d of a plan more just, of a truth more inspiring? It is
surely a satisfying thought that every effort shall give increased power
of intellect; that all kindly thought of others is a shield for our own
protection in time of need; that every impulse of affection shall ripen
into the love of comrades; that all noble thinking builds heroic
character, with which we shall return, in some future time, to play to a
still noble part in the world of men.

FOOTNOTES:

[M] Proverbs, XXVI, 27.

CHAPTER XV.

SUPERPHYSICAL EVOLUTION

If we accept the idea of evolution at all we cannot escape the
conclusion that there is superphysical evolution. The belief that man is
the highest intelligence in the universe, except God himself, would be
utterly inconsistent with evolutionary facts and principles. Evolution
is a continuous unfolding from within, and it is only the limitation of
our senses that leads us to set limitations to it. The one great life of
the universe expresses itself in myriad forms and at innumerable levels
of development. One of those levels is humanity. But as certainly as our
consciousness has evolved to its present stage it shall go on to higher
ones.

Orderly gradation is clearly nature's method of expression. A
continuous, unbroken line of life reaches downward from man. Its
successive stages are seen in the animals, the reptiles, the insects and
the microbes. Even the great kingdoms into which the biologist divides
life fade into each other almost imperceptibly and it becomes difficult
to say where the vegetable kingdom stops and the animal kingdom begins.
Just as that continuous chain of life runs downward from man it must
also rise above him until it merges in the Supreme Being. There must
necessarily be the higher as well as the lower products of evolution.
Man is merely one link in the evolutionary chain. The human level is the
point where consciousness has become completely individualized and is
capable of turning back upon itself and studying its own inner
processes.

The thought of Occidental civilization has been sadly fettered with
materialism. It has scarcely dared to think beyond that which could be
grasped with the hands. The physical senses were its outposts of
investigation. What could not be seen or heard or felt had no existence
for it. Modern science explored the material universe and perfected its
methods until the vast panorama of worlds could be intimately studied,
and its ill