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The Seventh Lesson: Cosmic Evolution.813
elements. The material part of all living things is alike—the difference lies in
the degree of Mind controlling the matter in which it is embodied.
Of these physical materials, carbon is the most important to the living
forms. It seems to possess properties capable of drawing to it the other
elements, and forcing them into service. From carbon proceeds what is
called “protoplasm,” the material of which the cells of animal and vegetable
life is composed. From protoplasm the almost infinite varieties of living forms
have been built up by the process of Evolution, working gradually and by
easy stages. Every living form is made up, or composed, of a multitude of
single cells, and their combinations. And every form originates in a single cell
which rapidly multiplies and reproduces itself until the form of the amoeba;
the plant; the animal; the man, is completed. All living forms are but a single
cell multiplied. And every cell is composed of protoplasm. Therefore we
must look for the beginning of life in the grade of matter called protoplasm.
In this both modern Science and the Yogi Teachings agree fully.
In investigating protoplasm we are made to realize the wonderful
qualities of its principal constituent—Carbon. Carbon is the wonder worker
of the elements. Manifesting in various forms, as the diamond, graphite,
coal, protoplasm—is it not entitled to respect? The Yogi Teachings inform
vis that in Carbon we have that form of matter which was evolved as the
physical basis of life. If any of you doubt that inorganic matter may be
transformed into living forms, let us refer you to the plant life, in which you
may see the plants building up cells every day from the inorganic, chemical
or mineral substances, in the earth, air, and water. Nature performs every
day the miracle of transforming chemicals and minerals into living plant cells.
And when animal or man eats these plant cells, so produced, they become
transformed into animal cells of which the body is built up. What it took
Nature ages to do in the beginning, is now performed in a few hours, or
minutes.
The Yogi Teachings, again on all-fours with modern Science, inform us that
living forms had their beginning in water. In the slimy bed of the polar seas