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    "slug": "vol-2-anthropogenesis",
    "name": "Volume II — Anthropogenesis"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 41,
    "slug": "91-i-archaic-or-modern-anthropology-645",
    "title": "I. ARCHAIC, OR MODERN ANTHROPOLOGY? ... 645",
    "of": 49,
    "words": 5467,
    "text": "## I. ARCHAIC, OR MODERN ANTHROPOLOGY? ... 645\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, vol 2, pt 3, ch 1\n\n###### The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 2\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page 643]]\n\n##### BOOK II. -- PART III.\nADDENDA.\n\n#### SCIENCE AND THE SECRET\nDOCTRINE CONTRASTED.\n\n\"The knowledge of this nether world --\n\nSay, friend, what is it, false or true?\n\nThe false, what mortal cares to know?\n\nThe true, what mortal ever knew?\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page 644]]\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n-------\n\n####### §§ PAGE\n\nI. ARCHAIC OR MODERN ANTHROPOLOGY? ... 645\n\n**-------**\n\nII. **T**HE **A**NCESTORS **M**ANKIND IS **O**FFERED\nBY **S**CIENCE ... 656\n\nPlastidular Souls, and Conscious Nerve-Cells ... 670\n\n-------\n\nIII. **T**HE **F**OSSIL **R**ELICS OF **M**AN AND\nTHE **A**NTHROPOID **A**PE ... 675\n\nWestern Evolutionism: the comparative Anatomy of Man and Ape ...\n680\n\nDarwinism and the Antiquity of Man: the Anthropoids and their\nAncestry ... 685\n\n-------\n\nIV. **O**N THE **D**URATION OF **G**EOLOGICAL **P**ERIODS,\n**R**ACE **C**YCLES, AND THE **A**NTIQUITY OF **M**AN\n... 690\n\nModern Scientific Speculations thereon ... 694\n\nOn Chains of Planets and their Plurality ... 699\n\nEsoteric Geological Chronology ... 709\n\n-------\n\nV. **O**RGANIC **E**VOLUTION -- **C**REATIVE **C**ENTRES\n... 731\n\nThe Origin and Evolution of the Mammalia ... 734\n\nThe European Palaeolithic Races ... 738\n\n-------\n\nVI. **G**IANTS, **C**IVILIZATIONS, AND **S**UBMERGED\n**C**ONTINENTS TRACED IN **H**ISTORY ... 742\n\n-------\n\nVII. **S**CIENTIFIC AND **G**EOLOGICAL **P**ROOFS OF\nTHE **E**XISTENCE OF SEVERAL **S**UBMERGED **C**ONTINENTS\n... 778\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 645 THE NEW MASTERS OF PROTESTANTISM.\n\n#### ADDENDA TO BOOK II.\n\n##### § I.\nARCHAIC, OR MODERN ANTHROPOLOGY?\n\n**W**HENEVER the question of the origin of man is offered seriously\nto an unbiassed, honest, and earnest man of science, the answer\ncomes invariably: -- \"**W**E DO NOT KNOW.\" De Quatrefages,\nin his agnostic attitude, is one of such anthropologists.\n\nThis does not imply that the rest of the men of science are neither\nfair-minded nor honest, as in such case our remark would be questionably\ndiscreet. But, it is estimated that 75 per cent. of European Scientists\nare Evolutionists. Are these representatives of modern thought\nall guilty of flagrant misrepresentation of the facts? No one\nsays this -- but there are a few very exceptional cases. However,\nthe Scientists in their anti-clerical enthusiasm and despair of\nany alternative theory to Darwinism, except that of \"special\ncreation,\" are unconsciously insincere in \"forcing\"\na hypothesis the elasticity of which is inadequate, and which\nresents the severe strain to which it is now subjected. Insincerity\non the same subject is, however, patent in ecclesiastical circles.\nBishop Temple has come forward as a thorough-going supporter of\nDarwinism in his \"Religion and Science.\" This clerical\nwriter goes so far as to regard *Matter *-- after receiving\nits \"primal impress\" -- as the unaided evolver of all\ncosmic phenomena. This view only differs from that of Haeckel,\nin postulating a hypothetical deity at \"the back of beyont,\"\na deity which stands entirely aloof from the interplay of forces.\nSuch a metaphysical entity is no more the Theological God than\nthat of Kant. Bishop Temple's truce with Materialistic Science\nis, in our opinion, impolitic -- apart from the fact that it involves\na total rejection of the Biblical cosmogony. In the presence of\nthis display of flunkeyism before the materialism of our \"learned\"\nage, we Occultists can but smile. But how about loyalty to the\nMasters such theological truants profess to serve, Christ, and\nChristendom at large?