CHAPTER I
THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE AND FORM
There is no better preparation for a clear
comprehension of Theosophy than a broad,
general, knowledge of modern science. For
science deals with facts, tabulating them and
discovering laws; Theosophy deals with the
same facts, and though they may be tabulated
differently, the conclusions are in the main the
same. Where they differ, it is not because
Theosophy questions the facts of the scientist,
but simply because, before coming to conclusions,
it takes into account additional facts
which modern science either ignores or has
not as yet discovered. There is but one
Science, so long as facts remain the same;
what is strictly scientific is Theosophical, as
what is truly Theosophical is entirely in harmony
with all the facts, and therefore in the
highest degree scientific.
The greatest achievement of modern science
is the conception offered to the thinking mind
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of the phenomena of existence as factors in a
great process called Evolution. Let us understand
in broad outline what evolution means
according to science, and we shall be ready to
understand what it means according to Theosophy.
Let us consider first the great nebula in
Orion (Fig. 1).
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It is a chaotic mass of matter
in an intensely heated condition, millions and
millions of miles in diameter. It is a vague,
cloudy mass, full of energy; but, so far as we
can see, it is energy not performing any usefu1
work.
But there are other nebulae which give us an.
indication of a definite trend in evolution.
The nebula in Canes Venatici (Fig. 2) is not
only revolving round a center, but it also
appears to be breaking up into distinct sections
or arms. The material of each arm, while
retaining its motion round the centre, will
slowly condense round one or more nuclei.
Each nucleus will become a star.
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What will be the next stage? By this time,
there will have appeared within the solar
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system the lighter chemical elements. Hydrogen,
carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus,
calcium, iron, and others, will be there; they
will enter into certain. combinations, and then
will come the first appearance of Life. We
shall now have some of the matter as protoplasm,
the first form of Life. What, then, will
be the next stage?
This protoplasm, too, arranges itself in
groups and combinations; it takes the form of
organisms, both vegetable and animal. Let
us first watch what happens to it, as it becomes
vegetable organisms.
Two activities will be noticeable from the
beginning in this living matter: one, that the
organism desires to retain its life as long as
possible, by nutrition; the other, to produce
another organism similar to its own. Under
the impulse of these two instincts, it will
"evolve", that is, we shall see the simple
organism taking on a complex structure. This
process will continue, stage by stage, till slowly
there will arise a vegetable kingdom on each
planet, such as we have on our own (Fig. 4).
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Each successive stage will be developed from
its predecessor; each will be so organized as
to prolong its existence longer and to give rise
to better offspring. Each will be more
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"evolved" than what has gone before. From
unicellular organisms, such as bacteria, algae
and fungi, spore plants will be developed, able
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to disseminate offspring in a new way; later,
a better method of propagation will be evolved,
by means of seeds. Later still, there will come
the stage of flowering plants, where the individual
organism, with least expenditure of
energy, will retain its own life, while at the
same time it gives rise to a large number of off-spring.
Stage by stage, the organism increases
in complexity; but that very complexity enabIes
it to "live" more satisfactorily, that is,
to give rise to offspring with the least expenditure
of force, to prolong its life, and at the same
time to produce a type of progeny with new
and greater potentialities of self-expression
than its parent.
A similar process of evolution takes place
in protoplasm, as it gives rise to the animal
kingdom. From protozoa, simple unicellular
organisms, we find evolved step by step the
various groups of the invertebrate kingdom
(Fig. 5).
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From unicellular organisms to multi-cellular
organisms with tissues and nervous
and circulatory systems, complexity increases
group after group. Then a new step comes
in the building of organisms; the central nerve
trunk is sheathed by vertebrae, and thus we
have the vertebrates. From one order of
vertebrates, the reptiles, come the mammals;
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(only contains Figure 5)
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among the highest of the mammals appear the
primates. Of this last order of the animal
kingdom, the most highly organized is Man.
