Select Works, Section 476

Section 2 2. But individuals are brought into being by the union of the Reason-Principles of the parents, male and female: this seems to do away with a definite Reason-Principle for each of the offspring: one of the parents- the male let us say- is the source; and the offspring is determined not by Reason-Principles differing from child to child but by one only, the father's or that of the father's father. No: a distinct Reason-Principle may be the determinant for the child since the parent contains all: they would become effective at different times. And so of the differences among children of the same parents: it is a matter of varying dominance: either the offspring- whether it so appears or not- has been mainly determined by, now, the male, now, the female or, while each principle has given itself entire and lies there within, yet it effectively moulds one portion of the bodily substance rather than another. And how [by the theory of a divine archetype of each individual] are the differences caused by place to be explained? Is the differentiating element to be found in the varying resistance of the material of the body? No: if this were so, all men with the exception of one only would be untrue to nature. Difference everywhere is a good, and so there must be differing archetypes, though only to evil could be attribute any power in Matter to thwart nature by overmastering the perfect Reason-Principles, hidden but given, all. Still, admitting the diversity of the Reason-principles, why need there by as many as there are men born in each Period, once it is granted that different beings may take external manifestation under the presence of the same principles? Under the presence of all; agreed: but with the dominance of the very same? That is still open to question. May we not take it that there may be identical reproduction from one Period to another but not in the same Period?