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    "slug": "65-archaic-teachings-in-the-puranas-and-genesis-251",
    "title": "ARCHAIC TEACHINGS IN THE PURANAS AND GENESIS ... 251",
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    "text": "## ARCHAIC TEACHINGS IN THE PURANAS AND GENESIS ... 251\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, vol 2, pt 1, Physical Ev\n\n###### The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol.\n2\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 251 ANSWERS TO OBJECTIONS.\n\n[[This page continued from previous section]]\n\n**A**RCHAIC **T**EACHINGS IN THE **P**URANAS\nAND **G**ENESIS.\n\n**P**HYSICAL **E**VOLUTION.\n\nThe writer cannot give *too much *proof that the system\nof Cosmogony and Anthropogony as described actually existed, that\nits records *are* preserved, and that it is found mirrored\neven in the modern versions of ancient Scriptures.\n\nThe Puranas on the one hand, and the Jewish Scriptures on the\nother, are based on the same scheme of evolution, which, read\nesoterically and expressed in modern language, would be found\nto be quite as scientific as much of what now passes current as\nthe final word of recent discovery. The only difference between\nthe two schemes is, that\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 252 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nthe Puranas, giving as much, and perhaps more attention to the\ncauses than to the effects, allude to the pre-Cosmic and pre-Genetic\nperiods rather than to those of so-called Creation, whereas the\nBible, saying only a few words of the former period, plunges forthwith\ninto material genesis, and, while nearly skipping the *pre-Adamic\n*races, proceeds with its allegories concerning the Fifth\nRace.\n\nNow, whatever the onslaught made on the Order of creation in *Genesis,\n*and its dead letter account certainly lends itself admirably\nto criticism,* he who reads the Hindu Puranas -- its allegorical\nexaggerations notwithstanding -- will find them quite in accordance\nwith physical Science.\n\nEven what appears to be the, on the face of it, perfectly nonsensical\nallegory of Brahma assuming the form of a Boar to rescue the Earth\nfrom under the waters, finds in the Secret Commentaries a perfectly\nscientific explanation, relating as it does to the many risings\nand sinkings, and the constant alternation of water and land from\nthe earliest to the latest geological periods of our globe; for\nScience teaches us now that nine-tenths of the stratified formations\nof the earth's crust have been gradually constructed beneath water,\nat the bottom of the seas. The ancient Aryans are credited with\nhaving known nothing whatever of natural history, geology, and\nso on. The Jewish race is, on the other hand, proclaimed even\nby its severest critic, an uncompromising opponent of the Bible,\n(See \"Modern Science and Modern Thought,\" p. 337), to\nhave the merit of having conceived the idea of monotheism \"earlier,\nand retained it more firmly, than any of the *less philosophical\nand more immoral religions* (*! *!) of the ancient\nworld.\" Only, while we find in Biblical esotericism physiological\nsexual mysteries symbolised, and very little\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Mr. Gladstone's unfortunate attempt to reconcile the Genetic\naccount with science (see *Nineteenth Century, *\"Dawn\nof Creation\" and the \"Proem to Genesis,\" 1886)\nhas brought upon him the Jovian thunderbolt hurled by Mr. Huxley.\nThe dead-letter account warranted no such attempt; and his fourfold\norder, or division of animated creation, has turned into the stone\nwhich, instead of killing the fly on the sleeping friend's brow,\nkilled the man instead. Mr. Gladstone killed *Genesis *for\never. But this does not prove that there is no esotericism in\nthe latter. The fact that the Jews and all the Christians, the\nmodern as well as the early sects, have accepted the narrative\n*literally *for two thousand years, shows only their ignorance;\nand shows the great ingenuity and constructive ability of the\ninitiated Rabbis, who have built the two accounts --* the Elohistic\n*and the *Jehovistic -- *esoterically, and have purposely\nconfused the meaning by the vowelless glyphs or word-signs in\nthe original text. The six days -- *yom -- *of creation\ndo mean six periods of evolution, and the seventh that of culmination\nof perfection (not of rest), and refer to the seven Rounds and\nthe seven Races with a *distinct *\"creation\"\nin each; though the use of the words *boker, *dawn or morning,\nand *crib*, evening twilight -- which have esoterically\nthe same meaning as *sandhya, *twilight, in Sanskrit --\nhave led to a charge of the most crass ignorance of the order\nof evolution.