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    "slug": "vol-2-anthropogenesis",
    "name": "Volume II — Anthropogenesis"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 45,
    "slug": "95-c-esoteric-geological-chronology-709",
    "title": "(c) Esoteric Geological Chronology ... 709",
    "of": 49,
    "words": 10773,
    "text": "## (c) Esoteric Geological Chronology ... 709\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, vol 2, pt 3, ch 4 cont\n\n###### The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 2\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 709 SCIENCE AND OCCULTISM MAY YET AGREE.\n\n[[This page continued from previous section]]\n\n**C**.\n\n**S**UPPLEMENTARY **R**EMARKS ON **E**SOTERIC **G**EOLOGICAL\n**C**HRONOLOGY.\n\nIt seems, however, possible to calculate the *approximate *duration\nof the geological periods from the combined data of Science and\nOccultism now before us. Geology is, of course, able to determine\nalmost with certainty one thing -- the thickness of the several\ndeposits. Now, it also stands to reason that the time required\nfor the deposition of any stratum on a sea-bottom must bear a\nstrict proportion to the thickness of the mass thus formed. Doubtless\nthe *rate *of erosion of land and the sorting out of matter\non to ocean beds has varied from age to age, and cataclysmic changes\nof various kinds break the \"uniformity\" of ordinary\ngeological processes. *Provided, however, we have some definite\nnumerical basis on which to work, *our task is rendered less\ndifficult than it might at first sight appear to be. Making due\nallowance for variations in the rate of deposit, Professor Lefevre\ngives us the *relative *figures which sum up geological time.\nHe does not attempt to calculate the lapse of years since the\nfirst bed of the Laurentian rocks was deposited, but postulating\nthat time as = X, he presents us with the relative proportions\nin which the various periods stand to it. Let us premise our estimate\nby stating that, roughly speaking, the Primordial rocks are 70,000\nft., the Primary 42,000 ft., the Secondary 15,000 ft., the Tertiary\n5,000 ft., and the Quaternary some 500 ft. in thickness: --\n\n\"Dividing into an hundred parts the time, *whatever its\nactual length, *that has passed since the dawn of life on this\nearth (lower Laurentian strata), we shall be led to attribute\nto the primordial age more than half of the whole duration, say\n53.5; to the Primary 32.2; to the\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 710 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nSecondary 11.5; to the Tertiary 2.3; to the Quaternary 0.5 or\none-half per cent.\" (\"Philosophy,\" p. 481.)\n\nNow, as it is certain, on occult data, that the time which has\nelapsed since the first sedimentary deposits = 320,000,000 years,\nwe are able to infer that the: --\n\nROUGH APPROXIMATIONS.\n\nPrimordial lasted 171,200,000 years.\n\nLaurentian\n\nCambrian\n\nSilurian\n\nPrimary lasted 103,040,000 years\n\nDevonian\n\nCoal\n\nPermian\n\nSecondary lasted 36,800,000 years\n\nTriassic\n\nJurassic\n\nCretaceous\n\nTertiary lasted 7,360,000 years (probably in excess)\n\nEocene\n\nMiocene\n\nPliocene\n\nQuaternary lasted 1,600,000 years (probably in excess).\n\nSuch estimates harmonise with the statements of Esoteric Ethnology\nin almost every particular. The *Tertiary *Atlantean part-cycle,\nfrom the \"apex of glory\" of that Race in the early Eocene\nto the great mid-Miocene cataclysm, would appear to have lasted\nsome 3 1/2 to four million years. If the duration of the Quaternary\nis not rather (as seems likely) overestimated, the sinking of\nRuta and Daitya would be post-Tertiary. It is probable that the\nresults here given allow somewhat too long a period to both the\nTertiary and Quaternary, as the *Third Race *goes very far\nback into the Secondary Age. Nevertheless, the figures are most\nsuggestive.\n\nBut the argument from *geological evidence *being only in\nfavour of 100,000,000 years, let us compare *our* claims\nand teachings with those of* exact *science.\n\nMr. Edward Clodd,* in reviewing M. de Mortillet's work \"*Materiaux\npour l*'*Histoire de Homme,*\"* *which places\nman in the mid-Miocene period,** remarks that \"it would be\nin defiance of all that the doctrine of evolu-\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n** Knowledge, March *31*, *1882.\n\n** And who yet, in another work, \"*La Prehistorique Antiquite\nde l*'*Homme,*\"* *some twenty years ago, generously\nallowed only 230,000 years to our mankind. Since we learn now\nthat he places man \"in the mid-Miocene period,\" we must\nsay that the much respected Professor of Prehistoric Anthropology\n(in Paris) is somewhat contradictory and inconsistent, if not\n*naif* in his views.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 711 SECEDERS FROM DARWINISM.\n\ntion teaches, and moreover, win no support from believers in special\ncreation and the fixity of species, to seek for so highly specialized\na mammalian as man at an early stage in the life-history of the\nglobe.\" To this, one could answer: (*a*) the doctrine\nof evolution, as inaugurated by Darwin and developed by later\nevolutionists, is not only the reverse of* infallible, *but\nit is repudiated by several great men of science, *e.g*.,\nde Quatrefages, in France, and Dr. Weismann, an *ex*-evolutionist\nin Germany, and many others, the ranks of the *anti*-Darwinists\ngrowing stronger with every year;* and (*b*) truth to be\nworthy of its name, and remain truth and fact, hardly needs to\nbeg for support from any class or sect. For were it to *win\nsupport *from believers in special creation, it would never\ngain the favour of the evolutionists, and *vice versa. *Truth\nmust rest upon its own firm foundations of facts, and take its\nchances for recognition, when every prejudice in the way is disposed\nof. Though the question has been already fully considered in its\nmain aspects, it is, nevertheless, advisable to combat every so-called\n\"*scientific*\"* *objection as we go along,\nwhen making what are regarded as heretical and \"anti-scientific\"\nstatements.\n\nLet us briefly glance at the divergences between orthodox and\nesoteric science, on the question of the age of the globe and\nof man. With the two respective synchronistic tables before him,\nthe reader will be enabled to see at a glance the importance of\nthese divergences; and to perceive, at the same time, that it\nis not impossible -- nay, it is most likely -- that further discoveries\nin geology and the finding of fossil remains of man will force\nscience to confess that it is esoteric philosophy which is right\nafter all, or, at any rate, nearer to the truth.\n\n-------\n\n#### PARALLELISM OF LIFE.\n\n[[First Column]]\n\n**S**CIENTIFIC **H**YPOTHESES.\n\nScience divides the period of the globe's history, since the beginning\nof life on earth (or the Azoic age), into five main divisions\nor periods, according to Haeckel.**\n\n[[First Column continued on next page]]\n\n[[Second Column]]\n\n**E**SOTERIC **T**HEORY.\n\nLeaving the classification of the geological periods to Western\nScience, esoteric philosophy divides only the life-periods on\nthe globe. In the present* Manvantara *the actual period\nis separated into seven Kalpas and seven great human races. Its\nfirst Kalpa, answering to the \"Primordial Epoch,\" is\nthe age of the --\n\n[[Second Column continued on next page]]\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* The root and basic idea of the origin and transformation of\nspecies -- the* heredity *(of acquired faculties) seems to\nhave found lately very serious opponents in Germany. Du Bois-Reymond\nand Dr. Pffuger, the physiologists, besides other men of science\nas eminent as any, find insuperable difficulties and even impossibilities\nin the doctrine.\n\n*** History of Creation, p. *20.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 712 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n[[First Column continued from previous page]]\n\n**PRIMORDIAL** **E**POCH (Laurentian\nSystem, Cambrian System, Silurian System)\n\nThe Primordial Epoch is, science tells us, by no means devoid\nof vegetable and animal life. In the Laurentian deposits are found\nspecimens of the* Eozoon Canadense -*- a chambered shell.