Evolution of Life and Form: Four lectures delivered at the twenty-third anniversary meeting of the Theosophical Society at Adyar, Madras, 1898Besant, Annie
Religion
Evolution of Life and Form: Four lectures delivered at the twenty-third anniversary meeting of the Theosophical Society at Adyar, Madras, 1898
Besant, Annie
Evolution; Life -- Origin; Theosophy
If we take, for a moment, a swift survey of the evolution of forms, we
shall find that the building of organs follows the exercise of
life-functions; in the earliest forms there are no organs, but the
functions of life are present and active; the creature breathes and
assimilates, circulation goes on; but there are no organs for digestion,
no organs for breathing, no organs for circulation; the whole body does
everything. But as evolution proceeds and definite organs are formed in
the physical body, in the nervous system, and as later, in the astral
body, chakras or astral centres of sensation are formed--as this goes
on, we find a more specialised being developed with definite organs.
Always the organ comes after the function, and through the organ the
function expresses itself more and more perfectly. That is a fundamental
principle. And do not forget that in this you are on what is thought the
safer ground of western science. You do not find an organ appearing
before the development of its function. You always find the life-impulse
first, and then the moulding of the matter into a shape which enables
that impulse to express itself more perfectly. If we trace evolution
from the amœba upwards we find differentiation and specialisation
becoming more marked the whole way through, yet man himself turns round,
and with the very brain which has been formed under the vibrations of
intelligence he reverses the whole process, and asserts that thought is
produced by the brain; but every organ is formed as the organ of a
function, it is produced by life, and is not its creator.
This process goes on until the necessary organs are made and the nervous
system is linked to the chakras in the astral body, chiefly through what
is called the sympathetic system. There are certain nervous cells of a
peculiar kind in that system, of which modern science does not say
much, beyond giving you the forms and contents, and these are the links
between consciousness in the physical body and in the sensory body. Then
come the chakras already spoken of as the centres for the working of
consciousness in the astral body. A similar process goes on in the
mental body under the action of thought-impulses, and there we have also
an organised body able to respond to different kinds of thought, and
thus to serve consciousness as its organ for expression in the mental
world. As we grow mentally we build our organs for consciousness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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