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 253 MR. GLADSTONE KILLS GENESIS.\n\nmore (something for which *very little real philosophy is requisite*)*,\n*in the *Puranas *one may find the most scientific\nand philosophical \"dawn of creation,\" which, if impartially\nanalyzed and rendered into plain language from its fairy tale-like\nallegories, would show that modern zoology, geology, astronomy,\nand nearly all the branches of modern knowledge, have been anticipated\nin the ancient Science, and were known to the philosophers in\ntheir general features, if not in such detail as at present!\n\nPuranic astronomy, with all its deliberate concealment and confusion\nfor the purpose of leading the profane off the real track, was\nshown even by Bentley to be a real science; and those who are\nversed in the mysteries of Hindu astronomical treatises, will\nprove that the modern theories of the progressive condensation\nof nebulae, nebulous stars and suns, with the most minute details\nabout the cyclic progress of asterisms -- far more correct than\nEuropeans have even now -- for chronological and other purposes,\nwere known in India to perfection.\n\nIf we turn to geology and zoology we find the same. What are all\nthe myths and endless genealogies of the seven Prajapati, and\ntheir sons, the seven Rishis or Manus, and of their wives, sons\nand progeny, but a vast detailed account of the progressive development\nand evolution of animal creation, one species after the other?\nWere the highly philosophical and metaphysical Aryans -- the authors\nof the most perfect philosophical systems of transcendental psychology,\nof Codes of Ethics, and such a grammar as Panini's, of the Sankhya\nand Vedanta systems, and a moral code (Buddhism), proclaimed by\nMax Muller the most perfect on earth -- such fools, or children,\nas to lose their time in writing *fairy-tales*;* *such\ntales as the Puranas now seem to be in the eyes of those who have\nnot the remotest idea of their secret meaning? What is the *fable,\n*the genealogy and origin of Kasyapa, with his twelve wives,\nby whom he had a numerous and diversified progeny of *nagas\n*(serpents), reptiles, birds, and all kinds of living things,\nand who was thus the *father *of all kinds of animals,\nbut a *veiled *record of the order of evolution in *this\n*round? So far, we do not see that any Orientalist ever had\nthe remotest conception of the truths concealed under the allegories\nand personifications. \"The Satapatha Brahmana,\" says\none, \"gives *a not very intelligible *account of Kasyapa's\norigin. . . . He was the son of Marichi, the Son of Brahma, the\nfather of Vivasvat, the father of Manu, the progenitor of mankind.\n. . . Having assumed the form of a tortoise, Prajapati created\noffspring. That which he created he made *akarot, *hence\nthe word *kurma* (tortoise). Kasyapa means tortoise; hence\nmen say: 'All creatures are descendants of Kasyapa,' etc., etc.*\n*(*Hindu Class. Dict.*)\n\nHe was all this; he was also the father of *Garuda, *the\nbird, the \"King\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 254 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nof the feathered tribe,\" who descends *from, *and\nis of one stock *with the reptiles, *the nagas; and who\nbecomes their mortal enemy *subsequently *as *he is\nalso a cycle, a period of time, when in the course of evolution\nthe birds which developed from reptiles in their *\"*struggle\nfor life,*\"* -- *\"*survival of the fittest,*\"*\netc., etc., turned in preference on those they issued from, to\ndevour them, *-- perhaps prompted by natural law, in order\nto make room for other and more perfect species. (*Vide*\nPart **II**., \"Symbolism.\")\n\nIn that admirable epitome of \"Modern Science and Modern Thought,\"\na lesson in natural history is offered to Mr. Gladstone, showing\nthe utter variance with it of the Bible. The author remarks that\nGeology, commencing with --\n\n\" . . . the earliest known fossil, the Eozoon Canadense of\nthe Laurentian, continued in a chain, every link of which is firmly\nwelded, through the Silurian, with its abundance of molluscous,\ncrustacean, and vermiform life and first indication of fishes;\nthe Devonian, with its predominance of fish and first appearance\nof reptiles; the Mesozoic with its batrachians (or frog family);\nthe Secondary formations, in which reptiles of the sea, land and\nair preponderated, and the first humble forms of vertebrate land\nanimals began to appear; and finally, the Tertiary, in which mammalian\nlife has become abundant, and type succeeding to type and species\nto species, are gradually differentiated and specialized, through\nthe Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene periods, until we arrive at\nthe Glacial and Pre-historic periods, and at positive proof of\nthe existence of man.