X. Evolution as a Key.
1892 original text, YOGeBooks typeset transcription; original text extent only
Great truths are greatly won, not found by chance,
Nor wafted on the breath of summer dream,
But grasped in the great struggle of the soul,
Hard buffeted with adverse wind and stream.
Wrung from the spirit in hard hours
Of weakness, solitude, perchance of pain;
Truth springs like harvest from the well-ploughed field,
And the soul feels it has not wept in vain.”
The plane of spirituality is not fully attained until a decisive victory is gained over lower conditions. Those conditions, when normal, have their legitimate place, but the time comes when they must be outgrown. To linger in lower forms when the soul is ready for a higher moulding, is to arrest development and violate the divine order. Any turning back, or even standing still, involves penalty and decay. The trend of the universal economy must be observed, otherwise friction and disaster follow. The law of progress is one and the same for the individual, the race, and the whole universe of God.
The great distinguishing feature of animality is selfishness, while that of the spiritual plane is unselfishness. These states are as opposite as the poles, and the entire length of the ladder of human evolution stretches out between them.
The problem of the existence of evil and its relation to evolutionary law having been touched upon in a former chapter (The Universality of Law), need not be taken up in this connection. The evolutionary philosophy classifies things as higher and lower, rather than as good and evil. The lower is the soil in which the higher takes root. By this growth the higher gains a breadth and grandeur which could only come from adverse conditions outgrown and left behind.
Science, evolution, and true religion interpret, indorse, and supplement each other, and are all indispensable in forming the great sphere of Truth. Each must contribute its part to produce a grand diapason of harmony.
Evolution is the long-sought clew that has been needed to unify and interpret all phenomena. Through its aid, discordant and misplaced theories, philosophies, and institutions find their true place, and are brought into accord. It translates all history, and brings orderly progression out of spasmodic confusion. It solves problems in biology and anthropology, and explains and anticipates progression in governmental systems, morals, sociology, and religion. It has to do with spirit as well as matter; divinity as well as humanity. It silences all pessimistic philosophy; and high upon the folds of its irresistible banner is inscribed the watchword—Excelsior. However good and perfect the to-day, it bids men look for a better to- morrow.
The misconstructions of biblical interpretation are removed when the Bible is approached as an evolutionary, sacred literature. Regeneration, which was regarded as supernatural, is seen as a natural step in progressive unfoldment.
The persistence of the substratum of animalism in mankind is shown by the outcroppings of war, strife, envy, and division, which continually come to the surface of human history. The murky clouds of pessimism and egotism are also exhalations from the same unwholesome plane.
Evolution is progression in life and not in matter. All the great steps are different qualities of attained internal character. Matter never progresses; which proves that it is only a form of expression. The identical physical material appears and re-appears in higher and lower forms of life, therefore it has no character of its own. The atoms which form the body of a saint are the same that have made up the body of a plant or animal. The progression is in the immaterial reality. It is important that this great distinction be preserved, for thereby the sophistry of materialism is exposed. Evolution is the progression of ascending inherent qualities of life; and these incidentally make use of sensuous and temporary translations. Every kind of life grows, but shapes of outward manifestation disintegrate.
For the individual and the race, life is becoming broader, richer, diviner; and this law of progress is eternal.
The divine order cannot be fragmentary or broken off, and therefore progressive unfoldment will continue in the future state as here. Time and space being ephemeral can interpose no resistance to the eternal sweep of this great Law, which finds its sublimest field for exercise in the human soul.
Human unfoldment is pressing on towards the supreme ideal of racial love and harmony. The heavenly condition becomes increasingly distinct and complete as the great evolutionary highway is traversed. That love which now flows in a few narrow personal channels will broaden to take in all humanity, and its concentric circles will bring God and all His children together in loving unity.