Note (return) — Chapter XIV

Nature, individual mind, and collective humanity, all obey the law of progressive development; otherwise there could be no history, for history is only of that which has movement and progress. Now, all progress is from the indefinite to the definite, from the inorganic to the organic and vital, from the instinctive to the rational, from a dim, nebulous self-feeling to a high reflective consciousness, from sensuous images to abstract conceptions and spiritual ideas. This progressive development of nature and humanity has not been a series of creations de novo, without any relation, in matter or form, to that which preceded. All of the present was contained in embryonic infoldment in the past, and the past has contributed its results to the present. 875 The present, both in nature, and history, and civilization, is, so to speak, the aggregate and sum-total of the past. As the natural history of the earth may now be read in the successive strata and deposits which form its crust, so the history of humanity may be read in the successive deposits of thought and language, of philosophy and art, which register its gradual progression. As the paleontological remains imbedded in the rocks present a succession of organic types which gradually improve in form and function, from the first sea-weed to the palm-tree, and from the protozoa to the highest vertebrate, so the history of ancient philosophy presents a gradual progress in metaphysical, ethical, and theistic conceptions, from the unreflective consciousness of the Homeric age, to the high reflective consciousness of the Platonic period. And as all the successive forms of life in pre-Adamic ages were a preparation for and a prophecy of the coming of man, so the advancing forms of philosophic thought, during the grand ages of Grecian civilization, were a preparation and a prophecy of the coming of the Son of God.