\"\n\nThe same order, *plus *the description of animals unknown\nto modern science, is found in the commentaries on the Puranas\nin general, and in the Book of Dzyan -- especially. The only difference,\na grave one, no doubt, -- as implying a spiritual and divine nature\nof man independent of his physical body in this illusionary world,\nin which the *false personality *and its cerebral basis\nalone is known to orthodox psychology -- is as follows. Having\nbeen in all the so-called \"Seven creations,\" allegorizing\nthe seven evolutionary changes, or the *sub-races, *we\nmay call them, *of the First Root-race of Mankind -- *MAN\nwas on earth in this Round from the beginning. Having passed through\nall the kingdoms of nature in the previous *three* Rounds,*\nhis *physical *frame -- one adapted to the thermal conditions\nof those early periods -- was ready to receive the *divine\nPilgrim *at the first dawn of human life, *i.e., *18,000,000\nyears ago. It is only at the\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* \"Follow the law of analogy\" -- the Masters teach.\n*Atma-Buddhi *is dual and *Manas *is triple; inasmuch\nas the former has two aspects, and the latter three, *i.e*.,\nas a principle *per se, *which gravitates, in its higher\naspect, to Atma-Buddhi, and follows, in its lower nature, Kama,\nthe seat of terrestrial and animal desires and passions. Now compare\nthe evolution of the Races, the First and the Second of which\nare of the nature of Atma-Buddhi, their passive Spiritual progeny,\nand the Third Root-Race shows three distinct divisions or aspects\nphysiologically and psychically; the earliest, sinless; the middle\nportions awakening to intelligence; and the third and last decidedly\n*animal:* *i.e., *Manas succumbs to the temptations\nof Kama.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 255 FROM WORM TO MAN.\n\nmid-point of the 3rd Root Race that man was endowed with *Manas.\n*Once united, the *two *and then the *three *made\none; for though the lower animals, from the amoeba to man, received\n*their *monads, in which all the higher qualities are potential,\nall have to remain dormant till each reaches its human form, before\nwhich stage *manas *(mind) has no development in them.*\nIn the animals every principle is paralysed, and in a foetus-like\nstate, save the second (vital) and the third (the astral), and\nthe rudiments of the fourth (*Kama, *which is desire, instinct)\nwhose intensity and development varies and changes with the species.\nTo the materialist wedded to the Darwinian theory, this will read\nlike a fairy-tale, a mystification; to the believer in the inner,\nspiritual man, the statement will have nothing unnatural in it.\n\nNow the writer is certain to meet what will be termed insuperable\nobjections. We shall be told that the line of embryology, the\ngradual development of every individual life, and the progress\nof what is known to take place in the order of progressive stages\nof specialization -- that all this is opposed to the idea of man\npreceding mammals. Man begins as the humblest and most primitive\nvermiform creature, \"from the primitive speck of protoplasm\nand the nucleated cell in which all life originates,\" and\n\"is developed through stages undistinguishable from those\nof fish, reptile and mammal, until the cell finally attains the\nhighly specialized development of *the quadrumanous, *and*\nlast of all, of the human type.*\"* *(Laing, 335.)\n\nThis is perfectly scientific, and we have nothing against *that*;*\n*for all this relates to the *shell *of man -- his\nbody, which in its growth is subject, of course, like every other\n(once called) morphological unit, to such metamorphoses. It is\nnot those who teach the transformation of the mineral atom through\ncrystallization -- which is the same function, and bears the same\nrelation to its *inorganic *(*so-called*)* upadhi\n*(or basis) as the formation of *cells *to their organic\nnuclei, through plant, insect and animal into man -- it is not\nthey who will reject this theory, as it will finally lead to the\nrecognition of a Universal Deity in nature, ever-present and as\never invisible, and unknowable, and of *intra*-Cosmic gods,\nwho all were men.**\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* \"Men are made *complete *only during their third,\ntoward the fourth cycle (race). They are made 'gods' for good\nand evil, and responsible only when the two arcs meet (after 31/2\nrounds towards the *fifth *Race). They are made so by the\n*Nirmanakaya *(spiritual or astral remains) of the Rudra-Kumaras,\n'*cursed *to be reborn on earth again; meaning -- *doomed\nin their natural turn* *to reincarnation *in the higher\nascending arc of the terrestrial cycle.' (*Commentary IX.