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    "name": "Volume II — Anthropogenesis"
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    "slug": "60-stanza-viii----evolution-of-the-animal-mammalians----the",
    "title": "STANZA VIII. -- EVOLUTION OF THE ANIMAL MAMMALIANS -- THE FIRST ... 180",
    "of": 49,
    "words": 5266,
    "text": "## STANZA VIII. -- EVOLUTION OF THE ANIMAL MAMMALIANS -- THE FIRST ... 180\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, vol 2, part 1, stanza 8\n\n###### The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol.\n2\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 180 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nSTANZA VIII.\n\nEVOLUTION OF THE ANIMAL MAMMALIANS. -- THE\n\nFIRST FALL.\n\n-------\n\n§§ (28) How the first mammals were produced. (29) A\nquasi-Darwinian Evolution. (30) The animals get solid bodies.\n(31) Their separation into sexes. (32) The first sin of the mindless\nmen.\n\n---------------------\n\n28. **F**ROM THE DROPS OF SWEAT (a); FROM THE RESIDUE\nOF THE SUBSTANCE; MATTER FROM DEAD BODIES AND ANIMALS OF THE WHEEL\nBEFORE (*previous, Third Round*);* *AND FROM CAST-OFF\nDUST; THE FIRST ANIMALS (*of this Round*)* *WERE\nPRODUCED.\n\n(*a*)* *The Occult doctrine maintains that, in this\nRound, the mammalians were a later work of evolution than man.\nEvolution proceeds in cycles. The great Manvantaric cycle of Seven\nRounds, beginning in the First Round with mineral, vegetable,\nand animal, brings its evolutionary work on the descending arc\nto a dead stop in the middle of the Fourth *Race, *at the\nclose of the first half of the Fourth *Round. *It is on\nour Earth, then, (the Fourth sphere and the lowest) and in the\npresent *Round, *that this middle point has been reached.\nAnd since the Monad has passed, after its \"first inmetallization\"\non Globe A, through the mineral, vegetable, and animal worlds\nin every degree of the three states of matter, except the last\ndegree of the third or solid state, which it reached only at the\n\"*mid-point of evolution*\"* *it is but\nlogical and natural that at the beginning of the Fourth Round\non Globe D, Man should be the first to appear; and also that his\nframe should be of the most tenuous matter that is compatible\nwith objectivity. To make it still clearer: if the Monad begins\nits cycle of incarnations through the three objective kingdoms\non the descending curved line, it has necessarily to enter on\nthe re-ascending curved line of the sphere as a man also. On the\ndescending arc it is the spiritual which is gradually transformed\ninto the material. On the middle line of the base, Spirit and\nMatter are equilibrized in Man. On the ascending arc, Spirit is\nslowly re-asserting itself at the expense of the physical, or\nmatter, so that, at the close of the seventh Race of the Seventh\nRound, the Monad will find itself as\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 181 MEN, THE PROGENITORS OF ANIMALS.\n\nfree from matter and all its qualities as it was in the beginning;\nhaving gained in addition the experience and wisdom, the fruition\nof all its personal lives, without their evil and temptations.\n\nThis order of evolution is found also in *Genesis* (*ch.\n*1 *and *2) if one reads it in its true esoteric sense,\nfor chapter i. contains the history of the first Three Rounds,\nas well as that of the first Three Races of the Fourth, up to\nthat moment when Man is called to conscious life by the Elohim\nof Wisdom. In the first chapter, animals, whales and fowls of\nthe air, are created before the androgyne Adam.* In the second,\nAdam (the sexless) comes first, and the animals only appear after\nhim. Even the state of mental torpor and unconsciousness of the\nfirst two races, and of the first half of the Third Race, is symbolized,\nin the second chapter of *Genesis, *by the *deep sleep\nof Adam. *It was the dreamless sleep of mental inaction, the\nslumber of the Soul and Mind, which was meant by that \"sleep,\"\nand not at all the physiological process of differentiation of\nsexes, as a learned French theorist (M. Naudin) imagined.