THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE
Is there an
ultimate purpose to human evolution, and, if so, what? This is a question which serious writers have
been asking themselves for some considerable time now and providing a variety
of answers to, according to their individual bents. For some, the answers have been flatly
negative. For others, by contrast, they
have been highly positive. There are those
who believe that evolution is a haphazard affair without any ultimate purpose,
and others who are convinced that it signifies an important trend in the
direction of greater spirituality. There
are those who believe that evolution is drawing to a close, and others who are
convinced that it still has a long way to go.
No matter how diverse the opinions or answers may happen to be, the
question remains one to which writers generally apply themselves either
negatively or positively, pessimistically or optimistically. It induces a 'yes' or a 'no' response, rather
than incertitude.
In this essayistic introduction and most of
the ensuing dialogues, I propose to take a 'yes' stance and investigate one or
two of the possibilities which human evolution may undergo during the course of
the next few centuries. I am going to
assume that there is an ultimate purpose to evolution which takes the form of a
spiritual transformation of mankind into the Divine, but I'm not going to
pretend that such a transformation will come about merely in the course of a
few decades. If there is a progressive
advancement from matter to spirit, it is not one that proceeds quickly but,
rather, in accordance with the overall pattern of higher evolution from ape to
man and then on to whatever lies beyond him.
Yes, I am going to contend that we began in
very unspiritual circumstances, progressed, via our
ape-like ancestors, to beings capable of religious experience, and are still
progressing, slowly but surely, from the cultural state in which we have
intermittently existed for the past 6-7,000 years towards a higher state of
predominant spirituality, after which the material aspect of our being may
disappear altogether as we merge into the omega absolute of pure spirit,
following transcendence. If that sounds
like Vedanta, then so be it! But I am
not going to pretend that the ultimate purpose of evolution will be achieved
before some considerable period of time has elapsed - enough time, in fact, to
enable us to transcend our current identity.
For at present we are still men, not godlike entities, and so we shall
remain until such time as the next great spiritual revolution and/or
evolutionary leap comes about.
We are men, and therefore victims of and
participants in history. History largely
hinges, we learn from Spengler, a prominent
philosopher of history, upon cultures rising and falling, upon a succession of
cultural developments - some great, the majority small. It appertains to that compromise between the
sensual and the spiritual which is man.
Before the compromise, there is no history. Likewise there can be no history after
it. Ape and Superman (to use a Nietzschean term) are each devoid of history and,
consequently, of culture. Only man makes
history, which will be the greater the more finely balanced the compromise
between the sensual and the spiritual.
Therefore history must continue, in one form or another, until man is
extinguished in the Superman.
But what of cultural history, the history
pertinent to great cultures, which Spengler
considered the only true one? Does what
he saw as the decline of the West, the last great culture to have appeared in
the world, signify man's approaching end, or is there likely to be another such
culture in the near future?
Of great cultures there have been,
according to the aforementioned philosopher, seven or eight, and of this
relatively small number the Christian, or Western, was in his opinion the
greatest, having had the most far-reaching effects on the world and achieved
cultural wonders unprecedented in the entire history of man. It was the last of a succession of great
cultures and the most extensive of them all.
No previous culture had developed art or music or literature or
sculpture or architecture to such a high and complex level, and it is difficult
to imagine any subsequent culture surpassing it. If we try to imagine a hypothetical future
culture producing great art, we are immediately confronted by the immense
difficulty of trying to imagine paintings or music or literature of a superior
order to the greatest works of each genre currently in existence. We would have to reconcile ourselves, under
duress of this hypothesis, to the implausible possibility of artists producing
works superior in essence to Da Vinci, Michelangelo,
Raphael, Van Eyck, Breugel,
Dürer, Poussin, Rubens,
Rembrandt, Titian, Tintoretto, Tiepolo,
et al. Composers producing works
superior in essence to Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Weber,
Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, et al.
