7rcTIX1xP

A Series of Lessons on the Inner Teachings of the Philosophies and Religions of India1168
which in turn combining into molecules form other grades and styles of
matter. Kapila also taught another doctrine which is now favoured by the
modern science of the West—that doctrine of the love and hate of atoms
which explained the mutual attraction and repulsion of the particles which
are evident through the physical universe, and which action and reaction
account for the greater part of the physical phenomena.
Kapila taught the doctrine of Evolution, beginning with the atoms or
ultimate ensouled particles, which, combining by reason of love or hate,
formed more complex forms, from which in turn evolved more complex
combinations, and so on, and on, until at last organic matter was produced,
and then the life-forms began to appear, rising higher and higher in the
scale until man, and super man is reached, and still the urge of evolution
continues on toward higher and still higher forms. But Kapila rejected any
idea of purely material evolution—he held that unless the Purushas were
ensouled in the Prakriti and thus gave to it intelligent activity, there would
be no material evolution. He made this distinction because of the Spirit
being the active cause of Evolution, rather than because of any inherent
quality in Prakriti itself. Kapila’s philosophy exerted a marked effect upon
the thought of the Grecian philosophers, and the doctrine may be traced
directly back to the Sankhya teachings. In turn the Greek philosophers
have largely influenced the modern scientific thought, as may be seen by
referring to any recent work on physical science, in which credit is freely
given to the Greeks. The idea of evolution, material and spiritual, which
shows throughout the Greek and Neo-Platonic philosophies, and which is
incorporated in all of the occult teachings, was arranged into a systematic
form by Kapila, even though he obtained its germ ideas from his Hindu
predecessors. As Prof. Hopkins has said: “Plato is full of Sankhyan thought,
worked out by him, but taken from Pythagoras. Before the sixth century b.c.
all the religious-philosophical ideas of Pythagoras were current in India. If
there were but one or two of these cases, it might be set aside as accidental
coincidences, but such coincidences are too numerous to be the result of