The ape as he grows becomes more bestial; man ... more human—

and seems, indeed, to hesitate a moment before he passes on:

This flexure of the cranial axis may, therefore, still be

emphasized as a human character, in contradistinction to the apes;

the peculiar characteristic of an order can scarcely be elicited

from it; and especially as to the doctrine of descent, this

circumstance seems in no way decisive.(1554)

The writer is evidently not a little disquieted by his own argument. He

assures us that it upsets any possibility of the present apes having been

the progenitors of mankind. But does it not also negative the bare

possibility of the man and the anthropoid having had a common—though, so

far, an absolutely theoretical—ancestor?

Even “Natural Selection” itself is with every day more threatened. The

deserters from the Darwinian camp are many, and those who were at one time

its most ardent disciples are, owing to new discoveries, slowly but

steadily preparing to turn over a new leaf. In the _Journal of the Royal

Microscopical Society_ for October, 1886, we may read as follows:

PHYSIOLOGICAL SELECTION.—Mr. G. J. Romanes finds certain

difficulties in regarding natural selection as a theory for the

origin of species, as it is rather a theory of the origin of

adaptive structures. He proposes to replace it by what he calls

physiological selection, or segregation of the fit. His view is

based on the extreme sensitiveness of the reproductive system to

small changes in the conditions of life, and he thinks that

variations in the direction of greater or less sterility must

frequently occur in wild species. If the variation be such that

the reproductive system, while showing some degree of sterility

with the parent form, continues to be fertile within the limits of

the varietal form, the variation would neither be swamped by

intercrossing nor die out on account of sterility. When a

variation of this kind occurs, the physiological barrier must

divide the species into two parts. The author, in fine, regards

mutual sterility, not as one of the effects of specific

differentiation, but as the cause of it.(1555)

An attempt is made to show the above to be a complement of, and sequence

to, the Darwinian theory. This is a clumsy attempt at best. The public

will soon be asked to believe that Mr. C. Dixon’s _Evolution without

Natural Selection_ is also Darwinism—expanded, as the author certainly

claims it to be!

But it is like splitting the body of a man into three pieces, and then

maintaining that each piece is the identical man he was before,

only—expanded. Yet the author states:

Let it be clearly understood that not one single syllable in the

foregoing pages has been written antagonistic to Darwin’s theory

of Natural Selection. All I have done is to explain _certain_

phenomena ... the more one studies Darwin’s works, the more one is

convinced of the truth of his hypothesis [! !].(1556)

And before this, he alludes to:

The overwhelming array of facts which Darwin gave in support of

his hypothesis, and which triumphantly carried the theory of

Natural Selection over all obstacles and objections.(1557)

This does not prevent the learned author, however, from upsetting this

theory as “triumphantly,” and from even openly calling his work

_Evolution_ without _Natural Selection_, or, in so many words, with

Darwin’s fundamental idea knocked to atoms in it.

As to Natural Selection itself, the utmost misconception prevails among

many present‐day thinkers, who tacitly accept the conclusions of

Darwinism. It is, for instance, a mere device of rhetoric to credit

Natural Selection with the power of _originating_ species. Natural

Selection is no entity; it is merely a convenient phrase for describing

the mode in which the survival of the fit and the elimination of the unfit

among organisms are brought about by the Struggle for Existence. Every

group of organisms tends to multiply beyond the means of subsistence; the

constant battle for life—the “struggle to obtain enough to eat and to

escape being eaten” added to the environmental conditions—necessitates a

perpetual weeding out of the unfit. The _élite_ of any stock, thus sorted

out, propagate the species and transmit their organic characteristics to

their descendants. All useful variations are thus perpetuated, and a

progressive improvement is effected. But Natural Selection—in the writer’s

humble opinion, “Selection, _as a Power_”—is in reality a pure myth;

especially when it is resorted to as an explanation of the Origin of

Species. It is merely a representative term expressive of the manner in

which “useful variations” are stereotyped when produced. Of itself, “it”

can _produce_—_nothing_, and only operates on the rough material presented

to “it.” The real question at issue is: What _cause_—combined with other

secondary causes—produces the “variations” in the organisms themselves?

Many of these secondary causes are purely physical—climatic, dietary, etc.

Very well. But beyond the secondary aspects of organic evolution, a deeper

principle has to be sought for. The Materialist’s “spontaneous

variations,” and “_accidental_ divergencies” are self‐contradictory terms

in a universe of “Matter, Force and _Necessity_.” Mere variability of

type, apart from the supervisory presence of a quasi‐intelligent impulse,

is powerless to account for the stupendous complexities and marvels of the

human body, for instance. The insufficiency of the Darwinists’ mechanical

theory has been exposed at length by Dr. Von Hartmann among other purely

negative thinkers. It is an abuse of the reader’s intelligence to write,

as does Hæckel, of _blind_ indifferent cells, “arranging themselves into

organs.” The Esoteric solution of the origin of animal species is given

elsewhere.

Those purely _secondary_ causes of differentiation, grouped under the head

of sexual selection, natural selection, climate, isolation, etc., mislead

the Western Evolutionist and offer no real explanation whatever of the

“whence” of the “ancestral types” which served as the _starting point_ for

physical development. The truth is that the differentiating “causes” known

to Modern Science only come into operation after the _physicalization of

the primeval animal root‐types out of the astral_. Darwinism only meets

Evolution at its midway point—that is to say, when astral evolution has

given place to the play of the ordinary physical forces with which our

present senses acquaint us. But even here the Darwinian Theory, even with

the “expansions” recently attempted, is inadequate to meet the facts of

the case. The cause underlying physiological variation in species—one to

which all other laws are subordinate and secondary—is a sub‐conscious

intelligence pervading matter, ultimately traceable to a _reflection_ of

the Divine and Dhyân‐Chohanic wisdom.(1558) A not altogether dissimilar

conclusion has been arrived at by so well known a thinker as Ed. von

Hartmann, who, despairing of the efficacy of _unaided_ Natural Selection,

regards Evolution as being intelligently guided by the Unconscious—the

Cosmic Logos of Occultism. But the latter acts only mediately through

Fohat, or Dhyân‐Chohanic energy, and not quite in the direct manner which

the great pessimist describes.

It is this divergence among men of Science, their mutual, and often their

_self_‐contradictions, that gives the writer of the present volumes the

courage to bring to light other and older teachings—if only as hypotheses

for _future_ scientific appreciation. So evident, even to the humble

recorder of this archaic teaching, though not in any way very learned in

Modern Sciences, are the scientific fallacies and gaps, that she has

determined to touch upon all these, in order to place the two teachings on

parallel lines. For Occultism, it is a question of self‐defence, and

nothing more.

So far, _The Secret Doctrine_ has concerned itself with metaphysics, pure

and simple. It has now landed on Earth, and finds itself within the domain

of physical Science and practical Anthropology, or those branches of study

which materialistic Naturalists claim as their rightful domain, coolly

asserting, furthermore, that the higher and more perfect the working of

the Soul, the more amenable it is to the analysis and explanations _of the

Zoologist and the Physiologist alone_.(1559) This stupendous pretension

comes from one, who, to prove his pithecoid descent, has not hesitated to

include the Lemuridæ among the ancestors of man; these have been promoted

by him to the rank of Prosimiæ, _indeciduate_ mammals, to which he very

incorrectly contributes a _decidua_ and a discoidal placenta.(1560) For

this Hæckel was taken severely to task by de Quatrefages, and criticised

by his own brother Materialists and Agnostics—Virchow and du Bois‐Reymond,

as great, if not greater authorities than himself.(1561)

Such opposition notwithstanding, Hæckel’s wild theories are, to this day,

still called by some scientific and logical. The mysterious nature of

Consciousness, of Soul, of Spirit in Man being now explained as a mere

advance on the functions of the protoplasmic molecules of the lively

Protista, and the gradual evolution and growth of human mind and “social

instincts” toward civilization having to be traced back to their origin in

the civilization of ants, bees, and other creatures—the chances left for

an impartial hearing of the doctrines of Archaic Wisdom are few indeed.

The _educated_ profane are told that:

The social instincts of the lower animals have, of late, been

regarded for various reasons _as clearly the origin of morals_,

even of those of man [?], ...

—and that our divine consciousness, our soul, intellect, and aspirations

have worked their “way up from the lower stages of the simple cell‐soul”

of the gelatinous Bathybius—(1562) and they seem to believe it. For such

men, the Metaphysics of Occultism must produce the effect that our

grandest oratorios produce on the Chinaman—sounds that jar upon their

nerves.

Yet, are our Esoteric teachings about “Angels,” the first three pre‐animal

human Races, and the downfall of the Fourth, _on a lower level of fiction

and self‐delusion_ than the Hæckelian “plastidular,” or the inorganic

“molecular souls of the Protista”? Between the evolution of the spiritual

nature of man from the above amœbian souls, and the alleged development of

his physical frame from the protoplastic dweller in the ocean slime, there

is an abyss which will not easily be crossed by any man in the _full_

possession of his intellectual faculties. Physical Evolution, as Modern

Science teaches it, is a subject for open controversy; spiritual and moral

development on the same lines is the insane dream of a crass Materialism.

Furthermore, past as well as present daily experience teaches that no

truth has ever been accepted by learned bodies unless it has dovetailed

with the habitually preconceived ideas of their professors. “The crown of

the innovator is a crown of thorns”—said Geoffroy St. Hilaire. It is only

that which fits in with popular hobbies and accepted notions that as a

general rule gains ground. Hence the triumph of the Hæckelian ideas,

notwithstanding that they are proclaimed by Virchow, du Bois‐Reymond, and

others as the “_testimonium paupertatis_ of Natural Science.”

Diametrically opposed as may be the materialism of the German

Evolutionists to the spiritual conceptions of Esoteric Philosophy,

radically inconsistent as is their accepted anthropological system with

the real facts of Nature—the pseudo‐idealistic bias now colouring English

thought is almost more pernicious. The pure Materialistic Doctrine admits

of a direct refutation and an appeal to the logic of facts. The Idealism

of the present day, not only contrives to absorb, on the one hand, the

basic negations of Atheism, but lands its votaries in a tangle of

_unreality_, which culminates in a practical Nihilism. Argument with such

writers is almost out of the question. Idealists, therefore, will be still

more antagonistic than even the Materialists to the Occult teachings now

given. But as no worse fate can befall the exponents of Esoteric

Anthropogenesis at the hands of their foes than being openly called by

their old and time‐honoured names of “lunatics” and “ignoramuses,” the

present archaic theories may be safely added to the many modern

speculations, and bide their time for their full or even partial

recognition. Only, as the very existence of these archaic theories will

probably be denied, we have to give our best proofs and stand by them to

the bitter end.

In our race and generation the one “temple in the universe” is in rare

cases—_within_ us; but our body and mind have been too defiled by both

“sin” and “science” to be outwardly anything better _now_ than a fane of

iniquity and error. And here our mutual position—that of Occultism and

Modern Science—ought to be once for all defined.

We, Theosophists, are willing to bow before such men of learning as the

late Prof. Balfour Stewart, Messrs. Crookes, de Quatrefages, Wallace,

Agassiz, Butlerof, and others, though, from the stand‐point of the

Esoteric Philosophy, we may not agree with all they say. But nothing will

make us consent to even a show of respect for the opinions of such other

men of Science as Hæckel, Carl Vogt, or Ludwig Büchner, in Germany, or

even Mr. Huxley and his co‐thinkers in Materialism in England—the colossal

erudition of the first named, notwithstanding. Such men are simply the

intellectual and moral murderers of future generations; especially Hæckel,

whose crass Materialism often rises to the height of idiotic _naivetés_ in

his reasonings. One has but to read his _Pedigree of Man, and Other

Essays_ (Aveling’s Translation) to feel a desire that, in the words of

Job, his remembrance should perish from the Earth, and that he “shall have

no name in the streets.” Hear the creator of the mythical Sozura deriding

the idea of the origin of the human race “as a supernatural [?]

phenomenon,” as one—

That could not result from simple mechanical causes, from physical

and chemical forces, but requires the direct intervention of a

creative personality.... Now the central point of Darwin’s

teaching ... lies in this, that it demonstrates the simplest

mechanical causes, purely physico‐chemical phenomena of nature, as

wholly sufficient to explain the highest and most difficult

problems. Darwin puts in the place of a conscious creative force,

building and arranging the organic bodies of animals and plants on

a designed plan, a series of natural forces working blindly (as we

say) without aim, without design. In place of an arbitrary act of

operation, we have a necessary law of Evolution.... [So had Manu

and Kapila, and, at the same time, guiding, conscious and

intelligent Powers]. Darwin very wisely ... had put on one side

the question as to the first appearance of life. But very soon

that consequence, so full of meaning, so wide‐reaching, was openly

discussed by able and brave scientific men, such as Huxley, Carl

Vogt, Ludwig Büchner. A mechanical origin of the earliest living

form was held as the necessary sequence to Darwin’s teaching ...

we are at present only concerned with a single consequence of the

theory, the natural origin of the human race through almighty

Evolution.(1563)

To this, unabashed by such a scientific farrago, Occultism replies: In the

course of Evolution, when the physical triumphed over the spiritual and

mental evolution, and nearly crushed it under its weight, the great gift

of Kriyâshakti remained the heirloom of only a few elect men in every age.