The instincts of self-preservation and propagation
are seen in the animal kingdom also.
As structure becomes more complex, the organism
is better fitted to adapt itself to the
changing environment, better able, with less.
and less expenditure of force, to live and produce
similar organisms. But a new element
of life appears among the higher vertebrates.
“If we contemplate life at large in its ascending
forms, we see that in the lowest creatures the energies
are wholly absorbed in self-sustentation and sustentation
of the race. Each improvement in organization, achieving
some economy or other, makes the maintenance of
life easier; so that the energies evolved from a given
quantity of food more than suffice to provide for the
individual and for progeny; some unused energy is
left. As we rise to the higher types of creatures having
more developed structures, we see that this surplus
energy becomes greater and greater; and the highest
show us long intervals of cessation from the pursuit of
food, during which there is not an infrequent spontaneous
expenditure of unused energy in that pleasurable
activity of the faculties we call play. This general
truth has to be recognized as holding of life in its culminating
forms — of human life as well as of other life.
The progress of mankind is, under one aspect, a means
of liberating more and more life from mere toil and
leaving more and more life available for relaxation — for
pleasurable culture, for aesthetic gratification; for travel,
for games.”
1 Herbert Spencer, Life, I, page 147
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From the chaotic nebula, once upon a time,
to man today, thinking, playing and loving —
this is the process called Evolution. A chaos
has become a cosmos, with orderly events,
which the human mind can tabulate as laws;
the unstable, "a-dharma", has become the
stable, "dharma". We note what are the
principles which nature has followed, as the
One becomes the Many, as disorder becomes
order, in the next diagram (Fig. 6).
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True, no eye of man saw the beginning of
this process, nor has continuously watched it to
the present day, and so can describe from direct
observation each step in evolution, and say that
evolution is a fact. We can only reconstruct
the process by observing different kinds of
nebulae, by studying the structures of extinct
and living organisms, by piecing together here
a tail with there a wing. None can say that
the universe did not arise in all its complexity
a few thousand years ago, just before historical
tradition began; and none can say that the
universe will not tomorroww cease to be. But
man cannot be satisfied with taking note only
of the few brief moments of the present which
his consciousness can retain; he must construct
some, conception of nature, and postulate a
past and a future. Such a past and a future
are propounded, largely from analogy, in the
process called evolution. In a sense, evolution
is a hypothesis; but it is the most satisfactory
hypothesis so far in the history of mankind,
and it is also one which, when once accepted,
shows evolution everywhere, for all to see.
Fascinating as is the survey of the cosmos
in the light of evolution as taught by modern
science, there is nevertheless one gloomy element
in it, and that is the insignificant part
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played by the individual in the timeless drama.
Nature at work, "evolving", lavishly spends her
energies, building form after form. But a
terrible spendthrift she seems, producing far
more forms than she provides sustenance for.
Time is of no account, and the individual but
of little, only indeed so long as he lives. During
the brief life of the individual, nature
smiles on him, caresses him, as though everything
had been planned for his welfare. But
after he has made the move she guides him to
make, after he has given rise to offspring, or
has slightly modified the environment for
others by his living, death comes and he is.
annihilated. That "I am I", which impels
each to live, to struggle, to seek happiness,
ceases to be; for it is not we who are important,
but the type — "so careful of the type she
seems, so careless of the single life". Where
today are Nineveh and Babylon, and "the
glory that was Greece and the grandeur that
was Rome"?
“Tis all a Checkerboard of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with men for Pieces plays;
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the closet lays.”
From this aspect, evolution is terrible, a
mechanical process, serene in its omnipotence
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and ruthlessness. Yet, since it is a process
after all, perhaps to bring in personal considerations
whether we like it or not may not be
to the point. But since we are men and women
who think and desire, we do bring in the
personal element to our conception of life;
and when we look at evolution, the outlook
for us as individuals is not encouraging. We
are as bubbles of the sea, arising from no volition
of our own, and we cease to be, following
developments in a process which we cannot
control. We are "such stuff as dreams are
made of, and our little life is rounded with a
sleep".