\n\nHowever, we have no desire, for the present, to throw down the\ngauntlet to the clergy, our business being now with materialistic\nScience alone. The latter answers to our question, in the person\nof its best representatives \"We do not know;\" -- yet\nthe majority of these act as though Omniscience was their heirloom,\nand they knew all things.\n\nFor, indeed, this negative reply has not prevented the majority\nof Scientists from speculating on that question, each seeking\nto have his\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 646 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nown special theory accepted to the exclusion of all others. Thus,\nfrom Maillet in 1748 down to Haeckel in 1870, theories on the\norigin of the human Race have differed as much as the personalities\nof their inventors themselves. Buffon, Bory de St. Vincent, Lamarck,\nE. G. St. Hilaire, Gaudry, Naudin, Wallace, Darwin, Owen, Haeckel,\nFilippi, Vogt, Huxley, Agassiz, etc., etc., each evolved a more\nor less scientific hypothesis of genesis. De Quatrefages arranges\nthem in two principal groups -- one holding to a *rapid, *and\nthe other to a very *gradual transmutation*;* *the*\n*former, favouring a new type (man) produced by a being entirely\ndifferent; the latter teaching the evolution of man by progressive\ndifferentiation.\n\nStrangely enough, it is from the most scientific of these authorities\nthat the most unscientific of all the theories upon the subject\nof the origin of man has hitherto emanated. This is so evident,\nthat the hour is rapidly approaching when the current teaching\nabout the descent of man from an Ape-like mammal will be regarded\nwith less respect than the formation of Adam out of clay, and\nof Eve out of Adam's rib. For --\n\n\"It is evident, especially after the most fundamental principles\nof Darwinism, that an organized being cannot be a descendant of\nanother whose development is in an inverse order to his own. .\n. . Consequently, in accordance with these principles *man cannot\nbe considered as the descendant of any simian type whatever.*\"*\n\nLucae's argument *versus *the Ape-theory, based on the different\nflexures of the bones constituting the axis of the skull in the\ncases of Man and the Anthropoids, is fairly discussed by Schmidt\n(\"*Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism,*\"* *p.\n290). He admits that \"*the ape as he grows becomes more\nbestial*;* man *. . . *more human,*\"* *and\nseems, indeed, to hesitate a moment before he passes on: *e.g*.,\n\"This flexure of the cranial axis may, therefore, still be\nemphasized as a human character, in contradistinction to the apes;\nthe peculiar characteristic of an order can *scarcely *be\nelicited from it; and especially as to the doctrine of descent,\nthis circumstance *seems *in no way decisive.\" The writer\nevidently is not a little disquieted at the argument. He assures\nus that it upsets any possibility of the present apes having been\nthe progenitors of mankind. But does it not also negative the\nbare possibility of the man and anthropoid having had a common\n-- though, so far, an absolutely theoretical -- ancestor.\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* \"*The Human Species*,\" p. 111, by de Quatrefages.\nThe respective developments of the human and Simian brains are\nreferred to. \"In the ape the temporo-spheroidal convolutions,\nwhich form the middle lobe, make their appearance and are completed\nbefore the anterior convolutions which form the frontal lobe.\nIn man, the frontal convolutions are, on the contrary, the first\nto appear, and those of the middle lobe are formed later.\"\n(*Ibid.*)\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 647 THE FALLACIES OF MODERN SCIENTISTS.\n\nEven \"Natural Selection\" itself is with every day more\nthreatened. The deserters from the Darwinian camp are many, and\nthose who were at one time its most ardent disciples are, owing\nto new discoveries, slowly but steadily preparing to turn over\na new leaf. In the \"Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society\"\nfor October, 1886, one can read as follows: --\n\n\"**P**HYSIOLOGICAL **S**ELECTION. -- Mr. G. J. Romanes\nfinds certain difficulties in regarding natural selection as a\ntheory for the origin of adaptive structures. He proposes to replace\nit by what he calls physiological selection, or the segregation\nof the fit. His view is based on the extreme sensitiveness of\nthe reproductive system to small changes in the conditions of\nlife, and he thinks that variations in the direction of greater\nor less sterility must frequently occur in wild species. If the\nvariation be such that the reproductive system, while showing\nsome degree of sterility with the parent form, continues to be\nfertile within the limits of the varietal form, the variation\nwould neither be swamped by intercrossing nor die out on account\nof sterility. When a variation of this kind occurs, the physiological\nbarrier must divide the species into two parts. . . . . The author,\nin fine, regards mutual sterility, not as one of the effects of\nspecific differentiation, but as the cause of it.