Page 66 (part 6)

If men existed two million years ago, they must have been -- just as the animals were -- quite different physically and anatomically from what they have become; and they were nearer then to the type of pure mammalian animal than they are now. Anyhow, we learn that the animal world breeds strictly inter se, i.e., in accordance with genus and species -- only since the appearance on this earth of the Atlantean race. As demonstrated by the author of that able work, " Modern Science and Modern Thought, " this idea of the refusal to breed with another species, or that sterility is the only result of such breeding, "appears to be a prima facie deduction rather than an absolute law" even now. He shows that "different species, do, in fact, often breed together, as may be seen in the familiar instance of the horse and ass. It is true that in this case the mule is sterile. . . . but this rule is not universal, and recently one new hybrid race, that of the leporine, or hare-rabbit, has been created which is perfectly fertile." The progeny of wolf and dog is also instanced, as that of several other domestic animals (p. 101); "like foxes and dogs again, and the modern Swiss cattle shown by Rutimeyer as descended from three distinct species of fossil-oxen, the Bos primigenius, Bos longifrons and Bos frontosus. " Yet some of those species, as the ape family, which so clearly resembles man in physical structure, contain, we are told, "numerous branches, which graduate into one another, but the extremes of which differ more widely than man does from the highest of the ape series" -- the gorilla and chimpanzee, for instance (see Addenda ) . Thus Mr. Darwin's remark -- or shall we say the remark of Linnaeus? -- natura non facit saltum, is not only corroborated by Esoteric Science but would -- were there any chance of the real doctrine being accepted by any others than its direct votaries -- reconcile in more than one way, if not entirely, the modern Evolution theory with facts, as also with the absolute failure of the Anthropologists to meet with the "missing link" in our Fourth Round geological formations. We will show elsewhere that, however unconsciously to itself, modern Science pleads our case upon its own admissions, and that de Quatrefages is perfectly right, when he suggests in his last work, that it is far more likely that the anthropoid ape should be discovered to be [[Vol. 2, Page]] 288 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. the descendant of man, than that these two types should have a common, fantastic and nowhere-to-be-found ancestor. Thus the wisdom of the compilers of the old Stanzas is vindicated by at least one eminent man of Science, and the Occultist prefers to believe as he ever did that -- " Man was the first and highest (mammalian) animal that appeared in this (Fourth Round) creation. Then came still huger animals ; and last of all the dumb man who walks on all fours. " For, "the Rakshasas (giant-demons) and Daityas ( Titans ) of the " White Dwipa " (continent) spoiled his (the dumb man's) Sires. " (Commentary.) Furthermore, as we see, there are anthropologists who have traced man back to an epoch which goes far to break down the apparent barrier that exists between the chronologies of modern science and the Archaic Doctrine. It is true that English scientists generally have declined to commit themselves to the sanction of the hypothesis of even a Tertiary Man. They, each and all, measure the antiquity of Homo primigenius by their own lights and prejudices. Huxley, indeed, ventures to speculate on a possible Pliocene or Miocene Man. Prof. Seeman and Mr. Grant Allen have relegated his advent to the Eocene, but, speaking generally, English scientists consider that we cannot safely go beyond the quaternary. Unfortunately, the facts do not accommodate the too cautious reserve of these latter. The French school of anthropology, basing their views on the discoveries of l'Abbe Bourgeois, Capellini, and others, has accepted, almost without exception, the doctrine that the traces of our ancestors are certainly to be found in the Miocene, while M. de Quatrefages now inclines to postulate a Secondary-Age Man. Further on we shall compare such estimates with the figures given in the Brahminical exoteric books which approximate to the esoteric teaching. ( d ) . . . . Then, " the third eye acted no longer, " says the Stanza, because MAN had sunk too deep into the mire of matter. What is the meaning of this strange and weird statement in Verse 42, concerning the "third eye of the Third Race which had died and acted no longer"? A few more occult teachings must now be given with reference to this point as well as some others. The history of the Third and Fourth Races must be amplified, in order that it may throw some more light on the development of our present humanity; and show how the faculties, called into activity by occult training, restore man to the position he previously occupied in reference to spiritual perception and consciousness. But the phenomenon of the third Eye has to be first explained. -------