Evolution of Life and Form
Four Lectures delivered at the Twenty-third Anniversary Meetingof the Theosophical Society at Adyar, Madras, 1898.
BY
ANNIE BESANT
SECOND EDITION
LONDON: THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY
BENARES: THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY
1900
CONTENTS.
[FIRST LECTURE.]
ANCIENT AND MODERN SCIENCE.
My Brothers:—The subject on which I am toaddress you this morning, and the three morningsthat follow, is one of considerable complexity anddifficulty. I do not apologise to you for the difficultyof my theme. When we meet here in our AnniversaryMeeting, we meet as students and not simplyas superficial men and women of the world. We tryto prepare ourselves, by study, for the exchange ofthought which in these gatherings takes place, andalthough the subject is a difficult one, although it isnot possible to make it clear and intelligible withoutthe use of certain technical terms, yet, to the studenttechnical terms—being precise—are really the easiestto understand, and inasmuch as, in a great majorityat least, we are students, I who speak, and you wholisten, we may be content to treat the subject in asomewhat formal and technical way. Roughly, myoutline is this. I want to lay before you an intelligibleconception of evolution, taking it on its twosides, that of the evolving life and that of the[6]developing forms. I begin by laying before you asketch of the methods of "Ancient and ModernScience," the direction in which each has worked,and is working, the ultimate union that, we hope,may take place between them. For what could morefully presage the good of the whole world, whatcould promise more happily for the relationshipbetween the different races of humanity, than to drawtogether on the plane of mind the science of antiquityand of modern days, the science of the East and ofthe West, and, by wedding them to each other, drawtogether the nations that are now divided, and makeobjective that brotherhood of humanity of which wedream.
Dealing first with ancient and modern science inthis broad and general way, and taking that as mysubject for this morning, I shall pass on to-morrowto speak on the "Functions of the Gods," meaningby that phrase the activities of that invisible side ofnature on which the whole of the visible depends.Whether we use here the name "Devas" to representthose