When the pessimist says "many despair of the race because they know little of it save what they see in their mirrors," his ignorance would seem self-acknowledged; for did we really understand our mirrored reflection the keys to all wisdom and progress would be ours.
To any study of man, Theosophy contributes what the x-ray brings to the specialist's diagnosis of physical imperfection. It teaches that in totality our mirrors reflect a sevenfold Universe, a miniature reproduction in structure, substance, functioning, vitality, and destiny, of the greater Universe in which we live and form an inseparable part. And at the very least, we see the physical and outermost garment of a composite entity marred or enhanced, as the case may be, by the impacting activity of the composite entity's present karman or life.
Even the latter mirrored reflection portrays to the discriminating eye traces of past racial characteristics discernible through the present dominant impress. In this we have definite evidence of our previous participation in differing racial experiences during past lives or incarnations.
Viewed from another aspect what we see in our mirrors is a reflection of a reflection reflected in our individual perception. In other words our conception of ourselves is the psycho-emotionally perceived human aspect of a divine prototype mirrored in reverse, a completely illusory vision save for the degree of spiritual ensoulment we have attained. For in reality the visible man is but a condensed expanse of space strewn with a handful of scattered nebulae, that combined and in vibration conveys to us the impression we classify as a human being.
Those who are becoming spiritually ensouled contact the divinity permeating their own hearts and minds and thereby recognise themselves, and all other human beings, as spiritual candidates for Godhood now serving their human apprenticeship on earth.
So comprehensive a knowledge of what we see in our mirrors with its cosmic, racial, human, physical and individual aspects, banishes crippling despair. It fills us with a compassionate understanding of human endeavor, and a creative hope in the future of humanity based on gratitude for, and trust and confidence in the universal laws of life in whose currents, whether we realize it or not, we are actively involved.