Writers producing works superior in essence to Chaucer, Dante, Rabelais,
Cervantes, Shakespeare, Milton, Bunyan, Swift, Goethe, Dickens, Dostoyevsky,
Tolstoy, Balzac, Flaubert, et al.
Needless to say, we are unlikely to succeed in doing that! And so, its being supposed that the arts have
attained to their egocentric zenith in the last great culture known to man, we
must assume that the cultural process, properly so-considered, has come to an
end, never to be supplanted by another such development in the near or distant
future.
For what would another culture require in
order to establish itself on a proper footing with cultural development
generally? It would require nature,
above all regular contact with the best possible type of nature - a type
peculiar to temperate rather than tropical zones. A great culture is unlikely to arise in
climates which are either too hot or too cold, too fierce or too sultry. It requires proper nourishment, and this can
only be obtained in certain regions of the world. Rule out those regions, such as Western Europe
and North America, where the representatives of the last great culture still
exist, or those regions, including China and India, where an earlier cultural
people developed and declined, and what is left? Very little, indeed! Hardly anywhere which is not either already
in the hands of the last cultural people or, alternatively, in the hands of an
earlier cultural people who have since abandoned or are in the process of
outgrowing their culture. Apart from
this, one finds regions which are not in the best of geographical positions to
foster a great culture. There is
something inferior about the climate and the consequent state of nature
there. One cannot imagine the world's
greatest art ever arising from such places.
But if the proximity of temperate nature is
a necessity, indeed a precondition, of higher cultural development, then its
abundance is no less so. Thus arises our
next objection to the likelihood of subsequent cultural development. For wherever man lives in large numbers,
these days, nature is on the defensive, is being ruthlessly exploited and
destroyed by him. The larger the cities
become, the less does nature come to play a part in the lives of their
citizens, with a consequence that cultural activities decline. And because the world is becoming
increasingly urbanized and mechanized, there would seem to be little chance of
another culture arising. The incentive
for it is just not there. Consequently
we need not be surprised if the age of separate cultures is at an end.
But what of the world's future, now that we
are outgrowing our traditional provincialism and growing into a cosmopolitanism
based on the technological advancements and inventions of the West? Is man drawing to his end?
There are two ways of looking at this
question, and in both cases I would be inclined to grant man the benefit of the
doubt and to accord him a survival beyond the cultural phase. In the first case, I would imagine him
capable of surviving the catastrophe of a nuclear accident and/or war, even if
millions of his kind don't. But in the
second case, I would imagine him incapable of transforming himself into the
more-than-human over the next few decades.
Consequently, the end of man would seem to lie too far into the future
for us to have either serious qualms about or any great hopes for his
self-overcoming. In the meantime,
however, it isn't impossible that he will survive his own self-destructive
tendencies and extend his knowledge of space to a point which may well bring
him into contact, whether on a friendly or a hostile basis initially, with
other beings (aliens) in the Galaxy.
Conceived in material or scientific terms,
evolution should embrace an expanding knowledge of the Universe, and thus
confine man to the roles of victim of and participator in the struggles for
survival which will probably take place there.
Conceived, on the other hand, in spiritual or religious terms, evolution
should signify a growing knowledge of spiritual potentialities, and thus
involve man in an inner journey towards his Final End through a condition which
completely transcends the mundane. If,
however, man is first destined to come to grips with the Galaxy, then it's
difficult to imagine his transformation from the human plane to the superhuman
one taking place before he has done so.
As such, one is inclined to push this hypothetical transformation quite
a long way into the future!
But why assume that man will be transformed
anyway? What is there to prevent us from
considering his present form the final one?
Well, let us briefly take a look at the history of his development. He began - did he not? - where the ape-like
ancestor came to an end. The ape-like
ancestor may have developed from something earlier or lower, but, as far as
we're concerned, it suffices us to consider it the forerunner of man - the
animal beginnings. Thus from the unspiritual, predominantly sensual life of the ape
surrounded by nature-in-the-raw, man emerged as a compromise between matter and
spirit because he could to some extent master nature, and thereby surround
himself with civilization. He built
villages, then towns, and finally cities, and the more he advanced, the less
animal he became and the closer he drew to the superhuman, which stems from
large cities. In the pre-cultural stage
he is smothered by nature and thus remains, to a significant extent, its
victim. In the cultural stage, however,
he exists on equal terms with nature, thanks to his growing ability to create a
world of his own in opposition to it.
