Chapter 11THE DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN PERSONALITY
I. The Law of RububiyyahIN the course of ages, the idea slowly dawned on man's mind and
gradually crystallised that the world is not merely changing, but is
developing towards perfection. The changes are not haphazard; nor
erratic. They show a direction. In changing, the world is unfolding
its real nature: in the process, what is implicit in it becomes explicit
and what is hidden is brought to light. Purpose runs like a golden
thread – a binding cord – throughout the universe. The progressive
aspect of changes in the world did not escape the notice of some
early Greek thinkers. The Greeks were an unusually gifted people
and their fertile imagination, unhampered by tradition and custom,
explored the realms of mind and matter. Their, restless minds were
ever shaping new theories and advancing new viewpoints. They
anticipated the evolutionary theory, as they anticipated many
scientific theories of this age. It is to the credit of modern science
that by adducing palpable evidence it has raised what was a nebulous
hypothesis, to the plane of a scientific theory, or almost a law of
nature. Physics shows a picture of a developing and expanding
universe. Biologists describe in minute, ornate detail the evolution
of life from the protozoa and protophyta to Homo sapiens. It is true
that biologists, with the exception of Lamarck, reject the concept of
purpose as alien to science. It is because purpose does not fit into
their conceptual framework of natural science. But for the man
who looks at the world with an untainted mind, purpose is a fact of
observation: it is blinkers of science that may prevent us from
noticing the purpose. Nevertheless, it is writ large on the face of
nature. We understand a thing when we know its end. Nothing
around us stays as it is at one particular moment, it is always
changing and becoming something different to what it is. As a rule,
we are much less interested in a thing as it is than in what it is tending
to become. Suppose while taking a walk, we meet a man who is
running fast. It is not by determining his exact location at a