Page 57 (part 11)

Pasteur's observations, however, are far from being perfect or proven. Blanchard and Dr. Lutaud reject their importance and show that they have none. The question is so far left sub judice, as well as that other one "when, at what period, life appeared on the Earth?" As to the idea that Haeckel's Moneron -- a pinch of salt! -- has solved the problem of the origin of life, it is simply absurd. Those materialists, who feel inclined to pooh-pooh the theory of the "Self-existent," the "Self-born heavenly man," represented as an ethereal, astral man, must excuse even a tyro in Occultism laughing, in his turn, at some speculations of modern thought. After proving most learnedly that the primitive speck of protoplasm (moneron) is neither animal nor plant, but both, and that it has no ancestors among either of these, since it is that moneron which serves as a point of departure for all organized existence, we are finally told that the Monera are their own ancestors. This may be very scientific, but it is very metaphysical also; too much so, even for the Occultist. If spontaneous generation has changed its methods now, owing perhaps to accumulated material on hand, so as to almost escape detection, it was in full swing in the genesis of terrestrial life. Even the simple physical form and the evolution of species show how Nature proceeds. The scale-bound, gigantic sauria, the winged pterodactyl, the Megalosaurus, and the hundred-feet long Iguanodon of the later period, are the transformations of the earliest representatives of the animal kingdom found in the sediments of the primary epoch. There was a time when all those above enumerated "antediluvian" monsters appeared as filamentoid infusoria without shell or crust, with neither nerves, muscles, organs nor sex, and reproduced their kind by gemmation: as do microscopical animals also, the architects and builders of our mountain ranges, agreeably to the teachings of science. Why not man in this case? Why should he not have followed the same law in his growth, i.e. , gradual condensation? Every unprejudiced person would prefer to believe that primeval humanity had at first an ethereal -- or, if so preferred, a huge filamentoid, jelly-like form, evolved by gods or natural "forces," which grew, condensed throughout millions of ages, and became gigantic in its physical impulse and tendency, until it settled into the huge, physical form of the Fourth Race Man, -- rather [[Vol. 2, Page]] 152 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. than believe him created of the dust of the Earth ( literally ), or from some unknown anthropoid ancestor. Nor does our esoteric theory clash with scientific data, except on first appearance, as Dr. A. Wilson, F.R.S ., says, in a letter to " Knowledge, " ( Dec. 23 , 1881). "Evolution -- rather Nature, in the light of evolution -- has only been studied for some twenty-five years or so. That is, of course, a mere fractional space in the history of human thought." And just because of that we do not lose all hope that materialistic science will amend its ways, and will gradually accept the esoteric teachings -- if even at first divorced from their (to science) too metaphysical elements. Has the last word on the subject of human evolution yet been said? "Each . . . . answer to the great Question (Man's Real Place in Nature), invariably asserted by the followers of its propounder, if not by himself, to be complete and final, remains in high authority and esteem, it may be for one century, it may be for twenty," writes Prof. Huxley; "but, as invariably, time proves each reply to have been a mere approximation to the truth -- tolerable chiefly on account of the ignorance of those by whom it was accepted, and wholly intolerable when tested by the larger knowledge of their successors "! ! Will this eminent Darwinian admit the possibility of his pithecoid ancestry being assignable to the list of "wholly intolerable beliefs," in the "larger knowledge" of Occultists? But whence the savage? Mere "rising to the civilized state" does not account for the evolution of form. In the same letter, "The Evolution of Man," Dr. Wilson makes other strange confessions. Thus, he observes, in answer to the queries put to " Knowledge " by "G. M.": -- " 'Has evolution effected any change in man? If so, what change? If not, why not?' . . . If we refuse to admit (as science does) that man was created a perfect being, and then became degraded, there exists only another supposition -- that of evolution. If man has arisen from a savage to a civilized state, that surely is evolution. We do not yet know, because such knowledge is difficult to acquire, if the human frame is subject to the same influences as those of lower animals. But there is little doubt that elevation from savagery to civilized life means and implies 'evolution,' and that of considerable extent. Mentally, man's evolution cannot be doubted; the ever-widening sphere of thought has sprung from small and rude beginnings, like language itself. But man's ways of life, his power of adaptation to his surroundings, and countless other circumstances, have made the facts and course of his 'evolution' very difficult to trace." This very difficulty ought to make the Evolutionists more cautious in their affirmations. But why is evolution impossible, if "man was created a perfect being, and then became degraded?" At best it can only apply [[Vol. 2, Page]] 153 ARISTOTLE DENIED HELIOCENTRICISM. to the outward, physical man. As remarked in " Isis Unveiled, " Darwin's evolution begins at the middle point, instead of commencing for man, as for everything else, from the universals. The Aristotle-Baconian method may have its advantages, but it has undeniably already demonstrated its defects. Pythagoras and Plato, who proceeded from the Universals downwards, are now shown more learned, in the light of modern science, than was Aristotle. For he opposed and denounced the idea of the revolution of the earth and even of its rotundity. "Almost all those," he wrote, "who affirm that they have studied heaven in its uniformity, claim that the earth is in the centre, but the philosophers of the Italian School, otherwise called the Pythagoreans, teach entirely the contrary. . . ." Because ( a ) the Pythagoreans were Initiates, and ( b ) they followed the deductive method. Whereas, Aristotle, the father of the inductive system, complained of those who taught that "the centre of our system was occupied by the Sun, and the earth was only a star, which by a rotatory motion around the same centre, produces night and day" ( Vide De Caelo, Book II., c. 13.) The same with regard to man.