*)\n\n** The whole trouble is this: neither physiologists nor pathologists\n*will *recognize that the cell-germinating substance (the\n*cytoblastema*)* *and the mother-lye from which\ncrystals originate, are one and the same essence, save in differentiation\nfor purposes.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 256 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nBut we would ask, what does science and its exact and now axiomatic\ndiscoveries prove against *our* Occult theory? Those who\nbelieve in the law of Evolution and gradual progressive development\nfrom a cell (which from a *vital* has become a morphological\ncell, until it awoke as protoplasm pure and simple) -- these can\nsurely never limit their belief to one line of evolution. The\ntypes of life are innumerable; and the progress of evolution,\nmoreover, does not go at the same rate in every kind of species.\nThe constitution of primordial matter in the Silurian age -- we\nmean \"primordial\" *matter *of science -- is the\nsame in every essential particular, save its degree of present\ngrossness, as the primordial *living* matter of to-day.\nNor do we find that which ought to be found, if the now orthodox\ntheory of Evolution were *quite *correct, namely, a constant,\never-flowing progress in every species of being. Instead of that,\nwhat does one see? While the intermediate groups of animal being\nall tend toward a higher type, and while specializations, now\nof one type and now of another, develop through the geological\nages, change forms, assume new shapes, appear and disappear with\na kaleidoscopic rapidity in the description of paleontologists\nfrom one period to another, the two solitary exceptions to the\ngeneral rule are those at the two opposite poles of life and type,\nnamely -- **M**AN *and the lower genera of being!*\n\n\"Certain well-marked forms of living beings have existed\nthrough enormous epochs, surviving not only the changes of physical\nconditions, *but persisting comparatively unaltered, *while\nother forms of life have appeared and disappeared. Such forms\nmay be termed 'persistent types' of life; and examples of them\nare abundant enough in both the animal and the vegetable worlds\"\n(Huxley, \"Proceed. of Roy. Inst.,\" vol. iii., p. 151).\n\nNevertheless, we are not given any good reason why Darwin links\ntogether reptiles, birds, amphibians, fishes, mollusca, etc.,\netc., as off-shoots of a moneric ancestry. Nor are we told whether\nreptiles, for instance, are direct descendants of the amphibian,\nthe latter of fishes, and fishes of lower forms -- which they\ncertainly are. For the Monads have passed through all these forms\nof being up to man, on every planet, in the Three *preceding\n*Rounds; every Round, as well as every subsequent Globe, from\nA to G, having been, and still having to be the arena of the same\nevolution, only repeated each time on a more solid material basis.\nTherefore the question: -- \"What relation is there between\nthe Third Round astral prototypes and ordinary physical development\nin the course of the origination of pre-mammalian organic species?\"\n-- is easily answered. One is the shadowy prototype of the other,\nthe preliminary, hardly defined, and evanescent sketch on the\ncanvas, of objects, which are destined to receive the final and\nvivid\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 257 THE CONTRADICTIONS OF SCIENCE.\n\nform under the brush of the painter. The fish evolved into an\namphibian -- a frog -- in the *shadows *of ponds, and man\npassed through all his metamorphoses on this Globe in the Third\nRound as he did in this, his Fourth Cycle. The Third Round types\ncontributed to the formation of the types in this one. On strict\nanalogy, the cycle of Seven Rounds in their work of the gradual\nformation of man through every kingdom of Nature, are repeated\non a microscopical scale in the first seven months of gestation\nof a future human being. Let the student think over and work out\nthis analogy. As the seven months' old unborn baby, though quite\nready, yet needs two months more in which to acquire strength\nand consolidate; so man, having perfected his evolution during\nseven Rounds, remains two periods more in the womb of mother-Nature\nbefore he is born, or rather reborn a Dhyani, still more perfect\nthan he was before he launched forth as a Monad on the newly built\nchain of worlds. Let the student ponder over this mystery, and\nthen he will easily convince himself that, as there are also physical\nlinks between many classes, so there are precise domains wherein\nthe astral merges into physical evolution. Of this Science breathes\nnot one word. Man has evolved with and from the monkey, it says.