\nIn the Silurian are discovered sea-weeds (*algae*), molluscs,\ncrustacea, and lower marine organisms, also the first trace of\nfishes. The primordial Epoch shows algae, molluscs, crustacea,\npolyps, and marine organisms, etc., etc. Science teaches, therefore,\nthat marine life was present from the very beginnings of time,\nleaving us, however, to speculate for ourselves as to *how *life\nappeared on earth. If it rejects the Biblical \"Creation\"\n(as we do), why does it not give us another, approximately plausible\nhypothesis?\n\n**PRIMARY** (Devonian***, Coal, Permian)\n\n[[First Column continued on next page]]\n\n[[Second Column continued from previous page]]\n\n\"**PRIMEVAL**\"* (*Deva *or Divine\nmen, the \"Creators\" and Progenitors.**)\n\nThe Esoteric Philosophy agrees with the statement made by science\n(see parallel column), demurring, however, in one particular.\nThe 300,000,000 years of vegetable life (see \"Brahminical\nChronology\") preceded the \"Divine Men,\" or Progenitors.\nAlso, no teaching denies that there were traces of life *within*\nthe Earth besides the *Eozoon Canadense *in the Primordial\nEpoch. Only, whereas the said vegetation belonged to this Round,\nthe zoological relics now found in the Laurentian, Cambrian, and\nSilurian systems, so called, *are the relics of *the* Third\n*Round. At first *astral *like the rest, they consolidated\nand materialized *pari passu *with the NEW vegetation.\n\n\"**PRIMARY**\" -- Divine Progenitors, SECONDARY\nGROUPS, and the 2 1/2 races. \"Fern-forests, Sigillaria, Coniferae,\nfishes, first trace of reptiles.\" Thus saith modern science;\nthe esoteric doctrine repeats that which was said above. These\nare all relics of the preceding Round.**** Once, however, the\nprototypes are projected out of the astral envelope of the earth,\nan indefinite amount of modification ensues.\n\n[[Second Column continued on next page]]\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* The same names are retained as those given by science, to make\nthe parallels clearer. Our terms are quite different.\n\n** Let the student remember that the Doctrine teaches that there\nare seven degrees of *Devas *or \"Progenitors,\"\nor seven classes, from the most perfect to the less exalted.\n\n*** It may be said that we are inconsistent in not introducing\ninto this table a [[Footnote continued on next page]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 713 THE TWO SCIENCES CONTRASTED.\n\n[[First Column continued from previous page]]\n\n**S**ECONDARY (Triassic. Jurassic. Chalk or Cretaceous.)\n\nThis is the age of Reptiles, of the gigantic Megalosauri, Ichthyosauri,\nPlesiosauri, etc., etc. Science denies the presence of man in\nthat period. If so, it has to explain how men came to know of\nthese monsters and describe them *before *the age of Cuvier?\nThe old annals of China, India, Egypt, and even of Judea are full\nof them, as demonstrated elsewhere. In this period also appear\nthe first (marsupial) mammals***** -- Insectivorous, carnivorous,\nphytophagous; and (as Prof. Owen thinks) an herbivorous hoofed\nmammal.\n\nScience does not admit the appearance of man before *the close\n*of the\n\n[[First Column continued on next page]]\n\n[[Second Column continued from previous page]]\n\n**S**ECONDARY -- According to every calculation the\nThird Race had already made its appearance, as during the Triassic\nthere were already a few mammals, and it must have separated.\n\nThis, then, is the age of the Third Race, in which the origins\nof the early Fourth may be perhaps also discoverable. We are,\nhowever, here left entirely to conjecture, as no definite data\nare yet given out by the Initiates.\n\nThe analogy is but a poor one, still it may be argued that, as\nthe early Mammalia and pre-mammalia are shown in their evolution\nmerging from one kind into a higher one, anatomically, so are\nthe human races in their procreative processes. A parallel might\ncertainly be found between the Monotremata, the Didelphia (or\nMarsupialia) and the placental Mammals, divided in their turn\ninto three orders******\n\n[[Second Column continued on next page]]\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]] *Primary-Age Man.\n*The parallelism of Races and geological periods here adopted,\nis, so far as the origin of 1*st and *2*nd *are concerned,\npurely tentative, no direct information being available. Having\npreviously discussed the question of a possible Race in the *Carboniferous\nAge, *it is needless to renew the debate.\n\n**** During the *interim* from one Round to another, the\nglobe and everything on it remains *in statu quo. *Remember,\nVegetation began in its ethereal form before what is called the\nPrimordial, running through the Primary, and condensing in it,\nand reaching its full physical life in the Secondary.\n\n***** Geologists tell us that \"in the secondary epoch, the\nonly mammals which have been (hitherto) discovered *in Europe\n*are the fossil remains of a small marsupial or pouch-bearer.\"\n(*Knowledge, March *31, 1882, *p* 464.) Surely the marsupial\nor didelphis (the only surviving animal of the family of those\nwho were on earth during the presence on it of androgyne man)\ncannot be the only animal that was then on earth? Its presence\nspeaks loudly for that of other (though unknown) mammals, besides\nthe monotremes and marsupials, and thus shows the appellation\nof \"mammalian age\" given only to the Tertiary period\nto be misleading and erroneous; as it allows one to infer that\nthere were no mammals, but reptiles, birds, amphibians, and fishes\nalone in the Mesozoic times -- the Secondary.\n\n****** These *Placentalia *of the third sub-class are divided,\nit appears, into Villiplacentalia (placenta composed of many separate\nscattered tufts), the Zonoplacentalia (girdle-shaped placenta),\nand the discoplacentaIia (or discoid). Haeckel sees in the Marsupialia\n*Didelphia*, one of the connecting links *genealogically\n*between man and the Moneron!!\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 714 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n[[First Column continued from previous page]]\n\nTertiary period.* Why? Because man has to be shown younger than\nthe higher mammals. But Esoteric philosophy teaches us the reverse.\nAnd as science is quite unable to come to anything like an approximate\nconclusion as to the age of man, or even the geological periods,\ntherefore, even accepted only as a hypothesis, the occult teaching\nis more logical and reasonable.\n\nNo man is yet allowed to have lived during this period: --\n\n***Tertiary -- Eocene. Miocene. Pliocene.\n\nSays Mr. E. Clodd, in *Knowledge*: -- \"Although the\nplacental mammals and the order of Primates to which man is related,\nappear in Tertiary times and the climate, tropical in the Eocene\nage, warm in the Miocene and temperate in the Pliocene, was favourable\nto his presence, the proofs of his existence *in Europe *before\nthe close of the Tertiary epoch . . . . are not generally accepted\nhere.\"\n\n[[First Column continued on next page]]\n\n[[Second Column continued from previous page]]\n\nlike the First, Second, and Third Root-Races of men.** But this\nwould require more space than can be now allotted to the subject.\n\nTertiary age -- The Third race has now almost utterly disappeared,\ncarried away by the fearful geological cataclysms of the Secondary\nage, leaving behind it but a few hybrid races.\n\nThe Fourth, born millions of years before**** the said cataclysm\ntook place, perishes during the Miocene period,****** when the\nFifth (our Aryan race) had one million years of independent existence.\n(*See *\"*Esoteric Buddhism,*\"* pp. *53-55*.\nFourth Ed.*)* *How much older it is from its origin --\nwho knows? As the \"Historical\" Period has begun, with\nthe Indian Aryans, with their *Vedas, *for their multitudes,******\nand far earlier in the Esoteric Records, it is useless to establish\nhere any parallels.\n\n[[Second Column continued on next page]]\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Those who feel inclined to sneer at that doctrine of Esoteric\nEthnology, which pre-supposes the existence of Man in the *Secondary\n*Age, will do well to note the fact that one of the most distinguished\nanthropologists of the day, M. de Quatrefages, seriously argues\nin that direction. He writes: \"There is nothing impossible\nin the supposition that he (Man) may have appeared on the globe\n*with* *the first representatives of the type to which\nhe belongs in virtue of his organism.*\"* *This statement\napproximates most closely to our fundamental assertion that man\npreceded the other mammalia.