Spirit strove vainly to _manifest itself in its fulness in purely organic

forms_ (as has been explained in Part I of this Volume), and the faculty,

which had been a natural attribute in the early humanity of the Third

Race, became one of the class regarded as simply phenomenal by

Spiritualists and Occultists, and as _scientifically impossible_ by

Materialists.

In our modern day the mere assertion that there exists a power which can

create human forms—ready‐made Sheaths within which can incarnate the

_conscious_ Monads or Nirmânakâyas of past Manvantaras—is, of course,

absurd, ridiculous! That which is regarded as quite natural, on the other

hand, is the production of a Frankenstein’s monster, _plus_ moral

consciousness, religious aspirations, genius, and a feeling of his own

immortal nature within himself—by “physico‐chemical forces,” guided by

blind “Almighty Evolution.” As to the origin of that man, not _ex nihilo_,

cemented by a little red clay, but from a living divine Entity

consolidating the Astral Body with surrounding materials—such a conception

is too absurd even to be mentioned, in the opinion of the Materialists.

Nevertheless, Occultists and Theosophists are ready to have their claims

and theories compared as to their intrinsic value and probability with

those of the modern Evolutionists—however unscientific and superstitious

these theories may at the first glance appear. Hence the Esoteric teaching

is _absolutely_ opposed to the Darwinian evolution, as applied to man, and

_partially_ so with regard to other species.

It would be interesting to obtain a glimpse of the mental representation

of Evolution in the scientific brain of a Materialist. What _is_

Evolution? If asked to define the full and complete meaning of the term,

neither Huxley nor Hæckel will be able to do so any better than does

Webster:

The act of unfolding; the process of growth, development; as the

evolution of a flower from a bud, or an animal from the egg.

Yet the bud must be traced through its parent‐plant to the seed, and the

egg to the animal or bird that laid it; or at any rate to the speck of

protoplasm from which it expanded and grew. And both the seed and the

speck must have the latent potentialities in them for the reproduction and

gradual development, the unfolding of the thousand and one forms or phases

of evolution, through which they must pass before the flower or the animal

is fully developed? Hence, the future plan—if not a design—_must be

there_. Moreover, that seed _has to be traced_, and its nature

ascertained. Have the Darwinians been successful in this? Or will the

Moneron be cast in our teeth? But this atom of the Watery Abysses is _not_

homogeneous matter; and there must be something or somebody that had

moulded and cast it into being.

Here Science is once more silent. But since there is no self‐consciousness

as yet in speck, seed, or germ, according to both Materialists and

Psychologists of the modern school—Occultists agreeing in this for once

with their natural enemies—what is it that guides the force or forces so

unerringly in this process of Evolution? “Blind force”? As well call

“blind” the brain which evolved in Hæckel his _Pedigree of Man_ and other

lucubrations. We can easily conceive that the said brain lacks an

important centre or two; for whoever knows anything of the anatomy of the

human, or even of any animal, body, and is still an Atheist and a

Materialist, must be “hopelessly insane,” according to Lord Herbert, who

rightly sees in the frame of man’s body and the coherence of its parts,

something so strange and paradoxical that he holds it to be the “greatest

miracle of nature.” _Blind_ forces and “_no_ design” in anything under the

Sun! When no sane man of Science would hesitate to say that, even from the

little he knows and has hitherto discovered of the forces at work in

Kosmos, he sees very plainly that every part, every speck and atom, are in

harmony with their fellow atoms, and these with the whole, each having its

distinct mission throughout the life‐cycle. But, fortunately, the

greatest, the most eminent Thinkers and Scientists of the day are now

beginning to rise against this “Pedigree,” and even against Darwin’s

Natural Selection theory, though its author had never, probably,

contemplated such widely stretched conclusions. The Russian scientist N.

T. Danilevsky, in his remarkable work, _Darwinism, a Critical

Investigation of the Theory_, upsets such Darwinism completely and without

appeal, and so does de Quatrefages in his last work. Our readers are

recommended to examine the learned paper by Dr. Bourges, a member of the

Paris Anthropological Society, read by its author at a recent meeting of

that society and called “Evolutionary Psychology; the Evolution of Spirit,

etc.” In it he completely reconciles the two teachings—namely of physical

and spiritual evolution. He explains the origin of the variety of organic

forms—which are made to fit their environments with such evidently

intelligent design—by the existence and the mutual help and interaction of

two Principles in manifested Nature, the inner conscious Principle

adapting itself to physical Nature and the innate potentialities of the

latter. Thus the French scientist has to return to our old friend Archæus,

or the Life‐Principle—without naming it—as Dr. Richardson has done in

England in his Nerve‐Force. The same idea was recently developed in

Germany by Baron Hellenbach, in his remarkable work, _Individuality in the

Light of Biology and Modern Philosophy_.

We find the same conclusions arrived at in yet another excellent volume by

a deep thinking Russian, N. N. Strachof, who says in his _Fundamental

Conceptions of Psychology and Physiology_:

The most clear, as the most familiar, type of development may be

found in our own mental or physical evolution, which has served

others as a model to follow.... If organisms are entities ... then

it is only just to conclude and assert that the organic life

strives to beget psychic life; but it would be still more correct

and in accordance with the spirit of these two categories of

evolution to say, that the true cause of organic life is the

tendency of spirit to manifest in substantial forms, to clothe

itself in substantial reality. It is the highest form which

contains the complete explanation of the lowest, never the

reverse.

This is admitting, as Bourges does in the Mémoire above mentioned, the

identity of this mysterious, integrally acting and organizing Principle

with the Self‐Conscious and Inner Subject, which we call the Ego and the

world at large the Soul. Thus all the best Scientists and Thinkers are

gradually approaching the Occultists in their general conclusions.

But such metaphysically inclined men of Science are out of court and will

hardly be listened to. Schiller, in his magnificent poem on the Veil of

Isis, makes the mortal youth who dared to lift the impenetrable covering

fall down dead, after beholding the naked Truth in the face of the stern

Goddess. Have some of our Darwinians, so tenderly united in natural

selection and affinity, also gazed at the Saïtic Mother bereft of her

veils? One might almost suspect it after reading their theories. Their

great intellects must have collapsed while gauging too closely the

uncovered face of Nature, leaving only the grey matter and ganglia in

their brains to respond to “blind” physico‐chemical forces. At any rate

Shakspere’s lines apply admirably to our modern Evolutionist, who

symbolizes that “proud man,” who—

Drest in a little brief authority;

Most ignorant of what he’s most assured,

His glassy essence, like an angry ape,

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,

As make the angels weep!(1564)

These have nought to do with the “Angels.” Their only concern is with the

human ancestor, the pithecoid Noah who gave birth to three sons—the tailed

Cynocephalus, the tailless Ape, and the “arboreal” Palæolithic man. On

this point, they will not be contradicted. Every doubt expressed is

immediately set down as an attempt to cripple scientific enquiry. The

insuperable difficulty at the very foundation of the Evolution theory,

namely, that no Darwinian is able to give even an approximate definition

of the period _at_ which, and the form _in_ which, the first man appeared,

is smoothed down to a trifling impediment, which is “really of no

account.” Every branch of knowledge is in the same predicament, we are

informed. The Chemist bases his most abstruse calculations simply

Upon a hypothesis of atoms and molecules, of which not one has

ever been seen, isolated, weighed, or defined. The electrician

speaks of magnetic fluids which have never tangibly revealed

themselves. No definite origin can be assigned either to molecules

or magnetism. Science cannot and does not pretend to any knowledge

of the beginnings of law, matter, or life.(1565)

And, withal, to reject a _scientific hypothesis_, however absurd, is to

commit the one unpardonable sin! We risk it.

Section II. The Ancestors Mankind is Offered by Science.

The question of questions for mankind—the problem which underlies

all others, and is more deeply interesting than any other—is the

ascertainment of the place which man occupies in Nature, and of

his relations to the universe of things.(1566)

The world stands divided this day and hesitates between _Divine

Progenitors_—be they Adam and Eve or the Lunar Pitris—and _Bathybius

Hæckelii_, the gelatinous hermit of the briny deep. Having explained the

Occult theory, it may now be compared with that of Modern Materialism. The

reader is invited to choose between the two after having judged them on

their respective merits.

We may derive some consolation for the rejection of our Divine Ancestors,

in finding that the Hæckelian speculations receive no better treatment at

the hands of strictly _exact_ Science than do our own. Hæckel’s

Phylogenesis is no less laughed at by the foes of his fantastic evolution,

by other and greater Scientists, than our primeval Races will be. As du

Bois‐Reymond puts it, we may believe him easily when he says that the

Ancestral trees of our race sketched in the _Schöpfungsgeschichte_

are of about as much value as are the pedigrees of the Homeric

heroes in the eyes of the historical critic.

This settled, everyone will see that one hypothesis is as good as another.

And as we find Hæckel himself confessing that neither Geology in its

history of the past nor the ancestral history of organisms will ever “rise

to the position of a real ‘exact’ science,”(1567) a large margin is thus

left to Occult Science to make its annotations and lodge its protests. The

world is left to choose between the teachings of Paracelsus, the “father

of modern chemistry,” and those of Hæckel, the “father of the mythical

Sozura.” We demand no more.

Without presuming to take part in the quarrel of such very learned

Naturalists as du Bois‐Reymond and Hæckel _à propos_ of our blood

relationship to

Those ancestors [of ours] which have led up from the unicellular

classes, Vermes, Acrania, Pisces, Amphibia, Reptilia to the Aves

—we may put a brief question or two, for the information of our readers.

Availing ourselves of the opportunity, and bearing in mind Darwin’s

theories of Natural Selection, etc., we would ask Science—with regard to

the origin of the human and animal species—which theory of Evolution of

the two herewith described is the more scientific, or the more

unscientific, if so preferred.

(1) Is it that of an Evolution which starts from the beginning with sexual

propagation?

(2) Or that teaching which shows the gradual development of organs; their

solidification, and the procreation of each species, at first by simple

easy separation from one into two or even several individuals; then a

fresh development—the first step to a species of separate distinct

sexes—the hermaphrodite condition; then again, a kind of parthenogenesis,

“virginal reproduction,” when the egg‐cells are formed within the body,

issuing from it in atomic emanations and becoming matured outside of it;

until, finally, after a definite separation into sexes, the human beings

begin procreating through sexual connection?

Of these two, the first “theory”—or rather, a “revealed fact”—is

enunciated by all the exoteric Bibles, except the _Purânas_, preëminently

by the Jewish Cosmogony. The second is that which is taught by the Occult

Philosophy, as has been explained.

An answer is found to our question in a volume just published by Mr.

Samuel Laing—the best lay exponent of Modern Science.(1568) In Chapter

viii of his latest work, _A Modern Zoroastrian_, the author begins by

twitting “all ancient religions and philosophies” for “assuming a male and

female principle for their gods.” At first sight, he says:

This distinction of sex appears as fundamental as that of plant

and animal.... The Spirit of God brooding over Chaos and producing

the world is only a later edition, revised according to

monotheistic ideas, of the far older Chaldean legend which

describes the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos by the coöperation

of great gods, male and female.... Thus, in the orthodox Christian

creed we are taught to repeat “begotten, not made,” a phrase which

is absolute nonsense, or _non‐sense_—that is, an instance of using

words like counterfeit notes, which have no solid value of an idea

behind them. For “begotten” is a very definite term, which implies

the conjunction of two opposite sexes to produce a new

individual.(1569)

However we may agree with the learned author as to the inadvisability of

using wrong words, and the terrible anthropomorphic and phallic element in

the old Scriptures—especially in the orthodox Christian

_Bible_—nevertheless, there may be two extenuating circumstances in the

case. Firstly, all these “ancient philosophies” and “modern religions”

are—as has been sufficiently shown in these two Volumes—an exoteric veil

thrown over the face of Esoteric Truth; and—as the direct result of

this—they are allegorical, _i.e._, mythological in form; but still they

are immensely more philosophical in essence than any of the new scientific

theories, so‐called. Secondly, from the Orphic Theogony down to Ezra’s

last remodelling of the Pentateuch, every old Scripture, having in its

origin borrowed its facts from the East, has been subjected to constant

alterations by friend and foe, until of the original version there has

remained but the name, a dead shell from which the spirit had been

gradually eliminated.

