Supermind and Humanity /2....It could at once be objected that this would alter the whole evolutionary order and its balance and leave an incurable gap its completeness: there would be an unbridged gulf between in and the animal and no way for the evolutionary nisus to a journey over it in the progress of the consciousness from animality to divinity; for, some kind of divinity would be involved in the suggested metamorphosis. It might be contended that the le process of evolution is to add a new principle, degree or stage to the already existing order and not to make any alteration in any previously established feature. Man came into being but the animal remained the animal and made no progress towards the half-humanity: all slight modifications of consciousness, capacities or habits in domestic animals produced by the association with man or by his training of them are only slight rations of the animal intelligence. Still less can the plants move towards animal consciousness or brute Matter become in the slightest degree, even subconsciously or half subconsciously, aware of itself or responsive or reactive. The fundamental distinctions remain and must remain unaltered in the cosmic order. But this objection presumes that the new humanity must be all of one level; there may well be gradations of consciousness in it which would bridge the distance between its least developed elements and the higher animals who, although they cannot pass a semi-human kind, might still progress towards a higher animal intelligence: for, certain experiments show that these are not at all entirely unprogressive. These gradations would serve the purpose of the transition quite as well as the least developed humans in the present scale without leaving a gap so wide as to disturb the evolutionary order of the universe. A considerable saltus can, as it is, be observed separating the different orders, Matter and the plant, the plant and the lower animals, one species of animals and another, as well as that always existing and large enough between the highest animal and man. There would therefore be no incurable breach in the evolutionary order, no such distance between human mind and animal mind, between the new type of human being and the old animal level as could not be overleaped or would create an unbridgeable gulf for the most developed animal soul in its passage to the least developed type of the new humanity. A leap, a saltus, there would be, as there is now; but it would not be between animality and divinity, from animal mind to Supermind: it would be between a most highly developed animal mind turning towards human possibilities – for without that the passage from animal to man could not be achieved – and a human mind waking to the possibility, not yet the full achievement, of its own higher yet unattained capacities.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Jul 2013 05:35:18 +0000
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