Villages and towns are a pleasant reminder of man's power and
province. They prevent him from feeling
the might of nature breathing down his neck and driving fear into his
soul. But if nature-in-moderation is the
motto of cultural man, then the motto of post-cultural man is effectively
victory-over-nature, and the larger his towns and cities become, the more
evident does this victory appear. Now it
is man who plays the bully, as he continues to extend his power at nature's
expense. The compromise is gone and,
with its departure, man finds himself one stage closer to the Superman, to the
spiritual transformation which will put an end to his humanity.
Thus from the pre-human ape-like creature
there emerged man, and from him there should emerge the post-human godlike
being that will signify the termination of his evolution. From predominant sensuality one proceeds to a
sensual/spiritual balance, and from that to a spiritual predominance. From the subhuman to the superhuman via the
human. In the first, or subhuman, stage
there is only the fight for survival carried-out in the crudest terms. In the second, or human, stage the fight for
survival is no longer as crude as before but, though still existing in various
degrees, is accompanied by evidence of man's growing spirituality - in short,
by culture, which proceeds from its humble beginnings in the predominant
sensuality of the pre-cultural to the balanced greatness of the culture-proper,
before declining, with the post-cultural, into the predominantly
spiritual. However, in the third or
superhuman stage there is neither a fight for survival nor culture but
continuous self-realization. For the
temporal world has largely been overcome in the interests of the eternal one,
and man, the doer of deeds, has ceased to exist.
What, exactly, his successor will look like
it is of course difficult, if not impossible, for us to imagine at this
juncture. But we needn't be particularly
surprised if 'he' should transpire to being as different from man as man was
from his ape-like predecessor. If the
pre-cultural lasted many hundreds of years, then there is no reason for us to
suppose that the post-cultural, which began in the nineteenth century, won't do
so either. For we are still, to all
appearances, a long way from becoming the superhuman beings that evolution
would seem to be working towards! A few
of us may be slightly closer to that transformation or be more spiritually
advanced than the majority, but most human beings can hardly be regarded as
incipient or even potential Supermen!
Alas, the faces and mentalities of the local road sweepers, dustmen,
butchers, grocers, window cleaners, etc., are not guaranteed to inspire one
with any great confidence that humanity is about to be transformed into
something higher and more spiritual! If
one is reasonably realistic, one can only conclude that the post-cultural stage
of man should have quite some way to go, before the next hypothetical stage of
evolution makes its first appearance in the world. Thus we need not fear any impending demise of
our sensual habits!
Yet, paradoxical though it may seem that
humanity in general is heading towards a future transformation, it nevertheless
does remain a fact that our relationship to the world has been steadily
changing ever since we began, and will doubtless continue to change for as long
as we continue. There can be little
doubt that human evolution is a fact, even if we aren't altogether convinced,
at present, that we are destined to transcend our humanity at some unspecified
time in the future. What has happened to
man over the past 6-7,000 years of cultural development is staggering enough,
and reveals to us, particularly in its more recent Western manifestations, the
cultural heights to which he can rise through living in harmony with the most
suitable type of nature. If there was a
golden age of man, it could only have been during the heyday, so to speak, of
his greatest cultures, not antecedent to them in the pre-cultural stage, or
subsequent to them in that of the post-cultural. For early man, surrounded by too much nature,
could not attain to the balanced compromise between matter and spirit which
makes for the grandeur of cultural man, or man in his prime as man, while late
man, surrounded by too much civilization, has outgrown that compromise and
thereby established himself in a lopsided, predominantly spiritual context
which is the converse of early man's predominant sensuality. He has passed from the instinctually-tinged
spirituality of temporal religion to an intellectually-tinged spirituality
which, whether in the guise of mysticism, spiritualism, academicism, or puritanism, characterizes our time. From the standpoint of man, this third or
post-cultural stage of his development does indeed signify a decline, even
decadence. But from the standpoint of
man's hypothetical future transformation into the Superman, it must be regarded
as a phenomenon bringing him one step closer to evolution's ultimate
designs. For what can the final
post-human stage represent if not the most extreme opposition to nature
conceivable, the ultimate victory of a higher life-form over nature? After all, if one begins like an ape, with
subservience to nature in the form of animal sensuality, and progresses to the
human stage which, in its prime, signifies a balanced compromise with nature,
how can the third or final transformation of the being called man not signify a
complete independence of nature in the form of a supernatural severance from
the sensual? And what is that if not the
ultimate spirituality, a spirituality which transcends the sensual spirituality
known to man in his prime as man?