\"*\n\nAn attempt is made to show the above to be a complement of, and\nsequence to, the Darwinian theory. This is a *clumsy *attempt\nat best. The public will soon be made to believe that Mr. C. Dixon's\n\"*Evolution without Natural Selection*\"* *is\nalso Darwinism -- expanded, as the author certainly claims it\nto be!\n\nBut it is like splitting the body of a man into three pieces or\nvarious portions of man, and then maintaining that each portion\nis the identical man as he was before; only -- expanded. Yet the\nauthor states on p. 79: -- \"Let it be clearly understood\nthat not one single syllable in the foregoing pages has been written\nantagonistic to Darwin's theory of Natural Selection. All I have\ndone is to explain certain phenomena . . . . the more one studies\nDarwin's works, the more one is convinced of the truth of his\nhypothesis.\" (!!)\n\nAnd before this, on p. 48, he alludes to: -- \"the overwhelming\narray of facts which Darwin gave in support of his hypothesis,\nand which triumphantly carried the theory of Natural Selection\nover all obstacles and objections.\"\n\nThis does not prevent the learned author, however, from upsetting\nthis theory as \"triumphantly,\" and from even openly\ncalling his work\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* To this an editorial remark adds that an \"**F.J.B.**,\"\nin the *Athenaeum -- *(No. 3069, Aug. 21, 1886, pp. 242-3)\npoints out that naturalists have long recognised that there are\n\"morphological\" and \"physiological\" species.\nThe former have their origin in men's minds, the latter in a series\nof changes sufficient to affect the internal as well as the external\norgans of a group of allied individuals. The \"physiological\nselection\" of morphological species is a confusion of ideas;\nthat of physiological species \"a redundancy of terms.\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 648 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n\"Evolution *without *a Natural Selection,\" or,\nin so many words, with Darwin's fundamental idea knocked to atoms\nin it.\n\nAs to Natural Selection itself, the utmost misconception prevails\namong many present-day thinkers who tacitly accept the conclusions\nof Darwinism. It is, for instance, a mere device of rhetoric to\ncredit \"Natural Selection\" with the power of *originating\n*species. \"Natural Selection\" is no Entity; but a\nconvenient phrase for describing the mode in which the survival\nof the fit and the elimination of the unfit among organisms is\nbrought about in the struggle for existence. Every group of organisms\ntends to multiply beyond the means of subsistence, the constant\nbattle for life -- the \"struggle to obtain enough to eat\nand to escape being eaten\" added to the environmental conditions\n-- necessitating a perpetual weeding out of the unfit. The *elite\n*of any stock thus sorted out, propagate the species and transmit\ntheir organic characteristics to their descendants. All useful\nvariations are thus perpetuated, and a progressive improvement\nis effected. But Natural Selection, in the writer's humble opinion,\n\"Selection, *as a Power,*\"* *is in reality\na pure myth; especially when resorted to as an explanation of\nthe origin of species. It is merely a representative term expressive\nof the manner in which \"useful variations\" are stereotyped\nwhen produced. Of itself, \"it\" *can produce nothing,\n*and only operates on the rough material presented to \"it.\"\nThe real question at issue is: what **C**AUSE --\ncombined with other secondary causes -- produces the \"variations\"\nin the organisms themselves. Many of these secondary causes are\npurely physical, climatic, dietary, etc., etc. Very well. But\nbeyond the secondary aspects of organic evolution, a deeper principle\nhas to be sought for. The materialist's \"spontaneous variations,\"\nand \"*accidental *divergencies\" are self-contradictory\nterms in a universe of \"Matter, Force and **N**ECESSITY.