This alone ought to show that no religious work now extant can be

understood without the help of the Archaic Wisdom, the primitive

foundation on which they were all built.

But to return to the direct answer expected from Science to our direct

question. It is given by the same author, when, following his train of

thought on the unscientific euhemerization of the powers of Nature in

ancient creeds, he pronounces a condemnatory verdict upon them in the

following terms:

Science, however, makes sad havoc with this impression of sexual

generation being the original and only mode of reproduction, and

the microscope and dissecting knife of the naturalist introduce us

to new and altogether unsuspected [?] worlds of life.

So little “unsuspected,” indeed, that the original a‐sexual “modes of

reproduction” must have been known to the ancient Hindûs, at any rate—Mr.

Laing’s assertion to the contrary notwithstanding. In view of the

statement in the _Vishnu Purâna_, quoted by us elsewhere, that Daksha

“established sexual intercourse as the means of multiplication,” only

after a series of other “modes,” which are all enumerated therein,(1570)

it becomes difficult to deny the fact. This assertion, moreover, is found,

note well, in an _exoteric_ work. Next, Mr. Laing goes on to tell us that:

By far the larger proportion of living forms, in number at any

rate if not in size, have come into existence, without the aid of

sexual propagation.

He then instances Hæckel’s Moneron, “multiplying by self‐division.” The

next stage the author shows in the nucleated cell, “which does exactly the

same thing.” The following stage is that in

Which the organism does not divide into two equal parts, but a

small portion of it swells out ... and finally parts company and

starts on a separate existence, which grows to the size of the

parent by its inherent faculty of manufacturing fresh protoplasm

from surrounding inorganic materials.(1571)

This is followed by a many‐celled organism which is formed by

Germ‐buds reduced to spores, or single cells, which are emitted

from the parent.... We are now at the threshold of that system of

sexual propagation, which has [now] become the rule in all the

higher families of animals.... This organism, having advantages in

the struggle for life, established itself permanently ... and

special organs developed to meet the altered conditions. Thus at

length the distinction would be firmly established of a female

organ or ovary containing the egg or primitive cell from which the

new being was to be developed, and a male organ supplying the

fertilizing spore or cell.... This is confirmed by a study of

embryology, which shows that in the _human_ and higher animal

species the distinction of sex is not developed until a

considerable progress has been made in the growth of the

embryo.... In the great majority of plants, and in some of the

lower families of animals ... the male and female organs are

developed within the same being, and they are what is called

hermaphrodites. Another transition form is Parthenogenesis, or

virginal reproduction, in which germ‐cells, apparently similar in

all respects to egg‐cells, develop themselves into new

individuals, without any fructifying element.(1572)

Of all this we are as perfectly well aware as we are aware that the above

was never applied by the very learned English popularizer of Huxley‐

Hæckelian theories to the _genus homo_. He limits this to specks of

protoplasm, plants, bees, snails, and so on. But if he would be true to

the theory of descent, he must be as true to ontogenesis, in which the

fundamental biogenetic law, we are told, runs as follows:

The development of the embryo (ontogeny) is a condensed and

abbreviated repetition of the evolution of the race (phylogeny).

This repetition is the more complete, the more the true original

order of evolution (palingenesis) has been retained by continual

heredity. On the other hand, this repetition is the less complete,

the more by varying adaptations the later spurious development

(cænogenesis) has obtained.(1573)

This shows us that every living creature and thing on Earth, including

man, evolved from _one common primal form_. Physical man must have passed

through the same stages of the evolutionary process in the various modes

of procreation as other animals have done; he must have _divided_ himself;

then, hermaphrodite, have given birth _parthenogenetically_ (on the

immaculate principle) to his young ones; the next stage would be the

_oviparous_—at first “without any fructifying element,” then “with the

help of the fertilitary spore”; and only after the final and definite

evolution of both sexes, would he become a distinct “male and female,”

when reproduction through sexual union would grow into universal law. So

far, all this is scientifically proven. There remains but one thing to be

ascertained; viz., the plain and comprehensively described processes of

such ante‐sexual reproduction. This is done in the Occult books, a slight

outline of which has been attempted by the writer in Part I of this

Volume.

Either this, or—man is a distinct being. Occult Philosophy may call him

that, because of his distinctly _dual_ nature. Science cannot do so, once

that it rejects every interference save mechanical laws, and admits of no

principle outside Matter. The former—Archaic Science—allows the human

physical frame to have passed through every form, from the lowest to the

very highest, its present one, or from the simple to the complex—to use

the accepted terms. But it claims that in this Cycle, the Fourth, the

frame having already existed among the types and models of Nature from the

preceding Rounds—it was quite ready for man from the beginning of this

Round.(1574) The Monad had but to step into the Astral Body of the

Progenitors, in order that the work of physical consolidation should begin

around the shadowy prototype.(1575)

What would Science say to this? It would answer, of course, that as man

appeared on Earth as the latest of the mammalians, he had no need, any

more than these mammals, to pass through the primitive stages of

procreation as above described. His mode of procreation was already

established on Earth when he appeared. In this case, we may reply: Since

to this day not the remotest sign of a link between man and the animal has

yet been found, then (if the Occult Doctrine is to be repudiated) he must

have sprung _miraculously_ in Nature, like a fully armed Minerva from

Jupiter’s brain; and in such case the _Bible_ is right, along with other

national “revelations.” Hence the scientific scorn, so freely lavished by

the author of _A Modern Zoroastrian_ upon ancient philosophies and

exoteric creeds, becomes premature and uncalled for. Nor would the sudden

discovery of a “missing‐link”‐like fossil mend matters at all. For neither

one such solitary specimen nor the scientific inductions therefrom, could

insure its being the long‐sought‐for relic, _i.e._, that of an

undeveloped, still a once‐speaking, Man. Something more would be required

as a final proof. Besides this, even _Genesis_ takes up man, her Adam of

dust, only where the Secret Doctrine leaves her “Sons of God and Wisdom”

and picks up the physical man of the Third Race. Eve is _not_ “begotten,”

but is extracted out of Adam in the manner of “Amœba A,” contracting in

the middle and splitting into Amœba B—by division.(1576)

Nor has human speech developed from the various animal sounds. Hæckel’s

theory that “speech arose gradually from a few simple, crude animal

sounds,” as such “speech still remains amongst a few races of lowest

rank,”(1577) is altogether unsound, as argued by Professor Max Müller,

among others. He contends that no plausible explanation has yet been given

as to how the “roots” of language came into existence. A _human_ brain is

necessary for _human_ speech. And figures relating to the size of the

respective brains of man and ape show how deep is the gulf which separates

the two. Vogt says that the brain of the largest ape, the gorilla,

measures no more than 30·51 cubic inches; while the average brains of the

flat‐headed Australian natives—the lowest now of the human races—amount to

99·35 cubic inches! Figures are awkward witnesses and cannot lie.

Therefore, as truly observed by Dr. F. Pfaff, whose premises are as sound

and correct as his biblical conclusions are silly:

The brain of the apes most like man does not amount to quite a

third of the brain of the lowest races of men: it is not half the

size of the brain of a new‐born child.(1578)

From the foregoing it is thus very easy to perceive that in order to prove

the Huxley‐Hæckelian theories of the descent of man, it is not one, but a

great number of “missing links”—a true ladder of progressive evolutionary

steps—that would have to be first found and then presented by Science to

thinking and reasoning humanity, before it would abandon belief in Gods

and the immortal Soul for the worship of quadrumanic ancestors. Mere myths

are now greeted as “axiomatic truths.” Even Alfred Russel Wallace

maintains with Hæckel that primitive man was a speechless ape‐creature. To

this Prof. Joly answers:

Man never was, in my opinion, this pithecanthropus alalus whose

portrait Hæckel has drawn as if he had seen and known him, whose

singular and completely hypothetical genealogy he has even given,

from the mere mass of living protoplasm to the man endowed with

speech and a civilization analogous to that of the Australians and

Papuans.(1579)

Hæckel, among other things, often comes into direct conflict with the

“science of languages.” In the course of his attack on Evolutionism(1580)

Prof. Max Müller stigmatized the Darwinian theory as “vulnerable at the

beginning and at the end.” The fact is, that only the partial truth of

many of the secondary “laws” of Darwinism is beyond question—M. de

Quatrefages evidently accepting natural selection, the struggle for

existence, and transformation within species, as proven not once and for

ever, but only _pro tempore_. But it may not be amiss, perhaps, to

condense the linguistic case against the “ape ancestor” theory:

Languages have their phases of growth, etc., like all else in Nature. It

is almost certain that the great linguistic families pass through three

stages.

(1) All words are roots and are merely placed in juxtaposition (Radical

languages).

(2) One root defines the other, and becomes merely a determinative element

(Agglutinative).

(3) The determinative element (the determinating meaning of which has long

lapsed) unites into a whole with the formative element (Inflected).

The problem then is: Whence these roots? Prof. Max Müller argues that the

existence of these _ready‐made materials of speech_ is a proof that man

cannot be the crown of a long organic series. This _potentiality of

forming roots_ is the great crux which Materialists almost invariably

avoid.

Von Hartmann explains it as a manifestation of the “Unconscious,” and

admits its cogency _versus_ mechanical Atheism. Hartmann is a fair

representative of the Metaphysician and Idealist of the present age.

The argument has never been met by the non‐pantheistic Evolutionists. To

say with Schmidt: “Forsooth we are to halt before the origin of

language!”—is an avowal of dogmatism and of speedy defeat.(1581)

We respect those men of Science who, wise in their generation, say: The

Prehistoric Past being utterly beyond our powers of direct observation, we

are too honest, too devoted to the truth—or what we regard as truth—to

speculate upon the unknown, giving out our unproven theories along with

facts absolutely established in Modern Science.

The borderland of [metaphysical] knowledge is, therefore, best

left to time, which is the best test as to truth.(1582)

This is a wise and an honest sentence in the mouth of a Materialist. But

when a Hæckel, after just saying that “historical events of past time,”

having “occurred many millions of years ago,(1583) ... are for ever

removed from direct observation,” and that neither Geology nor

Phylogeny(1584) can or will “rise to the position of a real ‘exact’

science,” then insists on the development of all organisms—“from the

lowest vertebrate to the highest, from amphioxus to man”—we ask for a

weightier proof than he can give. Mere “empirical sources of knowledge,”

so extolled by the author of _Anthropogeny_—when he has to be satisfied

with the qualification for his own views—are not competent to settle

problems lying beyond their domain; nor is it the province of exact

Science to place any reliance on them.(1585) If “empirical”—and Hæckel

himself declares so repeatedly—then they are no better, nor any more

reliable, in the sight of _exact_ research, when extended into the remote

past, than are our Occult teachings of the East, both having to be placed

on the same level. Nor are his phylogenetic and palingenetic speculations

treated any more favourably by the real Scientists, than are our cyclic

repetitions of the evolution of the great in the minor races, and the

original order of Evolution. For the province of exact, real Science,

materialistic though it be, is to carefully avoid anything like guess‐

work, speculation which _cannot_ be verified; in short, all _suppressio

veri_ and all _suggestio falsi_. The business of the men of exact Science

is to observe, each in his chosen department, the phenomena of Nature; to

record, tabulate, compare and classify the facts, down to the smallest

minutiæ which are presented to the observation of the senses _with the

help of all the exquisite mechanism that modern invention supplies_, not

by the aid of metaphysical flights of fancy. All that he has a legitimate

right to do, is to correct by the assistance of physical instruments the

defects or illusions of his own coarser vision, auditory powers, and other

senses. He has no right to trespass on the grounds of Metaphysics and

Psychology. His duty is to verify and to rectify all the facts that _fall

under his direct observation_; to profit by the experiences and mistakes

of the Past in endeavouring to trace the working of a certain

concatenation of cause and effect, which—but only by its constant and

unvarying repetition—may be called a Law. This it is which a man of

Science is expected to do, if he would become a teacher of men and remain

true to his original programme of natural or physical Sciences. Any side

path from this royal road becomes speculation.

