104 THE PORTAL OF EVOLUTION 



form, shape, size and energy, by falling into habits of indo- 

 lence, laziness and gluttony and sloth, lost their powers of 

 vitality and fell behind those which sought development 

 heedless of the greater dangers thereby encountered in the 

 strife for existence on the earth, which entailed more toil, 

 danger and exertion to attain and so outstrip their weaker- 

 willed competitors in the race for existence. 



Thus the Orang-utan, Gibbon and Chimpanzee are the 

 nearest approach to man, yet the Gorilla nearest resembles 

 man in shape and size, and was even mistaken by Hannibal 

 for a very savage race of men. In spite of this the Gorilla has 

 never attained to man's estate through not learning to attain 

 a permanently upright posture, to evolve a thumb, and so 

 could not evolve a soul. In the same way the Aryan Races are 

 able to evolve higher codes of morality than the Mongolian 

 Races. 



I must now return to my demonstration that our past 

 existences form part of our present life, and I may mention 

 that instances have been authentically proved where the caul 

 at birth has so strongly retained the resemblance of our ape 

 life up to the moment of birth that it has been covered with 

 hair and retained the features of the ape ; also the hair that 

 grows on our arms has the same perpendicular direction of 

 growth that is the marked characteristic of all the apes who 

 formed the habit of swinging from bough to bough. I have 

 dwelt on these matters to demonstrate to the reader the manner 

 in which previous breeding decides future evolutions and to 

 show how the same law will hereafter be shown to decide in 

 Involution (the first stage of which the world has only just 

 reached), with even greater force in the development of mind 

 and soul in the future than has been displayed in the evolution 

 of the body in the past, for in mental evolution heredity is 

 more predominant over variation than it is in physical develop- 

 ment, for all that is divine abhors variation, and God being 

 infinite wisdom cannot err, so has fixed laws which we call 

 natural laws, and which being created by infinite wisdom, are 

 less capable of alteration than those of the Medes and Persians, 

 to whom we are indebted to this day for the basis of our Ten 

 Commandments. One of the natural laws is that Matter is 

 subject to variation, but not to alteration, but mental develop- 

 ment is subject to alteration, not to variation. 