\n\nProfessor Lefevre admits that the \"labours of Boucher de\nPerthes, Lartet, Christy, Bourgeois, Desnoyers, Broca, de Mortillet,\nHamy, Gaudry, Capellini, and a hundred others, have overcome all\ndoubts and clearly established the progressive development of\nthe human organism and industries from the *Miocene epoch of\nthe Tertiary age.*\"* *(\"Philosophy,\" p.\n499, chapter on Organic Evolution.) Why does he reject the possibility\nof a Secondary-Age man? Simply because he is involved in the meshes\nof the Darwinian Anthropology!! \"The origin of man is bound\nup with that of the higher mammals;\" he appeared \"only\nwith the *last *types of his class\"!! This is not [[Footnote\ncontinued on next page]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 715 THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE \"ANIMALISTS.\"\n\nGeology has now divided the periods and placed man in the --\n\n[[First Column continued from previous page]]\n\nQuaternary (Palaeolithic man. Neolithic man, and Historical Period.)\n\n[[Second Column continued from previous page]]\n\nIf the Quaternary period is allowed 1,500,000 years, then only\ndoes our Fifth Race belong to it.\n\n[[End of Columns]]\n\nYet, mirabile dictu! -- while the *non-cannibal *Paleolithic\nman, who must have certainly antedated cannibal Neolithic man\nby hundreds of thousands of years******* is shown to be a remarkable\nartist, neolithic\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]] argument, but dogmatism.\n*Theory *can never excommunicate* fact*! Must everything\ngive place to the mere working-hypotheses of Western Evolutionists?\nSurely not.\n\n** This inclusion of the First Race in the Secondary is necessarily\nonly a provisional working-hypothesis -- the actual chronology\nof the First, Second, and Early Third Races being closely veiled\nby the Initiates. For all that can be said on the subject, the\nFirst Root-Race may have been Pre-Secondary, as is, indeed, taught.\n(*Vide supra.*)\n\n*** The above parallels stand good only if Professor Croll's earlier\ncalculations are adopted, namely, of 15,000,000 years since the\nbeginning of the Eocene period (see Charles Gould's \"Mythical\nMonsters,\" p. 84), not those in his \"Climate and Time,\"\nwhich allow only 2 1/2 million years', or at the utmost three\nmillion years' duration to the Tertiary age. This, however, would\nmake the whole duration of the incrusted age of the world only\n131,600,000 years according to Professor Winchell, whereas in\nthe Esoteric doctrine, sedimentation began in *this Round *approximately\nover 320 million years ago. Yet his calculations do not clash\nmuch with ours with regard to the epochs of glacial periods in\nthe Tertiary age, which is called in our Esoteric books the age\nof the \"Pigmies.\" With regard to the 320 millions of\nyears assigned to sedimentation, it must be noted that even a\ngreater time elapsed during the preparation of this globe for\nthe Fourth Round *previous to stratification.*\n\n**** Though we apply the term \"truly human,\" only to\nthe Fourth Atlantean Root-Race, yet the Third Race is almost human\nin its latest portion, since it is during its fifth sub-race that\nmankind *separated* sexually, and that the *first man was\nborn *according to the now normal process. This \"first\nman\" answers in the Bible (*Genesis*)* *to Enos\nor Henoch, son of Seth (ch. iv.).\n\n***** Geology records the former existence of a universal ocean,\nsheets of marine sediments uniformly present everywhere testifying\nto it; but, it is not even the epoch referred to in the allegory\nof Vaivasvata Manu. The latter is a *Deva-Man *(or Manu)\nsaving in an ark (the *female* principle) the germs of humanity,\nand also the seven Rishis -- who stand here as the symbols for\nthe seven human principles -- of which allegory we have spoken\nelsewhere. The \"Universal Deluge\" is the watery abyss\nof the Primordial Principle of Berosus. (*See Stanzas from *2*\nto *8 in Part I.). How, if Croll allowed fifteen million years\nto have elapsed since the Eocene period (which we state on the\nauthority of a Geologist, Mr. Ch. Gould) only 60 millions are\nassigned by him \"since the beginning of the Cambrian period,\nin the *Primordial Age*\"* -- *passes comprehension.\nThe Secondary strata are twice the thickness of the Tertiary,\nand Geology thus shows the Secondary age alone to be of twice\nthe length of the Tertiary. Shall we then accept only 15 million\nyears for both the Primary and the Primordial? No wonder Darwin\nrejected the calculation.\n\n****** We hope that we have furnished all the Scientific data\nfor it elsewhere.\n\n******* It is conceded by Geology to be \"beyond doubt that\na considerable period must have supervened after the departure\nof Palaeolithic man and before the arrival of his Neolithic successor.\"\n(See James Geikie's \"Prehistoric Europe,\" and Ch. Gould's\n\"Mythical Monsters,\" p. 98).\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 716 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nman is made out almost an abject savage, his lake dwellings notwithstanding.*\nFor see what a learned geologist, Mr. Charles Gould, tells the\nreader in his \"Mythical Monsters\": --\n\n\"Palaeolithic men were unacquainted with pottery and the\nart of weaving, and apparently had no domesticated animals or\nsystem of cultivation; but the Neolithic lake-dwellers of Switzerland\nhad looms, pottery, cereals, sheep, horses,\" etc., etc.\n\nYet, though \"Implements of horn, bone, and wood were in common\nuse among both races . . . those of the older are frequently distinguished\n*by their being sculptured with great ability, or ornamented\nwith life-like engravings of the various animals living at the\nperiod*;* *whereas there appears to have been *a marked\nabsence of any similar artistic ability** *on* *the part\nof Neolithic man.\" Let us give the reasons for it.\n\n(1) The oldest fossil man, the primitive cave-men of the old Palaeolithic\nperiod, and of the Pre-glacial period (of whatever length, and\nhowever far back), is always the same genus man, and there are\nno fossil remains proving for him \"what the Hipparion and\nAnchitherium have proved for the genus horse -- that is, gradual\nprogressive specialization from a simple ancestral type to more\ncomplex existing forms\" (\"*Modern Science,*\"*\n*p. 181).\n\n(2) As to the so-called Palaeolithic *hatchet* . . . \"when\nplaced side by side with the rudest forms of stone hatchets actually\nused by the Australian and other savages, it is difficult to detect\nany difference\" (*Ibid,* p*. *112). This goes to\nprove that there have been savages *at all times*;* *and\nthe inference would be that there might have been civilized people\nin those days as well, cultured nations contemporary with those\nrude savages. We see such a thing in Egypt 7,000 years ago.\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Resembling in a manner the *pile-villages *of Northern\nBorneo.\n\n** \"The *most clever sculptor of modern times *would\nprobably not succeed very much better, if his graver were a splinter\nof flint and stone and bone were the materials to be engraved\"!!\n(Prof. Boyd Dawkins' \"Cave-Hunting,\" p. 344.) It is\nneedless after such a concession to further insist on Huxley's,\nSchmidt's, Laing's, and others' statements to the effect that\nPalaeolithic man cannot be considered to lead us back in any way\nto a pithecoid human race; thus demolishing the fantasies of many\nsuperficial evolutionists. The relic of artistic merit here *re-appearing\n*in the Chipped-Stone-Age men, is traceable to their *Atlantean*\nancestry. Neolithic man was a fore-runner of the great *Aryan*\ninvasion, and immigrated from quite another quarter -- Asia, and\nin a measure Northern Africa. (The tribes peopling the latter\ntowards the North-West, were certainly of an Atlantean origin\n-- dating back hundreds of thousands of years before the Neolithic\nPeriod in Europe, -- but they had so diverged from the parent\ntype as to present no longer any marked characteristic peculiar\nto it.) As to the contrast between Neolithic and Palaeolithic\nMan, it is *a remarkable fact that, as Carl Vogt remarks, the\nformer was a cannibal, the much earlier man of the Mammoth era\nnot. *Human manners and customs do not seem to improve with\ntime, then? Not in this instance at any rate.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 717 ONE SALVATION FOR SCIENCE.