\"\nMere variability of type, apart from the supervisory presence\nof a quasi-intelligent impulse, is powerless to account for the\nstupendous complexities and marvels of the human body for instance.\nThe insufficiency of the Darwinists' mechanical theory has been\nexposed at length by Dr. Von Hartmann among other purely negative\nthinkers. It is an abuse of the reader's intelligence to write,\nas does Haeckel, of *blind* indifferent cells, \"arranging\nthemselves into organs.\" The esoteric solution of the origin\nof animal species is given elsewhere.\n\nThose purely *secondary *causes of differentiation, grouped\nunder the head of sexual selection, natural selection, climate,\nisolation, etc., etc., mislead the Western Evolutionist and offer\nno real explanation whatever of the \"whence\" of the\n\"ancestral types\" which served as the* starting point\n*for physical development. The truth is that the\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 649 THE OCCULT AND THE MODERN DOCTRINES.\n\ndifferentiating \"causes\" known to modern science only\ncome into operation after the *physicalization of the primeval\nanimal root-types out of the astral. *Darwinism only meets\nEvolution at its midway point -- that is to say when astral evolution\nhas given place to the play of the ordinary physical forces with\nwhich our present senses acquaint us. But even here the Darwinian\nTheory, even with the \"expansions\" recently attempted,\nis inadequate to meet the facts of the case. The underlying physiological\nvariation in species -- one to which all other laws are subordinate\nand secondary -- is a sub-conscious intelligence pervading matter,\nultimately traceable to a REFLECTION of the Divine and Dhyan-Chohanic\nwisdom.* A not altogether dissimilar conclusion has been arrived\nat by so well known a thinker as Ed. von Hartmann, who, despairing\nof the efficacy of *unaided *Natural Selection, regards evolution\nas intelligently guided by the **U**NCONSCIOUS (the\nCosmic *Logos *of Occultism). But the latter acts only mediately\nthrough **F**OHAT, or Dhyan-Chohanic energy, and\nnot quite in the direct manner which the great pessimist describes.\n\nIt is this divergence among men of Science, their mutual, and\noften their *self*-contradictions, that gave the writer of\nthe present volumes the courage to bring to light other and older\nteachings -- if only as hypotheses for *future *scientific\nappreciation. Though not in any way very learned in modern sciences,\nso evident, even to the humble recorder of this archaic clearing,\nare the said scientific fallacies and gaps, that she determined\nto touch upon all these, in order to place the two teachings on\nparallel lines. For Occultism, it is a question of self-defence,\nand nothing more.\n\nSo far, the \"Secret Doctrine\" has concerned itself with\nmetaphysics, pure and simple. It has now landed on Earth, and\nfinds itself within the domain of physical science and practical\nanthropology, or those branches of study which materialistic Naturalists\nclaim as their rightful domain, coolly asserting, furthermore,\nthat the higher and more perfect the working of the Soul, the\nmore amenable it is to the analysis and explanations *of the\nzoologist and the physiologist alone.* (*Haeckel on *\"*Cell-Souls\nand Soul-Cells.*\") This stupendous pretension comes from\none, who, to prove his pithecoid descent, has not hesitated to\ninclude among the ancestors of man the *Lemuridae*;* *which\nhave been promoted by him to the rank of *Prosimiae, indeciduate\nmammals, *to which he very incorrectly attributes a *decidua*\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* The* *\"*principle of perfectibility*\"*\n*of Nageli; von de Baer's \"*striving towards the purpose*\";*\n*Braun's \"*Divine breath *as the inward impulse in\nthe evolutionary history of Nature\"; Professor Owen's \"*tendency\nto perfectibility, *etc.,\" are all veiled manifestations\nof the universal guiding **F**OHAT, rich with the\nDivine and Dhyan-Chohanic thought.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 650 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nand a discoidal placenta.* For this Haeckel was taken severely\nto task by de Quatrefages, and criticised by his own brother materialists\nand agnostics, as great, if not greater, authorities than himself,\nnamely, by Virchow and du Bois-Reymond.