The Incarnate Purpose: Essays on the Spiritual Unity of Life

by G. H. Percival

The history of mankind is a history of religion, wherein we may observe man's idea of the nature of God and of his own relation towards God, keeping pace with his development as an intellectual and spiritual creature. When we review this evolutionary process, involving millions of generations of progenitors and covering immeasurable æons of time, we see emerging the creature destined to be known as man. With the slow dawn and growth of his intelligence, accompanied by a reaching out into an ever-widening environment, comes a dim perception of life and power outside himself—an acting force that is greater than his own. In apprehending the existence of God, man is evolved as a spiritual creature and stands in a kingdom of his own, destined to realise his essential unity with God as the Spirit of Life, in whose likeness he is made. His apprehension of the existence of a spiritual God has given him a soul. He sets about fulfilling his destiny. His attitude towards other organisms is that of Providence—of that Over-Lord who before his own spiritual birth was his own Providence, i.e. an active power outside himself and greater than his own. From this time forth his dominion is felt in the world as a governing force. His ability and authority increase with intellectual growth, until, as in the present day, the generation, development and extinction of species in the animal and vegetable kingdoms are to a certain extent modified by him according to his will and for his own ends.

Throughout his wonderful career we find his Deity representative of his own growing powers, and of his own attitude towards the governing forces of Nature. His conception of God is, in fact, the chronicle in serial form of his evolution as an intellectual and spiritual creature, a chronicle which faithfully records his progress and reflects his changing conditions of life.

A study of the religions of men of past ages is thus a study of the index of their lives, their thought, their social and moral status, enabling us to estimate their positions in the evolutionary scale of humanity. As we review this register of the life-stories of mankind, we find the idea of the nature of God keeping pace with intellectual advance. But although the distinguishing characteristic of man, even in his crudest stage, is always his idea of and his worship of a Deity, mankind as a whole has never worshipped at any one time the same idea of God. In the past as well as in the present, the many religions existing and obtaining credence and support all over the inhabited world give a fair idea of the intellectual and moral status of the people they represent. The ethical value of any religion is not gauged by an estimate of the number of its devotees as compared with those of any other religion. Its existence merely represents the mental state of those who are its adherents. As a rule, a religious creed is built upon a supposed special revelation of God; but to the scientist religions appear also as revelations of mankind. To him their value is retrospective and deductive, inasmuch as they offer evidence of intellectual growth, which he perceives to be the natural precursor of those spiritual conceptions of the nature of God which may become in course of time consolidated into dogmatic formulæ.

The extinction or survival of a religious creed as an active force points to the extinction or survival of that type of mind of which the creed was the reflection. Progress forbids uniformity of type and equality of structure on the spiritual as well as on the physical plane of life. Change and variety of religious feeling are necessary to the evolution of the soul, and should be welcomed as evidence of its growth. But not until, from the several types of man now inhabiting the earth, one were proved fit to survive in the struggle for existence and capable of maintaining its supremacy, could mankind worship the same idea of God. If this should ever occur, the change in the spiritual consciousness of man might be as stupendous and of consequences as far-reaching as that crisis in his physical evolution when the brute, becoming apprehensive of a God, was born into spiritual life and became possessed of a soul.

But the inequality of species cannot be adopted as the calculative basis of comparative virtue in the evolutionary scale, since the relative positions of organisms can only be determined by an examination of the degree of consciousness possessed by each in comparison with the others. For instance, although we say that a horse is a more highly organised creature than a rabbit, meaning thereby that according to our estimation he presents a more complicated mechanism, yet such a comparison of physical susceptibility is necessarily imperfect, because limited by the degree of our own discrimination. For since the correctness of our judicial opinions rests upon our ability properly to appreciate the true relation between intelligences and their environments different from our own, it follows that our criticism of their comparative complexity can be no criterion of intrinsic individual merit. The same inadequacy of human judgment applies to any attempt to estimate the degree of spiritual consciousness possessed by various organisms. Such endeavour may be successful in establishing a comparative standard for a rational criticism of religious creeds in their relation to physical evolution; but it is powerless to affix a stationary standard of morality to differently constructed intelligences.

The possession by creatures of faculties differing from those of others does not necessarily make for superiority or inferiority. That is to say, differentiation of type does not determine merit. A man is not superior to a horse because his structure and powers are unlike those of the horse; nor is a rabbit or a bird inferior either to a horse or to a man, since the organisation of all these creatures is adapted to different usage. Thus, the possession of a highly specialised brain does not in itself make of man a superior order of creation. The use or abuse of faculties, and the obedience or disobedience to the laws of being, offer the only standard by which the comparative superiority, inferiority, or equality of creatures of different organisation can be fairly estimated. And only by a similar comparison of the response to spiritual environment displayed by the followers of religious creeds can an approximate idea of their value be formed.

It is unreasonable to dissociate the evolution of any one organism from the evolution of the whole of life. All creatures have a common origin in the Spirit of Life, and if we believe that all things work together for good in the manifestation through love of this vital energy, all organisms are seen to be of mutual help in the development of spiritual consciousness as well as in the perfecting of physical form. There exists, therefore, no warrant for assuming that the physical and spiritual evolution of man is achieved more for his own separate good than for the common benefit of all forms of life; or that organisms other than man have not, or will never have, those spiritual conceptions of the nature of God which signify the development of what we designate as Soul.

Because all creatures are the works of God's hand—images of the Divine Will—evolutionary growth must surely bring them increasing consciousness of union with the essential Spirit of Life, which is at once the source and end of their beings. We are justified in assuming that the Creator does indeed draw from all His creatures recognition of an order dependent upon the manner and purpose of their kind. But though it be granted that perception of the presence of spiritual attributes in organisms may be resolved into an appreciation of the ability of creatures to conceive ideas of the nature of God, verification of any such supposed ability depends upon the standard of Truth upon which investigation is based.

Now, although evidence is rightly regarded as a proper test of all truth possible of comprehension, there may be apprehended the existence of infinite truths not demonstrable in their entirety, because their adequate expression necessitates faculties not possessed by the finite intelligence of man. When essential truth is in some measure perceived, it is always evidence that brings about comprehension; but when only dimly apprehended and shrouded in mystery, the intellect reaches forward into realms too hazy and undefined to allow of a deduction of evidential testimony in support of something not yet within the demonstrable scope of reason.