A Study of the evolution * of the human soul implies and necessitates a primary examination of the processes of evolution generally. Man is but a factor in nature - a part of the finite expression of the inexpressible Infinite, - and differs only in degree from entities both above and below him in the scale of being. To arrive at his basic principles, to discover the modus operandi of the law of evolution under whose action he has reached his present standpoint, we have to turn to the universal cosmic factors which are equally the cause of man and of his every environment, whether material, intellectual, or spiritual.

Certain recent experiments in physics, as well, also, as studies in mathematics, indicate hitherto unsuspected facts concerning natural phenomena, which have a profound bearing upon our conceptions of evolution. For instance: We have been taught by modern Western science to believe that force is most active and most potent in molecular or grossly material conditions, and that as we retreat to those more subjective it becomes less and less potent, until when thought or mental states are reached it ceases to exist as force at all. Having passed the uttermost limits of our ability to pursue or detect it by physical means, it, of course, no longer exists, unless we ascend to its higher retreats. Naturally, all experiments which deal with the purely physical seem to warrant this conclusion; especially those in which our very thoughts have been measured by molecular vibrations, expressed in a rise of temperature of the superficies of our brain, and which expression becomes more and more faint as our thoughts become more and more interior and subjective. But the behavior of water even, when changed into vapor by heat, ought to have aroused suspicion that higher states of matter contain greater potencies than lower.

And the liberation of "inter-etheric" force by Keeley, backed by the behavior and potencies of electricity, together with numerous other phenomena, show us that what we have been in the habit of considering as the very essence of force is only the driftwood, so to speak, cast upon the shores of the great seas and oceans of potential energies in which we have our being.

* The human soul can not be said to "evolve," in the scientific acceptation of this term, which is one - sided, as is most materialistic nomenclature. It is retained because convenient, and because its real meaning will be made clear in the context.

Force being, like Substance and Consciousness, an attribute of the Absolute, must have infinite potencies. Hence, it logically follows that the nearer we penetrate to Absolute and eternal states of matter and consciousness the more stupendous and inconceivable become the forces which have there their normal field of activity. Nothing could exceed the emptiness, the utter void, in our conception, of the interstellar or ethereal spaces lying between planets or suns. "Ether" has become a synonym for a state of matter which, while necessary to account for certain phenomena, is still considered so tenuous that it is practically nonexistent, and hydrogen gas becomes by comparison with it as dense as iron. Yet out of this ether, when manipulated by knowledge, appears an energy before which all purely physical forces are brushed aside, as are wisps of vapor in the path of a cannon-ball. The only reason for the existence and relative permanency of the forces and matter of this phenomenal world lies in the fact that they are out of direct relation to, and only sustain those distantly harmonic with, the forces of higher ones; that for astral, ethereal, and akasic matter our own "physical basis of life" is practically non-existent. The ethereal vibrations play through our earth, our bodies and our senses even without producing any effect upon our consciousness, or, as far as analogy permits us to suppose, our affecting by our presence the consciousness of entities ensouled by this higher form of matter.

Of course, this earth is not out of all relation to inner states of matter and modes of force, but it is out of direct relation thereto. Physical matter is the production of forces having their origin in vibrations in these interior states; but before such force is converted into physical terms it passes through many gradations, each removing it more and more from the potencies of those infinite storehouses of energy from which the Cosmos springs into being.

Bearing in mind, then, that force becomes more and more potent as it retires to realms which to us are more and more subjective, we can approach the subject of evolution with a better conception of the nature of the problems to be solved. For evolution is not, in this view, the study of the process of "creation out of nothing" - the task set themselves by theologians and theology-biased philosophers; - but, rather, the method by which the Absolute or Infinite Force, Matter, and Consciousness, limits itself and becomes the finite as revealed to man. We are not troubled at all by the insufficiency of the cause, but by the apparent limiting in time and space of the effects of a necessarily unlimited Causeless Cause. One thing seems certain - that, as has been expressed by a recent writer, * "if Infinite Being is to be manifested in finite existence, it must be through infinite variations of the finite." The law of infinite variation, indeed, would seem to be one of the methods by which the Infinite expresses itself without lessening its own infinity. Another means by which, from our point of view, the Absolute and Unconditioned becomes the finite and conditioned, is in the all-pervading and unbroken law of cycles.

In some form or degree, cyclic activity marks all existence or evolution, from that of a molecule to that of a manvantara. Still another of these basic generalizations which have their common root in the Unknowable is the absolute sway of Cause and Effect in all realms of nature, from the highest and most super - spiritual to the lowest and most material. It is a logical conclusion that all absolutely unvarying laws, modes of motion, or states of consciousness, are direct aspects of the Absolute; and that by means of them we may approach to at least a partial conception of some planes of the Great Source of all life and being. Such would appear to be those we have cited, viz.: Infinite potentiality reflected in infinite variation of the finite; Absolute permanency of Being, shown in the absolute sway of Cause and Effect; and eternal Duration in the unending, universal cycles which enable Duration to manifest as Time.