Annie Besant 
Birth and Evolution of the Soul [EPUB ebook] 

During the first and second Races of man this physical body was built up by the action of what are called nature-spirits, who made this outer clothing of man, the tabernacle of ? esh, as it is sometimes entitled. Out of the first Race evolved the second, and out of the second evolved the third. No break, nothing that would be called a new creation, but definite and sequential evolution. The materials used in these bodies had been worked up in previous ages through mineral and vegetable and animal, and so had taken on, as far as their atoms were concorned, an internal differentiation, which is of enormous importance when they enter into the body of the higher animals and of man. The author has emphasized on the lectures she gave might better perhaps be described as one lecture in two parts, for I am really going to try and give you in the two a connected tracing of the progress of the soul.