**\n\nSuch opposition notwithstanding, Haeckel's wild theories are,\nto this day, called scientific and logical by some. The mysterious\nnature of Consciousness, of Soul, Spirit in Man being now explained\nas a mere advance on the functions of the protoplasmic molecules\nof the lively *Protista, *and the gradual evolution and growth\nof human mind and \"social instincts\" toward civilization\nhaving to be traced back to their origin in the civilization of\nants, bees, and other creatures, the chances left for an impartial\nhearing of the doctrines of archaic Wisdom, are few indeed. The\n*educated *profane is told that \"the social instincts\nof the lower animals have, of late, been regarded *as being\nclearly the origin of morals, *even of those of man\" (!)\nand that our divine consciousness, our soul, intellect, and aspirations\nhave \"worked their way up from the lower stages of the simple\ncell-soul\" of the gelatinous Bathybius -- (*See Haeckel*'*s\n*\"*Present Position of Evolution*\"* Notes*)*,\n-- *and he seems to believe it. For such men, the metaphysics\nof Occultism must produce the effect that our grandest orchestral\nand vocal oratorios produce on the Chinaman: a sound that jars\nupon their nerves.\n\nYet, are our esoteric teachings about \"angels,\" the\nfirst three *pre*-animal human Races, and the downfall of\nthe Fourth, *on a lower level of fiction and self-delusion *than\nthe Haeckelian \"plastidular,\" or the inorganic \"molecular\nSouls of the *Protista*\"?* *Between the evolution\nof the spiritual nature of man from the above Amoebian Souls,\nand the alleged development of his physical frame from the protoplastic\ndweller in the Ocean slime, there is an abyss which will not be\neasily crossed by any man in the *full* possession of his\nintellectual faculties. Physical evolution, as modern Science\nteaches it, is a subject for open controversy; spiritual and moral\ndevelopment on the same lines is the insane dream of a crass materialism.\n\nFurthermore, past as well as present daily experience teaches\nthat no truth has ever been accepted by the learned bodies unless\nit dovetailed\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* *Vide infra, *M. de Quatrefages' *expose* of Haeckel,\nin § ii., \"The Ancestors Mankind is offered by Science.\"\n\n** Strictly speaking du Bois-Reymond is an *agnostic, *and\nnot a materialist. He has protested most vehemently against the\nmaterialistic doctrine, which affirms mental phenomena to be merely\nthe product of molecular motion. The most accurate *physiological\n*knowledge of the structure of the brain leaves us \"nothing\nbut matter in motion,\" he asserts; \"*we must go further,\n*and admit the utterly incomprehensible nature of the psychical\nprinciple which it is *impossible to regard *as a mere outcome\nof material causes.\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 651 AN EXCHANGE OF MUTUAL COMPLIMENTS.\n\nwith the habitual preconceived ideas of their professors. \"The\ncrown of the innovator is a crown of thorns\": -- said G.\nSt. Hilaire. It is only that which fits in with popular hobbies\nand accepted notions that as a general rule gains ground. Hence\nthe triumph of the Haeckelian ideas, notwithstanding their being\nproclaimed by Virchow, du Bois-Reymond, and others as the \"*testimonium\npaupertatis *of natural Science.\"\n\nDiametrically opposed as may be the materialism of the German\nEvolutionists to the spiritual conceptions of Esoteric philosophy,\nradically inconsistent as is their accepted anthropological system\nwith the real facts of nature, -- the pseudo-idealistic bias now\ncolouring English thought is almost more pernicious. The pure\nmaterialistic doctrine admits of a direct refutation and appeal\nto the logic of facts. The idealism of the present day, not only\ncontrives to absorb, on the one hand, the basic negations of Atheism,\nbut lands its votaries in a tangle of *unreality, *which\nculminates in a practical Nihilism. Argument with such writers\nis almost out of the question. Idealists, therefore, will be still\nmore antagonistic to the Occult teachings now given than even\nthe Materialists. But as no worse fate can befall the exponents\nof Esoteric Anthropo-*Genesis* than being openly called by\ntheir foes by their old and time-honoured names of \"lunatics\"\nand \"ignoramuses,\" the present archaic theories may\nbe safely added to the many modern speculations, and bide their\ntime for their full or even partial recognition. Only, as the\nexistence itself of these \"archaic theories\" will probably\nbe denied, we have to give our best proofs and stand by them to\nthe bitter end.