\nBut now see the contradiction.\n\nHuxley proceeds to point out plants, ferns, club mosses, some\nof them generically identical with those now living, which are\nmet with in the carboniferous epoch, for: -- \"The cone of\nthe oolitic *Araucaria *is hardly distinguishable from\nthat of existing species. . . . . Subkingdoms of animals yield\nthe same instances. The *globigerina *of the Atlantic soundings\nis identical with the cretaceous species of the same genus . .\n. the tabulate corals of the Silurian epoch are wonderfully like\nthe millepores of our own seas. . . . *The arachnida,*\nthe highest group of which, the scorpions, is represented in the\ncoal by a genus differing only from its living congeners only\nin . . . the eyes,\" etc., etc.; all of which may be closed\nwith Dr. Carpenter's authoritative statement about the *Foraminifera.\n*\"There is no evidence,\" he says, \"of any fundamental\nmodification or advance in the Foraminiferous type from the palaeozoic\nperiod to the present time. . . . The Forminiferous Fauna of our\nown series probably present a greater range of variety than existed\nat any previous period; but *there is no indication of any\ntendency to elevation towards a higher type.*\"* *(\"Introduction\nto the study of the Forminifera,\" p. xi.)\n\nNow, if there is no indication of change in the Forminifera, a\n*protozoon *of the lowest type of life, mouthless and eyeless,\nexcept its greater variety now than before, man, who is on the\nuppermost rung of the ladder of being, indicates still less change,\nas we have seen; the skeleton of his Palaeolithic ancestor being\neven found\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 258 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nsuperior in some respects to his present frame. Where is, then,\nthe claimed uniformity of law, the *absolute rule *for\none species shading off into another, and, by insensible gradations,\ninto higher types? We see Sir William Thomson admitting as much\nas 400,000,000 of years in the earth's history, since the surface\nof the globe became sufficiently cool to permit of the presence\nof living things;\" and during that enormous lapse of time\nin the Oolitic period alone, the so-called \"age of reptiles,\"\nwe find a most extraordinary variety and abundance of Saurian\nforms, the Amphibian type reaching *its highest developments.\n*We learn of Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri in the lakes and\nrivers, and of winged crocodiles or lizards flying in the air.\nAfter which, in the Tertiary period \"we find the Mammalian\ntype exhibiting remarkable divergences from previously existing\nforms . . . . Mastodons, Megatheriums, and other unwieldy denizens\nof the ancient forests and plains; and subsequently,\" are\nnotified of -*- *\"*the gradual modification of\none of the ramifications *of the Quadrumanous order, *into\nthose beings from whom primeval man himself may claim to have\nbeen evolved.*\"* *(\"The Beginnings of Life.\")\n\nHe *may*; but no one, except materialists, can see why\nhe should; as there is not the slightest necessity for it, nor\nis such an evolution warranted by facts, for those most interested\nin the proofs thereof confess their utter failure to find one\nsingle fact to support their theory. There is no need for the\nnumberless types of life to represent the members of one progressive\nseries. They are \"the products of various and different evolutional\ndivergences, taking place now in one direction and now in another.\"\nTherefore it is far more justifiable to say that the monkey evolved\ninto the Quadrumanous order, than that primeval man, who has *remained\nstationary in his human specialization ever since his fossil is\nfound in the oldest strata, *and of whom no variety is found\nsave in colour and facial type -- has developed from a common\nancestor together with the ape.\n\nThat man originates like other animals in a cell and develops\n\"through stages undistinguishable from those of fish, reptile,\nand mammal until the cell attains the highly specialized development\nof the quadrumanous and *at last the human type,*\"*\n*is an Occult axiom thousands of years old. The Kabalistic\naxiom: \"A stone becomes a plant; a plant a beast; a beast\na man; a man a God,\" holds good throughout the ages. Haeckel,\nin his *Shopfungsgeschichte, *shows a double drawing representing\ntwo embryos -- that of a dog six weeks old, and that of a man,\neight weeks. The two, except the slight difference in the head,\nlarger and wider about the brain in the man, are\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* \"*Trans. *of Geolog. Soc. of Glasgow,\" vol.