\n\nThe Puranas, the Chaldean and Egyptian fragments, and also the\nChinese traditions, all show an agreement with the Secret Doctrine\nas to the process and order of evolution. We find in them the\ncorroboration of almost all our teaching. For instance: the statement\nconcerning the oviparous mode of procreation of the Third Race,\nand even a hint at a less innocent mode of the procreation of\nthe first mammal forms, \"gigantic, transparent, dumb and\nmonstrous they were,\" says the Commentary. Study the stories\nof the several Rishis and their multifarious progeny; *e.g*.,\nPulastya is the father of *all the Serpents and Nagas -- *the\noviparous brood; Kasyapa was grandsire, through his wife Tamra,\nof the birds and of Garuda, king of the feathered tribe; while\nby his wife Surabhi, he was the parent of cows and buffaloes,\netc., etc.\n\nIn the Secret Doctrine, the first *Nagas -- *beings wiser\nthan Serpents -- are the \"Sons of Will and Yoga,\" born\nbefore the complete separation of the sexes, \"matured in\nthe man-bearing eggs** produced by the power (Kriyasakti) of the\nholy sages\" of the early Third Race.***\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n*An allegorical reference to the \"Sacred Animals\" of\nthe Zodiac and other heavenly bodies. Some Kabalists see in them\nthe prototypes of the animals.\n\n** In \"Hesiod,\" Zeus creates his *third *race\nof men out of ash-trees. In the \"Popol Vuh\" the Third\nRace of men is created out of the tree* Tzita* and the\nmarrow of the reed called *Sibac. *But Sibac means \"egg\"\nin the mystery language of the *Artufas *(or Initiation\ncaves). In a report sent in 1812 to the Cortes by Don Baptista\nPino it is said: \"All the Pueblos have their *Artufas\n-- *so* *the natives call subterranean rooms with only\na single door where they (secretly) assemble. . . . . These are\nimpenetrable temples . . . . and the doors are always closed to\nthe Spaniards. . . . . They adore the Sun and Moon . . . . fire\nand the great SNAKE (the creative power), whose eggs are called\n*Sibac.*\"\n\n*** There is a notable difference *esoterically *between\nthe words Sarpa and Naga, [[Footnote continued on next page]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 182 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n\". . . . . In these were incarnated the Lords of the three\n(upper) worlds, the various classes of Rudras, who had been *Tushitas,\n*who had been *Jayas, *who are *Adityas*;\"*\n*for, as explained by Parasara, \"There are a hundred\nappellations of the immeasurably mighty Rudras.\"\n\nSome of the descendants of the primitive Nagas, the Serpents of\nWisdom, peopled America, when its continent arose during the palmy\ndays of the great Atlantis, (America being the *Patala *or\nAntipodes of Jambu-Dwipa, not of Bharata-Varsha). Otherwise, whence\nthe traditions and legends -- the latter *always more true\nthan history, *as says Augustin Thierry -- and even the identity\nin the names of certain \"medicine men\" and priests,\nwho exist to this day in Mexico? We shall have to say something\nof the *Nargals *and the *Nagals *and also of *Nagalism,\n*called \"devil-worship\" by the Missionaries.\n\nIn almost all the Puranas, the story of the \"Sacrifice of\nDaksha\" is given, the oldest account of which is to be found\nin *Vayu Purana. *Allegorical as it is, there is more meaning\nand biological revelation in it to a Naturalist, than in all the\n*pseudo-scientific *vagaries, which are regarded as learned\ntheories and hypotheses.\n\nDaksha, who is regarded as the Chief Progenitor, is, moreover,\npointed out as the creator of *physical man *in the \"fable,\"\nwhich makes him lose his head from his body in the general strife\nbetween the gods and the *Raumas. *This head, being burnt\nin the fire, is replaced by the *head of a ram *(Kasi-Khanda).