The universe is committed to a Becoming, which gradually constitutes it in its destined form, the most perfect elements of the world being produced in succession through the less perfect, starting from lower states of existence. No postulate seems to me to be based on a wider area of experience or on more exact critical examination than that of evolution. And I am resolutely adopting it.
The evolution of the universe has an absolute direction, which is towards Spirit.
The progressive spiritualization of conscious being is manifestly the only variable characteristic that enables us to follow, both in direction and in height, the essential curve of Becoming through the labyrinth of individual evolution. It is refinement of psychism that determines the true, absolute, position of the monads in the ascending series of beings.
As a result of the mechanism of evolution, the One, in the cycle of our creation, is born on the multiple; the simple is formed by giving its unity to what is complex; spirit is made through the medium of matter.
Souls are mistaken when they imagine that they are made for autonomy and isolation.
The greater mass of souls is not a sort of dust into which Life disintegrates: their totality constitutes the higher matter which is destined to be made one, to be created, beneath a new Spirit, heralded and prepared by their multitude.
If we would conjecture that all the forces of the universe worked harmoniously together to produce Spirit; if every higher form of being appeared to emerge from the co-operation of all the lower forces in pursuing a determined curve of progress; if, in other words, the cosmos behaved like a gigantic organism ordered in its entirety towards the production of souls—in that case we would be justified in attributing to the world a purely immanent power of growth, and we would not shrink from entrusting ourselves to it.
Courageous, conscious, reflective, human life is impossible (by which I mean that it contains an intrinsic contradiction) unless Spirit—our Spirit—can have a guarantee of its success, and a promise of its future.
All the different varieties of beings would be born from different ways of union between identically similar elements. The closer the fusion between a greater number of elements, the more perfect the creature would be.
Just as the wider the base of the pyramid and the more acute the angle at the apex, the higher it is, so (in our universe) the created being is the more spiritual, the more closely it concentrates in itself a greater initial multiplicity.
The staggering dimensions of the universe enable us to understand the limitless duration of evolution. In a system in which the perfecting of beings is effected not through ‘drawing out’ potential forces already implanted in them, but through the aggregation of pre-existing elements slowly seeking out one another through a Multitude, the immensity of time is a function of the immensity of space. The accumulation of centuries upon centuries is as necessary to the simplicity of the soul as the profusion of stars.
A certain ‘intellectual materialism’, by which I mean the according of a certain precedence to the cosmic over the personal, has the effect of leading to a more enlightened cult of the Spirit.
If man believes with sufficient vigour in the force that is creating him, he will soon find that, for all its terrifying uncertainty, the future provides him with a solid footing as he advances. Credenti, omnia convertuntur in bonum—for the beliver, all things are changed into good—for the future is like the waters upon which the apostle walked: the stronger our faith the more firmly it holds us up.
Charity is the force that stops beings from shutting themselves up in a self-centred folding-in of their energies, and makes them ‘unbutton’, open themselves, and surrender themselves to one another: it makes them find a centre outside themselves and so enhance a higher centre of association. It unifies the monads among one another.
Intoxicated by their independence, the monads think only of living for themselves. Man’s aversion from all promiscuous contact with his like, and his passion for his own selfish development to the exclusion of all else, are dangerous forces of disintegration; they sap the foundations of the world and attack the seed of unity it contains. Charity safeguards the development of the universe and keeps it to the true path of its progress.