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    "slug": "03-chapter-iii",
    "title": "CHAPTER III.",
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    "text": "## CHAPTER III.\n\nTHE PLANETARY CHAIN.\n\nEsoteric Science, though the most spirit-\nual system imaginable, exhibits, as running\nthroughout Nature, the most exhaustive system\nof evolution that the human mind can conceive.\nThe Darwinian theory of evolution is simply\nan independent discovery of a portion — unhap-\npily but a small portion — of the vast natural\ntruth. But occultists know how to explain\nevolution without degrading the highest prin-\nciples of man. The esoteric doctrine finds it-\nself under no obligation to keep its science and\nreligion in separate water-tight compartments.\nIts theory of physics and its theory of spirit-\nuality are not only reconcilable with each\nother, they are intimately blended together and\ninterdependent. And the first great fact which\noccult science presents to our notice in refer-\nence to the origin of man on this globe will be\nseen to help the imagination over some serious\nembarrassments of the familiar scientific idea\nof evolution. The evolution of man is not a\n\n76 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nprocess carried out on this planet alone. It is\na result to which many worlds in different con-\nditions of material and spiritual development\nhave contributed. If this statement were\nmerely put forward as a conjecture, it would\nsurely recommend itself forcibly to rational\nminds. For there is a manifest irrationality in\nthe commonplace notion that man's existence\nis divided into a material beginning, lasting\nsixty or seventy years, and a spiritual remain-\nder lasting forever. The irrationality amounts\nto absurdity when it is alleged that the acts of\nthe sixty or seventy years — the blundering,\nhelpless acts of ignorant human life — are per-\nmitted by the. perfect justice of an all-wise\nProvidence to define the conditions of that\nlater life of infinite duration. Nor is it less ex-\ntravagant to imagine that, apart from the ques-\ntion of justice, the life beyond the grave should\nbe exempt from the law of change, progress,\nand improvement, which every analogy of Na-\nture points to as probably running through all\nthe varied existences of the universe. But once\nabandon the idea of a uniform, unvarying, un-\nprogressive life beyond the grave, once admit\nthe conception of change and progress in that\nlife, and we admit the idea of a variety hardly\ncompatible with any other hypothesis than that\nof progress through successive worlds. As we\n\nTHE PLANETARY CHAIN. 77\n\nhave said before, this is not hypothesis at all\nfor occult science, but a fact, ascertained and\nverified beyond the reach (for occultists) of\ndoubt or contradiction.\n\nThe life and evolutionary processes of this\nplanet — in fact, all which constitutes it some-\nthing more than a dead lump of chaotic matter\n— are linked with the life and evolutionary\nprocesses of several other planets. But let it\nnot be supposed that there is no finality as re-\ngards the scheme of this planetary union to\nwhich we belong. The human imagination\nonce set free is apt sometimes to bound too far.\nOnce let this notion, that the earth is merely\none link in a mighty chain of worlds, be fully\naccepted as probable, or true, and it may sug-\ngest the whole starry heavens as the heritage\nof the human family. That idea would involve\na serious misconception. One globe does not\nafford Nature scope for the processes by which\nmankind has been evoked from chaos, but these\nprocesses do not require more than a limited\nand definite number of globes. Separated as\nthese are, in regard to the gross mechanical\nmatter of which they consist, they are closely\nand intimately bound together by subtle cur-\nrents and forces, whose existence reason need\nnot be much troubled to concede since the ex-\nistence of some connection — of force or ethereal\n\nT8 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nmedia — -uniting all visible celestial bodies is\nproved by the mere fact that they are visible.\nIt is along these subtle currents that the life-\nelements pass from world to world.\n\nThe fact, however, will at once be liable to\ndistortion to suit preconceived habits of mind.\nSome readers may imagine our meaning to.be\nthat after death the surviving soul will be\ndrawn into the currents of that world with\nwhich its affinities connect it. The real process\nis more methodical. The system of worlds is\na circuit round which all individual spiritual\nentities have alike to pass ; and that passage\nconstitutes the Evolution of Man. For it must\nbe realized that the evolution of man is a proc-\ness still going on, and by no means yet com-\nplete. Darwinian writings have taught the\nmodern world to regard the ape as an ancestor,\nbut the simple conceit of Western speculation\nhas rarely permitted European evolutionists to\nlook in the other direction and recognize the\nprobability, that to our remote descendants we\nmay be, as that unwelcome progenitor to us.\nYet the two facts just declared hinge together.