\nNow the ram's head and horns are ever the symbol of generating\npower and of reproductive force, and are *phallic. *As\nwe have shown, it is Daksha who establishes the era of men engendered\nby sexual intercourse. But this mode of procreation did not occur\nsuddenly, as one may think, and required long ages before it became\nthe one \"natural\" way. Therefore, his sacrifice to the\ngods is shown as interfered with by Siva, the *destroying *deity*,\nevolution and *PROG*RESS personified, *who is the\n*regenerator *at the same time; who destroys things under\none form but to recall them to life under another more perfect\ntype. Siva-Rudra creates the terrible Virabhadra (born of his\nbreath) the \"thousand-headed, thousand-armed\" (etc.)\nmonster, and commissions him to destroy the sacrifice prepared\nby Daksha. Then Virabhadra, \"abiding in the region of the\nghosts (ethereal men) . . . .\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]] though they are both\nused indiscriminately. Sarpa (serpent) is from the root *Srip,\nserpo *to creep; and they are called \"Ahi,\" from\n*Ha*, to abandon. \"The sarpa was produced from Brahma's\nhair, which, owing to his fright at beholding the Yakshas, whom\nhe had created horrible to behold, fell off from the head, each\nhair becoming a serpent. They are called Sarpa from their creeping\nand *Ahi *because they had deserted the head\" (Wilson).\nBut the *Nagas, *their serpent's tail notwithstanding,\ndo not creep, but manage to walk, run and fight in the allegories.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 183 ARCHAIC ZOOLOGY.\n\n*created from the pores of the skin *(*Romakupas*)*,\n*powerful Raumas,* (or Raumyas).\" Now, however mythical\nthe allegory, the Mahabharata, which is history as much as is\nthe Iliad, shows** the Raumyas and other races, as springing in\nthe same manner from the *Romakupas,* hair* *or\nskin pores. This allegorical description of the \"sacrifice\"\nis full of significance to the students of the Secret Doctrine\nwho know of the \"Sweat-born.\"\n\nIn the Vayu Purana's account of Daksha's sacrifice, moreover,\nit is said to have taken place in the presence of creatures *born\nfrom the egg, *from the vapour, vegetation, pores of the skin,\nand, finally only, from the womb.\n\nDaksha typifies the early Third Race, holy and pure, still devoid\nof an individual *Ego,* and having merely the passive capacities.\nBrahma, therefore, commands him to create (in the exoteric texts);\nwhen, obeying the command, he made \"inferior and superior\"\n(*avara and vara*)* *progeny (*putra*),*\nbipeds *and *quadrupeds*;* *and by his *will,*\ngave birth to females . . . . to the gods, the *Daityas *(giants\nof the Fourth Race), the snake-gods, animals, cattle and the *Danavas\n*(Titans and demon Magicians) and other beings.\"\n\n. . . . \"From that period forward, *living creatures were\nengendered* *by sexual intercourse. Before the time of\nDaksha, they were variously* *propagated -- *by the\n*will*, by sight, by touch, and by *Yoga-power.*\"****\n*And now comes the simply zoological teaching.\n\n-------\n\n29. **A**NIMALS WITH BONES, DRAGONS OF THE DEEP AND\nFLYING SARPAS (*serpents*)* *WERE ADDED TO THE CREEPING\nTHINGS. **T**HEY THAT CREEP ON THE GROUND GOT WINGS.\n**T**HEY OF THE LONG NECKS IN THE WATER, BECAME THE\nPROGENITORS OF THE FOWLS OF THE AIR (*a*).\n\n(*a*) This is a point on which the teachings and modern\nbiological speculation are in perfect accord. The missing links\nrepresenting this transition process between reptile and bird\nare apparent to the veriest bigot, especially in the *ornithoscelidae,\nhesperornis, *and the archaeopteryx of Vogt.\n\n-------\n\n30. **D**URING THE **T**HIRD (*Race*),*\n*THE BONELESS ANIMALS GREW AND CHANGED: THEY BECAME ANIMALS\nWITH BONES (*a*), THEIR **C**HHAYAS BECAME\nSOLID (*also*)*.*\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Wilson translates the word as \"demigods\" (*See\nhis Vishnu Purana, p. *130); but Raurnas or Raumyas are simply\na race, a tribe.\n\n** xii. 10308.\n\n**** *\"*Vishnu Purana*\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 184 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n31. **T**HE ANIMALS SEPARATED THE FIRST (*into\nmate and female*) (*b*)* *. . . .\n\n(*a*) Vertebrates, and after that mammalians. Before that\nthe animals were also ethereal proto-organisms, just as man was.