\n\n(3) An obstacle which is the direct consequence of the two preceding:\nMan, if no older than the Palaeolithic period, could not possibly\nhave had the actual time to get transformed from the \"missing\nlink\" into what he is known to have been even during that\nremote geological time, *i.e.*, even *a finer specimen\nthan many of the now existing races.*\n\nThe above lends itself naturally to the following syllogism: (1)\nThe *primitive *man (known to Science) was, in some respects,\neven a finer man of his genus than he is now. (2) The earliest\nmonkey known, the *lemur,* was* less *anthropoid than\nthe modern pithecoid species. (3)* Conclusion*:* *even\nthough a *missing link *were found, the balance of evidence\nwould remain more in favour of the ape *being a degenerated\nman *made dumb by some fortuitous circumstances,* than tending\nto show that man descends from a pithecoid ancestor. The theory\ncuts both ways.\n\nOn the other hand, if the existence of Atlantis is accepted, and\nthe statement is believed that in the Eocene Age \"even in\nits very first part, the great cycle of the fourth race men, the\nAtlanteans had already reached its highest point . . . .\"\n(Esoteric Buddhism, p. 64) then some of the present difficulties\nof science might be easily made to disappear. The rude workmanship\nof the Palaeolithic tools proves nothing against the idea that,\nside by side with their makers, there lived nations highly civilized.\nWe are told that \"only a very small portion of the earth's\nsurface has been explored, and of this a very small portion consists\nof ancient land surfaces or fresh water formations, where alone\nwe can expect to meet with traces of the higher forms of animal\nlife,\" . . . and that \"even these have been so imperfectly\nexplored, that where we now meet with thousands and tens of thousands\nof undoubted human remains lying almost under our feet, it is\nonly within the last thirty years that their existence has even\nbeen suspected\" (p. 98). It is very suggestive also that\nalong with the rude *haches *of the lowest savage, explorers\nmeet with specimens of workmanship of such artistic merit as could\nhardly be found, or expected, in a modern peasant belonging to\nany European country -- unless in exceptional cases. The \"portrait\"\nof the \"Reindeer feeding,\" from the Thayngin grotto\nin Switzerland, and those of the man running, with two horse's\nheads sketched close to him -- a work of the Reindeer period,\n*i.e., at least 50,000 years *ago -- are pronounced by Mr.\nLaing not only exceedingly well done, but, especially the reindeer\nfeeding, as one that \"*would do credit to any modern animal*\n*painter*\"\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* On the data furnished by modern science, physiology, and natural\nselection, and without resorting to any miraculous creation, two\nnegro human specimens of the lowest intelligence -- say idiots\nborn dumb -- might by breeding produce a dumb *Pastrana *species,\nwhich would start a new modified race, and thus produce in the\ncourse of geological time the regular anthropoid ape.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 718 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n-- by no means exaggerated praise, as anyone may see (*Vide\ninfra*)*. *Now, since side by side with the modern Esquimaux,\nwho also have a tendency, like their Palaeolithic ancestors of\nthe Reindeer period, *the rude and savage human species, *to\nbe constantly drawing with the point of their knives sketches\nof animals, scenes of the chase, etc., we have our greatest painters\nof Europe, why could not the same have happened in those days?\nCompared with the specimens of Egyptian drawing and sketching\n-- \"7,000 years ago\" -- the* *\"*earliest\n*portraits\" of men, horses' heads, and reindeer, made\n50,000 years ago, *are certainly superior. *Nevertheless,\nthe Egyptians of those periods are known to have been a highly\ncivilized nation, whereas the Palaeolithic men are called *savages\n*of the lower type. This is a small matter seemingly, yet extremely\nsuggestive as showing that every new geological discovery is made\nto fit in with current theories, instead of the reverse. Yes;\nMr. Huxley is right in saying, \"Time will show.\" It\nwill, and must vindicate Occultism.\n\nMeanwhile, the most uncompromising materialists are driven by\nnecessity into the most *occult-like *admissions. Strange\nto say, it is the most materialistic -- those of the German school\n-- who, with regard to* physical *development, come the nearest\nto the teachings of the Occultists. Thus, Professor Baumgartner,\nwho believes that \"the germs for the higher animals could\nonly be the eggs of the lower animals\"; who thinks that \"besides\nthe advance of the vegetable and animal world in development,\nthere occurred in that period the formation of *new original\ngerms,*\"* *which formed the basis of new metamorphoses,\netc. -- thinks also that \"the first men who proceeded from\nthe germs of animals beneath them, lived first in a *larva *state.\"\n\nJust so, in a *larva* state, we say, too; only from no \"animal\"\ngerm, and that \"larva\" was the soulless astral form\nof the pre-physical Races. And we believe, as the German professor\ndoes, with several other men of Science in Europe now, that the\nhuman races \"have not descended from one pair, but appeared\nimmediately in numerous races\"; (*Anfange zu einer Physiologischen\nSchopfungs-geschichte der Pflanzen und Thierwelt, *1885). Therefore,\nwhen we read \"Force and Matter,\" and find that Emperor\nof Materialists, Buchner, repeating after Manu and Hermes, that\n\"the plant passes imperceptibly into the animal, and the\nanimal into man\" (p. 85), we need only add \"and man\ninto a spirit,\" to complete the Kabalistic axiom. The more\nso, since on page 82 of the same work we read the following admission:\n. . . \"Produced in the way of spontaneous generation . .\n. it is by the aid of intense natural forces and* endless periods\nof time *(that) there has progressively arisen that rich and\ninfinitely modified organic world by which we are at present surrounded.\"\n. . . And (page 84) \"Spontaneous generation played, no doubt,\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 719 BETWEEN TWO VOIDS.\n\n*a more important part in the primeval epoch than at present*;*\nnor can it be denied that in this way beings of a higher organization\n*were produced than now,\"* for this is the claim of Occultism.\n\nThe whole difference lies in this: Modern Science places her materialistic\ntheory of primordial germs on earth, and the *last germ of *life\non this globe, of man, and everything else, between *two voids.\n*Whence the *first *germ, if both spontaneous generation\nand the interference of external forces, are absolutely rejected\nnow? Germs of organic life, we are told, by Sir W. Thomson, *came\nto our earth in some meteor? *This helps in no way and only\nshifts the difficulty from this earth to the supposed meteor.\n\nThese are our agreements and disagreements with Science. About\nthe* endless periods *we are, of course, at one even with\nmaterialistic speculation; for we believe in Evolution, though\non different lines. Professor Huxley very wisely says: \"If\n*any form *of progressive development *is *correct,\nwe must extend by long epochs the most liberal estimate that has\nyet been made of the antiquity of man.\" But when we are told\nthat this man is a product of the natural forces inherent *in*\nmatter, *force, *according to modern views, being but a quality\nof matter, a \"mode of motion,\" etc.; and when we find\nSir W. Thomson repeating in 1885 what was asserted by Buchner\nand *his *school thirty years ago, we fear all our reverence\nfor real Science is vanishing into thin air! One can hardly help\nthinking that materialism is, in certain cases, a *disease.\n*For when men of Science, in the face of the magnetic phenomena\nand the attraction of iron particles through insulating substances,\nlike glass, maintain that the said attraction is due to \"molecular\nmotion,\" or to the \"rotation of the molecules of the\nmagnet,\" then, whether the teaching comes from a \"credulous\"\nTheosophist innocent of any notion of physics, or from an eminent\nman of Science, it is equally ridiculous. The individual who asserts\nsuch a theory in the teeth of *fact, *is only one more proof\nthat \"When people have not a niche in their minds in which\nto shoot facts, so much the worse for the facts.