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A careful review of 'Abdu'l-Baha's statements in this volume and in other sources suggests that His concern is not with the mechanisms of evolution but with the philosophical, social, and spiritual implications of the new theory. His use of the term "species", for example, evokes the concept of eternal or permanent archetypes, which is not how the term is defined in contemporary biology. He takes into account a reality beyond the material realm. While 'Abdu'l-Baha acknowledges elsewhere the physical attributes that human beings share in common with the animal and that are derived from the animal kingdom, in these talks He emphasizes another capacity, a capacity for rational consciousness, that distinguishes man from the animal and that is not found in the animal kingdom or in nature itself. This unique capacity, an expression of the human spirit, is not a product of the evolutionary process, but exists potentially in creation. As 'Abdu'l-Baha explains, "...since man was produced ten or a hundred thousand years ago from the same earthly elements, with the same measures and quantities, the same manner of composition and combination, and the same interactions with other beings- it follows that man was exactly the same then as exists now". "And if a thousand million years hence," He goes on to say, "the component elements of man are brought together, measured out in the same proportion, combined in the same manner, and subjected to the same interaction with other beings, exactly the same man will come into existence." His essential argument, then, is not directed towards scientific findings but towards the materialist assertions that are built upon them. For Baha'ís, the science of evolution is accepted, but the conclusion that humanity is merely an accidental branch of the animal kingdom- with all its attendant social implications- is not
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