\n\n(*b*) The fact of former hermaphrodite mammals and the\nsubsequent separation of sexes is now indisputable, even from\nthe stand-point of Biology. As Prof. Oscar Schmidt, an avowed\nDarwinist, shows: \"Use and disuse combined with selection\nelucidate (?) *the separation of the sexes, *and the existence,\ntotally incomprehensible, of rudimentary sexual organs. In the\nVertebrata especially, *each sex possesses such distinct traces\nof the reproductive apparatus characteristic of the other, *that\neven antiquity assumed hermaphroditism as a natural primeval form\nof mankind. . . . The tenacity with which the rudiments of sexual\norgans are inherited is remarkable. In the class of mammals, actual\nhermaphroditism is unheard of, although through the whole period\nof their development they drag along with them these residues\nborn by *their unknown ancestry, *no one can say how long\nago.\"*\n\n-------\n\n31. . . . . **T**HEY (*the animals*) BEGAN\nTO BREED. **T**HE TWO-FOLD *MAN *(*then*)*\n*SEPARATED ALSO. **H**E (man), SAID \"**L**ET\nUS AS THEY; LET US UNITE AND MAKE CREATURES.\" **T**HEY\nDID. . . .\n\n-------\n\n32. **A**ND THOSE WHICH HAD NO SPARK (*the *\"*narrow-brained*\"***\nTOOK *HUGE SHE-ANIMALS UNTO THEM (*a*).** T**HEY\nBEGAT UPON THEM DUMB RACES. **D**UMB THEY WERE (*the\n*\"*narrow-brained*\")* *THEMSELVES.\n**B**UT THEIR TONGUES UNTIED (*b*). **T**HE\nTONGUES OF THEIR PROGENY REMAINED STILL. **M**ONSTERS\nTHEY BRED. **A **RACE OF CROOKED, RED-HAIR-COVERED\nMONSTERS, GOING ON ALL FOURS.*** **A **DUMB RACE,\nTO KEEP THE SHAME UNTOLD.****\n\n(*a*) The animals \"separated the first,\" says\nStanza 31. Bear in mind that at that period men were different,\neven physiologically, from what\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* \"*Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism,*\"*\n*pp. 186-7. The \"Unknown Ancestry\" referred to are\nthe *primeval *astral prototypes. Cf. § **II**.,\np. 260 (*a*)*.*\n\n** See verse 24.\n\n*** These \"animals,\" or monsters, are not the anthropoid\nor any other apes, but verily what the Anthropologists might call\nthe \"missing link,\" the primitive lower man; *see\ninfra.*\n\n**** The shame of their animal origin which our modern scientists\nwould emphasize if they could.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 185 THE SIN OF THE MINDLESS MEN.\n\nthey are now, having passed the middle point of the Fifth Race.\nWe are not told what the \"huge she-animals\" were; but\nthey certainly were as different from any we know now, as were\nthe men.\n\nThis was the first physical \"fall into matter\" of some\nof the then existing and lower races. Bear in mind Stanza 24.\nThe \"Sons of Wisdom\" had spurned the early *Third\n*Race, *i.e*., the non-developed, and are shown incarnating\nin, and thereby endowing with intellect, the *later *Third\nRace. Thus the sin of the brainless or \"mindless\" Races,\nwho had no \"spark\" and were irresponsible, fell upon\nthose who failed to do by them their Karmic duty.\n\n(*b*)* *See later on concerning the beginning of\nhuman speech.\n\n-------\n\n**W**HAT MAY BE THE **O**BJECTIONS\nTO THE **F**OREGOING.\n\nThus Occultism rejects the idea that Nature developed man from\nthe ape, or even from an ancestor common to both, but traces,\non the contrary, some of the most anthropoid species to the Third\nRace man of the early Atlantean period. As this proposition will\nbe maintained and defended elsewhere, a few words more are all\nthat are needed at present. For greater clearness, however, we\nshall repeat in brief what was said previously in Book I., Stanza\n**VI.