\"\n\nAs present the dispute between the spontaneous generationists\nand their opponents is at rest, having ended in the provisional\nvictory of the latter. But even they are forced to admit, as Buchner\ndid, and Messrs. Tyndall and Huxley still do -- that spontaneous\ngeneration *must have occurred once, *under \"special\nthermal conditions.\" Virchow refuses even to argue the question;\nit *must *have taken place sometime in the history of our\nplanet: and there's an end of it. This seems to look more natural\nthan Sir W. Thomson's hypothesis just quoted, that the germs of\norganic life fell on our earth in some meteor; or that other\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* \"Force and Matter,\" by Dr. Louis Buchner, translated\nand edited by J. Frederick Collingwood, **F.R.S**.,\n**F.G.S**., 1864.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 720 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n*scientific *hypothesis coupled to the recently adopted belief\nthat there exists *no *\"Vital principle\" whatever,\nbut only vital phenomena, which can all be traced to the molecular\nforces of the original protoplasm. But this does not help Science\nto solve the still greater problem -- the origin and *the descent\n*of Man, for here is a still worse plaint and lamentation.\n\n\"While we can trace the skeletons of Eocene mammals through\nseveral directions of specialization in succeeding Tertiary times,\nman presents the phenomenon of an *unspecialized *skeleton\nwhich cannot fairly be connected with any of these lines.\"\n(\"Origin of the World,\" p. 39, by Sir W. Dawson, **LL.D**.,\n**F.R.S**.)\n\nThe secret could be soon told, not only from the esoteric but\neven from the standpoint of every religion the world over, without\nmentioning the Occultists. The \"specialized skeleton\"\nis sought for in the wrong place, where it can never be found.\nIt is expected to be discovered in the physical remains of man,\nin some pithecoid \"missing link,\" with a skull larger\nthan that of the ape's, and with a cranial capacity smaller than\nin man, *instead *of looking for that *specialization *in*\nthe super-physical essence of his inner astral constitution, which\ncan hardly be excavated from any geological strata! *Such a\ntenacious, hopeful clinging to a self-degrading theory is the\nmost wonderful feature of the day.\n\n**R**EINDEER ENGRAVED ON **A**NTLER BY **P**ALAEOLITHIC\n**M**AN. (*After Geikie*.)\n\nMeanwhile, this is a specimen of an engraving made by a *Palaeolithic\n*\"savage\": Palaeolithic meaning the \"earlier\nStone-age\" man, one supposed to have been as savage and brutal\nas the brutes he lived with.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 721 THE PALAEOLITHIC LANDSEER.\n\nLeaving the modern South Sea Islander, or even any Asiatic race,\naside, we defy any grown-up schoolboy, or even a European youth,\none who has never studied drawing, to execute such an engraving\nor even a pencil sketch. Here we have the true artistic *raccourci,\n*and correct lights and shadows without any *plane *model\nbefore the artist, who copied direct from nature, thus exhibiting\na knowledge of anatomy and proportion. The artist who engraved\nthis reindeer belonged, we are asked to believe, to the primitive\n\"semi-animal\" savages (contemporaneous with the mammoth\nand the woolly rhinoceros), whom some over-zealous Evolutionists\nonce sought to picture to us as distinct approximations to the\ntype of their hypothetical \"pithecoid man\"!\n\nThis engraved antler proves as eloquently as any fact can that\nthe evolution of the races has ever proceeded in a series of rises\nand falls, that man, perhaps, is as old as incrustated Earth,\nand -- if we can call his Divine ancestor \"Man\" -- far\nolder still.\n\nEven de Mortillet himself seems to experience a vague distrust\nof the conclusions of modern archaeologists, when he writes: --\n\"The prehistoric is a new science, *far, very far, *from\nhaving said its last word.\" (\"*Prehist. Antiq. of\nMan,*\"* *1883.) According to Lyell, one of the highest\nauthorities on the subject, and the \"Father\" of Geology:\n-- \"The expectation of always meeting with a lower type of\nhuman skull, the older the formation in which it occurs, *is\nbased on the theory of progressive development,* and it *may*\nprove to be sound; nevertheless we must remember that as yet *we\nhave no distinct geological evidence that the appearance of what\nare called the inferior races of mankind has always preceded in\nchronological order that of the higher races.*\"* *(\"*Antiq.\nof Man,*\"* *p*. *25.) Nor has such evidence\nbeen found to this day. Science is thus offering for sale the\nskin of a bear, which has hitherto never been seen by mortal eye!\n\nThis concession of Lyell's reads most suggestively with the subjoined\nutterance of Professor Max Muller, whose attack on the Darwinian\nAnthropology from the standpoint of LANGUAGE has, by the way,\nnever been satisfactorily answered: --\n\n\"What do we know of savage tribes beyond the *last chapter\nof their history?*\"* *(Cf. this with the esoteric\nview of the Australians, Bushmen, as well as of Palaeolithic European\nman, the Atlantean offshoots retaining a relic of a lost culture,\nwhich throve when the parent Root-Race was in its prime.) \"Do\nwe ever get an insight into their antecedents. . . . *How have\nthey come to be what they are? *. . . . Their language proves,\nindeed, that these so-called heathens, with their complicated\nsystems of mythology, their artificial customs, their unintelligible\nwhims and savageries, are not the creatures of to-day or yesterday.\nUnless we admit a special creation for these savages, they must\nbe as old as the Hindus, the Greeks and Romans (far older). .\n. .\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 722 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nThey may have passed through ever so many vicissitudes, and *what\nwe consider as primitive, may be, for all we know, a *RELAPSE\nINTO SAVAGERY or a corruption of something that was more rational\nand intelligible in former stages.\" (\"India,\" 1883,\nF. Max Muller.)\n\n\"The primeval savage is a familiar term in modern literature,\"\nremarks Professor Rawlinson, \"but there is no evidence that\nthe primeval savage ever existed. Rather *all the evidence looks\nthe other way.*\"* *(\"*Antiq. of Man Historically\nConsidered.*\")* *In his \"Origin of Nations,\"\npp. 10-11, he rightly adds: \"*The mythical traditions of\nalmost all nations place at the beginning of human history a time\nof happiness and perfection, *a 'golden age' which has no features\nof savagery or barbarism, but many of civilization and refinement.\"\nHow is the modern evolutionist to meet this consensus of evidence?\n\nWe repeat the question asked in \"Isis Unveiled\": \"Does\nthe finding of the remains in the cave of Devon prove that there\nwere no contemporary races then who were highly civilized? When\nthe present population of the earth have disappeared, and some\narchaeologist belonging to the 'coming race' of the distant future\nshall excavate the domestic implements of one of our Indian or\nAndaman Island tribes, will he be justified in concluding that\nmankind in the nineteenth century was 'just emerging from the\nStone Age'?\"\n\nAnother strange inconsistency in scientific knowledge is that\n*Neolithic *man is shown as being far more of a primitive\nsavage than the Palaeolithic one. Either Lubbock's \"Pre-historic\nMan,\" or Evans' \"Ancient Stone Implements\" must\nbe at fault, or -- both. For this is what we learn from these\nworks and others: --\n\n(1) As we pass from Neolithic to Palaeolithic Man, the stone implements\nbecome, from gracefully shaped and polished instruments, rude\nlumbering makeshifts. Pottery, etc., disappear as we descend the\nscale. And yet the latter could engrave such a reindeer!\n\n(2) Palaeolithic Man lived in caves which he shared with hyaenas\nand lions also,* whereas Neolithic man dwelt in lake-villages\nand buildings.\n\nEvery one who has followed even superficially the geological discoveries\nof our day, knows that a gradual improvement in workmanship is\nfound, from the clumsy chipping and rude chopping of the early\nPalaeolithic *haches, *to the relatively graceful stone celts\nof that part of the Neolithic period immediately preceding the\nuse of metals. But this *is in Europe, *a few portions only\nof which were barely rising from the waters in the days\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* In such a case Palaeolithic man must have been endowed in his\nday with thrice Herculean force and magic invulnerability, or\nelse the lion was as weak as a lamb at that period, for both to\nshare the same dwelling. We may as well be asked to believe next\nthat it is that lion or hyaena which has engraved the deer on\nthe antler, as be told that this bit of workmanship was done by\na savage of such a kind.