Hayagrīva: He spent the rest of his life writing about the material he gathered during this five-year voyage, which is a very short time. And according to his theory of natural selection, the best and the fittest survived. If this is the case, the race will necessarily steadily improve.
Prabhupāda: What does he mean by survive? What is the meaning of his dictionary, "survive"? Nobody survives.
Hayagrīva: Well, by that he means that the strong pass on their hereditary characteristics to their offspring, and that the race..., no individual survives, but that the race improves. But isn't this contradicted by the Vedas? In the present Kali... For instance, Arjuna's physical powers, prowess, was much greater, and that was, what, five thousand years ago. So isn't, instead of improving, instead of the race improving in strength and other qualities, isn't it actually...
Prabhupāda: They are degrading.
Hayagrīva: ...degenerating. What is the cause of man's physical, mental and spiritual deterioration in the succeeding yugas?
Prabhupāda: That is education. Every individual person, he is a soul, and he has got a particular type of body. Especially in the human body he requires education. What is this animal and what is higher than human race, these are Vedic description. So there are 8,400,000 different forms of life, and the body is being evolved. The body is machine, and the individual soul desires and he gets a suitable body made by material nature under the order of God. This is Vedic idea, as it is said in the Bhagavad-gītā, īśvaraḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ hṛd-deśe arjuna tiṣṭhati (BG 18.61). God is existing within the core of everyone's heart, and the individual soul is desiring something, and upon the order God he is given a machine made by material nature. So this is evolution, and even a man, although he is human form of body, he can again degenerate to animal form of body according to his desire. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). He has to change the body, and the body is changed according to his work and desire. In the animal kingdom they have also desires, but they are under the laws of nature changing body, and one is given the chance to become a human being, and then he may desire, and according to his desires he gets the next body. If he likes, he can go higher forms of life, and if he degenerates he goes lower form of life.
Hayagrīva: But as the yugas progress, the human body itself, doesn't it become more degraded?
Prabhupāda: What do you mean by degraded? He has got human body, but by his work and by his desire he can get next life a demigod's body or a dog's body. That will depend on his activities. Human body is meant for understanding God and act accordingly to go back to home, back to Godhead. But if he does not utilize this human form of body properly, if he remains on the platform of animal propensities and degenerates, then he goes..., he can become next life a dog, a cat. There are two things: elevation or degeneration.
Hayagrīva: In The Descent of Man Darwin writes, "The belief in God has often been advanced as not only the greatest but the most complete of all the distinctions between man and the lower animals. It is, however, impossible to maintain that this belief is instinctive in man. The idea of a universal and beneficent creator does not seem to arise in the mind of man until he has been elevated by long, continued culture."
Prabhupāda: Yes. The culture is important. If he gets the chance of cultured association, then he elevates. That is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā: yānti deva-vratā devān (BG 9.25). If he, according to his cultural life, he can go to the higher planetary system, he can remain where he is, he can degrade, and he can go back to home, back to Godhead. Therefore culture is very important in human form of life.
Hayagrīva: He further writes, "He who believes in the advancement of man from some low organized form will naturally ask, 'How does this bear on the belief in the immortality of the soul?' " He says, "At what precise period does a man become an immortal being?" That is to say, he doesn't know at what stage the immortal soul inhabits the species.
Prabhupāda: Yes, soul is always important. He is put into different bodies. That is the defect of Darwin's knowledge. He does not know about the soul. So the existence of soul, to understand this is the first education. One who does not know this, he remains animal, sa eva go-kharaḥ (SB 10.84.13), if one continues the bodily concept of life without any understanding of the soul. And it is very easy to understand that the child is becoming boy, a boy is becoming young man. So the soul is there, and we remember that "I was a child, I was a boy, I was a young man." So I continue to exist, the bodily changes, and this is confirmed in every Vedic scripture, and that is the beginning of knowledge. If one does not understand how the soul is changing body, he remains on the level of cats and dogs.
Hayagrīva: He does..., he says he doesn't know at what point the soul enters, but the soul is in anything that moves. Is that correct?
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Hayagrīva: Even a...
Prabhupāda: The soul moves.
Hayagrīva: ...bacteria for instance, or an ant.
Prabhupāda: So ant moves because there is soul; the bacteria moves there because there is soul. Similarly, the man moves because there is soul. An animal moves because there is soul.
Hayagrīva: And every soul is immortal.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hayagrīva: So that's all, on Darwin.