**\n\nOur teachings show that, while it is quite correct to say that\nnature had built, at one time, around the human astral form an\n*ape-like external *shape, yet it is as correct that this\nshape was no more that of the \"missing link,\" than were\nthe coverings of that astral form, during the course of its natural\nevolution through all the kingdoms of nature. Nor was it, as shown\nin the proper place, on this Fourth Round planet that such evolution\ntook place, but only during the First, Second, and Third Rounds,\nwhen MAN was, in turn, \"a stone, a plant, and an animal\"\nuntil he became what he was in the First Root-Race of present\nhumanity. The real line of evolution differs from the Darwinian,\nand the two systems are irreconcilable, except when the latter\nis divorced from the dogma of \"Natural Selection\" and\nthe like. Indeed, between the *Monera *of Haeckel and the\n*Sarisripa *of Manu, there lies an impassable chasm in\nthe shape of the *Jiva*;* *for the \"human\"\nMonad, whether* immetallized *in the stone-atom, or *invegetallized\n*in the plant, or *inanimalized *in the animal, is\nstill and ever a divine, hence also a HUMAN Monad. It ceases to\nbe human only when it becomes *absolutely divine. *The\nterms \"mineral,\" \"vegetable\" and \"animal\"\n*monad *are meant to create a superficial distinction:\nthere is no such thing as a Monad (jiva)\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 186 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nother than divine, and consequently having been, or having to\nbecome, human. And the latter term has to remain meaningless unless\nthe difference is well understood. The Monad is a drop out of\nthe shoreless Ocean beyond, or, to be correct, *within*\nthe plane of primeval differentiation. It is divine in its higher\nand *human *in its lower condition -- the adjectives \"higher\"\nand \"lower\" being used for lack of better words -- and\na monad it remains at all times, save in the Nirvanic state, under\nwhatever conditions, or whatever external forms. As the Logos\nreflects the Universe in the Divine Mind, and the manifested Universe\nreflects itself in each of its Monads, as Leibnitz put it, repeating\nan Eastern teaching, so the **M**ONAD has, during\nthe cycle of its incarnations, to reflect in itself every *root-form\n*of each kingdom. Therefore, the Kabalists say correctly that\n\"**M**AN becomes a stone, a plant, an animal,\na man, a Spirit, and finally God. Thus accomplishing his cycle\nor circuit and returning to the point from which he had started\nas the *heavenly ***M**AN.\" But by \"Man\"\nthe divine Monad is meant, and not the thinking Entity, much less\nhis physical body. While rejecting the immortal Soul, the men\nof Science now try to trace the latter through a series of animal\nforms from the lowest to the highest; whereas, in truth, all the\npresent fauna are the descendants of those primordial monsters\nof which the Stanzas speak. The animals -- the creeping beasts\nand those in the waters that preceded man in this Fourth Round,\nas well as those contemporary with the Third Race, and again the\nmammalia that are posterior to the Third and Fourth Races -- all\nare either directly or indirectly the mutual and correlative product\n(physically) of man. It is correct to say that the man of this\nManvantara, *i.e*., during the three preceding Rounds,\nhas passed through all the kingdoms of nature. That he was \"a\nstone, a plant, an animal.\" But (*a*) these stones,\nplants, and animals were the prototypes, the filmy presentments\nof those of the Fourth Round; and (*b*) even those at the\nbeginning of the Fourth Round were the astral shadows of the present,\nas the Occultists express it. And finally the forms and *genera\n*of neither man, animal, nor plant were what they became later.\nThus the astral prototypes of the lower beings of the animal kingdom\nof the Fourth Round, which *preceded *(the chhayas of)\n*Men, *were the consolidated, though still very ethereal\n*sheaths *of the still more ethereal forms or models produced\nat the close of the Third Round on Globe D.* \"Produced from\nthe residue of the substance matter; from dead bodies of men and\n(other *extinct*)* *animals of the wheel before,\"\nor the previous *Third *Round -- as Stanza 24 tells us.\nHence, while the nondescript \"animals\"\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* *Vide *\"*Esoteric Buddhism.*\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 187 THE DARWINISTS MISTAKEN.