Instead of keeping to this, what does many a so‐called man of Science do

in these days? He rushes into the domain of pure Metaphysics, while

deriding them. He delights in rash conclusions and calls them “a deductive

law from the inductive law” of a theory based upon and drawn out of the

depths of his own consciousness—that consciousness being perverted by, and

honeycombed with, one‐sided Materialism. He attempts to explain the

“origin” of things, which are yet embosomed only in his own conceptions.

He attacks spiritual beliefs and religious traditions millenniums old, and

denounces everything, save his own hobbies, as superstition. He suggests

theories of the Universe, a cosmogony developed by blind, mechanical

forces of Nature alone, far more _miraculous and impossible_ than even one

based upon the assumption of _fiat lux ex nihilo_—and tries to astonish

the world by his wild theory; and this theory, being known to emanate from

a scientific brain, is taken, on _blind faith_, as very scientific and as

the outcome of Science.

Are these the opponents Occultism should dread? Most decidedly not. For

such theories are treated no better by _real_ Science than are our own by

empirical Science. Hæckel, hurt in his vanity by du Bois‐Reymond, is never

tired of publicly complaining of the latter’s onslaught on his fantastic

theory of descent. Rhapsodizing on “the exceedingly rich storehouse of

empirical evidence,” he calls those “recognized Physiologists” who oppose

every speculation of his drawn from the said “storehouse”—ignorant men,

and declares:

If many men, and among them even some Scientists of repute—hold

that the whole of phylogeny is a castle in the air, and

genealogical trees [from monkeys?] are empty plays of phantasy,

they only in speaking thus demonstrate their ignorance of that

wealth of _empirical sources of knowledge_ to which reference has

already been made.(1586)

We open Webster’s Dictionary and read the definitions of the word

“empirical”:

Depending upon experience or observation alone, _without due

regard to modern science and theory_.

This applies to the Occultists, Spiritualists, Mystics, etc. Again:

An empiric; one who confines himself to applying the results of

his own observations only [which is Hæckel’s case]; one _wanting

science_ ... an ignorant and unlicensed practitioner; a quack; a

charlatan.

No Occultist or “Magician,” has ever been treated to any worse epithets.

Yet the Occultist remains on his own metaphysical grounds, and does not

endeavour to rank _his knowledge_, the fruits of _his_ personal

observation and experience, among the _exact_ Sciences of modern learning.

He keeps within his legitimate sphere, where he is master. But what is one

to think of a rank Materialist, whose duty is clearly traced before him,

who uses such an expression as this:

The origin of man from other mammals, and most directly from the

catarrhine ape, is a deductive law, that follows necessarily from

the inductive law of the Theory of Descent.(1587)

A “theory” is simply a hypothesis, a speculation, and _not_ a law. To say

otherwise is one of the many liberties taken now‐a‐days by Scientists.

They enunciate an absurdity, and then hide it behind the shield of

Science. A deduction from theoretical speculation is nothing more than a

_speculation on a speculation_. Sir William Hamilton has already shown

that the word theory is now used

In a very loose and improper sense ... that it is convertible into

_hypothesis_, and _hypothesis_ is commonly used as another term

for _conjecture_, whereas the terms “theory” and “theoretical” are

properly used in opposition to the terms practice and practical.

But Modern Science puts an extinguisher on the latter statement, and mocks

at the idea. Materialistic Philosophers and Idealists of Europe and

America may be agreed with the Evolutionists as to the physical origin of

man, yet it will never become a general truth with the true Metaphysician;

and the latter defies the Materialists to make good their arbitrary

assumptions. That the ape‐theory theme(1588) of Vogt and Darwin, on which

the Huxley‐Hæckelians have of late composed such extraordinary variations,

is far less scientific—because clashing with the fundamental laws of that

theme itself—than ours can ever be shown to be, is very easy of

demonstration. Let the reader only turn to the excellent work on _Human

Species_ by the great French Naturalist de Quatrefages, and our statement

will at once be verified.

Moreover, between the Esoteric teaching concerning the Origin of Man and

Darwin’s speculations, no man, unless he is a rank Materialist, will

hesitate. This is the description given by Mr. Darwin of “the early

progenitors of man.”

They must have been once covered with hair, both sexes having

beards; their ears were probably pointed and capable of movement;

and their bodies were provided with a tail, having the proper

muscles. Their limbs and bodies were also acted on by many muscles

which now only occasionally reäppear, but are normally present in

the Quadrumana.... The foot was then prehensile, judging from the

condition of the great toe in the fœtus; and our progenitors, no

doubt, were arboreal in their habits, and frequented some warm

forest‐clad land. The males had great canine teeth, which served

them as formidable weapons.(1589)

Darwin connects man with the type of the tailed catarrhines:

And consequently removes him a stage backward in the scale of

evolution. The English naturalist is not satisfied to take his

stand upon the ground of his own doctrines, and, like Hæckel, on

this point places himself in direct variance with one of the

fundamental laws which constitute the principal charm of

Darwinism.

And then the learned French Naturalist proceeds to show how this

fundamental law is broken. He says:

In fact, in the theory of Darwin, transmutations do not take

place, either by chance or in every direction. They are ruled by

certain laws which are due to the organization itself. If an

organism is once modified in a given direction, it can undergo

secondary or tertiary transmutations, but will still preserve the

impress of the original. It is the law of _permanent

characterization_, which _alone_ permits Darwin to explain the

filiation of groups, their characteristics, and their numerous

relations. It is by virtue of this law that _all_ the descendants

of the first mollusc have been molluscs; _all_ the descendants of

the first vertebrate have been vertebrates. It is clear that this

constitutes one of the foundations of the doctrine. It follows

that two beings belonging to two distinct types can be referred to

_a common ancestor_, but the one cannot be the descendant of the

other.

Now man and apes present a very striking contrast in _respect to

type_. Their organs ... correspond almost exactly term for term:

but these organs are arranged after a very different plan. In man

they are so arranged that he is essentially a _walker_, while in

apes they necessitate his being a _climber_.... There is here an

anatomical and mechanical distinction.... A glance at the page

where Huxley has figured side by side a human skeleton and the

skeletons of the most highly developed apes is a sufficiently

convincing proof.

The consequence of these facts, from the point of view of the

logical application of the law of _permanent characterizations_,

is that man cannot be descended from an ancestor who is already

characterized as an ape, any more than a catarrhine tailless ape

can be descended from a tailed catarrhine. A _walking animal_

cannot be descended from a _climbing_ one. This was clearly

understood by Vogt.

In placing man among the primates, he declares without hesitation

that the lowest class of apes have passed the landmark (the common

ancestor), from which the different types of this family have

originated and diverged. [This ancestor of the apes, Occult

Science sees in the lowest human group during the Atlantean

period, as shown before.] We must, then, place the origin of man

beyond the last ape [corroborating our doctrine], if we wish to

adhere to one of the laws most emphatically necessary to the

Darwinian theory. We then come to the prosimiæ of Hæckel, the

loris, indris, etc. But these animals also are climbers; we must

go further, therefore, in search of our first direct ancestor. But

the genealogy by Hæckel brings us from the latter to the

_marsupials_. From men to the kangaroo the distance is certainly

great. Now neither living nor extinct fauna show the intermediate

types which ought to serve as landmarks. This difficulty causes

but slight embarrassment to Darwin.(1590) We know that he

considers the want of information upon similar questions as a

proof in his favour. Hæckel doubtless is as little embarrassed. He

admits the existence of an absolutely theoretical _pithecoid man_.

Thus, since it has been proved that, according to Darwinism

itself, the origin of man must be placed beyond the eighteenth

stage, and since it becomes, in consequence, _necessary_ to fill

up the gap between marsupials and man, will Hæckel admit the

existence of _four unknown intermediate groups_ instead of one?

Will he complete his genealogy in this manner? It is not for me to

answer.(1591)

But see Hæckel’s famous genealogy, in _The Pedigree of Man_, called by him

the “Ancestral Series of Man.” In the “Second Division” (eighteenth stage)

he describes—

Prosimiæ, allied to the Loris (Stenops) and Makis (Lemur), without

marsupial bones and cloaca, _with placenta_.(1592)

And now turn to de Quatrefages’ _The Human Species_,(1593) and see his

proofs, based on the latest discoveries, to show that the Prosimiæ of

Hæckel have no decidua and a diffuse placenta. They cannot be the

ancestors of the apes even, let alone man, according to a fundamental law

of Darwin himself, as the great French Naturalist shows. But this does not

dismay the “animal theorists” in the least, for self‐contradiction and

paradoxes are the very soul of modern Darwinism. Witness—Mr. Huxley;

having himself shown, with regard to fossil man and the “missing link,”

that:

Neither in Quaternary ages nor at the present time does any

intermediary being fill the gap which separates man from the

Troglodyte;

and that to “deny the existence of this gap _would be as reprehensible as

absurd_,” the great man of Science denies his own words _in actu_ by

supporting with all the weight of his scientific authority that _most_

“absurd” of all theories—the _descent of man from an ape_!

Says de Quatrefages:

This genealogy is wrong throughout, and is founded on a material

error.

Indeed, Hæckel bases his descent of man on the seventeenth and eighteenth

stages, the Marsupialia and Prosimiæ—(genus Hæckelii?). Applying the

latter term to the Lemuridæ—hence making of them animals with a

placenta—he commits a zoological blunder. For after having himself divided

mammals according to their anatomical differences into two groups—the

_indeciduata_, which have no decidua (or special membrane uniting the

placentæ), and the _deciduata_, those who possess it—he includes the

Prosimiæ in the latter group. Now we have shown elsewhere what other men

of Science had to say to this. As de Quatrefages says:

The anatomical investigations of ... Milne Edwards and Grandidier

upon the animals ... place it beyond all doubt that the Prosimiæ

of Hæckel have no decidua and a diffuse placenta. They are

_indeciduata_. Far from any possibility of their being the

ancestors of the apes, according to the principles laid down by

Hæckel himself, they cannot even be regarded as the ancestors of

the zonoplacental mammals ... and ought to be connected with the

Pachydermata, the Edentata, and the Cetacea.(1594)

And yet Hæckel’s inventions pass with some as _exact Science_!

The above mistake, if indeed it be one, is not even hinted at in Hæckel’s

_Pedigree of Man_, translated by Aveling. If the excuse may stand good

that at the time the famous “genealogies” were made, “the embryogenesis of

the Prosimiæ was not known,” it is familiar now. We shall see whether the

next edition of Aveling’s translation will have this important error

rectified, or if the seventeenth and eighteenth stages will remain as they

are to blind the profane, as one of the _real_ intermediate links. But, as

the French Naturalist observes:

Their [Darwin’s and Hæckel’s] process is always the same,

considering the unknown as a _proof_ in favour of their theory.

It comes to this. Grant to man an immortal Spirit and Soul; endow the

whole animate and inanimate creation with the monadic principle gradually

evolving from latent and passive into active and positive polarity—and

Hæckel will not have a leg to stand upon, whatever his admirers may say.

But there are important divergencies even between Darwin and Hæckel. While

the former makes us proceed from the _tailed_ catarrhine, Hæckel traces

our hypothetical ancestor to the _tailless_ ape, though, at the same time,

he places him in a hypothetical “stage” immediately preceding

this—Menocerca with tails (nineteenth stage).

Nevertheless, we have one thing in common with the Darwinian school, that

is the law of gradual and extremely slow Evolution, embracing many million

years. The chief quarrel, it appears, is with regard to the nature of the

primitive “ancestor.” We shall be told that the Dhyân Chohan, or the

“progenitor” of Manu, is a hypothetical being unknown on _the physical

plane_. We reply that it was believed in by the whole of Antiquity, and is

by nine‐tenths of the present humanity; whereas not only is the pithecoid

man, or ape‐man, a purely hypothetical creature of Hæckel’s creation,

unknown and untraceable on this Earth, but further its genealogy—as

invented by him—clashes with scientific facts and all the known data of

modern discovery in Zoology. It is simply absurd, even as a fiction. As de

Quatrefages demonstrates in a few words, Hæckel “admits the existence of

an absolutely theoretical pithecoid man”—a hundred times more difficult to

accept than any Deva ancestor. And it is not the only instance in which he

proceeds in a similar manner in order to complete his genealogical table.

In fact he very naïvely admits his inventions himself. Does he not confess

the non‐existence of his Sozura (fourteenth stage)—a creature entirely

unknown to Science—by confessing over his own signature, that:

The proof of its existence arises from the necessity of an

intermediate type between the thirteenth and the fourteenth

stages[!].

If so, we might maintain with as much scientific right, that the proof of

the existence of our three ethereal Races, and of the three‐eyed men of

the Third and Fourth Root‐Races, “arises also from the necessity of an

intermediate type” between the animal and the Gods. What reason would the

Hæckelians have to protest in this special case?