\n\nIn our race and generation the one \"temple in the Universe\"\nis in rare cases -- *within *us; but our body and mind have\nbeen too defiled by both Sin and Science to be outwardly *now*\nanything better than a fane of iniquity and error. And here our\nmutual position -- that of Occultism and Modern Science -- ought\nto be once for all defined.\n\nWe, Theosophists, would willingly bow before such men of learning\nas the late Prof. Balfour Stewart, Messrs. Crookes, Quatrefages,\nWallace, Agassiz, Butlerof, and several others, though we may\nnot agree, from the stand-point of esoteric philosophy, with all\nthey say. But nothing could make us consent to even a show of\nrespect for the opinions of other men of science, such as Haeckel,\nCarl Vogt, or Ludwig Buchner, in Germany; or even of Mr. Huxley\nand his co-thinkers in materialism in England -- the colossal\nerudition of the first named, notwithstanding. Such men are simply\nthe intellectual and moral murderers of future generations; especially\nHaeckel, whose crass materialism often rises to the height of\nidiotic *naivetes *in his reasonings. One has but to read\nhis \"Pedigree of Man, and Other Essays\" (*Aveling*'*s\ntransl.*)* *to feel a desire, in the words of Job, that\nhis\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 652 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nremembrance should perish from the earth, and that he \"shall\nhave no name in the streets.\" Hear him deriding the idea\nof the origin of the human race \"as a supernatural (?) phenomenon,\"\nas one \"that could not result from *simple mechanical causes,\n*from* physical and chemical forces, *but requires the\ndirect intervention of a creative personality. . . \"\n\n. . . . \"Now the central point of Darwin's teaching,\"\n. . goes on the creator of the mythical *Sozura, *\"lies\nin this, that it demonstrates the simplest mechanical causes,\npurely physico-chemical phenomena of nature, as wholly sufficient\nto explain the highest and most difficult problems. Darwin puts\nin the place of *a conscious creative force, *building and\narranging the organic bodies of animals and plants on a designed\nplan, *a series of natural forces working blindly *(*or\nwe say*)* without aim, without design. *In place of an\narbitrary act of operation, we have a necessary law of Evolution\n. . . . \" (So had Manu and Kapila, and, at the same time,\nguiding, conscious and intelligent Powers). . . \"Darwin had\nvery wisely . . . put on one side the question as to the first\nappearance of life. But very soon that consequence, so full of\nmeaning, so wide reaching, was openly discussed by able and brave\nscientific men, such as Huxley, Carl Vogt, Ludwig Buchner. *A\nmechanical origin of the earliest living form, *was held as\nthe necessary sequence to Darwin's teaching . . and we are at\npresent concerned with a single consequence of the theory, *the\nnatural *origin of the human race through ALMIGHTY EVOLUTION\"\n(pp. 34, 37).\n\nTo which, unabashed by this scientific farrago, Occultism replies:\nin the course of Evolution, when the physical triumphed over,\nand nearly crushed under its weight, spiritual and mental evolutions,\nthe great gift of* Kriyasakti* *remained the heirloom of\nonly a few elect men in every age . . . . Spirit strove vainly\nto *manifest itself in its fulness in purely organic forms *(as\nhas been explained in Part I. of this Volume), and the faculty,\nwhich had been a natural attribute in the early humanity of the\nThird Race, became one of the class regarded as simply phenomenal\nby the Spiritualists and Occultists, and as *scientifically\nimpossible *by the materialists.\n\nIn our modern day the mere assertion that there exists a power\nwhich can create human forms -- ready-made *sheaths *for\nthe \"*conscious *monads\" or Nirmanakayas of past\nManvantaras to incarnate within -- is, of course, absurd, ridiculous!\nThat which is regarded as quite natural, on the other hand, is\nthe production of a Frankenstein's monster, *plus *moral\nconsciousness, religious aspirations, genius, and a feeling of\none's own immortal nature within one's self -- by \"physico-chemical\nforces, guided by blind Almighty Evolution\" (\"Pedigree\nof Man\").