\nThe higher evolution will be accomplished by\nour progress through the successive worlds of\nthe system ; and in higher forms we shall re-\nturn to this earth again and again. But the\navenues of thought through which we look for-\n\nTEE PLANETARY CHAIN. 79\n\nward to this prospect are of almost inconceiv-\nable length.\n\nIt will readily be supposed that the chain of\nworlds to which this earth belongs are not all\nprepared for a material existence exactly, or\neven approximately resembling our own. There\nwould be no meaning in an organized chain of\nworlds which were all alike, and might as well\nall have been amalgamated into one. In real-\nity the worlds with which we are connected\nare very unlike each other, not merely in out-\nward conditions, but in that supreme character-\nistic, the proportion in which spirit and matter\nare mingled in their constitution. Our own\nworld presents us with conditions in which spirit\nand matter are, on the whole, evenly balanced\nin equilibrium. Let it not be supposed on that\naccount that it is very highly elevated in the\nscale of perfection. On the contrary, it occu-\npies a very low place in that scale. The worlds\nthat are higher in the scale are those in which\nspirit largely predominates. There is another\nworld attached to the chain, rather than form-\ning a part of it, in which matter asserts itself\neven more decisively than on earth, but this\nmay be spoken of later.\n\nThat the superior worlds which man may\ncome to inhabit in his onward progress should\ngradually become more and more spiritual in\n\n80 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\ntheir constitution — life there being more and\nmore successfully divorced from gross material\nneeds — will seem reasonable enough at the first\nglance. But the first glance in imagination at\nthose which might conversely be called the infe-\nrior, but may with less inaccuracy be spoken of\nas the preceding worlds, would perhaps suggest\nthat they ought to be conversely less spiritual,\nmore material, than this earth. The fact is quite\nthe other way, and must be so, it will be seen on\nreflection, in a chain of worlds which is an end-\nless chain — i.e., round and round which the\nevolutionary process travels. If that process\nhad merely one journey to travel along a path\nwhich never returned into itself, one could\nthink of it, at any rate, as working from almost\nabsolute matter, up to almost absolute spirit ;\nbut Nature works always in complete curves,\nand travels always in paths which return into\nthemselves. The earliest, as also the latest,\ndeveloped worlds — for the chain itself has\ngrown by degrees — the furthest back, as also\nthe furthest forward, are the most immaterial,\nthe most ethereal of the whole series ; and that\nthis is in all ways in accordance with the fitness\nof things will appear from the reflection that\nthe furthest forward of the worlds is not a re-\ngion of finality, but the stepping-stone to the\nfurthest back, as the month of December leads\n\nTHE PLANETARY CHAIN. 81\n\nus back again to January. But it is not a cli-\nmax of development from which the individual\nmonad falls, as by a catastrophe, into the state\nfrom which he slowly began to ascend millions\nof years previously. From that which, for rea-\nsons which will soon appear, must be consid-\nered the highest world on the ascending arc of\n.the circle to that which must be regarded as\nthe first on the descending arc, in one sense the\nlowest — i. <?., in the order of development —\nthere is no descent at all, but still ascent and\nprogress. For the spiritual monad or entity,\nwhich has worked its way all round the cycle\nof evolution, at any one of the many stages of\ndevelopment into which the various existences\naround us may be grouped, begins its next cycle\nat the next higher stage, and is thus still ac-\ncomplishing progress as it passes from world\nZ back again to world A. Many times does it\ncircle, in this way, right round the system, but\nits passage round must not be thought of merely\nas a circular revolution in an orbit. In the\nscale of spiritual perfection it is constantly as-\ncending. Thus, if we compare the system of\nworlds to a system of towers standing on a\nplain — towers each of many stories and sym-\nbolizing the scale of perfection — the spiritual\nmonad performs a spiral progress round and\nround the series, passing through each tower,\n\n82 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nevery time it comes round to it, at a higher\nlevel than before.\n\nIt is for want of realizing this idea that spec-\nulation, concerned with physical evolution, is\nso constantly finding itself stopped by dead\nwalls. It is searching for its missing links in a\nworld where it can never find them now, for\nthey were but required for a temporary pur-\npose, and have passed awa}'. Man, says the\nDarwinian, was once an ape. Quite true ; but\nthe ape known to the Darwinian will never be-\ncome a man — i. e., the form will not change\nfrom generation to generation till the tail dis-\nappears and the hands turn into feet, and so on.