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CHAPTER I
THE EVOLUTION OF THOUGHT
We have said that one law regulates the evolution of thought, as it regulates the physical evolution of
beings and worlds. The comprehension of the universe is developed with the progress of the human mind. This
general conception of the universe and of life has been expressed in a thousand fashions, under a thousand
diverse forms in the past. It is expressed in larger terms today, and will be amplified in the measure that
humanity climbs the pathway of ascension.
Science enlarges without cessation its field of exploration. Every day, by the aid of powerful
instruments of observation and analysis, science discovers new aspects of matter, of force, and of life. But that
which those instruments record, the soul of man discovered long ago, for the flight of thought precedes always
and surpasses the methods of positive science. The instruments know nothing, and are nothing, without the
human will to direct them.
Science is uncertain and changeable; it continually reconstructs itself. Its methods, its theories, its
calculations, arrived at with great trouble, crumble before a more attentive observation, or a more profound
deduction, to give place to other theories which are no more definite. 3 The theory of the undividable atom, for
instance, which for two thousand years was the base of chemistry and physical science, is now qualified and
considered mere romance by our most eminent scientists. Many analogous mistakes have demonstrated the
weakness of the scientific mind in the past. That mind will never attain to reality but by lifting itself above the
image of material facts toward the realms of Cause and Law.
It is in this fashion that science has been able to determine the immutable principles of logic and
mathematics. But it is not the same in the other orders of research. The scientist too often carries his
prejudices, his personal tendencies, and his habits of routine into the domain of psychic research. This is
particularly true of France, where there are indeed few scientists with the courage and the enlightenment
sufficient to enable them to follow a pathway already traced by brilliant minds of other nations.
Despite these facts, the human spirit advances step by step toward an understanding of itself and the
universe. Our ideas of force and matter are modified each day, and human personality reveals itself under
unexpected aspects. In the face of so much phenomena established by experimentation, in face of accumulated
testimonials from all quarters, no clear-seeing intelligent mind can deny the proof of the survival of the soul, or
elude the moral consequences and responsibility, which follow that fact. That which we say of science, can be
equally said of the philosophies and the religions, which succeeded one another down the centuries. They
constitute so many steps or stations pursued by humanity still in its infancy - steps leading up toward spiritual
planes, growing more vast and elevated at each turn.
The diverse beliefs of humanity are but the gradual development of the divine ideal reflected in the
thoughts with more and more purity and brightness as the mind develops in refinement. The belief and the
understanding of a period of time represent the measure of truth which men of that epoch can seize and
comprehend, until the development of their faculties and their consciences enables them to perceive a higher
form and a more intense radiation of the truth.
Seen from this point of view, even early fetishism explains itself, despite its bloody rites. It is the first
babbling of the infantine soul, striving to spell the divine language, and to give in forms appropriates to its
own mental state its vague, confused, rudimentary conception of a superior world. Paganism represents a more
elevated conception, though exceedingly anthropomorphic. The pagan gods are all men, with the same
passions and weaknesses; but even here the ideal of something higher is found. It brings a ray of eternal beauty
to fertilize the world.
Still higher is the Christian idea of sacrifice and renunciation. Greek paganism was the religion of
radiant nature! Christianity is that of suffering humanity, a religion of tombs and crypts and catacombs, born
from the persecution and the sorrow it has suffered, and keeping the imprint of its origin.
3 Professor Richet says: ‘Science has ever been a series of errors and approximations, constantly in a state of evolution, constantly overturning
themselves, and changing more quickly than they form.’
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