\n\nthat preceded the astral man at the beginning of this life-cycle\non our Earth were still, so to speak, the progeny of the man of\nthe Third Round, the mammalians of this Round owe their existence,\nin a great measure, to man again. Moreover, the \"ancestor\"\nof the present anthropoid animal, the ape, is the direct production\nof the yet mindless *Man,* who desecrated his human dignity\nby putting himself physically on the level of an animal.\n\nThe above accounts for some of the alleged physiological proofs,\nbrought forward by the anthropologists as a demonstration of the\ndescent of man from the animals.\n\nThe point most insisted upon by the Evolutionists is that, \"The\nhistory of the embryo is an epitome of that of the race.\"\nThat \"every organism, in its development from the egg, runs\nthrough a series of forms, through which, in like succession,\nits ancestors have passed in the long course of Earth's history.*\nThe history of the embryo . . . . is a picture in little, and\noutline of that of the race. *This conception forms the gist\nof our fundamental biogenetic law, which we are obliged to place\nat the head of the study of the fundamental law of organic development.*\"**\n\nThis modern theory was known as a fact to, and far more philosophically\nexpressed by, the Sages and Occultists from the remotest ages.\nA passage from \"*Isis Unveiled*\"* *may\nhere be cited to furnish a few points of comparison. In Vol. I.,\npp. 388-9, it was asked why, with all their great learning, physiologists\nwere unable to explain teratological phenomena? Any anatomist\nwho has made the development and growth of the embryo \"a\nsubject of special study,\" can tell, without much brain-work,\nwhat daily experience and the evidence of his own eyes show him,\nviz., that up to a certain period, the human embryo is facsimile\nof a young batrachian in its first remove from the spawn -- tadpole.\nBut no physiologist or anatomist seems to have had the idea of\napplying to the development of the human being -- from the first\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* \"A very strong argument in favour of variability is supplied\nby the science of Embryology. Is not a man in the uterus . . .\n. . a simple cell, a vegetable with three or four leaflets, a\ntadpole with branchiae, a mammal with a tail, lastly a primate\n(?) and a biped? It is scarcely possible not to recognise in the\nembryonic evolution a rapid sketch, a faithful summary, of the\nentire organic series.\" (*Lefevre, Philosophy, p. *484).\n\nThe summary alluded to is, however, only that of the *store\nof types *hoarded up in man, the microcosm. This simple explanation\nmeets all such objections, as the presence of the rudimentary\ntail in the foetus -- a fact triumphantly paraded by Haeckel and\nDarwin as conclusively in favour of the Ape-Ancestor theory. *It\nmay also be pointed out that the presence of a vegetable with\nleaflets *in the embryonic stages is *not explained *on\nordinary evolutionist principles. Darwinists have not traced man\nthrough the vegetable, but Occultists have. *Why then this\nfeature in the embryo, *and how do the former explain it?\n\n*** *\"*The Proofs of Evolution,*\"*\n*a lecture by Haeckel.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 188 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\ninstant of its physical appearance as a germ to its ultimate formation\nand birth -- the Pythagorean esoteric doctrine of metempsychosis,\nso erroneously interpreted by critics. The meaning of the axiom:\n\"A stone becomes a plant; a plant, a beast; a beast, a man,\netc.\" was mentioned in another place in relation to the spiritual\nand physical evolution of men on this Earth. We will now add a\nfew more words to make the matter clearer.\n\nWhat is the primitive shape of the future man? A grain, a corpuscle,\nsay some physiologists; a molecule, an ovum of the ovum, say others.