\nOrdinary science avows that, though changes of\nform can be detected in progress within the lim-\nits of species, the changes from species to species\ncan only be inferred ; and to account for these,\nit is content to assume great intervals of time\nand the extinction of the intermediate forms.\nThere has been no doubt an extinction of the\nintermediate or earlier forms of all species (in\nthe larger acceptation of the word) — i. e., of all\nkingdoms, mineral, vegetable, animal, man, etc.\n— but ordinary science can merely guess that\nto have been the fact without realizing the con-\nditions which rendered it inevitable, and which\nforbid the renewed generation of the interme«\ndiate forms.\n\nTHE PLANETARY CHAIN. 83\n\nIt is the spiral character of the progress ac-\ncomplished by the life impulses that develop the\nvarious kingdoms of Nature, which accounts\nfor the gaps now observed in the animated\nforms which people the earth. The thread of a\nscrew, which is a uniform inclined plane in real-\nity, looks like a succession of steps when ex-\namined only along one line parallel to its axis.\nThe spiritual monads, which are coming round\nthe system on the animal level, pass on to other\nworlds when they have performed their turn\nof animal incarnation here. By the time they\ncome again, they are ready for human incarna-\ntion, and there is no necessity now for the up-\nward development of animal forms into human\nforms — these are already waiting for their spir-\nitual tenants. But, if we go back far enough,\nwe come to a period at which there were no\nhuman forms ready developed on the earth.\nWhen spiritual monads, traveling on the ear-\nliest or lowest human level, were thus begin-\nning to come round, their onward pressure in a\nworld at that time containing none but animal\nforms provoked the improvement of the high-\nest of these into the required form — the much-\ntalked-of missing link.\n\nIn one way of looking at the matter, it may\nbe contended that this explanation is identical\nwith the inference of the Darwinian evolution-\n\n84 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nist in regard to the development and extinction\nof missing links. After all, it may be argued\nby a materialist, \" we are not concerned to ex-\npress an opinion as to the origin of the tendency\nin species to develop higher forms. We say\nthat they do develop these higher forms by\nintermediate links, and that the intermediate\nlinks die out ; and you say just the same thing.\"\nBut there is a distinction between the two ideas\nfor any one who can follow subtle distinctions.\nThe natural process of evolution, from the influ-\nence of local circumstances and sexual selection,\nmust not be credited with producing intermedi-\nate forms, and this is why it is inevitable that\nthe intermediate forms should be of a tempo-\nrary nature and should die out. Otherwise,\nwe should rind the world stocked with missing\nlinks of all kinds, animal life creeping by\nplainly apparent degrees up to manhood, human\nforms mingling in indistinguishable confusion\nwith those of animals. The impulse to the\nnew evolution of higher forms is really given, as\nwe have shown, by rushes of spiritual monads\ncoming round the cycle in a state fit for the\ninhabitation of new forms. These superior life\nimpulses burst the chrysalis of the older form\non the planet they invade, and throw off an ef-\nflorescence of something higher. The forms\nwhich have gone on merely repeating them-\n\nTHE PLANETARY CHAIN. 85\n\nselves for millenniums start afresh into growth ;\nwith relative rapidi+y they rise through the\nintermediate into the higher forms, and then,\nas these in turn are multiplied with the vigor\nand rapidity of all new growths, they supply\ntenements of flesh for the spiritual entities com-\ning round on that stage or plane of existence,\nand for the intermediate forms there are no\nlonger any tenants offering. Inevitably they\nbecome extinct.\n\nThus is evolution accomplished, as regards its\nessential impulse, by a spiral progress through\nthe worlds. In the course of explaining this\nidea we have partly anticipated the declaration\nof another fact of first-rate importance as an aid\nto correct views of the world-system to which\nwe belong. That is, that the tide of life — the\nwave of existence, the spiritual impulse, call\nit by what name we please — passes on from\nplanet to planet by rushes, or gushes, not by an\neven continuous flow. For the momentary pur-\npose of illustrating the idea in hand, the process\nmay be compared to the filling of a series of\nholes or tubs sunk in the ground, such as may\nsometimes be seen at the mouths of feeble\nsprings, and connected with each other by little\nsurface channels. The stream from the spring,\nas it flows, is gathered up entirely in the begin-\nning by the first hole, or tub A, and it is only\n\n86 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nwhen this is quite full that the continued in-\npouring of water from the spring causes that\nwhich it already contains to overflow into tub\nB. This in turn fills and overflows along the\nchannel which leads to tub C, and so on. Now,\nthough, of course, a clumsy analogy of this kind\nwill not carry us very far, it precisely illustrates\nthe