Another aspect of the universal struggle for self-manifestation and corporeal realisation, which plays so large a part in all activity and is especially marked in the domain of life, is illustrated on a higher level by that overpowering instinct or impulse towards production and self-realisation, which is characteristic of genius. It may be said that throughout nature, from the lowest to the highest, a tendency to self-realisation, and a manifestation of joy in existence, are conspicuous.
It is thought that something akin to this tendency is exhibited in a region beyond and above what is ordinarily conceived of as “Nature.” The process of evolution can be regarded as the gradual unfolding of the Divine Thought, or _Logos_, throughout the universe, by the action of Spirit upon matter. Achievement seems as if irradiated by a certain Happiness: and thus a poet like Browning is led to speak of the Divine Being as renewing his ancient creative rapture in the processes of nature:—joying in the sunbeams basking upon sand, sharing the pleasures of the wild life in the creatures of the woods,
“God tastes an infinite joy In infinite ways—one everlasting bliss From whom all being emanates, all power Proceeds; in whom is life for evermore.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_Q. 10. Are there any beings higher in the scale of existence than man?_
_A._ Man is the highest of the dwellers on the planet earth, but the earth is only one of many planets warmed by the sun, and the sun is only one of a myriad of similar suns, which are so far off that we barely see them, and group them indiscriminately as “stars.” We may reasonably conjecture that in some of the innumerable worlds circling round those distant suns there must be beings far higher in the scale of existence than ourselves; indeed, we have no knowledge which enables us to assert the absence of intelligence anywhere.
The existence of higher beings and of a Highest Being is a fundamental element in every religious creed. There is no scientific reason for imagining it possible that man is the highest intelligent existence—there is no reason to suppose that we dwellers on this planet know more about the universe than any other existing creature. Such an idea, strictly speaking, is absurd. Science has investigated our ancestry and shown that we are the product of planetary processes. We may be, and surely must be, something more, but this we clearly are—a development of life on this planet earth. Science has also revealed to us an innumerable host of other worlds, and has relegated the earth to its now recognised subordinate place as one of a countless multitude of worlds.