\niii. Very strangely, however, he has just changed his opinion.\nThe sun, he says, is only 15,000,000 old.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 259 IDENTITY OF HUMAN AND ANIMAL EMBRYOS.\n\nundistinguishable. \"In fact, we may say that every human\nbeing passes through the stage of fish and reptile before arriving\nat that of mammal and finally of man. If we take him up at the\nmore advanced stage where the embryo has already passed the reptilian\nform . . . for a considerable time, the line of development remains\nthe same as that of other mammalia. The rudimentary limbs are\nexactly similar, the five fingers and toes develop in the same\nway, and the resemblance after the first four weeks' growth *between\nthe embryo of a man and a dog is such that it is scarcely possible\nto distinguish them. *Even at the age of eight weeks the embryo\nman is an animal with a tail hardly to be distinguished from an\nembryo puppy\" (\"Modern Science,\" etc., p. 171).\n\nWhy, then, not make man and dog evolve from a common ancestor,\nor from a reptile -- *a Naga, *instead of coupling man\nwith the quadrumana? This would be just as logical as the other,\nand more so. The shape and the stages of the human embryo have\nnot changed since historical times, and these metamorphoses were\nknown to AEsculapius and Hippocrates as well as to Mr. Huxley.\nTherefore, since the Kabalists had remarked it since prehistoric\ntimes, it is no new discovery. In \"Isis,\" Vol. I., 389,\nit is noticed and half explained.\n\nAs the embryo of man has no more of the ape in it than of any\nother mammal, but *contains in itself the totality of the kingdoms\nof nature, *and since it seems to be \"a persistent type\"\nof life, far more so than even the Foraminifera, it seems as illogical\nto make him evolve from the ape as it would be to trace his origin\nto the frog or the dog. Both Occult and Eastern philosophies believe\nin evolution, which Manu and Kapila* give with far more clearness\nthan any scientist does at present. No need to repeat that which\nwas fully debated in *Isis Unveiled, *as the reader may\nfind all these arguments and the description of the basis on which\nall the Eastern doctrines of Evolution rested, in our earlier\nbooks.** But no Occultist can accept the unreasonable proposition\nthat all the now existing forms, \"from the structureless\nAmoeba to man,\" are the direct lineal descendants of organisms\nwhich lived millions and millions of years before the birth of\nman, in the pre-Silurian epochs, in the sea or land-\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Hence the philosophy in the allegory of the 7, 10, and finally\n21 Prajapati, Rishis, Munis, etc., who all are made the *fathers\n*of various things and beings. The order of the seven classes\nor orders of plants, animals, and even inanimate things, given\nat random in the Puranas, is found in several commentaries in\nthe correct rotation. Thus, Prithu is the father of the Earth.\nHe *milks her, *and makes her bear every kind of grain\nand vegetable, all enumerated and specified. Kasyapa is the father\nof all the reptiles, snakes, demons, etc., etc.\n\n** See Vol. I. 152,* et seq., *about the tree of evolution\n-- The \"Mundane Tree.\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 260 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nmud. The Occultists believe in an *inherent law *of progressive\n*development.* *Mr. Darwin never did, and says so himself.\n\nOn page 145 of the \"Origin of Species\" we find him stating\nthat, since *there can be no advantage *\"to the infusorian\nanimalcule or an intestinal worm . . . to become highly organized,\"\ntherefore, \"natural selection,\" *not including necessarily\nprogressive development -- *leaves* *the animalcule\nand the worm (the \"persistent types\") quiet.\n\nThere does not appear much *uniform *law in such behaviour\nof Nature; and it looks more like the discriminative action of\nsome *Super*-Natural selection; perhaps, that aspect of\n*Karma, *which Eastern Occultists would call the \"Law\nof Retardation,\" may have something to do with it.