Lucifer: A Theosophical Magazine. Volume I. September 1887-February 1888.Various
Religion
Lucifer: A Theosophical Magazine. Volume I. September 1887-February 1888.
Various
Theosophy -- Periodicals
In short, the time-honoured formula is claimed to have its basis and
to find its justification in the theory that from “a few, perhaps
one, single form of the very simplest nature” (Darwin), “all the
different animals and plants living to-day, and all the organisms
that have ever lived on the earth,” have gradually developed. It is
this axiom of Science, we are told, which justifies and demonstrates
the Hindu philosophical tenet. What is this axiom? Why, it is this:
Science teaches that the series of transformations through which the
seed is made to pass—the seed that grows into a tree, or becomes an
_ovum_, or that which develops into an animal—consists in every case
in nothing but the passage of the fabric of that seed, from the
homogeneous into the heterogeneous or compound form. This is then
the scientific verity which checks the Indian formula by that of the
Evolutionists, identifies both, and thus exalts ancient wisdom by
recognizing it worthy of modern materialistic thought.
This philosophical formula is not simply corroborated by the
individual growth and development of isolated species, explains our
Pessimist; but it is demonstrated in general as in detail. It is
shown justified in the evolution and growth of the Universe as well
as in that of our planet. In short, the birth, growth and
development of the whole organic world in its integral totality, are
there to demonstrate ancient wisdom. From the universals down to the
particulars, the organic world is discovered to be subject to the
same law of ever increasing elaboration, of the transition from
unity to plurality as “the fundamental formula of the evolution of
life.” Even the growth of nations, of social life, public
institutions, the development of the languages, arts and sciences,
all this follows inevitably and fatally the all-embracing law of
“the breaking asunder of unity into plurality, and the passage of
the homogeneous into multiformity.”
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