Of course there is a ready answer: Because we do not grant the presence of

the Monadic Essence. The manifestation of the Logos as individual

consciousness in the animal and human creation is not accepted by exact

Science, nor does it cover the whole ground, of course. But the failures

of Science and its arbitrary assumptions are far greater on the whole than

any “extravagant” Esoteric doctrine can ever furnish.(1595) Even thinkers

of the school of Von Hartmann have become tainted with the general

epidemic. They accept the Darwinian Anthropology (more or less), though

they also postulate the individual Ego as a manifestation of the

Unconscious (the Western presentation of the Logos or Primeval Divine

Thought). They say the evolution of the physical man is from the animal,

but that mind in its various phases is altogether a thing apart from

material facts, though organism, as a Upâdhi, is necessary for its

manifestation.

Plastidular Souls, And Conscious Nerve‐Cells.

But one can never see the end of such wonders with Hæckel and his school,

whom the Occultists and Theosophists have every right to consider as

materialistic tramps trespassing on private metaphysical grounds. Not

satisfied with the paternity of Bathybius (Hæckelii), “plastidular souls”

and “atom‐souls”(1596) are now invented, on the basis of purely blind

mechanical forces of matter. We are informed that:

The study of the evolution of soul‐life shows us that this has

worked its way up from the lower stages of the simple cell‐soul,

through an astonishing series of gradual stages in evolution, up

to the soul of man.(1597)

“Astonishing,” truly—based as this wild speculation is on the

_consciousness_ of the “nerve cells.” For as he tells us:

Little as we are in a position, at the present time, to explain

fully the nature of consciousness,(1598) yet the comparative and

genetic observation of it clearly shows, that it is only a higher

and more complex function of the nerve cells.(1599)

Mr. Herbert Spencer’s song on consciousness—is sung, it seems, and may

henceforth be safely stored up in the lumber room of obsolete

speculations. Where, however, do Hæckel’s “complex functions” of _his_

scientific “nerve‐cells” land him? Once more right into the Occult and

mystic teachings of the _Kabalah_ about the descent of Souls as conscious

and unconscious Atoms; among the Pythagorean Monad and the Monads of

Leibnitz, and the “Gods, Monads, and Atoms” of our Esoteric

teaching;(1600) into the _dead letter_ of Occult teachings, left to the

_amateur_ Kabalists and professors of ceremonial Magic. For this is what

he says, in explaining his newly‐coined terminology:

Plastidule‐Souls. The plastidules or protoplasmic molecules, the

smallest, homogeneous parts of the protoplasm are, on our plastid

theory, to be regarded as the active factors of all life‐

functions. The plastidular soul differs from the inorganic

molecular soul in that it possesses memory.(1601)

This he develops in his mirific lecture on the “Perigenesis of Plastidule,

or the Wave‐motions of Living Particles.” It is an improvement on Darwin’s

theory of “Pangenesis,” and a further approach, a cautious move, towards

“Magic.” The former is a conjecture that:

Some of the actual identical atoms which formed part of ancestral

bodies are thus transmitted through their descendants for

generation after generation, so that we are literally “flesh of

the flesh” of the primeval creature who has developed into man

—explains the author of _A Modern Zoroastrian_.(1602) The latter,

Occultism, teaches that—(_a_) the life‐atoms of our (Prâna) Life‐

Principle, are never entirely lost when a man dies. That the atoms best

impregnated with the Life‐Principle, an independent, eternal, conscious

factor, are partially transmitted from father to son by heredity, and are

partially drawn once more together and become the animating principle of

the new body in every new incarnation of the Monads. Because (_b_), as the

Individual Soul is ever the same, so are the atoms of the lower principles

(the body, its astral, or life‐double, etc.), drawn as they are by

affinity and Karmic law always to the same individuality in a series of

various bodies.(1603)

To be just and, to say the least, logical, our modern Hæckelians ought to

pass a resolution that henceforth the “Perigenesis of the Plastidule,” and

other similar lectures, should be bound up with those on “Esoteric

Buddhism” and “The Seven Principles in Man.” Thus the public will have a

chance, at any rate, of comparing the two teachings and then of judging

which is the more or the less absurd, even from the standpoint of

materialistic and exact Science.

Now the Occultists, who trace every atom in the Universe, whether an

aggregate or single, to One Unity, the Universal Life; who do not

recognize that anything in Nature can be inorganic; who know of no such

thing as dead Matter—the Occultists are consistent with their doctrine of

Spirit and Soul when speaking of memory in every atom, of will and

sensation. But what can a Materialist mean by the qualification? The law

of biogenesis, in the sense applied to it by the Hæckelians, is the result

of the ignorance on the part of the man of Science of _Occult_ Physics. We

know and speak of “life‐atoms,” and of “sleeping‐atoms,” because we regard

these two forms of energy—the kinetic and the potential—as produced by one

and the same force, or the One Life, and regard the latter as the source

and mover of all. But what is it that furnished with energy, and

especially with memory, the “plastidular souls” of Hæckel? The “wave

motion of living particles” becomes comprehensible on the theory of a

Spiritual One Life, of a universal Vital Principle independent of _our_

Matter, and manifesting as atomic energy only on _our_ plane of

consciousness. It is that which, individualized in the human cycle, is

transmitted from father to son.

Now Hæckel, modifying Darwin’s theory, suggests “more plausibly,” as the

author of _A Modern Zoroastrian_ thinks:

That not the identical atoms, but their peculiar motions and mode

of aggregation have been thus transmitted [by heredity].(1604)

If Hæckel, or any other Scientist, knew more than any of them does know of

the nature of the atom, he would not have improved the occasion in this

way. For he only states, in more metaphysical language than Darwin, one

and the same thing. The Life‐Principle, or Life Energy, which is

omnipresent, eternal, indestructible, is a Force and a Principle as

_noumenon_, while it is Atoms, as _phenomenon_. It is one and the same

thing, and cannot be considered as separate except in Materialism.(1605)

Further, Hæckel enunciates concerning the Atom‐Souls that which, at first

sight, appears as occult as the Monad of Leibnitz:

The recent contest as to the nature of atoms, which we must regard

as in some form or other the ultimate factors in all physical and

chemical processes, seems to be capable of easiest settlement by

the conception that these very minute masses possess, as centres

of force, a persistent soul, that every atom has sensation and the

power of movement.(1606)

He does not say a word concerning the fact that this is Leibnitz’ theory,

and one that is preëminently Occult. Nor does he understand the term

“soul” as we do; for, with Hæckel it is simply, along with consciousness,

the product of the grey matter of the brain, a thing which, as the cell‐

soul

Is as indissolubly bound up with the protoplasmic body as is the

human soul with the brain and spinal cord.(1607)

He rejects the conclusions of Kant, Herbert Spencer, of du Bois‐Reymond

and Tyndall. The latter expresses the opinion of all the great men of

Science, as of the greatest thinkers of this and past ages, in saying

that:

The passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding

facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Were our minds and senses

so ... illuminated as to enable us to see and feel the very

molecules of the brain; were we capable of following all their

motions, all their groupings ... electric discharges ... we should

be as far as ever from the solution of the problem.... The chasm

between the two classes of phenomena would still remain

intellectually impassable.

But the complex function of the nerve‐cells of the great German Empiric,

or, in other words, his consciousness, will not permit him to follow the

conclusions of the greatest thinkers of our globe. _He is greater than

they._ He asserts this, and _protests_ against all:

No one has the right to hold that in the future we shall not be

able to pass beyond these limits of our knowledge that to‐day seem

impassable.(1608)

And he quotes from Darwin’s introduction to _The Descent of Man_ the

following words, which he modestly applies to his scientific opponents and

himself:

It is always those who know little, and not those who know much,

that positively affirm that this or that problem will never be

solved by Science.

The world may rest satisfied. The day is not far off when the “thrice

great” Hæckel will have shown, to his own satisfaction, that the

consciousness of Sir Isaac Newton was, physiologically speaking, but the

reflex action (or _minus_ consciousness) caused by the perigenesis of the

plastidules of our common ancestor and old friend, the Moneron Hæckelii.

Though, the said Bathybius has been found out and exposed as a pretender

simulating the organic substance _it is not_, and though among the

children of men, Lot’s wife alone—and even this, only after her

disagreeable metamorphosis—could claim as her forefather the pinch of salt

_it is_; all this will not dismay him in the least. He will go on

asserting, as coolly as he has always done, that it was only the peculiar

mode and motion of the ghost of the long‐vanished atoms of our Father

Bathybius, which—transmitted across æons of time into the cell‐tissue of

the grey matter of the brains of every great man—caused Sophocles and

Æschylus, and Shakspere as well, to write their tragedies, Newton, his

_Principia_, Humboldt, his _Cosmos_, etc. It also prompted Hæckel to

invent Græco‐Latin names three inches long, pretending to mean a good

deal, and meaning—nothing.

Of course we are quite aware that the true, honest Evolutionist agrees

with us; and that he is the first to say that not only is the geological

record imperfect, but that there are enormous gaps in the series of

hitherto discovered fossils, which can never be filled. He will tell us,

moreover, that “no Evolutionist assumes that man is descended from any

existing ape or any extinct ape either,” but that man and apes originated

_probably_ æons back, in some common root stock. Still, as de Quatrefages

points out, he will urge as an evidence corroborating his claim this

wealth of absent proofs as well, saying that:

All living forms have not been preserved in the fossil series, the

chances of preservation being few and far between ... [even

primitive man] burying or burning his dead.

This is just what we ourselves claim. It is just as _possible_ that the

future may have in store for us the discovery of the giant skeleton of an

Atlantean, thirty feet high, as of the fossil of a pithecoid “missing

link”; only the former is more _probable_.

Section III. The Fossil Relics of Man and the Anthropoid Ape.

A. Geological Facts Bearing On The Question Of Their Relationship.

The data derived from scientific research as to “primeval man” and the ape

lend no countenance to theories deriving the former from the latter.

“Where, then, must we look for primeval man?”—still queries Mr. Huxley,

after having vainly searched for him in the very depths of the Quaternary

strata.

Was the oldest Homo sapiens Pliocene or Miocene, or yet more

ancient? In still older strata do the fossilized bones of an ape

more anthropoid, or a man more pithecoid than any yet known, await

the researches of some unborn palæontologist? Time will

show.(1609)

It will—undeniably—and thus vindicate the Anthropology of the Occultists.

Meanwhile, in his eagerness to vindicate Mr. Darwin’s _Descent of Man_,

Mr. Boyd Dawkins believes that he has all but found the “missing link”—in

theory. It was due to Theologians more than to Geologists that, till

nearly 1860, man had been considered as a relic no older than the Adamic

orthodox 6,000 years. As Karma would have it, though, it was left to a

French Abbé—Bourgeois—to give this easy‐going theory even a worse blow

than had been given to it by the discoveries of Boucher de Perthes.

Everyone knows that the Abbé discovered and brought to light good evidence

that man was already in existence during the Miocene period, for flints of

undeniably human making were excavated from Miocene strata. In the words

of the author of _Modern Science and Modern Thought_:

They must either have been chipped by man, or, as Mr. Boyd Dawkins

supposes, by the dryopithecus or some other anthropoid ape which

had a dose of intelligence so much superior to the gorilla or

chimpanzee, as to be able to fabricate tools. But in this case the

problem would be solved and the missing link discovered, for such

an ape might well have been the ancestor of Palæolithic man.(1610)

Or—_the descendant of Eocene man_, which is a variant offered to the

theory. Meanwhile, the dryopithecus with such fine mental endowments is

yet to be discovered. On the other hand, Neolithic and even Palæolithic

man having become an absolute certainty, and as the same author justly

observes:

If 100,000,000 years have elapsed since the earth became

sufficiently solidified to support vegetable and animal life, the

Tertiary period may have lasted for 5,000,000; or for 10,000,000

years, if the life‐sustaining order of things has lasted, as Lyell

supposes for at least 200,000,000 years—(1611)

why should not another theory be tried? Let us carry man, as a hypothesis,

to the close of Mesozoic times—admitting _argumenti causâ_ that the (much

more recent) higher apes then existed! This would allow ample time for man

and the modern apes to have diverged from the mythical “ape more

anthropoid,” and even for the latter to have degenerated into those that

are found _mimicking_ man in using “branches of trees as clubs, and

cracking cocoa‐nuts with hammer and stones.”(1612) Some savage tribes of

hillmen in India build their abodes on trees, just as the gorillas build

their dens. The question, which of the two, the beast or the man, has

become the imitator of the other, is scarcely an open one, even granting

Mr. Boyd Dawkins’ theory. The fanciful character of this hypothesis, is,

however, generally admitted. It is argued that while in the Pliocene and

Miocene periods there were true apes and baboons, and man was undeniably

contemporaneous with the former of these times—though, as we see, orthodox

Anthropology still hesitates, in the teeth of facts, to place him in the

era of the dryopithecus, which latter—

Has been considered by some anatomists as in some respects

superior to the chimpanzee or the gorilla ... (1613)

yet, in the Eocene there have been no other fossil _primates_ unearthed

and no pithecoid stocks found save a few extinct lemurian forms. And we

find it also hinted that the dryopithecus _may have been_ the “missing

link,” though the brain of the creature no more warrants the theory than

does the brain of the modern gorilla. (See also Gaudry’s speculations.)

