuals become greater.

Thus the group-souls gradually break up. Returning to the symbol of the
bucket, as tumbler after tumbler of water is withdrawn from it, tinted with
some sort of colouring matter and returned to it, the whole bucketful of
water gradually becomes richer in colour. Suppose that by imperceptible
degrees a kind of vertical film forms itself across the centre of the
bucket, and gradually solidifies itself into a division, so that we have
now a right half and a left half to the bucket, and each tumblerful of
water which is taken out is returned always to the same section from which
it came.

Then presently a difference will be set up, and the liquid in one half of
the bucket will no longer be the same as that in the other. We have then
practically two buckets, and when this stage is reached in a group-soul it
splits into two, as a cell separates by fission. In this way, as the
experience grows ever richer, the group-souls grow smaller but more
numerous, until at the highest point we arrive at man with his single
individual soul, which no longer returns into a group, but remains always
separate.

One of the life-waves is vivifying the whole of a kingdom; but not every
group-soul in that life-wave will pass through the whole of that kingdom
from the bottom to the top. If in the vegetable kingdom a certain
group-soul has ensouled forest trees, when it passes on into the animal
kingdom it will omit all the lower stages--that is, it will never inhabit
insects or reptiles, but will begin at once at the level of the lower
mammalia. The insects and reptiles will be vivified by group-souls which