Is there possible any conception of the evolutionary
process which can show a more encouraging
outlook? It is that which Theosophy offers in the doctrine of the Evolution of
Life through the evolution of forms.
As the scientist of today examines nature,
he notes two inseparable elements, matter and
force; a third, which we know as "life", he
considers to be the effect of the interaction of
the two. He sees in matter the possibilities of
both life and consciousness, and neither of
them is considered by him capable of an existence
independent of matter. In the main
this conception is true; but, according to
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Theosophy, a modification is required, which
may be stated as follows.
Just as we see no matter without force, and
no force which is not affecting matter, so, too,
there exists a similar relation between life and
matter. The two are inseparable, and neither
is the product of the other.
There are in the universe types of matter
finer than those recognized by our senses, or
ponderable by the most delicate of instruments.
Many forms of energy, too, exist, of which but a
few have as yet been discovered by man. One
form of energy, which acts in conjunction with
certain types of ultra-physical matter, is called
Life. This life evolves; that is, it is slowly becoming
more and more complex in its manifestations.
The complexity of the life-activities is
brought about by building organisms in such
matter as we know by our senses. (There
are other modes of life-activities, but for the
moment we shall confine our attention to those
activities which our senses can perceive.) It
is this life which holds a group of chemical
compounds during a certain period as a living
organism. While so holding it, that life gains
a complexity by means of the experiences
received through its receptacle. What we
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note as the death of the organism is the withdrawal
of its life, in order to exist for a while
dissociated from the ldwest or physical forms
of matter. It is, however, still linked to ultra-physical
matter. In withdrawing from the
organism at death, such experiences as were
received through it are retained as habits
learned by the life; they are transmuted into
new capacities for form-building, and they
will be utilized with its next effort to build a
new organism.
If we look at Fig. 7, we shall be able to
grasp clearly the Theosophical conception of
the Evolution of Life.
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When we consider
structures only, we are looking at but one side
of evolution. For behind each structure is a
life. Though a plant dies, the life which makes
it living, and propels it to react to environment,
does not die. When a rose withers and dies
and disappears in dust, we know that none of
its matter is destroyed; every particle of it.
still exists, for matter cannot be annihilated.
So, too, is it with the life which out of chemical
elements makes.. a rose. It merely withdraws
for a time, to reappear later building another
rose. The experiences of sunshine and storm,
of the struggle for existence, gained through the
first rose, are slowly utilized to build a second
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(Contains only Fig. 19.)
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rose which shall be better adapted to live and
propagate its kind.
Just as an individual organism is one unit in
a larger group, so also is the life within each
organism a unit in a larger group called a
"group-soul".
Behind the organisms of the
vegetable kingdom as a whole is the vegetable
group-soul, an indestructible reservior of those
life-forces which are attaining complexity by
building vegetable forms. Each unit of life
within that group-soul, as it appears on earth
anew in an organism, comes there endowed
with the sum total of the experiences of the
dead organisms built by the group-soul; each
unit, as it returns to the group-soul at death,
contributes to the group what it has gained in
power of new ways of reacting to environment.
The same is true of the animal kingdom;
each species, genus and family has its
own compartment in the general animal
group-soul.
With man, too, the principle is the same,
except that man has passed the stage of belonging
to a group-soul. Each man is an individual
life and, though he is linked in mystic
ways to all his fellows in a Brotherhood of Man,
he treads his own path, and carves out his own
future. He retains his experiences, gained by
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him life after life, and does not share them with
others, unless he shares them of his own volition.
There is no such thing as death in nature, in
the sense of a resolution into nothing. The
life withdraws into its ultra-physical environment
for a while, retaining there the experiences
which it has gained as new modes of form-building.