Now we would ask who among the Scientists is ready to prove that _there

was no man_ in existence in the early Tertiary period? What is it that

prevented his presence? Hardly thirty years ago his existence any farther

back than six or seven thousand years was indignantly denied. Now he is

refused admission into the Eocene age. Next century it may become a

question whether man was not contemporary with the “flying dragon,” the

pterodactyl, the plesiosaurus and iguanodon, etc. Let us listen, however,

to the echo of Science.

Now, wherever anthropoid apes lived it is clear that, whether as a

question of anatomical structure, or of climate and surroundings,

man, or some creature which was the ancestor of man, might have

lived also. Anatomically speaking, apes and monkeys are as much

special variations of the mammalian type as man, whom they

resemble bone for bone, and muscle for muscle, and the physical

animal man is simply an instance of the quadrumanous type

specialized for erect posture and a larger brain(1614).... If he

could survive, as we know he did, the adverse conditions and

extreme vicissitudes of the Glacial period, there is no reason why

he might not have lived in the semi‐tropical climate of the

Miocene period, when a genial climate extended even to Greenland

and Spitzbergen.(1615)

When most of the men of Science who are uncompromising in their belief in

the descent of man from an “extinct anthropoid mammal;” will not accept

even the bare tenability of any other theory than an ancestor common to

man and the dryopithecus, it is refreshing to find in a work of real

scientific value such a margin for compromise. Indeed, it is as wide as it

can be made under the circumstances, _i.e._, without immediate danger of

getting knocked off one’s feet by the tidal wave of science‐adulation.

Believing that the difficulty of accounting—

For the development of intellect and morality by evolution is not

so great as that presented by the difference as to physical

structure(1616) between man and the highest animal—

the same author says:

But it is not so easy to see how this difference of physical

structure arose, and how a being came into existence which had

such a brain and hand, and such undeveloped capabilities for an

almost unlimited progress. The difficulty is this: the difference

in structure between the lowest existing race of man and the

highest existing ape is too great to admit of the possibility of

one being the direct descendant of the other. The negro in some

respects makes a slight approximation towards the Simian type. His

skull is narrower, his brain less capacious, his muzzle more

projecting, his arm longer than those of the average European man.

Still he is essentially a man, and separated by a wide gulf from

the chimpanzee or the gorilla. Even the idiot or crétin, whose

brain is no larger and intelligence no greater than that of the

chimpanzee, is an arrested man, not an ape.

If, therefore, the Darwinian theory holds good in the case of man

and ape, we must go back to some common ancestor from whom both

may have originated.... But to establish this as a _fact_ and not

a _theory_ we require to find that ancestral form, or, at any

rate, some intermediate forms tending towards it ... in other

words ... the “missing link.” Now it must be admitted that,

hitherto, not only have no such missing links been discovered, but

the oldest known human skulls and skeletons which date from the

Glacial period, and are probably at least 100,000 years old, show

no very decided approximation towards any such pre‐human type. On

the contrary, one of the oldest types, that of the men of the

sepulchral cave of Cro‐Magnon,(1617) is that of a fine race, tall

in stature, large in brain, and on the whole superior to many of

the existing races of mankind. The reply of course is that the

time is insufficient, and if man and the ape had a common

ancestor, that as a highly developed anthropoid ape, certainly,

and man, probably, already existed in the Miocene period, such

ancestor must be sought still further back at a distance compared

with which the whole Quaternary period sinks into

insignificance.... All this is true, and it may well make us

hesitate before we admit that man ... is alone an exception to the

general law of the universe, and is the creature of a special

creation. This is the more difficult to believe, as the ape family

which man so closely resembles [?] in physical structure contains

numerous branches which graduate into one another, but the

extremes of which differ more widely than man does from the

highest of the ape series. If a special creation is required for

man, must there not have been special creations for the

chimpanzee, the gorilla, the orang, and for at least 100 different

species of apes and monkeys which are all built on the same

lines?(1618)

There _was_ a “special creation” for man, and a “special creation” for the

ape, _his_ progeny; only on other lines than ever bargained for by

Science. Albert Gaudry and others give some weighty reasons why man cannot

be regarded as the crown of an ape‐stock. When one finds that not only was

the “primeval savage” (?) a reality in the Miocene times, but that, as de

Mortillet shows, the flint relics he has left behind him were splintered

_by fire_ in that remote epoch; when we learn that the dryopithecus,

_alone of the anthropoids_, appears in those strata, what is the natural

inference? That the Darwinians are in a quandary. The very man‐like gibbon

is _still in the same low grade of development, as it was when it

coëxisted with man at the close of the Glacial period_. It has not

appreciably altered since the Pliocene times. Now there is little to

choose between the dryopithecus and the existing anthropoids—gibbon,

gorilla, etc. If, then, the Darwinian theory is all‐sufficient, how are we

to “explain” the evolution of this ape into man during the first half of

the Miocene? The time is far too short for such a theoretical

transformation. The extreme slowness with which variation in species

supervenes renders the thing inconceivable—more especially on the “natural

selection” hypothesis. The enormous mental and structural gulf between a

savage acquainted with fire and the mode of kindling it, and a brutal

anthropoid, is too great to bridge even in idea, during so contracted a

period. Let the Evolutionists push back the process into the preceding

Eocene, if they prefer to do so; let them even trace both man and

dryopithecus to a common ancestor; the unpleasant consideration has,

nevertheless, to be faced that in Eocene strata the anthropoid fossils are

as conspicuous by their absence, as is the fabulous pithecanthropus of

Hæckel. Is an exit out of this _cul de sac_ to be found by an appeal to

the “unknown,” and a reference, with Darwin, to the “imperfection of the

geological record”? So be it; but the same right of appeal must then be

equally accorded to the Occultists, instead of remaining the monopoly of

puzzled Materialism. Physical man, we say, existed before the first bed of

the Cretaceous rocks was deposited. In the early part of the Tertiary age,

the most brilliant civilization the world has ever known flourished at a

period when the Hæckelian man‐ape is conceived as roaming through primeval

forests, and Mr. Grant Allen’s putative ancestor as swinging himself from

bough to bough with his hairy mates, the degenerated Liliths of the Third

Race Adam. Yet there were no anthropoid apes in the brighter days of the

civilization of the Fourth Race; but Karma is a mysterious law, and no

respecter of persons. The monsters bred in sin and shame by the Atlantean

Giants, “blurred copies” of their bestial sires, and hence of modern man,

according to Huxley, now mislead and overwhelm with error the speculative

Anthropologist of European Science.

Where did the first men live? Some Darwinists say in Western Africa, some

in Southern Asia, others again believe in an independent origin of human

stocks in Asia and America from a simian ancestry. Hæckel, however,

advances gaily to the charge. Starting from his prosimia, “the ancestor

common to all other catarrhini including man”—a “link” now, however,

disposed of for good by recent anatomical discoveries—he endeavours to

find a habitat for the primeval pithecanthropus alalus.

In all probability it [the transformation of animal into man]

occurred in Southern Asia, in which region many evidences are

forthcoming that here was the original home of the different

species of man. Probably Southern Asia itself was not the earliest

cradle of the human race, but Lemuria, a continent that lay to the

south of Asia, and sank later on beneath the surface of the Indian

Ocean. The period during which the evolution of the anthropoid

apes into ape‐like men took place was probably the last part of

the Tertiary period, the Pliocene age, and perhaps the Miocene

age, its forerunner.(1619)

Of the above speculations, the only one of any worth is that referring to

Lemuria, which _was_ the cradle of mankind—of the physical sexual creature

who materialized through long æons out of the ethereal hermaphrodites.

Only, if it is proved that Easter Island is an actual relic of Lemuria, we

must believe that according to Hæckel the “dumb ape‐men,” just removed

from a brutal mammalian monster, built the gigantic portrait‐statues, two

of which are now in the British Museum. Critics are mistaken in terming

Hæckelian doctrines “abominable, revolutionary, immoral”—though

Materialism is the legitimate outcome of the ape‐ancestor myth—they are

simply too absurd to demand disproof.

B. Western Evolutionism: The Comparative Anatomy Of Man And The Anthropoid

In No Way A Confirmation Of Darwinism.

We are told that while every other heresy against Modern Science may be

disregarded, this, our denial of the Darwinian theory as applied to man,

will be the one “unpardonable” sin. The Evolutionists stand firm as rock

on the evidence of similarity of structure between the ape and man. The

anatomical evidence, it is urged, is quite overpowering in this case; it

is bone for bone, and muscle for muscle, even the brain conformation being

very much the same.

Well, what of that? All this was known before King Herod; and the writers

of the _Râmâyana_, the poets who sang the prowess and valour of Hanumân,

the Monkey‐God, “whose feats were great and wisdom never rivalled,” must

have known as much about his anatomy and brain as does any Hæckel or

Huxley in our modern day. Volumes upon volumes have been written upon this

similarity, in antiquity as in more modern times. Therefore, there is

nothing new given to the world or to philosophy in such volumes as

Mivart’s _Man and Apes_, or Messrs. Fiske and Huxley’s defence of

Darwinism. But what are those crucial proofs of man’s descent from a

pithecoid ancestor? If the Darwinian theory is not the true one, we are

told, if man and ape do not descend from a common ancestor, then we must

explain the reason of:

(i) The similarity of structure between the two; the fact that the higher

animal world—man and beast—is physically of one type or pattern.

(ii) The presence of rudimentary organs in man, _i.e._, traces of former

organs now atrophied by disuse. Some of these organs, it is asserted,

could not have had any scope for employment, except in a semi‐animal,

semi‐arboreal monster. Why, again, do we find in man those “rudimentary”

organs—as useless as its rudimentary wing is to the apteryx of

Australia—the vermiform appendix of the cæcum, the ear muscles,(1620) the

“rudimentary tail” with which children are still sometimes born, etc.?

Such is the war cry; and the cackle of the smaller fry among the

Darwinians is louder, if possible, than even that of the scientific

Evolutionists themselves!

Furthermore, the latter—with their great leader Mr. Huxley, and such

eminent Zoologists as Mr. Romanes and others—while defending the Darwinian

theory, are the first to confess the almost insuperable difficulties in

the way of its final demonstration. And there are as great men of Science

as the above‐named, who deny, most emphatically, the uncalled‐for

assumption, and loudly denounce the unwarrantable exaggerations on the

question of this supposed similarity. It is sufficient to glance at the

works of Broca, Gratiolet, Owen, Pruner‐Bey, and finally at the last great

work of de Quatrefages, _Introduction à __ l’Étude des Races Humaines,

Questions Générales_, to discover the fallacy of the Evolutionists. We may

say more: the exaggerations concerning this alleged similarity of

structure between man and the anthropomorphous ape have become so glaring

and absurd of late, that even Mr. Huxley has found himself forced to

protest against the too sanguine expectations. It was that great Anatomist

personally who called the “smaller fry” to order, by declaring in one of

his articles that the differences between the structure of the human body

and that of the highest anthropomorphous pithecoid, were not only _far

from being trifling and unimportant_, but were, on the contrary, very

great and suggestive:

Every bone of a gorilla bears marks by which it might be

distinguished from the corresponding bone of a man.(1621)

Among the existing creatures there is not one single intermediate form

that could fill the gap between man and the ape. To ignore that gap, he

added, “would be no less wrong than absurd.”

Finally, the absurdity of such an _unnatural_ descent of man is so

palpable in the face of all the proofs and evidence as to the skull of the

pithecoid compared to that of man, that de Quatrefages resorted

unconsciously to our Esoteric theory by saying that it is rather the apes

that can claim descent from man than _vice versâ_. As proven by Gratiolet,

with regard to the cavities of the brain of the anthropoids—in which

species that organ develops in an inverse ratio to what would be the case

were the corresponding organs in man really the product of the development

of the said organs in the apes—the size of the human skull and its brain,

as well as the cavities, increase with the individual development of man.

