The Overcontrol of Evolution

65:6.1It is im­pos­si­ble ac­cu­rately to de­ter­mine, si­mul­ta­ne­ously, the ex­act lo­ca­tion and the ve­loc­ity of a mov­ing ob­ject; any at­tempt at mea­sure­ment of ei­ther in­evitably in­volves change in the other. The same sort of a para­dox con­fronts mor­tal man when he un­der­takes the chem­i­cal anal­y­sis of pro­to­plasm. The chemist can elu­ci­date the chem­istry of dead pro­to­plasm, but he can­not dis­cern ei­ther the phys­i­cal or­ga­ni­za­tion or the dy­namic per­for­mance of liv­ing pro­to­plasm. Ever will the sci­en­tist come nearer and nearer the se­crets of life, but never will he find them and for no other rea­son than that he must kill pro­to­plasm in or­der to an­a­lyze it. Dead pro­to­plasm weighs the same as liv­ing pro­to­plasm, but it is not the same.

65:6.2There is orig­i­nal en­dow­ment of adap­ta­tion in liv­ing things and be­ings. In ev­ery liv­ing plant or an­i­mal cell, in ev­ery liv­ing or­gan­ism—ma­te­rial or spir­i­tual—there is an in­sa­tiable crav­ing for the at­tain­ment of ever-in­creas­ing per­fec­tion of en­vi­ron­men­tal ad­just­ment, or­gan­is­mal adap­ta­tion, and aug­mented life re­al­iza­tion. These in­ter­minable ef­forts of all liv­ing things ev­i­dence the ex­is­tence within them of an in­nate striv­ing for per­fec­tion.

65:6.3The most im­por­tant step in plant evo­lu­tion was the de­vel­op­ment of chloro­phyll-mak­ing abil­ity, and the sec­ond great­est ad­vance was the evo­lu­tion of the spore into the com­plex seed. The spore is most ef­fi­cient as a re­pro­duc­tive agent, but it lacks the po­ten­tials of va­ri­ety and ver­sa­til­ity in­her­ent in the seed.

65:6.4One of the most ser­vice­able and com­plex episodes in the evo­lu­tion of the higher types of an­i­mals con­sisted in the de­vel­op­ment of the abil­ity of the iron in the cir­cu­lat­ing blood cells to per­form in the dou­ble role of oxy­gen car­rier and car­bon diox­ide re­mover. And this per­for­mance of the red blood cells il­lus­trates how evolv­ing or­gan­isms are able to adapt their func­tions to vary­ing or chang­ing en­vi­ron­ment. The higher an­i­mals, in­clud­ing man, oxy­genate their tis­sues by the ac­tion of the iron of the red blood cells, which car­ries oxy­gen to the liv­ing cells and just as ef­fi­ciently re­moves the car­bon diox­ide. But other met­als can be made to serve the same pur­pose. The cut­tle­fish em­ploys cop­per for this func­tion, and the sea squirt uti­lizes vana­dium.

65:6.5The con­tin­u­a­tion of such bi­o­logic ad­just­ments is il­lus­trated by the evo­lu­tion of teeth in the higher Uran­tia mam­mals; these at­tained to thirty-six in man’s re­mote an­ces­tors, and then be­gan an adap­ta­tive read­just­ment to­ward thirty-two in the dawn man and his near rel­a­tives. Now the hu­man species is slowly grav­i­tat­ing to­ward twenty-eight. The pro­cess of evo­lu­tion is still ac­tively and adap­ta­tively in prog­ress on this planet.

65:6.6But many seem­ingly mys­te­ri­ous ad­just­ments of liv­ing or­gan­isms are purely chem­i­cal, wholly phys­i­cal. At any mo­ment of time, in the blood stream of any hu­man be­ing there ex­ists the pos­si­bil­ity of up­ward of 15,000,000 chem­i­cal re­ac­tions be­tween the hor­mone out­put of a dozen duct­less glands.

65:6.7The lower forms of plant life are wholly re­spon­sive to phys­i­cal, chem­i­cal, and elec­tri­cal en­vi­ron­ment. But as the scale of life as­cends, one by one the mind min­istries of the seven ad­ju­tant spir­its be­come op­er­a­tive, and the mind be­comes in­creas­ingly ad­jus­tive, cre­ative, co-or­di­na­tive, and dom­i­na­tive. The abil­ity of an­i­mals to adapt them­selves to air, wa­ter, and land is not a super­nat­u­ral en­dow­ment, but it is a super­phys­i­cal ad­just­ment.

65:6.8Physics and chem­istry alone can­not ex­plain how a hu­man be­ing evolved out of the primeval pro­to­plasm of the early seas. The abil­ity to learn, mem­ory and dif­fer­en­tial re­sponse to en­vi­ron­ment, is the en­dow­ment of mind. The laws of physics are not re­spon­sive to train­ing; they are im­mutable and un­chang­ing. The re­ac­tions of chem­istry are not mod­i­fied by ed­u­ca­tion; they are uni­form and de­pend­able. Aside from the pres­ence of the Un­qual­i­fied Ab­so­lute, elec­tri­cal and chem­i­cal re­ac­tions are pre­dictable. But mind can profit from ex­pe­ri­ence, can learn from re­ac­tive habits of be­hav­ior in re­sponse to rep­e­ti­tion of stim­uli.

65:6.9Prein­tel­li­gent or­gan­isms re­act to en­vi­ron­men­tal stim­uli, but those or­gan­isms which are re­ac­tive to mind min­istry can ad­just and ma­nip­u­late the en­vi­ron­ment it­self.

65:6.10The phys­i­cal brain with its as­so­ci­ated ner­vous sys­tem pos­sesses in­nate ca­pac­ity for re­sponse to mind min­istry just as the de­vel­op­ing mind of a per­son­al­ity pos­sesses a cer­tain in­nate ca­pac­ity for spirit re­cep­tiv­ity and there­fore con­tains the po­ten­tials of spir­i­tual prog­ress and at­tain­ment. In­tel­lec­tual, so­cial, moral, and spir­i­tual evo­lu­tion are de­pen­dent on the mind min­istry of the seven ad­ju­tant spir­its and their super­phys­i­cal as­so­ciates.