evolution of life on a chain of worlds like\nthat we are attached to, and, indeed, the evolu-\ntion of the worlds themselves. For the process\nwhich goes on does not involve the preexistence\nof a chain of globes which Nature proceeds to\nstock with life ; but it is one in which the evo-\nlution of each globe is the result of previous ev-\nolutions, and the consequence of certain im-\npulses thrown off from its predecessor in the\nsuperabundance of their development. Now, it\nis necessary to deal with this characteristic of\nthe process to be described, but directly we be-\ngin to deal with it we have to go back in imag-\nination to a period in the development of our\nsystem very far antecedent to that which is spec-\nially our subject at present — the evolution of\nman. And manifestly, as soon as we begin\ntalking of the beginnings of worlds, we are\ndealing with phenomena which can have had\nvery little to do with life, as we understand the\nmatter, and, therefore, it may be supposed, noth-\ning to do with life impulses. But let us go\n\nTHE PLANETARY CHAIN. 81\n\nback by degrees. Behind the human harvest\nof the life impulse there lay the harvest of\nmere animal forms, as every one realizes; be-\nhind that, the harvest or growths of mere vege-\ntable forms — for some of these undoubtedly\npreceded the appearance of the earliest animal\nlife on the planet. Then, before the vegetable\norganizations, there were mineral organizations,\n— for even a mineral is a product of Nature, an\nevolution from something behind it, as every\nimaginable manifestation of Nature must be,\nuntil in the vast series of manifestations the\nmind travels back to the unmanifested begin-\nning of all things. On pure metaphysics of\nthat sort we are not now engaged. It is enough\nto show that we may as reasonably — and that\nwe must if we would talk about these matters\nat all — conceive a life impulse giving birth to\nmineral forms as of the same sort of impulse\nconcerned to raise a race of apes into a race of\nrudimentary men. Indeed, occult science trav-\nels back even further in its exhaustive analysis\nof evolution than the period at which minerals\nbegan to assume existence. In the process of\ndeveloping worlds from fiery nebulse, Nature\nbegins with something earlier than minerals —\nwith the elemental forces that underlie the phe-\nnomena of Nature as visible now and perceptible\nto the senses of man. But that branch of the\n\n88 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nsubject may be left alone for the present. Let\nus take up the process at the period when the\nfirst world of the series, globe A let us call itf\nis merely a congeries of mineral forms. Now\nit must be remembered that globe A has already\nbeen described as very much more ethereal,\nmore predominated by spirit, as distinguished\nfrom matter, than the globe of which we at\npresent are having personal experience, so that\na large allowance must be made for that state\nof things when we ask the reader to think of it,\nat starting, as a mere congeries of mineral forms.\nMineral forms may be mineral in the sense of\nnot belonging to the higher forms of vegetable\norganism, and may yet be very immaterial as\nwe think of matter, very ethereal, consisting of\na very fine or subtle quality of matter, in which\nthe other pole or characteristic of Nature, spirit,\nlargely predominates. The minerals we are\ntrying to portray are, as it were, the ghosts of\nminerals ; by no means the highly-finished and\nbeautiful, hard crystals which the mineralogical\ncabinets of this world supply. In these lower\nspirals of evolution with which we are now\ndealing, as with the higher ones, there is prog-\nress from world to world, and that is the great\npoint at which we have been aiming. There is\nprogress downwards, so to speak, in finish and\nmateriality and consistency ; and then, again,\n\nTHE PLANETARY CHAIN. 89\n\nprogress upward in spirituality as coupled with\nthe finish which matter or materiality rendered\npossible in the first instance. It will be found\nthat the process of evolution in its higher stages\nas regards man is carried on in exactly the same\nway. All through these studies, indeed, it will\nbe found that one process of Nature typifies\nanother, that the big is the repetition of the lit-\ntle on a larger scale.\n\nIt is manifest from what we have already\nsaid, and in order that the progress of organ-\nisms on globe A shall be accounted for, that\nthe mineral kingdom will no more develop the\nvegetable kingdom on globe A until it receives\nan impulse from without, than the earth was\nable to develop man from the ape till it re-\nceived an impulse from without. But it will\nbe inconvenient at present to go back to a con-\nsideration of the impulses which operate on\nglobe A in the beginning of the system's con-\nstruction.\n\nWe have already, in order to be able to ad-\nvance more comfortably from a far later period\nthan that to which we have now receded, gone\nback so far that further recession would change\nthe whole character of this explanation. We\nmust stop somewhere, and for the present it\nwill be best to take the life impulses behind\nglobe A for granted. And having stopped\n\n90 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nthere we may now treat the enormous period\nintervening between the mineral epoch on globe\nA and the man epoch in a very cursory way,\nand so get back to the main problem before us.