A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

114 IMMORTALITY.philosophers of India called it involution. We find, then,that every evolution presupposes an involution. Nothingcan be evolved which is not already in. Here again modarnscience comes to our help. You know by mathematicalreasoning that the sum-total of the energy that is displayed in the universe is the same throughout. You cannot take away one atom of matter or one foot-pound offorce. You cannot add to the universe one atom of matteror one foot-pound of force. As such, evolution did not comeout of zero ; then, where does it come from ? It came ininvolution before. The child is the man mvolved, and theman is the child evolved. The seed is the tree involved,and the tree is the seed evolved. All the possibilities ofall life are in the germ. The question becomes a littleclearer. Add to it the first idea of continuation of life.From the lowest protoplasm to the most perfect humanbeing, there is really one life. Just as in one life we haveso many various phases of expression, the baby, the child,the young man, the old man extend that farther, andtrace the baby a few steps back, then back, and back, untilyou come to the protoplasm. Thus, from that protoplasmup to the most perfect man we get one continuous line, onechain. This is evolution, but we have seen that eachevolution presupposes an involution. The whole of this lifewhich slowly manifests itself, evolves itself from theprotoplasm to the perfected human being,the incarnationof God on earth, the whole of this series is but one life,and the whole of this manifestation must have beeninvolved in that very protoplasm. This whole life,this very God on earth was involved there, and onlyslowly. The highest expression must have been there inthe germ state, in minute form ; therefore, this one force,this whole chain, is the involution of what ? Of that cosmic