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 723 ENTRAPPED BY THE REINDEER.\n\nof the highest Atlantean civilizations. There were rude savages\nand highly civilized people then, as there are now. If 50,000\nyears hence, pigmy Bushmen are exhumed from some African cavern\ntogether with far earlier pigmy elephants, such as were found\nin the cave deposits of Malta by Milne Edwards, will that be a\nreason to maintain that in our age all men and all elephants were\npigmies? Or if the weapons of the Veddhas of Ceylon are found,\nwill our descendants be justified in setting us all down as Palaeolithic\nsavages? All the articles which geologists now excavate in Europe\ncan certainly never date earlier than from the close of the Eocene\nage, since the lands of Europe were not even above water before\nthat period. Nor can what we have said be in the least invalidated\nby theorists telling us that these quaint sketches of animals\nand men by Palaeolithic man, were executed only *toward the\nclose of the Reindeer period -- *for this explanation would\nbe a very lame one indeed, in view of the geologists' ignorance\nof even the approximate duration of periods.\n\nThe Esoteric Doctrine teaches distinctly the *dogma *of the\nrisings and falls of civilization; and now we learn that: \"It\nis a remarkable fact that cannibalism seems to have become more\nfrequent as man advanced in civilization, and that while its traces\nare frequent in *Neolithic *times they . . . . altogether\ndisappear in the age of the mammoth and the reindeer.\" (\"*Mod.\nScience and Mod. Thought,*\"* *p. 164.)\n\nAnother evidence of the cyclic law and the truth of our teachings.\nEsoteric history teaches that idols and their worship died out\nwith the Fourth Race, until the survivors of the hybrid races\nof the latter (Chinamen, African negroes, &c.) gradually brought\nthe worship back. The Vedas countenance no idols; all the modern\nHindu writings do.\n\n\"In the early Egyptian tombs, and in the remains of the pre-historic\ncities excavated by Dr. Schliemann, images of owl and ox-headed\ngoddesses, and other symbolical figures, or idols, are found in\nabundance. But when we ascend into Neolithic times, such idols\nare no longer found . . . . the only ones which may be said with\nsome certainty to have been idols are one or two discovered by\nM. de Braye in some artificial caves of the Neolithic period .\n. . which appear to be intended for female figures of life size\"\n. . . . (p. 199 *Ibid.*)\n\nAnd these may have been simply statues. Anyhow, all this is one\namong the many proofs of the cyclic rise and fall of civilization\nand religion. The fact that no traces of human relics or skeletons\nare so far found beyond post-tertiary or \"Quaternary\"\ntimes -- though Abbe Bourgeois' flints may serve as a warning*\n-- seems to point to the truth of another esoteric statement,\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* More than twenty specimens of fossil monkeys have been found\nin one locality alone, in Miocene strata (Pikermi, near Athens).\nIf man was not then, the period is [[Footnote continued on next\npage]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 724 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nwhich runs thus: \"Seek for the remains of thy forefathers\nin the high places. The vales have grown into mountains and the\nmountains have crumbled to the bottom of the seas.\" . . .\nFourth Race mankind, thinned after the last cataclysm by two-thirds\nof its population, instead of settling on the new continents and\nislands that *reappeared *while their predecessors formed\nthe floors of new Oceans -- deserted that which is now Europe\nand parts of Asia and Africa for the summits of gigantic mountains,\nthe seas that surrounded some of the latter having since \"retreated\"\nand made room for the table lands of Central Asia.\n\nThe most interesting example of this progressive march is perhaps\nafforded by the celebrated Kent's Cavern at Torquay. In that strange\nrecess, excavated by water out of the Devonian limestone, we find\na most curious record preserved for us in the geological memoirs\nof the earth. Under the blocks of limestone, which heaped the\nfloor of the cavern, were discovered, embedded in a deposit of\nblack earth, many implements of the Neolithic period of *fairly\nexcellent workmanship, *with* *a few fragments of pottery\n-- possibly traceable to the era of the Roman colonization. There\nis no trace of Palaeolithic man here. No flints or traces of the\nextinct animals of the Quaternary period. When, however, we penetrate\nstill deeper through the dense layer of stalagmite beneath the\nmould into the red earth, which, of course, itself once formed\nthe pavement of the retreat, things assume a very different aspect.\n*Not one implement fit to bear *comparison *with the finely-chipped\nweapons found in the overlying stratum is to be seen*;* *only\na host of the rude and lumbering little hatchets (with which the\nmonstrous giants of the animal world were subdued and killed by\nlittle man, we have to think?) and scrapers of the Palaeolithic\nage, mixed up confusedly with the bones of species now either\nextinct or emigrated, driven away by change of climate. It is\nthe artificer of these ugly little hatchets, you see, who sculptured\nthe reindeer over the brook, on the antler as shown above. In\nall cases we meet with the same evidence that, from historic to\nNeolithic and from Neolithic to Palaeolithic man, things slope\ndownwards on an inclined plane from the rudiments of civilization\nto the most abject barbarism -- *in Europe* *again. *We\nare made also to face the \"mammoth age\" -- the extreme\nor earliest division of the Palaeolithic age -- in which the great\nrudeness of implements reaches its maximum, and the *brutal\n*(?) appearance of contemporary skulls, such as the Neanderthal,\npoint to a very low type of Humanity. But they may sometimes point\nalso to something besides; to a race of men quite distinct from\nour (Fifth Race) Humanity.\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]] too short for him to\nhave been *transformed *-- stretch it as you may. And if\nhe was, and if no monkey is found earlier, what follows?\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 725 STRANGE CONFESSIONS OF SCIENCE.\n\nAs said by an anthropologist in \"*Modern Thought*\"*\n*(art. \"The *Genesis of Man*\"):* *\"The\ntheory, scientifically based or not, of Peyrere may be considered\nto be equivalent to that which divided man in two species. Broca,\nVirey, and a number of the French anthropologists have recognised\nthat the lower race of man, comprising the Australian, Tasmanian,\nand Negro race, excluding the Kaffirs and the Northern Africans,\n*should be placed apart. *The fact that in this species,\nor rather sub-species, the third lower molars are usually larger\nthan the second, and the squamosal and frontal bones are generally\nunited by suture, places the* Homo Afer *on the level of\nbeing as good a distinct species as many of the kinds of finches.\nI shall abstain on the present occasion from mentioning the facts\nof hybridity, whereon the late Professor Broca has so exhaustively\ncommented. The history, in the past ages of the world, of this\nrace is peculiar. It has *never originated a system of architecture\nor a religion of its own*\"* *(Dr. C. Carter Blake).\nIt is peculiar, indeed, as we have shown in the case of the Tasmanians.\nHowever it may be, *fossil *man in Europe can neither prove\nnor disprove the antiquity of man on this Earth nor the age of\nhis earliest civilizations.\n\nIt is time the Occultists should disregard any attempts to laugh\nat them, scorning the heavy guns of the satire of the men of science\nas much as the pop-guns of the profane, since it is impossible,\nso far, to obtain either proof or disproof, while their theories\ncan stand the test better than the hypotheses of the Scientists\nat any rate. As to the proof for the antiquity which they claim\nfor man, they have, moreover, Darwin himself and Lyell. The latter\nconfesses that they (the naturalists) \"have already obtained\nevidence of the existence of man at so remote a period that there\nhas been time for many conspicuous mammalia, once his contemporaries,\nto die out, and *this even before the era of the earliest *historical\nrecords.