"The glorious creature laughed out even in sleep! But when full roused, each giant limb awake, Each sinew strung, the great heart pulsing fast, He shall start up and stand on his own earth; Then shall his long triumphant march begin; Thence shall his being date; - thus wholly roused, What he achieves shall be set down to him. When all the race is perfected alike As man, that is; all tended to mankind, And, man produced, all has its end thus far; But in completed man begins anew A tendency to God."

- Browning.

While the law of evolution, as explained by its discoverers, tends to clear up and make plain many phases and conditions of things hitherto unexplainable, there are yet numberless things shrouded in mystery.

If we accept the law of the survival of the fittest as conclusive, we must consider Nature as being in one sense thoroughly heartless; that is, that natural law decrees the destruction of all that is weak and the preservation of all that is strong. Yet for countless ages there has been a constructive work going on, having for its aim the perfecting of a habitation for living creatures, beginning with the tiniest conceivable - each habitation becoming ever more complex and complete; hence, what we see in the phenomena of growth is not the destruction of life at all; it is the destruction of imperfect form, in order that the inner living entity may begin anew the construction of a more ideal body. This process continues until each form is complete and perfect, when a new type is evolved, because there is mind-action in even the very lowest forms of life. When nourishment is required there is intelligence enough to draw, or to cause the entity to reach out after, the needed sustenance; and if Nature has not provided the means of locomotion, the latent powers of the creature are then forced into activity. I believe the time is near when the scientific world will perceive that the law of evolution is not sufficient in itself to explain the why and wherefore of life in its varying conditions and forms, and that the so-called law of natural selection will have to be discarded and another substituted that will not work injury to the law of evolution, but explain it more fully: a law that will take into account a supreme Intelligence seeking manifestation through a multiplicity of ideals; a law that will demonstrate that the ideal is always first and the expression of it last. The law of evolution deals with effects, at no point entering the realm of causation. The higher law, of which evolution is but the outer expression, will only be understood when we go to the fountain-head of things - when we seek knowledge of causes.

Knowledge coming to us in this way will give the real key with which to unlock the secrets of the external world. The one who would know must begin with causes, and through them explain effects; the law of involution first, the law of evolution last; the Immanent God, the Indwelling Spirit, the Ideal seeking expression. When John the Baptist Said, "God can raise up of these stones children unto Abraham," he did not mean an external power, but an infinite and eternal Energy pulsating even in the very stones. This is not a dead universe, but one that throbs with life from the very heart to the circumference. The universe lives and moves and has its being in God.

Our knowledge of earth-life is not eternal knowledge. It pertains to temporal things. Through its right application, however, we are enabled to develop the knowledge that is latent within each of us. This is not accumulated wisdom, but rather the potentialities of soul and mind. The enduring qualities of human life pertain to the soul.

In the first place, let us consider the ideal man as a spiritual being, animated by the spirit of God, controlled and directed by a divine intelligence - the microcosm, the very image and likeness of God - in whose life is contained an infinity of possibilities reaching from the lowest earthly conditions to a realization of oneness with God; from conditions wherein sin, sorrow and sickness weigh down and burden the life to that absolute sonship wherein the soul triumphant has dominion and power over all things. We may not postulate the "birth" of the soul, but we can trace its history through its earthly pilgrimage.

Altho the spiritual man is first in reality, yet, when we come to deal with man from the phenomenal or the evolutionary point of view, we must necessarily begin with the physical or animal man - the animal that is more subtle than any beast of the field, because this man is in reality the summing up of the whole animal kingdom. He is also the epitome of all the intelligence that controls and directs the animal kingdom.

Every characteristic found in any of the lower kingdoms can be found in man, so that when man looks out on the visible world about him he is looking on a picture of what he is, or what he has been; there is absolutely nothing that has not its correspondence in his own conscious life.

In the purely physical stage of development, man to a very great degree is governed by the same law that controls and directs the life of the animal. If he conforms to the law of this lower plane, he is comparatively well and happy. It is not as yet essential to his well-being that he have conceptions as to his relations to God and humanity. Moderation and temperance are, however, qualities necessary for his physical health. If whatever mind he has developed is comparatively free from the passions of anger, hatred, and strife - if the life is in a state of control, so far as it has developed - it makes no difference whether religious ideas have as yet found place in his mind. Obedience to this law of moderation in all things brings health and happiness as a natural result. The requirements for this plane of development being so few and simple, more people are found here well and strong than on the higher and more complex planes. From him to whom little is given, little is required.