Though form after form comes and
goes, their successive lives are but the entrances
and exits of the same lite in the evolutionary
drama. Not a fraction of experience is lost,
as not a particle of matter is destroyed.
Furthermore, this life evolves, as already
mentioned. The method of its evolution is
through growth in forms. The aim of a given
part of the group-soul's life is to manifest
through such forms as shall dominate, through
the greatest adaptability to environment, all
other forms, while at the same time they shall
be capable of the most delicate response to
the inner promptings of the life itself. Each
part of a group-soul, each type of life, each
group and class and order, has this aim; and
hence ensues the fierce warfare in nature.
She is "red in tooth and and claw with ravin", but
the struggle for existence is not the wasteful
work it seems. Forms are destroyed, but only
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to be built up into new forms. The life comes
and goes, but step by step it comes nearer to
the form which it seeks. No life is lost; the
waste is but a seeming, and the ruthless
struggle is the way to determine the best forms.
in an ever-changing environment.
When the fittest forms, for a given environment
have been evolved, then that particular
part of the group-soul pours its life through
them with a fullness and richness which mark
an epoch by its domination; and as the environment
again changes, once more the quest
is resumed for the next fitter forms. So all
parts of the group-souls of the vegetable and
animal kingdoms are at war, in a struggle for
a survival of the fittest. Yet in that struggle
not a single unit of life is annihilated; the victory
achieved by one type is not for itself, but
for the totality of life which has been seeking
that very form as the best through which to
unfold its dormant energies.
Life as it evolves has its stages. First, it
builds forms in ultra-physical matter, and then
we name it "elemental" life. Then, with the
experiences of its past building, it "ensouls"
chemical elements in combination, and becomes
the mineral group-soul. Next, it builds.
protoplasm, ensouls vegetable forms, and
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afterwards, at a later period, animal forms.
Then we have the next stage as man. Life
now builds individuals able to think and love,
capable of self-sacrifice and idealism, for
...striving to be Man, the worm
Mounts through all the spires of form.
And man is not the last link in the chain.
In all this cosmic process from atom to man,
there is one element which must be taken into
account, if we are to understand the process
correctly. Though matter evolves from homogeneous
to heterogeneous, from indefinite to
definite, from simple to complex, life does not
so evolve. The evolution of matter is a rearrangement;
the evolution of life is an unlocking
and an unfoldment. In the first cell
of living matter, there exists, in some incomprehensible
fashion, Shakespeare and Beethoven.
Nature may need millions of years to
rearrange the substance, "selecting" age after
age, till the proper aggregation is found, and
Shakespeare and Beethoven can come from
her bosom to be the protagonists in one scene
of her drama. Yet all the while, throughout
the millions of years, the life held them both
mysteriously within itself. The evolution of
life is not a receiving but a giving. For at the
root of the life itself, as its very heart and soul,
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is something greater still, a Consciousness
from His fullness of Power, Love and Beauty,
He gave to the first speck of life all that He is.,
As all the rays from the glorious panorama or
a mountain range may be converged by a lens
into one invisible geometrical point, so each
of life is as a focal point of that illimitable
Existence. Within each cell He resides in
His fullness; under His guidance, at the proper
time Shakespeare and Beethoven step forth,
and we call the action Evolution.
If the study of the evolution offorms,according
to modern science, has enlarged and corrected
our previous conceptions of the universe,
the study of the evolution of life is more striking
still in its consequences. For new elements of
complexity appear in the life-side of evolution,
and their consideration means a new evaluation
of evolutionary processes. The first factor
in the complexity is that, within the forms as
studied by the scientist, there are several parallel
streams of evolving life, each largely independent
of the others in its development.
Two of these streams are those of Humanity
and of a parallel stream called the evolution of
Devas or Angels (Fig.8).
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As already mentioned,
human life has as its earlier stages
animal, vegetable, mineral, and elemental life.
