First Principles of Theosophy

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922 Excerpt: ... evolutionary theories. The struggle for existence is the method adopted by them to test living organisms, and to find out which of them will develop in that struggle those characteristics which build types steadily approximating to the archetypes. It must be remembered that, in the death of any organisms, the life is not dissipated into nothing; that life, with its experiences, returns to its Group Soul, and thence issues later to dwell in another form. Therefore, when we see that out of one hundred seeds perhaps only one finds soil in which to grow, and ninety-nine are wasted, the waste is only apparent, since the life of the " unfit " ninety-nine appears in a later generation as the descendants of the " fit " seed. With this principle of the indestructibility of life before them, the Builders arrange for a keen struggle for existence in the vegetable and animal kingdoms; and this method, while it brings about a fierce brutality in nature, yet has on the unseen side a most amicable co-operation among the Builders, who have but one aim, which is to carry out the Divine Will, which places before them the archetypes which must be produced in the evolution of forms. We must now understand how the animal life differentiates itself in its progress to individualisation. If we consider any Group Soul, like, for instance, the Canidce (Fig. 58), we shall have that Group Soul existing on the mental Fig. 58 plane. Let us presume that it puts out expressions of itself in Canidce forms in different parts of the world. The differences of climate and other variations in environment will draw out of the individual forms differences of response in the indwelling life, according to the part of the world where that life is being manifested; each form in a...