\n\nBut there is every reason to doubt whether Mr. Darwin himself\never gave such an importance to *his *law -- as is given\nto it now by his atheistic followers. The knowledge of the various\nliving forms in the geological periods that have gone by is very\nmeagre. The reasons given for this by Dr. Bastian are very suggestive:\n(1) On account of the imperfect manner in which the several forms\nmay be represented in the strata pertaining to the period; (2)\non account of the extremely limited nature of the explorations\nwhich have been made in these imperfectly representative strata;\nand (3) because so many parts of the record are absolutely inaccessible\nto us -- nearly all beneath the Silurian system having been blotted\nout by time, whilst those two-thirds of the earth's surface in\nwhich the remaining strata are to be found are now covered over\nby seas. Hence Mr. Darwin says himself: --\n\n\"For my part, following out Lyell's metaphor, I look at the\ngeological record as a history of the world imperfectly kept,\nand written in a changing dialect; *of this history we possess\nthe last volume alone, *relating only to two or three countries.\nOf this volume, *only here and there a short chapter has been\npreserved, *and of each page *only here and there a few\nlines.*\"\n\nIt is not on such meagre data, certainly, that the last word of\nScience can be said. Nor is it on any ground of human pride or\nunreasonable belief in man's representing even here on earth --\n(in *our *period, perhaps) -- the highest type of life,\nthat Occultism denies that all the preceding forms of human life\nbelonged to types lower than our own, for it is not so. But simply\nbecause the \"missing link,\" such as to prove the existing\ntheory undeniably, will never be found by palaeontologists. Believing\nas we do that man has evolved from, and passed through, (during\nthe preceding Rounds) the lowest forms of every life, vegetable\nand animal, on earth, there is nothing very degrading in the idea\nof having the orangoutang as an ancestor of our physical form.\nQuite the reverse; as it\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Checked and modified, however, by the *Law of Retardation,\n*which imposes a restriction on the advance of all species\nwhen a Higher Type makes its appearance.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 261 NATURE IS UNIFORM.\n\nwould forward the Occult doctrine with regard to the final evolution\nof everything in terrestrial nature into man, most irresistibly.\nOne may even enquire how it is that biologists and anthropologists,\nhaving once firmly accepted the theory of the descent of man from\nthe ape -- how it is that they have hitherto left untouched the\nfuture evolution of the existing apes into man? This is only a\nlogical sequence of the first theory, unless Science would make\nof man a privileged being, and his evolution a *non*-precedent\nin nature, quite a *special *and unique case. And that\nis what all this leads physical Science to. The reason, however,\nwhy the Occultists reject the Darwinian, and especially the Haeckelian,\nhypothesis is because it is the ape which is, in sober truth,\na special and unique instance, not man. The pithecoid is *an\naccidental creation, *a forced growth, the result of an unnatural\nprocess.\n\nThe occult doctrine, is, we think, more logical. It teaches a\ncyclic, never varying law in nature, the latter having no personal,\n\"special design,\" but acting on a uniform plan that\nprevails through the whole manvantaric period and deals with the\nland worm as it deals with man. Neither the one nor the other\nhave sought to come into being, hence both are under the same\nevolutionary law, and both have to progress according to Karmic\nlaw. Both have started from the same neutral centre of Life and\nboth have to re-merge into it at the consummation of the cycle.\n\nIt is not denied that in the preceding Round man *was *a\ngigantic apelike creature; and when we say \"man\" we\nought perhaps to say, the rough mould that was developing for\nthe use of man in this Round only -- the middle, or the transition\npoint of which we have hardly reached. Nor was man what he is\nnow during the first two and a half Root-races. That point he\nreached, as said before, only 18,000,000 years ago, during the\nsecondary period, as we claim.\n\nTill then he was, according to tradition and Occult teaching,\n\"a god on earth who had fallen into matter,\" or generation.\nThis may or may not be accepted, since the Secret Doctrine does\nnot impose itself as an infallible dogma; and since, whether its\nprehistoric records are accepted or rejected, it has nothing to\ndo with the question of the *actual *man and his inner\nnature, the Fall mentioned above having left no original sin on\nHumanity. But all this has been sufficiently dealt with.