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From that same mineral life, however, the life
diverges into another channel, through the
stages of vegetable forms, animal forms, then
to forms of "nature-spirits" or the fairies of
tradition, into Angels or Devas. Another
parallel stream, about which little is known, is
the life of cells, with its earlier phases and those
to come. A stream of life through electrons, ions
and chemical elements is also probably distinct.
Yet other evolutions exist on our planet, but
for lack of sufficient information they may for
the moment be left out of consideration.
The ladder of life which evolves through the
forms in our midst is seen in Fig. 9.
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The life
utilizes organisms built up of solid, liquid and
gaseous matter; but it also uses forms built of
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more tenuous matter in a "fourth state" of matter (called "etheric" by the Theosophist), and also in types of matter still more rarefied, called "astral" and "mental" matter. Ascending from the mineral, six distinct streams will be noted, converging into Adepts or Perfect ...
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Men, and into Arupa Devas or Higher Angels,
and culminating in a type of lofty entities called
Dhyan Chohans.
Of the six, only two utilize
physical matter in its finer physical or "etheric"
states (first and third columns in the
diagram),
and then build forms in astral matter as
"sylphs". One stream builds organisms living
in water, while three use forms living on land.
Only one of the six streams of life leads into
humanity; the other five pass into the parallel
evolution of the Devas or Angels.
It must be carefully noted that the evolution
of life has its antecedent phases, its heredity,
as it were, which is sometimes quite distinct
from the heredity of the forms. The fact that
mammals and birds have been developed from
reptilian forms only indicates a common ancestry
of bodily form. While seaweeds, fungi,
grasses and mosses have a common physical
heredity from unicellular aquatic organisms,
the life nevertheless has ascended through four
separate streams. Similarly, while birds and
mammals have a common physical ancestry, the
life of birds has, for its future, stages as etheric
creatures, the fairies on the surface of the earth,
then as fairies in higher etheric matter and so
to astral fairies and Devas; but the life of
mammals passes into the human kingdom.
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Before passing from these etheric forms in
earth-depths and in the depths of the sea, it
must be pointed out that an etheric form,
though composed of "matter", can pass.
through and exist in solid rock, or in the sea,
as the air can pass through a wood-pile or remain
among the interstices between the pieces:
of wood. Even our densest substances are
porous to the etheric types of matter; and
organisms built up of these latter types find
no difficulty in existing inside the earth or sea,
since they are not affected by the heat or the
pressure which would make life for ordinary
physical creatures impossible.
The same general differentiation of life is observable
if we consider humanity alone (Fig. 10).
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The stream of life, which later is to become
humanity, has rudimentary marks of specialization,
even in its early phases of elemental,
mineral and vegetable life; we begin to note
these more clearly when the animal kingdom
is reached. There are seven fundamental
types of this life which is going to be human;
there are modifications in each type as it is
influenced somewhat by the others. The types
persist throughout all the kingdoms preceding
the human. The life of dogs is always distinct
from that of cats; that of tile elephants from
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both. The dog life evolved in forms of wolves
and jackals and other canidae, previous to its
highest embodiment in the domesticated dog.
Similarly other types of animal life, like cats,
horses, elephants, monkeys, had their earlier
"incarnations" through more savage and prehistoric
forms of the same species. (This subject
will be dealt with more fully in Chapter VII — "The Evolution of Animals").
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When we come to study these types as they
appear in humanity, a most fascinating view of
mankind opens before us. It requires but little
imagination to see that the canine life, on its
entrance into humanity, will appear as the
devotional type of soul. the classification in
Fig. 11 is in no way final; it is given more by
way of suggestion than as an absolutely correct
clue to, the mystery of temperaments.
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Seven
types are clearly marked; one is not better or
higher than another. They are all needed in
the great evolutionary drama, and each is
great as it contributes to the whole that development
of the one Divine Life and Consciousness
which has been arranged for it by the Logos.
