Evolution E-Book

Henry T. Edge

• Herausgeber: Andura Publishing
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Experience the life-changing power of Henry T. Edge with this unforgettable book.

Leseprobe

Evolution

Henry T. Edge

CONTENTS

SECTION 1

Introductory

The Modern Scientific Doctrine of Evolution

The Astral Plane

The Evolution of Man

The Meaning of the Word “Man”

Self-conscious Mind

Limited View of Science

Man the Most Primitive Stock

Man Descends from — Man

Man and the Apes

Spiritual Urge in Evolution

Evolutionary Waves

SECTION 2

The Antiquity of Mankind

Heredity and Evolution

Is Mankind the Summit of Evolution?

Atavism

Involution and Evolution

Conclusion

Introductory

The word evolution is used in theosophy to denote the universal process by which everything is brought into being; and consequently the subject, if treated in full, would be much too large for a single manual; besides which, the student would be overwhelmed with the vastness of the subject and confused with a mass of details. What we must do, therefore, is to present a broad outline of the subject as a whole and to confine our more detailed treatment to special branches of it, such as the evolution of man and the animals, the Darwinian theory, and similar matters of general interest. And this plan will of course involve the making of approximate statements, true as far as they go, yet not the whole truth. In short, we pursue the usual method adopted by students of any science, and that is to begin with an elementary course and leave the higher course to a later time.

Evolution is the universal process by which things change and grow and develop. Its nature can be understood by a few familiar illustrations. A seed is planted, a minute particle, hardly distinguishable from other kinds of seed; but it goes through various stages of development until it has become a fully grown tree with flowers and fruit. This is evolution; the tree has evolved from the seed. A fertilized ovum in the womb passes through many stages until a fully formed human infant is produced, and this again develops until a fully grown human being appears. This again is evolution, and the human being has evolved from the germ. An architect conceives in his mind an idea; this idea takes form on paper, and plans are drawn; ultimately the plans are executed in marble and granite, until through many stages and by the work of many hands there has arisen a superb and mighty cathedral. This again is evolution, and the edifice has evolved from the idea. Human affairs illustrate the same law of evolution; for here we find institutions, social orders, customs, growing up through stages as manifestations of some idea or plan in which they originated. In a word, evolution is the realization of ideals.

There are other ways of defining the meaning. We can say that it means the bringing into visibility of that which was invisible; the bringing into activity of that which was latent; the coming into manifestation of what was unmanifest. But it does not mean the creation of anything that did not exist before. The cathedral existed before; not as a stone edifice, but as an idea in the mind of the architect. The tree existed before its physical manifestation; it existed in latency, in potentiality, within the seed. The entire future human being was concealed somewhere in or about the germ. Were this not so, there would be nothing to determine why one seed should produce one kind of tree, and another another.

We know that the growing seed gathers to itself elements from earth, air, water, and light; and of these builds its physical structure. The biologist with his microscope can study the evolution of a cell and give a most elaborate and detailed description of what happens; but he cannot see the agencies at work, and may define them as inherent properties of matter or of some life principle.

No sense can be made out of the matter until we recognize all these activities as guided by intelligence. Mind, purpose, intelligence, instinct, desire, guide all the processes in nature; and if we do not admit this, we shall be obliged to invent something else which in some mysterious way performs all the results of intelligence. Moreover, the mind, purpose, etc., are the attributes of living beings, and cannot be thought of apart from the living beings which possess them. Hence it becomes necessary to view all nature as an assemblage of living beings; and, once this is done, difficulties vanish and we can present a rational explanation of the universe and of life and evolution.

The idea of evolution has been held by philosophers from the earliest times, and is an alternative to the idea of special creation by the divine word. The idea that God created the universe at once, at some particular time in the past, is very unsatisfactory to thinking minds. It is natural to think, as we see everything changing and growing around us, that the whole universe and all that is in it has come into being by the same process of growth. The controversy between those who believe in special creation and those who believe in evolution was well illustrated by the celebrated case at Dayton, Tennessee, in which a young school teacher, John Scopes, was tried for teaching children the modern scientific doctrine of evolution. Most people probably thought the attitude taken up by the prosecution was very backward and narrow-minded, and that they showed little knowledge and less respect for the work of science. But yet one feels that they had reason on their side. Crude as their reasoning may have been, they felt strongly that important issues turned on this question between the evolutionists and the religionists. The issue has been vividly and epigrammatically put in the phrase “angel or ape”: did mankind descend from the angels or from the apes? In other words, it was felt that the evolutionist stood for a materialistic and animalistic view of human nature, as opposed to a spiritual and divine idea championed by their opponents. So it is hardly fair to accuse the religionists in this trial with making such a fuss merely about their Bible teachings, for there was more behind their zeal than that. They were championed by no less a person than W. J. Bryan, surely a man of intelligence and culture. It was the conviction that the scientific theories stood for materialism, animalism, a mechanical, mindless, soulless, godless universe; it was this feeling that actuated them and that still actuates many in their opposition. We may recall the bitter animosity aroused at the time when the modern scientific theory of biologic evolution was first promulgated.

But at the same time we feel that the scientific side is worthy of our deep respect. It is represented by people of intelligence and worth, whose findings cannot be dismissed in such a wholesale way. It is owing to this that so many earnest thinkers have sought to find some way of reconciling the conflicting claims. It has been said, for instance, that though God created the universe, he did not create it complete as it is now, but left it to evolve; that God is still creating the universe, his work being continual. It has been said that evolution represents the divine method or process. These are steps towards a unification of knowledge, but the matter needs to be much farther thrashed out. It is evident that the views of both sides in the controversy are very partial, containing truth mixed with error. The view which we stated above — that the universe consists of living beings — will enable us to solve the question.

The Modern Scientific Doctrine of Evolution

In the words of Huxley: “Evolution, or development, is, in fact, at present employed in biology as a general name for the history of the steps by which any living being has acquired the morphological and the physiological characters which distinguish it.” It is the theory that the various types of animals and plants have developed by descent with modification from other preexisting types; and humanity is included in the animal kingdom and regarded as having been developed in this way from lower types in the animal kingdom. The general direction of this evolution has been from simpler types towards more complex and more highly organized types; but sometimes a retrograde movement has been observed. The attempt is to be able to trace the chain of evolving types back to a few very simple forms, or back even to a unicellular organism. Prominent among the names associated with these ideas comes the name of Lamarck, who held that the modifications occurring in organisms, and thus leading to their evolution, were brought about by response to their environment. This theory was developed by Darwin, and what is known as Darwinism has been defined as the theory which maintains that organisms tend to produce offspring varying slightly from their parents, and that the process of natural selection tends to favor the survival of individuals whose peculiarities render them best adapted to their surroundings. This is the doctrine of the survival of the fittest.

This means, then, that the higher types of organisms have been developed from lower types by the slow accumulation of small changes; that these small changes have been communicated from parent to offspring by procreation; that these small changes were caused by the effect of the environment (climate, food, enemies, etc.) upon the organism, causing it to change itself so as to become better adapted to its surroundings; that some of the changes thus produced did not survive, and only those best adapted to meet the conditions of life did survive; so that on the whole the trend of evolution was upwards towards more and more perfect forms. The theory does not give us any idea of the cause behind this process of evolution, nor of its purpose or its goal. It shows us a mechanical process going on, started we know not how or by whom, and reaching out towards an unknown destiny. In short it represents life as a mechanical process, devoid of soul and mind, end or purpose; and this is what causes the repugnance which many feel towards it.