\nIf it could be analysed -- by the microscope or otherwise -- of\nwhat ought we to expect to find it composed? Analogically, we\nshould say, of a nucleus of inorganic matter, deposited from the\ncirculation at the germinating point, and united with a deposit\nof organic matter. In other words, this infinitesimal nucleus\nof the future man is composed of the same elements as a stone\n-- of the same elements as the Earth, which the man is destined\nto inhabit. Moses is cited by the Kabalists as authority for the\nremark that it required earth and water to make a living being,\nand thus it may be said that man first appears as a stone.\n\nAt the end of three or four weeks the ovum has assumed a plant-like\nappearance, one extremity having become spheroidal and the other\ntapering like a carrot. Upon dissection it is found to be composed,\nlike an onion, of very delicate laminae or coats, enclosing a\nliquid. The laminae approach each other at the lower end, and\nthe embryo hangs from the root of the umbilicus almost like the\nfruit from the bough. The stone has now become changed, by \"metempsychosis,\"\ninto a plant. Then the embryonic creature begins to shoot out,\nfrom the inside outward, its limbs, and develops its features.\nThe eyes are visible as two black dots; the ears, nose, and mouth\nform depressions, like the points of a pineapple, before they\nbegin to project. The embryo develops into an animal-like foetus\n-- the shape of a tadpole -- and, like an amphibious reptile,\nlives in water and develops from it. Its Monad has not yet become\neither human or immortal, for the Kabalists tell us that this\nonly occurs at the \"fourth hour.\" One by one the foetus\nassumes the characteristics of the human being, the first flutter\nof the immortal breath passes through its being; it moves; and\nthe divine essence settles in the infant frame, which it will\ninhabit until the moment of physical death, when man becomes a\nspirit.\n\nThis mysterious process of a nine-months' formation, the Kabalists\ncall the completion of the \"individual cycle of evolution.\"\nAs the foetus develops amidst the *liquor amnii *in the\nwomb, so the Earths germinate in the universal ether, or astral\nfluid, in the womb of the Universe. These cosmic children, like\ntheir pigmy inhabitants, are at first nuclei; then ovules; then\ngradually mature; and becoming\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 189 NATURALISTS INVENTING LINKS.\n\nmothers, in their turn, develop mineral, vegetable, animal, and\nhuman forms. From centre to circumference, from the imperceptible\nvesicle to the uttermost conceivable bounds of the Kosmos, those\nglorious thinkers, the Occultists, trace cycle merging into cycle,\ncontaining and contained in an endless series. The embryo evolving\nin its pre-natal sphere, the individual in his family, the family\nin the state, the state in mankind, the Earth in our system, that\nsystem in its central universe, the universe in the Kosmos, and\nthe Kosmos in the ONE CAUSE . . . thus runs *their *philosophy\nof evolution, differing as we see, from that of Haeckel: --\n\n\"All are but parts of one stupendous whole,\n\nWhose body Nature is, and (Parabrahm) the soul . . .\"\n\nThese are the proofs of Occultism, and they are rejected by Science.\nBut how is the chasm between the mind of man and animal to be\nbridged in this case? How, if the anthropoid and *Homo primigenius\n*had, *argumenti gratia, *a common ancestor (in the\nway modern speculation puts it), did the two groups diverge so\nwidely from one another as regards mental capacity? True, the\nOccultist may be told that in every case Occultism does what Science\nrepeats; it gives a *common *ancestor to ape and man, since\nit makes the former issue from primeval man. Ay, but that \"primeval\nman\" was *man* only in external form. He was *mindless\n*and *soulless *at the time he begot, with a female\nanimal monster, the forefather of a series of apes. This speculation\n-- if speculation it be -- is at least logical, and fills the\nchasm between the mind of man and animal. Thus it accounts for\nand explains the hitherto unaccountable and inexplicable. The\nfact that, in the present stage of evolution, Science is almost\ncertain that no issue can follow from the union of man and animal,\nis considered and explained elsewhere.