For cultural man is ever the finest compromise between the animal
nature-bound past and the godlike transcendent future and, as such, his
spiritual endeavours can be no more than a pointer to that ultimate spirituality
which would seem to lie in-wait for his post-human successors. Whatever he does is tempered by the sensual,
is rooted in his animal past, with his dependence on nature. But in his highest cultural achievements, be
they the great ceiling paintings of Michelangelo or Tiepolo,
the great musical outpourings of Bach or Mozart, the great literary writings of
Bunyan or Milton, he is already depicting the future course of humanity, albeit
through sensuous means and forms, towards its ultimate goal in spiritual union
with the Divine.
If there is one symbol, above all, of man's
aspirations towards his future transformation, it is that of the Risen Christ
Who, in His Ascension into Heaven, symbolizes the triumph of the supernatural
over nature, which is termed the miraculous.
In its transcendentalism, Christianity has aptly symbolized man's
spiritual aspirations, whilst its mundane side has constantly reminded him of
his sensual origins and consequent dual nature, pitting the light of heavenly
redemption against the darkness of worldly animality. Now that we are outgrowing our cultural
traditions, however, these reminders are becoming less necessary and therefore
less frequent, as the aspirations towards our spiritual transformation grow
more earnest with the influence of urban civilization, which is bringing us one
step closer to it by further isolating us from nature and thereby reducing our
sensual capacities. While man remained
in harmony with nature, balanced between body and spirit, Christianity remained
the true spokesman of his dual condition, reminding him of his 'sinful'
(sensuous) nature but, at the same time, pointing him towards his future
spiritual salvation. Curiously that
salvation is now closer to us than when Christianity was at its height. But the traditional Christian way of
conceiving of it is no longer relevant, because we have outgrown the
environmental conditions in which Christianity flourished, and cannot therefore
regard it from a strictly Christian standpoint.
Naturally, this doesn't mean that Christianity was mistaken in its
concept of a future salvation in God, but simply that it could only illustrate
this salvation in the sensual/spiritual terms peculiar to man at that stage of
his evolutionary development. At the
time in which it flourished, Christianity was the most apt representative of
man's spiritual aspirations, the only possible representative of them under the
circumstances of his allegiance to nature.
But now that we have evolved to a point where the great sensuous mother
of us all is on the defensive, as we increasingly isolate ourselves from her,
so it stands to reason that Christianity should be left behind with our
previous harmonious condition, left behind as a testimony to it, to man in his
prime as man. For now that we are
in the post-cultural stage of our development it isn't the religion of balance,
with its sensuous representations, to which we relate, but the religion of
spiritual lopsidedness or, rather, a biased spirituality, the transcendentalism
which stems from our growing isolation from nature and necessarily excludes
sensuous representation of the spiritual.