\"* This is a statement made by one of England's great\nauthorities upon the question. The two sentences that follow are\nas suggestive, and may well be remembered by the students of Occultism,\nfor with all others he says: \"In spite of the long lapse\nof prehistoric ages during which he (Man) must have flourished\non Earth, *there is no proof of any perceptible change in his\nbodily structure. *If, therefore, he ever diverged from some\nunreasoning brute ancestor, we must suppose him to have existed\nat a far more distant epoch, *possibly on some continents or\nislands now submerged *beneath the Ocean.\"\n\nThus lost continents are officially suspected. That worlds (also\nRaces) are periodically destroyed by fire (volcanoes and earthquakes)\nand water, in turn, and renewed, is a doctrine as old as man.\nManu, Hermes, the Chaldees, all antiquity believed in this. Twice\nalready\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n** *\"*Antiquity of Man,*\" p*. *530.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 726 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nhas the face of the globe been changed by fire, and twice by water,\nsince man appeared on it. As land needs rest and renovation, new\nforces, and a change for its soil, so does water. Thence arises\na periodical redistribution of land and water, change of climates,\netc., all brought on by geological revolution, and ending in a\nfinal change in the axis. Astronomers may pooh-pooh the idea of\na periodical change in the behaviour of the globe's axis, and\nsmile at the conversation given in the Book of Enoch between Noah\nand his \"grandfather\" Enoch; the allegory is, nevertheless,\na geological and an astronomical fact: there is a secular change\nin the inclination of the earth's axis, and its appointed time\nis recorded in one of the great Secret Cycles. As in many other\nquestions, Science is gradually moving toward our way of thinking.\nDr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., F.G.S., writes in the *Popular Science\nReview *(New Series in Vol. I. p. 115), Art.: \"Evidences\nof the Age of Ice.\" . . . . \"If it be necessary to call\nin extramundane causes to explain the great increase of ice at\nthis glacial period, I would prefer the theory propounded by Dr.\nRobert Hooke in 1688; since, by Sir Richard Phillips and others;\nand lastly by Mr. Thomas Belt, **C.E**., **F.G.S**.;\nnamely, a slight increase in the present obliquity of the ecliptic,\na proposal in perfect accord with other known astronomical facts,\nand the introduction of which is essential to our cosmical condition\nas a unit in the great solar system.\"\n\nThe following, quoted from a Lecture by W. Pengelly, **F.R.S.**,\n**F.G.S**., delivered in March, 1885, on \"The\nextinct Lake of Bovey Tracey\" shows the hesitation, in the\nface of every evidence in favour of Atlantis, to accept the fact.\nIt is a quotation in the body of the Lecture: --\n\n\"Evergreen Figs, Laurels, Palms, and Ferns having gigantic\nrhizomes have their existing congeners *in a sub-tropical climate,\nsuch, it cannot be doubted, as prevailed in Devonshire in Miocene\ntimes, *and are thus calculated to suggest caution when the\n*present climate *of any district is regarded as normal.\n\n\"When, moreover, Miocene plants are found in Disco Island,\non the west coast of Greenland, lying between 69[[degrees]] 20'\nand 70[[degrees]] 30' N. lat.; when we learn that among them were\ntwo species found also at Bovey (*Sequoia couttsiae, Quercus\nLyelli*);* *when, to quote Professor Heer, we find that\n\"the 'splendid evergreen' (*Magnolia Inglefieldi*)*\n*'ripened its fruits so far north as on the parallel of 70\n[[degrees]] ' \"* *(*Phil. Trans. *clix., 457, 1869);\nwhen also the number, variety, and luxuriance of the Greenland\nMiocene plants are found to have been such that, had land continued\nso far, some of them would in all probability have flourished\nat the Pole itself, the problem of changes of climate is brought\nprominently into view, but only to be dismissed apparently with\nthe feeling that the *time for its solution has not yet arrived.*\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 727 NO \"MISSING LINK\" ANYWHERE.\n\n\"It seems to be admitted on all hands that the Miocene plants\nof Europe have their nearest and most numerous existing analogues\nin North America, and hence arises the question; How was the migration\nfrom one area to the other effected? Was there, as some have believed,\nan Atlantis? -- a continent, or an archipelago of large islands,\noccupying the area of the North Atlantic. There is perhaps nothing\nunphilosophical in this hypothesis; for since, as geologists state,\n'the Alps have acquired 4,000, and even in some places more than\n10,000 feet of their present altitude since the commencement of\nthe Eocene period' (Lyell's* Principles, *11th ed., p. 256,\n1872), a Post-Miocene (?) depression might have carried the hypothetical\nAtlantis into almost abysmal depths. But an Atlantis is apparently\nunnecessary and uncalled for. According to Professor Oliver, 'A\nclose and very peculiar analogy subsists between the Flora of\nTertiary Central Europe and the recent Floras of the American\nStates and of the Japanese region; an analogy much closer and\nmore intimate than is to be traced between the Tertiary and Recent\nFloras of Europe. We find the Tertiary element of the Old World\nto be intensified towards its extreme eastern margin. . . . This\naccession of the Tertiary element is rather gradual and not abruptly\nassumed in the Japan islands only. Although it there attains a\nmaximum, we may trace it from the Mediterranean, Levant, Caucasus,\nand Persia . . . then along the Himalaya and through China. .\n. . We learn also that during the Tertiary epoch, counterparts\nof Central European Miocene genera certainly grew in North-West\nAmerica. . . . We note further that the present Atlantic Islands'\nFlora affords no substantial evidence of a former direct communication\nwith the mainland of the New World. . . . The consideration of\nthese facts leads me to the opinion that botanical evidence does\nnot favour the hypothesis of an Atlantis. On the other hand, it\nstrongly favours the view that at some period of the Tertiary\nepoch North-Eastern Asia was united to North-western America,\nperhaps by the line where the Aleutian chain of islands now extends.'\n\" (*Nat. Hist. Rev. *ii. 164, 1862.) See, however, \"Scientific\nand Geological Proofs of the Reality of Several Submerged Continents.\"\n\nBut nothing short of a pithecoid man, will ever satisfy the luckless\nsearchers after the thrice hypothetical \"missing link.\"\nYet, if beneath the vast floors of the Atlantic, from the Teneriffe\nPic to Gibraltar, the ancient emplacement of the lost Atlantis,\nall the submarine strata were to be broken up miles deep, no such\nskull as would satisfy the Darwinists would be found. As Dr. C.\nR. Bree remarks (\"*Fallacies of Darwinism*\")*,\n*no missing links between man and ape having been discovered\nin various gravels and formations above the tertiaries, if they\nhad gone down with the continents now covered with the sea, they\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 728 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nmight still be found \"in those beds of contemporary geological\nstrata which have *not* gone down to the bottom of the sea.\"\nYet they are as fatally absent from the latter as from the former.\nWere not preconceptions to fasten vampire-like on man's mind,\nthe author of \"*Antiquity of Man*\"* *would\nhave found a clue to the difficulty in that same work of his,\nby going ten pages back (530) and reading over a quotation of\nhis own from Professor G. Rolleston's work. This physiologist,\nhe says, suggests that as there is considerable plasticity in\nthe human frame, not only in youth and during growth, but even\nin the adult, we ought not always to take for granted, as some\nadvocates of the development theory seem to do, that each advance\nin physical power depends on an improvement in bodily structure,\nfor why may not *the soul, or the higher intellectual and moral\nfaculties play the first instead of the second part in a progressive\nscheme.