\nWhat has been already said facilitates a cursory\ntreatment of the intervening evolution. The\nfull development of the mineral epoch on globe\nA prepares the way for the vegetable develop-\nment, and as soon as this begins the mineral\nlife impulse overflows into globe B. Then\nwhen the vegetable development on globe A is\ncomplete, and the animal development begins,\nthe vegetable life impulse overflows to globe B,\nand the mineral impulse passes on to globe C.\nThen, finally, comes the human life impulse on\nglobe A.\n\nNow it is necessary at this point to guard\nagainst one misconception that might arise.\nAs just roughly described, the process might\nconvey the idea that by the time the human\nimpulse began on globe A the mineral impulse\nwas then beginning on globe D, and that be-\nyond lay chaos. This is very far from being\nthe case, for two reasons. First, as already\nstated, there are processes of evolution which\nprecede the mineral evolution, and thus a wave\nof evolution, indeed several waves of evolution\nprecede the mineral wave in its progress round\nthe spheres. But over and above this there is\n\nTHE PLANETARY CHAIN. 91\n\na fact to be stated which has such an influence\non the course of events, that, when it is real-\nized, it will be seen that the life impulse has\npassed several times completely round the\nwhole chain of worlds before the commence-\nment of the human impulse on globe A. This\nfact is as follows : Each kingdom of evolution,\nvegetable, animal, and so on, is divided into\nseveral spiral laj^ers. The spiritual monads\n— the individual atoms of that immense life\nimpulse of which so much has been said — do\nnot fully complete their mineral existence on\nglobe A, then complete it on globe B, and so\non. They pass several times round the whole\ncircle as minerals, and then again several times\nround as vegetables, and several times as ani-\nmals. We purposely refrain for the present\nfrom going into figures, because it is more con-\nvenient to state the outline of the scheme in\ngeneral terms first ; but figures in reference to\nthese processes of Nature have now been given\nto the world by the occult adepts (for the first\ntime we believe in its history), and they shall\nbe brought out in the course of this explana-\ntion, very shortly, but as we say the outline is\nenough for any one to think of at first.\n\nAnd now we have rudimentary man begin-\nning his existence on globe A, in that world\nwhere all things are as the ghosts of the corre-\n\n92 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nsponding things in this world. He is beginning\nhis long descent into matter. And the life im-\npulse of each \" round \" overflows, and the races\nof man are established in different degrees of\nperfection on all the planets, on each in turn.\nBut the rounds are more complicated in their\ndesign than this explanation would show, if it\nstopped short here. The process for each spir-\nitual monad is not merely a passage from planet\nto planet. Within the limits of each planet,\neach time it arrives there, it has a complicated\nprocess of evolution to perform. It is many\ntimes incarnated in successive races of men be-\nfore it passes onward, and it even has many in-\ncarnations in each great race. It will be found\nwhen we get on further that this fact throws a\nflood of light upon the actual condition of man-\nkind as we know it, accounting for those im-\nmense differences of intellect and morality, and\neven of welfare in its highest sense, which gen-\nerally appear so painfully mysterious.\n\nThat which has a definite beginning gener-\nally has an end also. As we have shown that\nthe evolutionary process under description be-\ngan when certain impulses first commenced\ntheir operation, so it may be inferred that they\nare tending towards a final consummation, to*\nwards a goal and a conclusion. That is so,\nthough the goal is still far off. Man, as we\n\nTHE PLANETARY CHAIN. 93\n\nknow him on this earth, is but half-way through\nthe evolutionary process to which he owes his\npresent development. He will be as much\ngreater before the destiny of our system is ac-\ncomplished than he is now as he is now greater\nthan the missing link. And that improvement\nwill even be accomplished on this earth, while,\nin the other worlds of the ascending series,\nthere are still loftier peaks of perfection to be\nscaled. It is utterly beyond the range of facul-\nties, untutored in the discernment of occult\nmysteries, to imagine the kind of life which\nman will thus ultimately lead before the zenith\nof the great cycle is attained. But there is\nenough to be done in filling up the details of\nthe outline now presented to the reader, with-\nout attempting to forecast those which have to\ndo with existences towards which evolution is\nreaching across the enormous abysses of the\nfuture.",
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