Thus the evolution of man through the three
stages of his being, from pre-cultural to post-cultural via a cultural
stage-proper, is accompanied by a religion germane to each stage of his
development. In the pre-cultural stage
we have, in accordance with his subservience to nature, a religion glorifying
the sensual aspects of life which, in its various manifestations, we may call
paganism. Then comes the cultural stage
in which, in accordance with his growing knowledge of nature and ability to
tame it to some extent, we have a religion which, while rooted in the earthly,
aptly expresses his aspirations towards the Divine, and so takes the form of
Christianity or Buddhism or some such cultural religion. Finally, in the post-cultural stage of his
development, in which he is increasingly becoming the enemy of nature, a being
who predominantly lives in isolation from it in giant cities, we have a religion
reflecting his growing concern with the purely spiritual aspect of life, a
religion which is the complete converse of the pagan worship of sensuality with
which he began his religious advance, and therefore a logical development
beyond the dualistic religion that supplanted it.
Thus from the old fertility rites and
phallic worship, man progressed, via religions like Christianity and Buddhism,
to the modern transcendental preoccupations with the spirit, the Holy Ghost, in
which there is not a hint of sensuous representation. From the phallic Father to the Holy Ghost via
the Risen Christ - such is the path of human evolution from the senses to the
spirit. The Risen Christ is indeed a
beautiful symbol of man's ongoing spirituality, but the very fact of its
ongoing renders such a symbol inadequate
to contemporary man, whose spiritual evolution has attained to a point where
bodily representations of the evolving spirit are less credible than a
transcendentally abstract conception like the Holy Ghost. In the Holy Ghost there will be no bodies,
not even the beautiful body of the radiant Christ. Evolution is on the side of the spirit!
So we need not be ashamed of the decline of
our Christian culture, for, objectively considered, the progression from an
instinctually-bound spirituality towards a more abstract, intellectualized
spirituality isn't a tragedy but a very positive indication of man's ongoing
spiritual evolution. It will not serve
our best interests to cling to the past, as if the past was all that really
mattered! For whether we like it or not,
we shall be swept along by the evolutionary current which is driving us towards
our ultimate goal, our ultimate salvation, in God.
That the past has produced many wonderful
cultural interpretations of our aspirations towards the transcendent, we shall
not deny. But it is not for us to
worship the past because of this, as though it were an end-in-itself rather
than a means to a higher end.
Traditional religion and the art that accompanied it are simply
milestones on the road to man's ultimate home, and accordingly have to be left
behind, like all milestones, if they are not to become an idolatrous weight
around one's neck. The future will have
no need of such milestones, less because it will be a bad or an empty time in
which to live than because it should bring man closer to his ultimate home in
the pure spirit of true divinity, and thus eventually transform him into that
spirit. So of what use would traditional
religion or art be to a future which is their fulfilment? Truly, they have 'had their day', and we
should be grateful for it. For we are
already in a better position to really understand God than were our more sensual
forebears, whose sensuality obliged them to depend on symbols, or sensuous
means of representing the spiritual. But
the spirit cannot really be represented by anything but itself, and this we
have come to realize, this we are now in a position to realize, having
abandoned so much of our former sensuality.
Not surprisingly, science is also affected
by our ongoing evolution. For where it
formerly conceived of matter simply as matter, then as tiny atomic particles
joined together into molecules, it now conceives of matter in terms of particles
and wavicles, thereby testifying to the spiritual
direction of our evolution. Need we be
surprised if, at some point in the not-too-distant future, it sacrifices
particles altogether and thereupon conceives of 'matter' simply in terms of wavicles, assuming it still recognizes the existence of
matter? For the modern revolution in
materialistic science is no less significant than the revolution in our
religious concepts, and can only point towards the general trend of human
evolution on this planet - a trend profoundly related to our changing social
environments.
The fact that a writer like D.H. Lawrence
rebelled against this trend is well known.
For, looked upon from the viewpoint of the senses, it would appear
detrimental to man as we have traditionally known him, and indicative, moreover,
of a collapse of the old values. But
That there may have been some uncertainty,
at one time, as to which of these two influential authors was on the right
path, we needn't doubt. Fortunately, we
are now in a much better position than were most of their contemporaries to
judge correctly and, in judging from an eternal rather than a narrowly temporal
point-of-view, it shouldn't be too difficult for us to come down in Huxley's
favour. We may admire
