338 ROSICRUCIANCOSMO-CONCEPTION
germinal improvements. Such a conception excludes
Epigenesis from the scheme of things. It allows no
possibility for the building of anythingnew, no scope for
originality.
The occultist believes the purpose of evolution to be the
development of man from a static to a dynamic God—a
Creator. If the development he is at present undergoing is to
be his education and if, during its progress, he is simply
unfolding latent actualities, where does he learn to
CREATE?
If man's development consists solely in learning to build
better and better Forms, according to models already
existing in his Creator's mind, he can become, at best, only a
goodimitator—never acreator.
In order that he may become an independent, original
Creator, it is necessary that his training should include
sufficient latitude for the exercise of the individual
originality which distinguishes creation from imitation. So
long as certain features of the old Form meet the
requirements of progression they are retained, but at each
rebirth the evolving Life adds such original improvements as
are necessary for its further expression.
The pioneers of science are constantly brought face to
face with Epigenesis as a fact in all departments of nature.
As early as 1759, Caspar Wolff published his “Theoria
Generationis,” in which he shows that in the human ovum
there is absolutely no trace of the coming organism; that its
evolution consists of the addition of new formations; a
building of something which is not latent in the ovum.
Haeckel (that great and fearless student of nature as he
sees it, and very near to knowledge of the complete truth
regarding evolution) says of the “Theoria Generationis”: