But the contemplation of the present coil in which we find ourselves involved is quite confusing enough for it extends back farther than our comprehension can grasp and is still very far from finished. It will never be complete until we have all reached our limit of attainment, and that is yet a long way ahead of us.
It is obvious that these mighty processes lead to some ultimate object, and that they could never have been started into operation without a reason.
The ultimate object is easily found. It is quite evidently progress. And the reason seems by analogy to be similar to that which dominates every living thing in the Universe—the desire to expand, to create, to perpetuate. This desire seems to have impelled that incomprehensible Power which is back of all life and expression to make itself manifest. A Breath of itself took the form of matter and in obedience to the immutable law of compensation sought at once to return to its original exalted condition.
That descent into matter was Involution. The regeneration, the re-ascent to the original purity is Evolution.
The creative Consciousness awoke to a desire for manifestation and produced from its thought, substance. Then were set in motion the forces through whose operations substance took on form and living organisms appeared.
The degradation of that Spiritual Essence into a condition of matter was Involution. It was a degradation or descent because it was a change. No change could have exalted it, so the altered condition was a descent. The process of regeneration, the work of purification from the stain of material existence began at once and still goes on. And that is evolution.
When man began to assume domination over the other products of evolution and became a reasoning, responsible creature, that was evidence that he is the medium through which matter is to be uplifted to its former spiritual condition. In other words, it is a certainty that matter reaches its highest development in man and that the next step beyond the physical man is the divine man—the man of pure spirituality practically unsullied by matter. All the processes of evolution lead to the supremacy of the physical man over all other material development, and as he continues to advance he will inevitably reach a condition so exalted as to be virtually divine while still living in the flesh. Such men exist even to-day and have been known in all ages.
They are those who occasionally appear as Saviours and Messiahs. They are the pioneer wavelets which spray the shore in advance of the incoming tide.
When man reaches that point of perfection that will free him from the material or physical life forever, his evolution is complete and involution may begin again upon a new world as it has done countless millions of times before and will continue to do to all eternity.
We cannot of course comprehend why the Divine Consciousness has arranged all this stupendous machinery for the mere sake of becoming manifest. We cannot assume that it is for any reason that we could understand even though it were revealed to us. But we may wonder less perhaps when we consider that time and space are nothing in actual fact, and the immensity of our universe and the tremendous stretches of time that paralyze all thought of reckoning are but trifles not to be considered in contemplating the Infinite.