What we may call a blind struggle for betterment in the atoms, becomes in man a self-conscious yearning to grow, to become ever more the divinity wit… - Gottfried de Purucker

Concerning the nature of the cyclical times when the great teachers either appear personally in the world of men or send a messenger, it may be stated that the greatest teachers come at the opening or close of the longest cyclical periods; the messengers or envoys are sent forth at the opening or closing of the short cycles, and the teachers or messengers of intermediate power come at the beginnings or endings of time-periods of intermediate length. (Chapter 22)

Now there are two ways for a man to achieve his destiny, two ways for a human soul to reach its own inner powers, the full expansion of its own god-like genius. The first is that followed by the majority, drifting along like flotsam on the ceaselessly moving ebb and flow of the Ocean of Time; and this is the path of natural evolution, of natural growth. But oh! how slow, how slow, how slow it is! Ages will pass before the expansion of inner faculties and powers reaches even a modicum of a larger greatness.
The other pathway is Initiation. This means a quicker growth, a more rapid evolution, a more speedy emergence from the chrysalis of humanhood into possessing the wings of the spirit - into becoming the bird of eternity, to change the metaphor somewhat. p. 70

The psychology of the times following the publication of Darwin's works was so strong that most thinking men could not then be brought to admit that there were any alternative explanations of the phenomena of progressive development in life — human, animal, or plant life — to the scheme of transformism which he set forth. (Ch 3)