*\n\nThis hypothesis is made in relation to Evolution *not being\nentirely due to *\"*natural selection*\";* *but\nit applies as well to our case in hand. For we, too, claim that\nit is the \"Soul,\" or the *inner* man, that descends\non Earth first, the psychic *astral, *the mould on which\nphysical man is gradually built -- his Spirit, intellectual and\nmoral faculties awakening later on as that physical stature grows\nand develops.\n\n\"Thus incorporeal Spirits to smaller forms reduced their\nshapes immense,\" . . . and became the men of the Third and\nthe Fourth Races. Still later, ages after, appeared the men of\nour Fifth Race, reduced from the still gigantic (in our modern\nsense) stature of their primeval ancestors, to about half of that\nsize at present.\n\nMan is certainly *no* special creation, and he is the product\nof Nature's gradual perfective work, like any other living unit\non this Earth. But this is only with regard to the human tabernacle.\nThat which lives and thinks in man and survives that frame, the\nmasterpiece of evolution -- is the \"Eternal Pilgrim,\"\nthe Protean differentiation in space and time of the One Absolute\n\"unknowable.\"\n\nIn his \"Antiquity of Man,\" Sir C. Lyell quotes -- perhaps\nin rather a mocking spirit -- what Hallam says (in Vol. iv., p.\n162) in his \"*Introduction to the Literature of Europe*\":*\n*--\n\n\"If man was made in the image of God, he was also made in\nthe image of an ape. The framework of the body of him who has\nweighed the stars and made the lightning his slave, approaches\nto that of a speechless brute who wanders in the forest of Sumatra.\nThus standing on the frontier land between animal and angelic\nnatures, what wonder that he should partake of both?\"\n\nAn Occultist would have put it otherwise. He would say that man\nwas indeed made in the image of a type projected by his progenitor,\nthe creating *Angel-Force, *or Dhyan Chohan; while the wanderer\nof the forest of Sumatra was made *in the image of man, *since\nthe frame-\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 729 PALAEOLITHIC MAN, A CALIGRAPH!\n\nwork of the ape, we say again, is the revival, the resuscitation\nby abnormal means of the actual form of the Third-Round, and of\nthe Fourth-Round *Man* as well, later on. Nothing is lost\nin nature, *not an atom*:* *this latter is at least\ncertain on scientific data. Analogy would appear to demand that\n*form *should be equally endowed with permanency.\n\nAnd yet what do we find: --\n\n\"It is significant,\" says Sir W. Dawson, **F.R.S.**,\n\"that Professor Huxley in his lectures in New York, while\nresting his case as to the lower animals, mainly on the supposed\ngenealogy of the horse, which has often been shown to amount to\nno certain evidence, *avoided altogether the discussion of the\norigin of men from the apes, *now obviously complicated with\nso many difficulties that both Wallace and Mivart are staggered\nby them. Professor Thomas in his recent lectures ('Nature,' 1876),\nadmits that there is no lower man known than the Australian, and\nthat there is no known link of connection with the monkeys; and\nthat Haeckel has to admit that the penultimate link in his phylogeny,\nthe ape-like man, *is absolutely unknown *('*History of\nCreation.*') .* *. . . The so-called '*tallies*'*\n*found with the bones of Palaeocosmic men in European caves,\nand illustrated in the admirable works of Christy and Lartet,\nshow that the *rudiments even of writings were already in possession\n*of the oldest race of men known to archaeology or geology.\"\n(See Wilson's \"*Prehistoric Man,*\"* op. cit.,\n*vol. ii., p. 54. \"*Origin of the World,*\"*\n*p. 393.)\n\nAgain in Dr. C. R. Bree's \"*Fallacies of Darwinism,*\"*\n*on page 160, we read: --\n\n\"Mr. Darwin justly says that the difference physically and,\nmore especially mentally, between the lowest form of man and the\nhighest anthropomorphous ape, is enormous. Therefore, *the time\n-- *which in Darwinian evolution must be almost inconceivably\nslow -- must have been *enormous *also during man's development\nfrom the monkey.* The chance, therefore, of some of these variations\nbeing found in the different gravels or fresh-water formations\nabove the tertiaries, must be very great. And yet *not one single\nvariation, not one single specimen of a *being between a monkey\nand a man has ever been found. Neither in the gravel, nor the\ndrift-clay, nor the fresh-water beds, nor in the tertiaries below\nthem has there ever been discovered the remains of any member\nof the missing families between the monkey and the man, as *assumed\n*to have existed by Mr. Darwin. Have they gone down with the\ndepression of the earth's surface and are they now covered with\nthe sea? If so, it is beyond all probability that they should\nnot, also be found in those beds of contemporary geological strata\nwhich have *not* gone down to the bottom of the sea; still\nmore improbable that some portions should not be dredged from\nthe ocean bed like the remains of the mammoth and the rhinoceros\nwhich are also found in fresh-water beds and gravels and drift!\n. . . . . . the celebrated Neanderthal skull, about which so much\nhas been said, belongs confessedly to this remote epoch (bronze\nand stone ages), and yet presents, although it may have been the\nskull of an idiot, immense differences from the highest known\nanthropomorphous ape.\"\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* And how much more \"enormous\" if we reverse the subjects\nand say during the monkey's development from the Third Race Man.\n\n####### [[Vol. 2, Page]] 730 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nOur globe being convulsed each time that it *reawakens *for\na new period of activity, like a field which has to be ploughed\nand furrowed before fresh seed for its new crop is thrown into\nit -- it does seem quite hopeless that fossils belonging to its\nprevious Rounds should be found in the beds of either its oldest\nor its latest geological strata. Every new Manvantara brings along\nwith it the renovation of forms, types and species; every type\nof the preceding organic forms -- vegetable, animal and human\n-- changes and is perfected in the next, even to the mineral,\nwhich has received in this Round its final opacity and hardness;\nits softer portions having formed the present vegetation; the\nastral relics of previous vegetation and fauna having been utilized\nin the formation of the lower animals, and determining the structure\nof the primeval Root-Types of the highest mammalia. And, finally,\nthe form of the gigantic Ape-Man of the former Round has been\nreproduced in this one by human bestiality and transfigured into\nthe *parent *form in the modern Anthropoid.\n\nThis doctrine, even imperfectly delineated as it is under our\ninefficient pen, is assuredly more logical, more consistent with\nfacts, and *far more *probable than many \"scientific\"\ntheories; that, for instance, of the first organic germ descending\non a meteor to our Earth -- like Ain Soph on his Vehicle, Adam\nKadmon. Only, the latter descent is allegorical, as every one\nknows, and the Kabalists have never offered this figure of speech\nfor acceptance in its dead-letter garb. But the germ on the meteor\ntheory, as coming from such high scientific quarters, is an eligible\ncandidate for axiomatic truth and law, a theory people are in\nhonour bound to accept, if they would be on a right level with\nmodern Science. What the next theory necessitated by the materialistic\npremises will be -- no one can tell. Meanwhile, the *present\n*theories, as any one can see, clash together far more discordantly\namong themselves than even those of the Occultists outside the\n*sacred *precincts of learning. For what is there, next in\norder, now that exact Science has made even of the Life-principle\nan empty word, a meaningless term; and now insists that life is\nan effect *due to the molecular action of the primordial protoplasm!\n*The new doctrine of the Darwinists may be defined and summarized\nin a few words, in which Mr. Herbert Spencer has defined \"special\ncreation\" . . . \"it is worthless. Worthless, by its\nderivation; worthless, in its intrinsic incoherence; worthless,\nas absolutely without evidence; worthless, as not supplying an\nintellectual need; worthless, as not satisfying a moral want.\nWe must, therefore, *consider it as counting for nothing in\nopposition to any other hypothesis respecting the origin of organic\nbeings.*\"* *(*Principles of Biology, Vol. I.,*\n*p.* 345.)\n\nNext Section\n\nContents",
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