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The Eighth Lesson: The Ascent of Man.841
and perhaps to produce fire; strong in his needs of life and vague sense
of right to it and to what he could get, but slowly impelled by common
perils and passions to form ties, loose and haphazard at the outset, with his
kind, the power of combination with them depending on sounds, signs and
gestures.”
Such was the ancestral man. Those who are interested in him are referred
to the two wonderful tales of the cave-man written in the form of stories by
two great modern novelists. The books referred to are (1) “The Story of Ab,”
by Stanley Waterloo, and (2) “Before Adam,” by Jack London. They may be
obtained from any bookseller. Both are works of fiction, with the scientific
facts cleverly interwoven into them.
And now in conclusion before we pass on the subject of “Spiritual
Evolution,” which will form the subject of our next lesson, we would again
call your attention to the vital difference between the Western and the
Eastern Teachings. The Western holds to a mechanical theory of life, which
works without the necessity of antecedent Mind, the latter appearing as a
“product” at a certain stage. The Eastern holds that Mind is back of, under, and
antecedent to all the work of Evolution—the cause, not the effect or product.
The Western claims that Mind was produced by the struggle of Matter to
produce higher forms of itself. The Eastern claims that the whole process of
Evolution is caused by Mind striving, struggling and pressing forward toward
expressing itself more fully—to liberate itself from the confining and retarding
Matter—the struggle resulting in an Unfoldment which causes sheath after
sheath of the confining material bonds to be thrown off and discarded, in the
effort to release the confined Spirit which is behind even the Mind. The Yogi
Teachings are that the Evolutionary Urge is the pressure of the confined Spirit
striving to free itself from the fetters and bonds which sorely oppress it.
The struggle and pain of Evolution is the parturition-pangs of the Spiritual
deliverance from the womb of Matter. Like all birth it is attended by pain
and suffering, but the end justifies it all. And as the human mother forgets
her past suffering in the joy of witnessing the face, and form, and life, of her