\n\nFurthermore, we are taught that the transformations through which\nman passed on the descending arc -- which is centrifugal for spirit\nand centripetal for matter -- and those he prepares to go through,\nhenceforward, on his ascending path, which will reverse the direction\nof the two forces -- viz., matter will become centrifugal and\nspirit centripetal -- that all such transformations *are next\nin store for the anthropoid ape also, *all those, at any rate,\nwho have reached the remove next to man in this\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 262 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nRound -- and these will all be men in the Fifth Round, as present\nmen inhabited ape-like forms in the Third, the preceding Round.\n\nBehold, then, in the modern denizens of the great forests of Sumatra\nthe degraded and *dwarfed *examples -- \"blurred copies,\"\nas Mr. Huxley has it -- of ourselves, as we (the majority of mankind)\nwere in the earliest sub-races of the Fourth Root-race during\nthe period of what is called the \"Fall into generation.\"\nThe ape we know is not the product of natural evolution but an\n*accident, *a cross-breed between an animal being, or form,\nand man. As has been shown in the present volume (anthropogenesis),\nit is the speechless animal that first started sexual connection,\nhaving been the first to separate into males and females. Nor\nwas it intended by Nature that man should follow the bestial example\n-- as shown by the comparatively painless procreation of their\nspecies by the animals, and the terrible suffering and danger\nof the same in the woman. The Ape is, indeed, as remarked in *Isis\nUnveiled *(Vol. **II** 278) \"a transformation of species\nmost directly connected with that of the human family -- *a\nhybrid branch engrafted on their own stock before the final perfection\nof the latter*\" -- or man. The apes are millions of years\nlater than the speaking human being, and are the latest contemporaries\nof our Fifth Race. Thus, it is most important to remember that\nthe *Egos *of the apes are entities compelled by their\nKarma to incarnate in the animal forms, which resulted from the\nbestiality of the *latest *Third and the earliest Fourth\nRace men. They are entities who had already reached the \"human\nstage\" before this Round. Consequently, they form an exception\nto the general rule. The numberless traditions about Satyrs are\nno fables, but represent an extinct race of animal men. The animal\n\"Eves\" were their foremothers, and the human \"Adams\"\ntheir forefathers; *hence the Kabalistic allegory of Lilith\nor Lilatu, *Adam's *first *wife, whom the Talmud describes\nas a *charming *woman,* with long wavy hair, i.e.-*-\na female hairy animal of a character now unknown, still a female\nanimal, who in the Kabalistic and Talmudic allegories is called\nthe female reflection of Samael, Samael-Lilith, or man-animal\nunited, a being called *Hayo Bischat, *the Beast or Evil\nBeast (*Zohar*)*. *It is from this unnatural union\nthat the present apes descended. The latter are truly \"speechless\nmen,\" and will become speaking animals (or men of a lower\norder) in the Fifth Round, while the adepts of a certain school\nhope that some of the Egos of the apes of a higher intelligence\nwill reappear at the close of the Sixth Root-race. What their\nform will be is of secondary consideration. The form means nothing.\nSpecies and genera of the flora, fauna, and the highest animal,\nits crown -- man, change and vary according to the environments\nand climatic variations, not only with every Round, but every\nRoot-Race likewise, as well as after every geological\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 263 MILLIONS OF YEARS HENCE.\n\ncataclysm that puts an end to, or produces a turning point in\nthe latter. In the Sixth Root-Race the fossils of the Orang, the\nGorilla and the Chimpanzee will be those of extinct quadrumanous\nmammals; and new forms -- though fewer and ever wider apart as\nages pass on and the close of the Manvantara approaches -- will\ndevelop from the \"cast off\" types of the human races\nas they revert once again to astral, out of the mire of physical,\nlife. There were none before man, and they will be extinct before\nthe Seventh Race develops. Karma will lead on the monads of the\nunprogressed men of our race and lodge them in the newly evolved\nhuman frames of the thus physiologically regenerated baboon. (But\nsee Part III., *Addenda*.)\n\nThis will take place, of course, millions of years hence. But\nthe picture of this cyclic precession of all that lives and breathes\nnow on earth, of each species in its turn, is a true one, and\nneeds no \"special creation\" or miraculous formation\nof man, beast, and plant *ex nihilo.*\n\nThis is how Occult Science explains the absence of any link between\nape and man, and shows the former evolving from the latter.\n\n-------\n\n[[This page continued in next section]]\n\nNext Section\n\nContents",
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