Now we cannot conceive any limit to Evolution. To suppose a point where
it comes to an end is a contradiction in terms. It is to suppose that
the Eternal Life Principle is used up, which is to deny its Eternity;
and, as we have seen, unless we assume its Eternity, it is impossible to
account either for our own existence or that of anything else.
Therefore, to say that a point will ever be reached where it will be
used up, is as absurd as saying that a point will be reached where the
sequence of numbers will be used up. Evolution, the progress from lower
to higher modes of manifestation of the underlying Principle of Life, is
therefore eternal, but, in regard to the human race, this progress
depends entirely on the extent to which we grasp the principles of the
Law of our own Being, and so learn to specialize it in the right
direction. Then if this be our place in the Universal Order, it becomes
clear that we could not occupy this place unless we had a perfectly free
hand to choose the conditions under which the Law is to operate; and
therefore, in order to pass beyond the limits of the mineral, vegetable
and animal kingdoms, and reach the status of being Persons, and not
things, we must have a freedom of selection and volition, which makes it
equally possible for us to select either rightly or wrongly; and the
purpose of sound teaching is to make us see the eternal principles
involved, and thus lead us to impress our Personality upon the Law, in
the way that will bring out the infinite possibilities of good which the
Law, rightly employed, contains. If it were possible to do this by an
automatic Law, doubtless the Creative Wisdom would have made us so. This
is why St. Paul says: "If there had been a law given which could have
given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law" (Gal. iii,
21). Note the words "a law _given_," that is to say, imposed by external
command; but it could not be. The laws of the Universe are Cosmic. In
themselves they are _impersonal_, and the infinite possibilities
contained in them, can only be brought out by the co-operation of the
Personal Factor. It is only as we grasp the true relation between Jachin
and Boaz, that we can enter into the Temple either of our own
Individuality, or of the boundless Universe in which we live. The
reason, therefore, why God did not make us mechanically incapable of
wrong thinking, is simply because the very idea involves a contradiction
in terms, which negatives all possibility of Creation. The conception
lands us in a _reductio ad absurdum_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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