The Theosophical Path
KATHERINE TINGLEY, EDITOR
VOL. I
NO. 5
NOVEMBER, 1911
Spirit feeds and sustains the air and the earth and the liquid plains of the sea; also the shining globe of the moon, and the Titanian stars: while Mind pervading (the Universe) puts the whole in action, and blends itself with the mighty frame. Thence men, and the races of the beasts and of the flying kind, and the huge creatures brought forth by the Sea beneath his mottled surface. A fiery energy works through these elementals and a celestial origin in the seed, so far as heavy bodies, earth-sprung limbs, and mortal members, weigh not their vigor down.—Virgil, Aeneid, vi, 724-732
EVOLUTION IN THE LIGHT OF THEOSOPHY:
by H. T. Edge, B. A. (Cantab.)
AFTER studying the various theories of biological evolution and the controversies of their respective exponents, one reaches the conclusion that each of the theorists is worrying a small fragment of the truth, and that the actual facts comprehend not only all these theories but a good deal more besides. There is (1) the theory of continuous evolution, which supposes that forms reproduce other forms in a continuous and uniform series; and there is (2) the theory of mutation or saltation, which supposes that new species appear suddenly. An American professor of palaeontology is quoted as reconciling these two supposedly conflicting views by still another hypothesis, which supposes that evolution is on the whole continuous, but with occasional jumps and divergences.
Then there is the controversy as to whether changes are produced by the influence of external environment or whether they occur within the germ; or whether, again, both these influences co-operate.