\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* For explanation of the term *Kriyasakti, *see Com. 2 in\nStanza 26.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 653 SCIENCE IS SILENT ON EVERY PROBLEM.\n\nAs to the origin of that man, not *ex-nihilo, *cemented by\na little red clay, but from a living divine Entity consolidating\nthe astral body with surrounding materials -- this conception\nis too absurd even to be mentioned in the opinion of the materialists.\nNevertheless, Occultists and Theosophists are ready to have their\nclaims and theories -- however unscientific and superstitious\nat first glance -- compared as to their intrinsic value and probability,\nwith those of the modern evolutionists. Hence the esoteric teaching\nis absolutely opposed to the Darwinian evolution, as *applied\nto man, and partially *so with regard to other species.\n\nIt would be interesting to obtain a glimpse of the mental representation\nof *Evolution *in the Scientific brain of a materialist.\nWhat *is*** E**VOLUTION? If asked to define\nthe full and *complete *meaning of the term, neither Huxley\nnor Haeckel will be able to do it any better than Webster does:\n\"the act of unfolding; the process of growth, development;\nas the evolution of a flower from a bud, or an animal from the\negg.\" Yet the bud must be traced through its parent-plant\nto the seed, and the egg to the animal or bird that laid it; or\nat any rate to the speck of protoplasm from which it expanded\nand grew. And both the *seed *and the *speck *must have\nthe latent potentialities in them for the reproduction and gradual\ndevelopment, the unfolding of the thousand and one forms or phases\nof evolution, through which they must pass before the flower or\nthe animal are fully developed? Hence, the future plan, if not\na DESIGN, *must be there. *Moreover, that *seed has to\nbe traced, *and its nature ascertained. Have the Darwinists\nbeen successful in this? Or will the Moneron be cast in our teeth?\nBut this atom of the Watery Abysses is *not* homogeneous\nmatter; and there must be something or somebody that had moulded\nand cast it into being.\n\nHere Science is once more silent. But since there is no Self-consciousness\nas yet in either speck, seed, or germ, according to both Materialists\nand Psychologists of the modern school -- Occultists agreeing\nin this for once with their natural enemies -- what is it that\nguides the force or forces so unerringly in this process of evolution?\n*Blind *force? As well call *blind *the brain which\nevolved in Haeckel his \"Pedigree of Man\" and other lucubrations.\nWe can easily conceive that the said brain lacks an important\ncentre or two. For, whoever knows anything of the anatomy of the\nhuman, or even of any animal, body, and is still an *atheist\n*and a *materialist, *must be \"hopelessly insane,\"\naccording to Lord Herbert, who rightly sees in the frame of man's\nbody and the coherence of its parts, something so strange and\nparadoxical that he holds it \"to be the greatest miracle\nof nature.\" *Blind* forces, \"and *no* design\"\nin anything under the Sun; when no *sane *man of Science\nwould hesitate to say that, even from the little he knows and\nhas hitherto discovered of the forces at work in Kosmos, he sees\nvery plainly\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 654 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nthat every part, every speck and atom are in harmony with their\nfellow atoms, and these with the whole, each having its distinct\nmission throughout the life-cycle. But, fortunately, the greatest,\nthe most eminent thinkers and Scientists of the day are now beginning\nto rise against this \"Pedigree,\" and even Darwin's *natural\nselection *theory, though its author had never, probably, contemplated\nsuch widely stretched conclusions. The remarkable work of the\nRussian Scientist N. T. Danilevsky -- \"Darwinism, a Critical\nInvestigation of the Theory\" -- upsets it completely and\nwithout appeal, and so does de Quatrefages in his last work. Our\nreaders are recommended to examine the learned paper by Dr. Bourges\n-- read by its author, a member of the Paris Anthropological Society\nat a recent official meeting of the latter -- called \"*Evolutionary\nPsychology*;* the Evolution of Spirit, etc.