152 Evolution of Life and Form. 



therefore belonged to trie animal, not to the human 

 kingdom ; that in the present cycle the human 

 form evolved, as a foetus evolves, passing rapidly 

 through the lower stages on the way to the human, 

 as in pre-natal life, and it therefore has stamped 

 upon it the stages through which it has passed. 

 I have been going over, roughly and swiftly, 

 those stages through which the matter of which 

 the body is composed has gone in the past, and 

 you will see that the true theory of evolution is 

 different from the somewhat crude view that there 

 is a regular succession of births from the animal 

 into the man. The matter has been made plastic 

 in the animal, but man in his form is the 

 result of a higher working ; the germ of his life can 

 never develop into the animal, but only into the 

 human, because more has been infolded into it, and 

 that germ must unfold along a line which is that of 

 direct human growth. Remembering that, to pre- 

 vent a possible misconception, we turn to the human 

 centre that is now definitely formed. We speak of 

 its encircling form as the causal body, or Karana 

 Sharira, the form by which the Self is limited; 

 the Karana Sharira is not the Self, remember, but 

 is the containing vehicle of the triple Self, and the 

 organ of one aspect of that Self, the aspect of 

 knowledge, shown forth as intelligence. This 