His intellect develops and increases with age, while his facial bones and

jaws diminish and straighten, thus becoming more and more spiritualized;

whereas with the ape it is the reverse. In its youth the anthropoid is far

more intelligent and good‐natured, while with age it becomes duller; and,

as its skull recedes and seems to diminish as it grows, its facial bones

and jaws develop, the brain being finally crushed, and thrown entirely

back, to make with every day more room for the animal type. The organ of

thought—the brain—recedes and diminishes, entirely conquered and replaced

by that of the wild beast—the jaw apparatus.

Thus, as wittily remarked in the French work, a gorilla could with perfect

justice address an Evolutionist, claiming its right of descent from him.

It would say to him: We, anthropoid apes, form a retrogressive departure

from the human type, and therefore our development and evolution are

expressed by a transition from a human‐like to an animal‐like structure of

organism; but in what way could _you_, men, descend from us—how can you

form a continuation of our genus? For, to make this possible, your

organization would have to differ still more than ours does from the human

structure, it would have to approach still closer to that of the beast

than ours does; and in such a case justice demands that you should give up

to us your place in nature. You are lower than we are, once that you

insist on tracing your genealogy from our kind; for the structure of our

organization and its development are such that we are unable to generate

forms of a higher organization than our own.

This is where the Occult Sciences agree entirely with de Quatrefages.

Owing to the very type of his development man cannot _descend_ from either

an ape or an ancestor common to both apes and men, but shows his origin to

be from a type far superior to himself. And this type is the “Heavenly

Man”—the Dhyân Chohans, or the Pitris so‐called, as shown in the first

Part of this Volume. On the other hand, the pithecoids, the orang‐outang,

the gorilla, and the chimpanzee _can_, and, as the Occult Sciences teach,

_do_, descend from the animalized Fourth human Root‐Race, being the

product of man and an extinct species of mammal—whose remote ancestors

were themselves the product of Lemurian bestiality—which lived in the

Miocene age. The ancestry of this semi‐human monster is explained in the

Stanzas as originating in the sin of the “mind‐less” races of the middle

Third Race period.

When it is borne in mind that all forms which now people the Earth are so

many variations on _basic types_ originally thrown off by the Man of the

Third and Fourth Round, such an evolutionist argument as that insisting on

the “unity of structural plan” characterizing all vertebrates, loses its

edge. The basic types referred to were very few in number in comparison

with the multitude of organisms to which they ultimately gave rise; but a

general unity of type has, nevertheless, been preserved throughout the

ages. The economy of Nature does not sanction the coëxistence of several

utterly opposed “ground plans” of organic evolution on one planet. Once,

however, that the general drift of the Occult explanation is formulated,

inference as to detail may well be left to the intuitive reader.

Similarly with the important question of the “rudimentary” organs

discovered by Anatomists in the human organism. Doubtless this line of

argument, when wielded by Darwin and Hæckel against their European

adversaries, proved of great weight. Anthropologists, who ventured to

dispute the derivation of man from an animal ancestry, were sorely puzzled

how to deal with the presence of gill‐clefts, with the “tail” problem, and

so on. Here again Occultism comes to our assistance with the necessary

data.

The fact is that, as previously stated, the human type is the repertory of

all potential organic forms, and the central point from which these latter

radiate. In this postulate we find a true “evolution” or “unfolding”—in a

sense which cannot be said to belong to the mechanical theory of Natural

Selection. Criticizing Darwin’s inference from “rudiments,” an able writer

remarks:

Why is it not just as probably a true hypothesis to suppose that

man was first created with these rudimentary sketches in his

organization, and that they became useful appendages in the lower

animals into which man degenerated, as it is to suppose that these

parts existed in full development, activity and practical use, in

the lower animals out of whom man was generated?(1622)

Read for “into which man degenerated,” “the prototypes which man _shed_ in

the course of his astral developments,” and an aspect of the true Esoteric

solution is before us. But a wider generalization is now to be formulated.

So far as our present Fourth Round terrestrial period is concerned, the

mammalian fauna are alone to be regarded as traceable to prototypes shed

by Man. The amphibia, birds, reptiles, fishes, etc., are the resultants of

the Third Round, astral fossil forms stored up in the auric envelope of

the Earth and projected into physical objectivity subsequent to the

deposition of the first Laurentian rocks. “Evolution” has to deal with the

progressive modifications, which Palæontology shows to have affected the

lower animal and vegetable kingdoms in the course of geological time. It

does not, and from the nature of things cannot, touch on the subject of

the pre‐physical types which served as the basis for future

differentiation. Tabulate the general laws controlling the development of

physical organisms it certainly may, and to a certain extent it has

acquitted itself ably of the task.

To return to the immediate subject of discussion. The mammalia, whose

first traces are discovered in the marsupials of the Triassic rocks of the

Secondary period, were evolved from _purely_ astral progenitors

contemporary with the Second Race. They are thus _post‐human_, and,

consequently, it is easy to account for the general resemblance between

their embryonic stages and those of Man, who necessarily embraces in

himself and epitomizes in his development the features of the group he

originated. This explanation disposes of a portion of the Darwinist brief.

But how to account for the presence of the gill‐clefts in the

human fœtus, which represent the stage through which the branchiæ

of the fish are developed;(1623) for the pulsating vessel

corresponding to the heart of the lower fishes, which constitutes

the fœtal heart; for the entire analogy presented by the

segmentation of the human ovum, the formation of the blastoderm,

and the appearance of the “gastrula” stage, with corresponding

stages in lower vertebrate life and even among the sponges; for

the various types of lower animal life which the form of the

future child shadows forth in the cycle of its growth?... How

comes it to pass that stages in the life of fishes, whose

ancestors swam [æons before the epoch of the First Root‐Race] in

the seas of the Silurian period, as well as stages in that of the

later amphibian, reptilian fauna, are mirrored in the “epitomized

history” of human fœtal development?

This plausible objection is met by the reply that the Third Round

terrestrial animal forms were just as much referable to types thrown off

by Third Round Man, as that new importation into our planet’s area—the

mammalian stock—is to the Fourth Round Humanity of the Second Root‐Race.

The process of human fœtal growth epitomizes not only the general

characteristics of the Fourth, but of the Third Round terrestrial life.

The diapason of type is run through in brief. Occultists are thus at no

loss to “account for” the birth of children with an actual caudal

appendage, or for the fact that the tail in the human fœtus is, at one

period, double the length of the nascent legs. The potentiality of every

organ useful to animal life is locked up in Man—the Microcosm of the

Macrocosm—and abnormal conditions may not unfrequently result in the

strange phenomena which Darwinists regard as “reversion to ancestral

features.”(1624) Reversion, indeed, but scarcely in the sense contemplated

by our present‐day empiricists!

C. Darwinism And The Antiquity Of Man: The Anthropoids And Their Ancestry.

The public has been notified by more than one eminent modern Geologist and

man of Science, that:

All estimate of geological duration is not merely imperfect, but

necessarily impossible; for we are ignorant of the causes, though

they must have existed, which quickened or retarded the progress

of the sedimentary deposits.(1625)

And now another man of Science, as well known (Croll) calculating that the

Tertiary age began either fifteen or two‐and‐a‐half million years ago—the

former being a more correct calculation, according to Esoteric Doctrine,

than the latter—there seems in this case, at least, no very great

disagreement. Exact Science, refusing to see in man a “special creation”

(to a certain degree the Secret Sciences do the same), is at liberty to

ignore the first three, or rather two‐and‐a‐half Races—the spiritual, the

semi‐astral, and the semi‐human—of our teachings. But it can hardly do the

same in the case of the Third, at its closing period, the Fourth, and the

Fifth Races, since it already divides mankind into Palæolithic and

Neolithic man.(1626) The Geologists of France place man in the Mid‐Miocene

age (Gabriel de Mortillet), and some even in the Secondary period, as de

Quatrefages suggests; while the English _savants_ do not generally accept

such antiquity for their species. But they may know better some day. For,

as says Sir Charles Lyell:

If we consider the absence or extreme scarcity of human bones and

works of art in all strata, whether marine or fresh‐water, even in

those formed in the immediate proximity of land inhabited by

millions of human beings, we shall be prepared for the general

dearth of human memorials in glacial formations, whether recent,

pleistocene, or of more ancient date. If there were a few

wanderers over lands covered with glaciers, or over seas infested

with icebergs, and if a few of them left their bones or weapons in

moraines or in marine drifts, the chances, after the lapse of

thousands of years, of a geologist meeting with one of them must

be infinitesimally small.(1627)

The men of Science avoid pinning themselves down to any definite statement

concerning the age of man, as indeed they are hardly able to make any, and

thus leave enormous latitude to bolder speculations. Nevertheless, while

the majority of the Anthropologists carry back the existence of man _only_

into the period of the post‐glacial drift, or what is called the

Quaternary period, those of them who, as Evolutionists, trace man to a

common origin with the monkey, do not show great consistency in their

speculations. The Darwinian hypothesis demands, in reality, a far greater

antiquity for man, than is even dimly suspected by superficial thinkers.

This is proven by the greatest authorities on the question—Mr. Huxley, for

instance. Those, therefore, who accept the Darwinian evolution, _ipso

facto_ hold very tenaciously to an antiquity of man so very great, indeed,

that it falls not so far short of the Occultist’s estimate.(1628) The

modest thousands of years of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ and the 100,000

years, to which Anthropology in general limits the age of Humanity, seem

quite microscopical when compared with the figures implied in Mr. Huxley’s

bold speculations. The former, indeed, makes of the original race of men

ape‐like cave‐dwellers. The great English Biologist, in his desire to

prove man’s pithecoid origin, insists that the transformation of the

primordial ape into a human being must have occurred _millions of years

back_. For in criticizing the excellent cranial capacity of the

Neanderthal skull, notwithstanding his assertion that it is overlaid with

“pithecoid bony walls,” coupled with Mr. Grant Allen’s assurances that

this skull—

Possesses large bosses on the forehead, strikingly [?] suggestive

of those which give the gorilla its peculiarly fierce

appearance(1629)—

still Mr. Huxley is forced to admit that, in the said skull, his theory is

once more defeated by the—

Completely human proportions of the accompanying limb‐bones,

together with the fair development of the Engis skull.

In consequence of all this we are notified that these skulls—

Clearly indicate that the first traces of the primordial stock

whence man has proceeded, need no longer be sought by those who

entertain any form of the doctrine of progressive development in

the newest Tertiaries; but that they may be looked for in an epoch

more distant from the age of the elephas primigenius than that is

from us.(1630)

An _untold_ antiquity for man is thus, then, the scientific _sine quâ non_

in the question of Darwinian Evolution, since the oldest Palæolithic man

shows as yet no appreciable differentiation from his modern descendant. It

is only of late that Modern Science has with every year begun to widen the

abyss that now separates her from ancient Science, as that of Pliny and

Hippocrates; none of the old writers would have derided the Archaic

Teachings with respect to the evolution of the human races and animal

species, as the present day Scientist—Geologist or Anthropologist—is sure

to do.

The pendulum of thought oscillates between extremes. Having now finally

emancipated herself from the shackles of Theology, Science has embraced

the opposite fallacy; and in the attempt to interpret Nature on purely

materialistic lines, she has built up that most extravagant theory of the

ages—the derivation of man from a ferocious and brutal ape. So rooted has

this doctrine now become, in one form and another, that the most Herculean

efforts will be needed to bring about its final rejection. The Darwinian

Anthropology is the incubus of the Ethnologist, a sturdy child of modern

Materialism, which has grown up and acquired increasing vigour, as the

ineptitude of the theological legend of Man’s “creation” became more and

more apparent. It has thriven on account of the strange delusion that—as a

Scientist of repute puts it:

All hypotheses and theories with respect to the rise of man can be

reduced to two [the evolutionist and the biblical exoteric

account].... There is no other hypothesis conceivable [!!].

The anthropology of the Secret Volumes is, however, the best possible

answer to such a worthless contention.

The anatomical resemblance between man and the higher ape, so frequently

cited by Darwinists as pointing to some former ancestor common to both,

presents an interesting problem, the proper solution of which is to be

sought for in the Esoteric explanation of the genesis of the pithecoid

stocks. We have given it as far as it was useful, by stating that the

bestiality of the primeval mindless races resulted in the production of

huge man‐like monsters—the offspring of human and animal parents. As time

rolled on, and the still semi‐astral forms consolidated into the physical,

the descendants of these creatures were modified by external conditions,

until the breed, dwindling in size, culminated in the lower apes of the

Miocene period. With these the later Atlanteans renewed the sin of the

“Mindless”—this time with full responsibility. The resultants of their

crime were the apes now known as anthropoid.

