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Page 57 (part 1)

The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 2 [[Vol. 2, Page]] 131 THE SWAN AND THE EGG. STANZA VI. THE EVOLUTION OF THE "SWEAT-BORN." ------- §§ (22) The evolution of the three races continued. (23) The second race creates the Third and perishes. --------------------- 22. T HEN THE S ECOND EVOLVED THE S WEAT- B ORN, THE T HIRD ( Race ) . T HE SWEAT GREW, ITS DROPS GREW, AND THE DROPS BECAME HARD AND ROUND. T HE S UN WARMED IT; THE M OON COOLED AND SHAPED IT; THE W IND FED IT UNTIL ITS RIPENESS. T HE WHITE SWAN FROM THE STARRY VAULT ( the Moon ), OVERSHADOWED THE BIG DROP. T HE EGG OF THE FUTURE RACE, THE M AN- S WAN ( Hamsa ) OF THE LATER T HIRD ( a ). F IRST M ALE- F EMALE, THEN M AN AND W OMAN ( b ). ( a ) The text of the Stanza clearly implies that the human embryo was nourished ab extra by Cosmic forces, and that the "Father-Mother" furnished apparently the germ that ripened: in all probability a "sweat-born egg," to be hatched out, in some mysterious way, disconnected from the "double" parent. It is comparatively easy to conceive of an oviparous humanity, since even now man is, in one sense, "egg-born." Magendie, moreover, in his Precis Elementaire de Physiologie, citing "a case where the umbilical cord was ruptured and perfectly cicatrized," yet the infant was born alive, pertinently asks, "How was the circulation carried on in this organ?" On the next page he says: "Nothing is at present known respecting the use of digestion in the foetus;" and respecting its nutrition, propounds this query: "What, then, can we say of the nutrition of the foetus? Physiological works contain only vague conjectures on this point." "Ah, but," the sceptic may urge, "Magendie's book belongs to the last generation, and Science has since made such strides that his stigma of ignorance can no longer be fixed upon the profession." Indeed; then let us turn to a very great authority upon Physiology, viz., Sir M. Foster ( Text-Book of Physiology, third edition, 1879, p. 623); and to the disadvantage of modern Science we shall find him saying, "Concerning the rise and development of the functional activities of the embryo, our knowledge is almost a blank. We know scarcely anything about the various steps by which the primary fundamental qualities of the protoplasm of the ovum are differentiated into the complex phenomena which we have attempted in [[Vol. 2, Page]] 132 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. this book to explain." The students of Trin. Coll. Cantab. will now kindly draw a veil before the statue of Hygeia and bandage the eyes of the busts of Galen and Hippocrates, lest they look reproachfully at their degenerate descendants. One further fact we must note. Sir M. Foster is discreetly silent about the case of the ruptured umbilical cord cited by his great French confrere. This is a very curious statement as explained in the Commentaries. To make it clear: The First Race having created the Second by "budding," as just explained, the Second Race gives birth to the Third -- which itself is separated into three distinct divisions, consisting of men differently procreated. The first two of these are produced by an oviparous method, presumably unknown to modern Natural History. While the early sub-races of the Third Humanity procreated their species by a kind of exudation of moisture or vital fluid, the drops of which coalescing formed an oviform ball -- or shall we say egg? -- which served as an extraneous vehicle for the generation therein of a foetus and child, the mode of procreation by the later races changed, in its results at all events. The little ones of the earlier races were entirely sexless -- shapeless even for all one knows*; but those of the later races were born androgynous. It is in the Third Race that the separation of sexes occurred. From being previously a-sexual, Humanity became distinctly hermaphrodite or bi-sexual; and finally the man-bearing eggs began to give birth, gradually and almost imperceptibly in their evolutionary development, first, to Beings in which one sex predominated over the other, and, finally, to distinct men and women. And now let us search for corroboration of these statements in the religious legends of East and West. Let us take the "Egg-born Race" first. Think of Kasyapa, the Vedic sage, and the most prolific of creators. He was the son of Marichi, Brahma's mind-born son; and he is made to become the father of the Nagas, or Serpents, among other beings. Exoterically, the Nagas are semi-divine beings which have a human face and the tail of a serpent. Yet there was a race of Nagas, said to be a thousand in number only, born or rather sprung from Kadra, Kasyapa's wife, for the purpose of peopling Patala, which is undeniably America, as will be shown; and there was a NAGA-Dwipa, one of the seven divisions of Bharata-Varsha, India, inhabited by a people bearing the same name, who are allowed, even by some Orientalists, to be historical, and to have left many a trace behind them to this day. Now the point most insisted upon at present is that, whatever origin be claimed for man, his evolution took place in this order: (1) Sexless, as all the earlier forms are; (2) then, by a natural transition, he became, [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * See the "Timaeus." [[Vol. 2, Page]] 133 BI-SEXUAL REPRODUCTION. "a solitary hermaphrodite," a bi-sexual being; and (3) finally separated and became what he is now. Science teaches us that all the primitive forms, though sexless, "still retained the power of undergoing the processes of A-Sexual multiplication;" why, then, should man be excluded from that law of Nature? Bi-sexual reproduction is an evolution, a specialized and perfected form on the scale of matter of the fissiparous act of reproduction. Occult teachings are pre-eminently panspermic, and the early history of humanity is hidden only "from ordinary mortals;" nor is the history of the primitive Races buried from the Initiates in the tomb of time, as it is for profane science.
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Themes
Cosmogonycosmology

Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.

The passage narrates the origin of the Third Race through the 'sweat-born' egg process, with the Sun, Moon, and Wind as formative agents, constituting a clear narrative of cosmic/human origin.

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Emanation Hierarchycosmology

A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.

The First Race creates the Second by 'budding,' the Second creates the Third and perishes — a cascading chain of beings each giving rise to the next in a downward generative sequence.

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Gendercosmology

The Hermetic doctrine that a masculine-feminine generative principle operates on every plane of being, not only the biological — present at all times as a structural feature of creation itself. Distinct from divine_marriage (a specific reunification event or symbol) and aeons (paired divine beings arranged in syzygies, not a universal structural claim).

The entire passage is structured around the evolution of the masculine-feminine generative principle from a-sexual to hermaphroditic to separate sexes, making gender as a structural cosmogonic force the central theme.

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