Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887 edition. Excerpt: ... chapter xii. evolution and involution. "The outward doth from the inward roll And the inward dwells in the inmost Soul." What is evoution? It is a theory of the steps by which the earth has come to its present state, and how the different forms of animal and vegetable life have succeeded one another and have come to what they are. It takes away some things, but they are such as no clear head and human heart would like to keep. One who accepts it will have to surrender the belief in the fall of man, in the common doctrine of heaven and hell, and the teaching of the Bible, but evolution does not put God beyond us. It brings Him unspeakably nearer to us instead, revealing Him in every grass blade, in every nerve-thrill, in every heartthrob. So far from it being true that evolution destroys religion, it prepares the foundation for the grandest temple of human worship ever reared. Spirit is distinct from matter but not from energy; energy is the source of matter. It is therefore through energy and law that God is associated with the universe. The law is His word, and His will the executive. Never did a living being appear on earth by the unaided action of matter, or mere play of chemical forces. The living thing, whether plant or animal, had in itself an element of life or spirit which was not matter, and that element was a portion of the Infinite sphere of life and power which can never be seen by the material eye, but is visible to the opened vision of the Spirit when man rises into the possession of his Spiritual senses unencumbered by the material of the earth. Not only does all life originate thus but it is continually maintained from the Spirit world, for as the body cut off from the material world would soon cease to exist, so the...