It may be useful to compare this very simple theory—and we are willing to

offer it merely as a hypothesis to the unbelievers—with the Darwinian

scheme, so full of insurmountable obstacles, that no sooner is one of them

overcome by a more or less ingenious hypothesis, than ten worse

difficulties are forthwith discovered behind the one disposed of.

Section IV. Duration of the Geological Periods, Race Cycles, and the

Antiquity of Man.

Millions of years have sunk into Lethe, leaving no more recollection in

the memory of the profane than the few millenniums of the orthodox Western

chronology as to the Origin of Man and the history of the primeval races.

All depends on the proofs found for the antiquity of the Human Race. If

the still‐debated man of the Pliocene or even the Miocene period was the

Homo primigenius, then Science _may_ be right (_argumenti causâ_) in

basing its present Anthropology—as to the date and mode of origin of Homo

sapiens—on the Darwinian theory.(1631) But if the skeletons of man should

at any time be discovered in the Eocene strata, while no fossil ape is

found there, and the existence of man is thus proved to be prior to that

of the anthropoid—then Darwinians will have to exercise their ingenuity in

another direction. Moreover, it is said in well‐informed quarters that the

twentieth century will be still in its earliest teens when such undeniable

proof of man’s priority will be forthcoming.

Even now much evidence is being brought forward to prove that the dates

hitherto assigned for the foundations of cities, civilizations and various

other historical events have been absurdly curtailed. This was done as a

peace‐offering to biblical chronology. The well‐known Palæontologist Ed.

Lartet writes:

No date is to be found in Genesis, which assigns a time for the

birth of primitive humanity.

But Chronologists have for fifteen centuries endeavoured to force the

_Bible_ facts into agreement with their systems. Thus, no less than one

hundred and forty different opinions have been formed about the single

date of “Creation.”

And between the extreme variations there is a discrepancy of 3,194

years, in the reckoning of the period between the beginning of the

world and the birth of Christ. Within the last few years,

archæologists have had also to throw back by nearly 3,000 years

the beginnings of Babylonian civilization. On the foundation

cylinder deposited by Nabonidus, the Babylonian king, conquered by

Cyrus—are found the records of the former, in which he speaks of

his discovery of the foundation stone that belonged to the

original temple built by Naram‐Sin, son of Sargon, of Accadia, the

conqueror of Babylonia, who, says Nabonidus, lived 3,200 years

before his own time.(1632)

We have shown in _Isis Unveiled_ that those who based history on the

chronology of the Jews—a race which had none of its own and rejected the

Western till the twelfth century—would lose their way, for the Jewish

account could only be followed through kabalistic computation, and only

then with key in hand. We characterized the late George Smith’s chronology

of the Chaldæans and Assyrians, which he had made to fit in with that of

Moses, as quite fantastic. And now, in this respect at least, later

Assyriologists have corroborated our denial. For, whereas George Smith

makes Sargon I (the prototype of Moses) reign in the city of Akkad about

1600 B.C.—probably out of a latent respect for Moses, whom the _Bible_

makes to flourish 1571 B.C.—we now learn from the first of the six Hibbert

Lectures delivered by Professor A. H. Sayce, of Oxford, in 1887, that:

Old views of the early annals of Babylonia and its religions have

been much modified by recent discovery. The first Semitic Empire,

it is now agreed, was that of Sargon of Accad, who established a

great library, patronized literature, and extended his conquests

across the sea into Cyprus. It is now known that he reigned as

early as B.C. 3,750.... The Accadian monuments found by the French

at Tel‐loh must be even older, reaching back to about B.C. 4,000.

In other words, to the fourth year of the World’s creation agreeably with

_Bible_ chronology, and when Adam was in his swaddling clothes. Perchance,

in a few years more, the 4,000 years may be further extended. The well‐

known Oxford lecturer remarked in his disquisitions upon “The Origin and

Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Religion of the Ancient

Babylonians,” that:

The difficulties of systematically tracing the origin and history

of the Babylonian Religion were considerable. The sources of our

knowledge of the subject were almost wholly monumental, very

little help being obtainable from classical or Oriental writers.

Indeed, it was an undeniable fact that the Babylonian priesthood

intentionally swaddled up the study of the religious texts in

coils of almost insuperable difficulty.

That they have confused the dates, and especially the order of events

“intentionally,” is undeniable, and for a very good reason: their writings

and records were all Esoteric. The Babylonian priests did no more than the

priests of other ancient nations. Their records were meant only for the

Initiates and their disciples, and it is only the latter who were

furnished with the keys to the true meaning. But Professor Sayce’s remarks

are promising. For he explains the difficulty by saying that as:

The Nineveh library contained mostly copies of older Babylonian

texts, and the copyists pitched upon such tablets only as were of

special interest to the Assyrian conquerors, belonging to a

comparatively late epoch, this added much to the greatest of all

our difficulties—namely, our being so often left in the dark as to

the age of our documentary evidence, and the precise worth of our

materials for history.

Thus one has a right to infer that some still fresher discovery may lead

to a new necessity for pushing the Babylonian dates so far beyond the year

4,000 B.C., as to make them _pre‐cosmic_ in the judgment of every _Bible_

worshipper.

How much more would Palæontology have learned had not millions of works

been destroyed! We talk of the Alexandrian Library, which has been thrice

destroyed, namely, by Julius Cæsar 48 B.C., in A.D. 390, and lastly in the

year A.D. 640 by the general of Kaliph Omar. What is this in comparison

with the works and records destroyed in the primitive Atlantean Libraries,

wherein records are said to have been traced on the tanned skins of

gigantic antediluvian monsters? Or again in comparison with the

destruction of the countless Chinese books by command of the founder of

the Imperial Tsin dynasty, Tsin Shi Hwang‐ti, in 213 B.C.? Surely the

brick‐clay tablets of the Imperial Babylonian Library, and the priceless

treasures of the Chinese collections, could never have contained such

information as one of the aforesaid “Atlantean” skins would have furnished

to the ignorant world.

But even with the extremely meagre data at hand, Science has been able to

see the necessity of throwing back nearly every Babylonian date, and has

done so quite generously. We learn from Professor Sayce that even the

archaic statues at Tel‐loh, in Lower Babylonia, have suddenly been

assigned a date contemporary with the fourth dynasty in Egypt.(1633)

Unfortunately, dynasties and pyramids share the fate of geological

periods; their dates are arbitrary, and depend on the whims of the

respective men of Science. Archæologists know now, it is said, that the

afore‐mentioned statues are fashioned out of green diorite, that can only

be got in the Peninsula of Sinai; and

They accord in the style of art, and in the standard of

measurement employed, with the similar diorite statues of the

pyramid builders of the third and fourth Egyptian dynasties....

Moreover, the only possible period for a Babylonian occupation of

the Sinaitic quarries must be placed shortly after the close of

the epoch at which the pyramids were built; and thus only can we

understand how the name of Sinai could have been derived from that

of Sin, the primitive Babylonian moon‐god.

This is very logical, but what is the date fixed for these dynasties?

Sanchuniathon’s and Manetho’s synchronistic tables—or whatever remained of

these after holy Eusebius had the handling of them—have been rejected; and

still we have to remain satisfied with the four or five thousand years

B.C., so liberally allotted to Egypt. At all events one point is gained.

There is, at last, a city on the face of the Earth which is allowed, at

least, 6,000 years, and it is Eridu. Geology has discovered it. According

to Professor Sayce again:

They are now also able to obtain time for the silting up of the

head of the Persian Gulf, which demands a lapse of between 5,000

and 6,000 years since the period when Eridu, now twenty‐five miles

inland, was the seaport at the mouth of the Euphrates, and the

seat of Babylonian commerce with Southern Arabia and India. More

than all, the new chronology gives time for the long series of

eclipses recorded in the great astronomical work called “The

Observations of Bel”; and we are also enabled to understand the

otherwise perplexing change in the position of the vernal equinox,

which has occurred since our present zodiacal signs were named by

the earliest Babylonian astronomers. When the Accadian calendar

was arranged and the Accadian months were named, the sun at the

vernal equinox was not, as now, in Pisces, or even in Aries, but

in Taurus. The rate of the precession of the equinoxes being

known, we learn that at the vernal equinox the sun was in Taurus

from about 4,700 years B.C., and we thus obtain astronomical

limits of date which cannot be impugned.(1634)

It may make our position plainer if we state at once that we use Sir C.

Lyell’s nomenclature for the ages and periods, and that when we talk of

the Secondary and Tertiary age, of the Eocene, Miocene and Pliocene

periods—this is simply to make our facts more comprehensible. Since these

ages and periods have not yet been allowed fixed and determined durations,

two‐and‐a‐half and fifteen million years being assigned at different times

to one and the same age (the Tertiary); and since no two Geologists or

Naturalists seem to agree on this point—Esoteric Teachings may remain

quite indifferent to the appearance of man in the Secondary or the

Tertiary age. If the latter age may be allowed even so much as fifteen

million years’ duration—well and good; for the Occult Doctrine, jealously

guarding its real and correct figures so far as concerns the First,

Second, and two‐thirds of the Third Root‐Race, gives clear information

upon one point only—the age of Vaivasvata Manu’s humanity.(1635)

Another definite statement is that during the so‐called Eocene period the

Continent to which the Fourth Race belonged, and on which it lived and

perished, showed the first symptoms of sinking, and that it was in the

Miocene age that it was finally destroyed—save the small island mentioned

by Plato. These points have now to be checked by scientific data.

A. Modern Scientific Speculations About The Ages Of The Globe, Animal

Evolution, And Man.

May we not be permitted to throw a glance at the works of specialists? The

work on _World‐Life: Comparative Geology_, by Prof. A. Winchell, furnishes

us with curious data. Here we find an opponent of the nebular theory

smiting with all the force of the hammer of his _odium theologicum_ on the

rather contradictory hypotheses of the great stars of Science, in the

matter of sidereal and cosmic phenomena based on their respective

relations to terrestrial durations. The “too imaginative physicists and

naturalists” do not fare very easily under this shower of their own

speculative computations placed side by side, and cut rather a sorry

figure. Thus he writes:

Sir William Thompson, on the basis of the observed principles of

cooling, concludes that no more than 10 million years [elsewhere

he makes it 100,000,000] can have elapsed since the temperature of

the earth was sufficiently reduced to sustain vegetable

life.(1636) Helmholz calculates that 20 million years would

suffice for the original nebula to condense to the present

dimensions of the sun. Prof. S. Newcomb requires only 10 millions

to attain a temperature of 212° Fahr.(1637) Croll estimates 70

million years for the diffusion of the heat....(1638) Bischof

calculates that 350 million years would be required for the earth

to cool from a temperature of 2,000° to 200° Centigrade. Reade,

basing his estimate on observed rates of denudation, demands 500

million years since sedimentation began in Europe.(1639) Lyell

ventured a rough guess of 240 million years; Darwin thought 300

million years demanded by the organic transformations which his

theory contemplates, and Huxley is disposed to demand 1,000

millions [!!].... Some biologists ... seem to close their eyes

tight and leap at one bound into the abyss of millions of years,

of which they have no more adequate estimate than of

infinity.(1640)

Then he proceeds to give what he takes to be more correct geological

figures: a few will suffice.

According to Sir William Thompson “the whole incrusted age of the world is

80,000,000 years”; and agreeably with Prof. Houghton’s calculations of a

minimum limit for the time since the elevation of Europe and Asia, three

hypothetical ages for three _possible_ and different modes of upheaval are

given, varying from the modest figure of 640,730 years, through 4,170,000

years to the tremendous figure of 27,491,000 years!!

This is enough, as one can see, to cover our claims for the four

Continents and even the figures of the Brâhmans.

Further calculations, the details of which the reader may find in Prof.

Winchell’s work,(1641) bring Houghton to an approximation of the

sedimentary age of the globe—11,700,000 years. These figures are found too

small by the author, who forthwith extends them to 37,000,000 years.

Again, according to Croll,(1642) 2,500,000 years “represents the time

since the beginning of the Tertiary age” in one work; and according to

another modification of his view, 15,000,000 only have elapsed since the

beginning of the Eocene period,(1643) this, being the first of the three

Tertiary periods, leaves the student suspended between two‐and‐a‐half and

fifteen millions. But if one has to hold to the former moderate figures,

then the whole incrusted age of the world would be 131,600,000

years.(1644)