Esoteric Buddhism

to ask, before we look into the report I bring forward, not whether it will square in all respects with preconceived views, but whether it really does introduce us to a series of natural facts connected with the growth and development of Man’s higher faculties. If it does this, we may wisely examine the facts first in the scientific spirit, and leave them to exercise whatever effect on collateral beliefs may be reasonable and legitimate, later on.

Ramifying, as the explanation proceeds, into a great many side paths, it will be seen by the readers of this book that the central idea now presented to us completes and spiritualizes the great conception of physical anthropology, which accounts for the evolution of Man’s body by successive and very gradual improvements of animal forms from generation to generation. That is a very barren and miserable theory, regarded as an all-embracing account of creation; but, properly understood, it paves the way for a comprehension of the higher concurrent process, which is all the while evolving the soul of Man in the higher spiritual realms of existence. The circumstances under which this is done reconcile the evolutionary method with the instinctive craving of every self-conscious entity for perpetuity of individual life. The disjointed series of improving forms on this earth