*\"*\n*in which he reconciles entirely the two teachings -- namely,\nthose of the physical and spiritual evolutions. He explains the\norigin of the variety of organic forms, made to fit their environments\nwith such evident intelligent design, by the existence and the\nmutual help and *interaction *of two principles in (manifest)\nnature, the inner Conscious Principle adapting itself to physical\nnature and the innate potentialities in the latter. Thus the French\nScientist has to return to our old friend -- *Archaeus, *or\nthe life-Principle -- without naming it, as Dr. Richardson has\ndone in England in his \"Nerve-Force,\" etc. The same\nidea was recently developed in Germany by Baron Hellenbach, in\nhis remarkable work, \"Individuality in the light of Biology\nand modern Philosophy.\"\n\nWe find the same conclusions arrived at in still another excellent\nvolume of another Russian deep thinker, N. N*. *Strachof\n-- who says in his \"Fundamental Conceptions of Psychology\nand Physiology\": -- \"The most clear, as the most familiar,\ntype of development may be found in our own mental or physical\nevolution, which has served others as a model to follow . . .\n. If organisms are *entities* .* *. . then it is only\njust to conclude and assert that the organic life strives to beget\npsychic life; but it would be still more correct and in accordance\nwith the spirit of these two categories of evolution to say, that\n*the true cause of organic life is the tendency of spirit to\nmanifest in substantial forms, to clothe itself in substantial\nreality. It is the highest form which contains the complete explanation\nof the lowest, never the reverse.*\"* *This is admitting,\nas Bourges does in the *Memoire *above quoted, the identity\nof this mysterious, integrally acting and organizing Principle\nwith the Self-Conscious and Inner Subject, which we call the **E**GO\nand the world at large -- the Soul. Thus, gradually, all the best\nScientists and Thinkers are approaching the Occultists in their\ngeneral conclusions.\n\nBut such metaphysically inclined men of Science are out of court\nand will hardly be listened to. Schiller, in his magnificent poem\non\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 655 THE ONE UNPARDONABLE SIN.\n\nthe Veil of Isis, makes the mortal youth who dared to lift the\nimpenetrable covering fall down dead after beholding naked Truth\nin the face of the stern goddess. Have some of our Darwinians,\nso tenderly united in natural selection and affinity, also gazed\nat the Saitic Mother bereft of her veils? One might almost suspect\nit after reading their theories. Their great intellects must have\ncollapsed while gauging too closely the uncovered face of Nature,\nleaving only the grey matter and ganglia in their brain, to respond\nto *blind* physico-chemical forces. At any rate Shakespeare's\nlines apply admirably to our modem Evolutionist who symbolizes\nthat \"proud man,\" who --\n\n\"*Dress*'*d in a little brief authority*;\n\n*Most ignorant of what he*'*s most assured,\n\n*His glassy essence -- like an angry ape,\n\nPlays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,\n\nAs make the Angels weep! . . . . \"\n\nThese have nought to do with the \"angels.\" Their only\nconcern is the human ancestor, the pithecoid Noah who gave birth\nto three sons -- the tailed Cynocephalus, the tailless Ape, and\nthe \"arboreal\" Palaeolithic man. On this point, they\nwill not be contradicted. Every doubt expressed is immediately\nset down as an attempt to cripple scientific inquiry. The insuperable\ndifficulty at the very foundation of the evolution theory, namely,\nthat no Darwinian is able to give even an approximate definition\nof the period *at *which, and the form *in* which, the\nfirst man appeared, is smoothed down to a trifling impediment,\nwhich is \"really of no account.\" Every branch of knowledge\nis in the same predicament, we are informed. The chemist bases\nhis most abstruse calculations simply \"upon a hypothesis\nof atoms and molecules, of which not one has ever been seen isolated,\nweighed, or defined. The electrician speaks of magnetic fluids\nwhich have never tangibly revealed themselves. No definite origin\ncan be assigned either to molecules or magnetism. Science cannot\nand does not pretend to any knowledge of the beginnings of law,\nmatter or life, . . .\" etc., etc. (*Knowledge, *January,\n1882.)\n\nAnd, withal, to reject a *scientific hypothesis, *however\nabsurd, is to commit the one unpardonable sin! We risk it.\n\n-------\n\nNext Section\n\nContents",
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