If we examine devotional souls around us we
shall note some who in their heart and mind
go to God direct, and others to whom God is
vague unless conceived in the form of some
Incarnation or Mediator, such as Jesus Christ
or Shri Krishna. There are also devotional
souls who are influenced by the dramatic wave
of life; and then they will covet martyrdom,
not out of conceit or from desire of posing, but
because a life of devotion is unreal unless it is
continually dramatic. Love of God and the
mind of a
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Tolstoy will mean identifying himself in outward ways with the poor and the down-trodden, and playing a role in a dramatic situation; the Christ-life must be dramatic for these souls, to be full of meaning.
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The affectionate type, too, has its many
variants. There are those for whom all life is
centred in the love of one soul alone, the
Romeos and Juliets among us, who are ready
to renounce all for one. There are others who
are capable of a less intense love, but who delight
in sending it out to a wider circle of
parent, child and friend, and are attracted by
philanthropic schemes of activity.
The dramatic type, one variant of which has
been mentioned above, is interesting, as it is
often misunderstood. To them life is not real
unless an event is a scene in a drama. Happiness
is not happiness, unless it is in a drama in
which the soul is playing a "strong part"; grief
is grief only if it is "like Niobe, all tears".
One variant will be drawn to the stage, developing
a dual conception of action as the self
and the not-self;. influenced by the philosophic
type of life, another soul will develop into the
playwright; while the dramatic soul with executive
tendencies will find life fascinating as a
leader of battalions or as the chief of a political
party.
Among the scientific type, the theoretical
and experimental variants are easily recognizable.
A third, the reverential, is less common
just now, but he is the soul full of zeal in
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scientific investigations, yet continually feeling
the universe as the living garment of God.
'The scientist who is spectacular in his methods
has the dramatic type influencing him; his
behaviour is not necessarily the result of vanity
or of a desire to be "in the limelight", but only
because he is living his God-given temperament.
Of the executive type, there is the dramatic
variant, seen in many a political leader, and
another, the magnetic type, who is able to
inspire subordinates with deep loyalty, but is
not at all spectacular — if anything, prefers to
keep in the background, so long as the work is
done.
Little need be said of the philosophic type,
the dIfferences of method adopted by the various
philosophers, in developing their conceptions
of life, are due to what they are, within
themselves, as expressions of the One Life.
Spencer and Haeckel, Ruskin and Carlyle,
Aristotle, Plato, Shankaracharya, Ramanujacharya,
Kant, Hegel, Spinoza, and others, well
represent a few of the many variations of this
"Ray".
To another type, which is much misunderstood,
belong those to whom symbolism strongly
appeals. To these, life is not real unless it
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is an allegory. An example of this type would
be St. John, the author of Revelation, who delights
in symbols and allegories. A modification
of this type is seen in those who find religion
real only when ritual accompanies it.
Vestments and processions, incense and genuflections, are a part of the worship of a being
of this type.
In manifold ways the Logos trains His children
to help Him in the common work, and all
are equal before Him. For each, He has hewn
a path; it is for each to tread his own path,
encouraging the while the others on theirs.
The subject is full of fascination, but enough
has been said to show something of the Evolution
of Life, and to suggest a line of thought
and observation that will be productive of
much wisdom.
This rapid survey of creation from Orion to
man shows, then, an evolutionary process ever
at work, the One becoming the Many. It is
not a process where, in the Many, each strives
for himself, but where each slowly realizes that
his higher expression is dependent upon serving
the others, for all are One. Not a series of like
parts, simply placed in juxtaposition, but one
whole, made up of unlike parts mutually dependent,
is the key-note of the Evolution of
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Form; not one temperament, not one creed or
mode of worship, but a diversity of temperaments
and creeds and ways of service, all uniting
to cooperate with the Logos to bring to
realization what He has planned for us, is ever
the key-note of the Evolution of Life.
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