vin] The Evolution of Transcendence 223 



relation to their true content; if, in a word, we can trust 

 our inmost consciousness that there is purpose in the 

 Universe, then all creation of God and man is the crea- 

 tion of a new thing, made necessary by the nature of 

 the old, and fulfilling the demands of its wholeness and 

 self-existence. The Universe is no kaleidoscope, whose 

 many turnings bring eventually a repetition of a self- 

 same pattern; no perpetual cycle of an evolution that 

 becomes, and indeed is, only involution. Personal 

 beings characterise the latest stages of the cosmic pro- 

 cess. The knowledge of reality, and the self-knowledge 

 which gives its unique character to personal experience, 

 preclude all thought of man's mere geological signifi- 

 cance. An age of man comparable to the age of giant 

 reptiles is unbelievable because irrational. In man we 

 can find some explanation of the giant reptiles, if an in- 

 complete one ; in the giant reptiles we find no explana- 

 tion of man. Evolutionary series even the bund-alley 

 occupations of the failures must be studied in the 

 light of the end; and the end is personal being. Creation 

 has led to something new, and something eternal. Any- 

 thing else would mean an activity that is meaningless, 

 as all activity without purpose, all activity which leads 

 to the making of something in itself valueless, must be. 

 Such activity could not satisfy any need at all in a 

 creator. 



If there be an Eternal Creator at all as there must 

 be Creation must then lead eventually to something 

 that is new and eternal. A question here arises, whose 

 answer is implicit in every stage of our argument : 

 Could the stages, even the human stage, be passing 

 time-phases in the development of something far greater 

 than we can even begin to understand? Though the 

 answer be implicit throughout we may state it explicitly 

 though briefly here. No! No, because men are personal, 

 and know themselves to be parts of a great, real Whole 