\n\nNow what is the fundamental difference between the accepted (or\nnearly so) conclusions, as enunciated in \"*The Pedigree\nof Man,*\"* *viz., that man and ape have a common\nancestor; and the teachings of Occultism, which deny this conclusion\nand accept the fact that all things and all living beings have\noriginated from one common source? Materialistic science makes\nman evolve gradually to what *he is now, *and, starting\nfrom the first protoplasmic speck called *Moneron *(which\nwe are told has, like the rest, \"originated in the course\nof immeasurable ages from a few, or from one simple, *spontaneously\narising *original form, that has obeyed one law of evolution\"),\npass through \"unknown and unknowable\" types up to the\nape, and thence to the human being. Where the transitional shapes\nare discoverable we are not told; for the simple reason that no\n\"missing links\" between man and the apes have ever yet\nbeen found, though this fact in no way prevents men like Haeckel\nfrom inventing them *ad libitum.*\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 190 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nNor will they ever be met with; simply, again, because that link\nwhich unites man with his real ancestry is searched for on the\nobjective plane and in the material world of forms, whereas it\nis safely hidden from the microscope and dissecting knife *within\n*the animal tabernacle of man himself. We repeat what we have\nsaid in Isis Unveiled: --\n\n\". . . . . . . All things had their origin in spirit -- evolution\nhaving originally begun from above and proceeded downward, instead\nof the reverse, as taught in the Darwinian theory. In other words,\nthere has been a gradual materialization of forms until a fixed\nultimate of debasement is reached. This point is that at which\nthe doctrine of modern evolution enters into the arena of speculative\nhypothesis. Arrived at this period we will find it easier to understand\nHaeckel's *Anthropogeny, *which traces the pedigree of\nman 'from its protoplasmic root, sodden in the mud of seas which\nexisted before the oldest of the fossiliferous rocks were deposited,'\naccording to Professor Huxley's exposition. We may believe the\nman (of the Third Round) evolved 'by gradual modification of an\n(astral) mammal of ape-like organization' still easier when we\nremember that (though in a more condensed and less elegant, but\nstill as comprehensible, phraseology) the same theory was said\nby Berosus to have been taught many thousands of years before\nhis time by the man-fish Oannes or Dagon, the semi-demon of Babylonia*\n(though on somewhat modified lines).\n\n\"But what lies back of the Darwinian line of descent? So\nfar as he is concerned nothing but 'unverifiable hypotheses.'\nFor, as he puts it, he views all beings 'as the lineal descendants\nof some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the\nSilurian system was deposited.'** He does not attempt to show\nus who these 'few beings' were. But it answers our purpose quite\nas well, for, in the admission of their existence at all, resort\nto the ancients for corroboration and elaboration of the idea\nreceives the stamp of scientific approbation. . . . \"\n\nTruly, as also said in our first work: \"If we accept Darwin's\ntheory of the development of species, we find that his starting-point\nis placed in front of an open door. We are at liberty with him,\nto either remain within, or cross the threshold, beyond which\nlies the limitless and the incomprehensible, or rather the *Unutterable.\n*If our mortal language is inadequate to express what our\nspirit dimly foresees in the great '*Beyond*'* -- *while\non this earth -- it* must *realize it at some point in\nthe timeless Eternity.\" But what lies \"beyond\"\nHaeckel's theory? Why *Bathybius Haeckelii, *and no more!\n\nA further answer is given in Part **III**. *Addenda.*\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Cory: \"Ancient Fragments.\"\n\n** \"Origin of Species,\" pp. 448, 489, first edition.\n\n-------\n\nNext Section\n\nContents",
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