Page 67 (part 5)

The hinder part of the roof is developed by a peculiar process, to be noticed later, into the pineal gland, which remains united on each side by its pedicles to the thalamus, and behind these a transverse band is formed as posterior commissure. "The lamina terminalis ( lamina cinerea ) continues to close the third ventricle in front, below it the optic commissure forms the floor of the ventricle, and further back the infundibulum descends to be united in the sella turcica with the tissue adjoining the posterior lobe of the pituitary body. "The two optic thalami formed from the posterior and outer part of the anterior vesicle, consist at first of a single hollow sac of nervous matter, the cavity of which communicates on each side in front with that of the commencing cerebral hemispheres, and behind with that of the middle cephalic vesicle (corpora quadrigemina ). Soon, however, by increased deposit taking place in their interior, behind, below, and at the sides, the thalami become solid, and at the same time a cleft or fissure appears between them above, and penetrates down to the internal cavity, which continues open at the back part opposite the entrance of the Sylvian aqueduct. This cleft or fissure is the third ventricle. Behind, the two thalami continue united by the posterior commissure, which is distinguishable about the end of the third month, and also by the peduncles of the pineal gland. . . . . "At an early period the optic tracts may be recognised as hollow prolongations from the outer part of the wall of the thalami while they are still vesicular. At the fourth month these tracts are distinctly formed. They subsequently are prolonged backwards into connection with the corpora quadrigemina. "The formation of the pineal gland and pituitary body presents some of the most interesting phenomena which are connected with the development of the Thalamencephalon." The above is specially interesting when it is remembered that, were it not for the development of the hinder part of the cerebral hemispheres backwards, the pineal gland would be perfectly visible on the removal of the parietal bones. It is very interesting also to note the obvious connection to be traced between the (originally) hollow optic tracts and the eyes anteriorly, the pineal gland and its peduncles behind, and all [[Vol. 2, Page]] 298 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. of these with the optic thalami. So that the recent discoveries in connection with the third eye of Hatteria punctata have a very important bearing on the developmental history of the human senses, and on the occult assertions in the text. It is well known, (and also regarded as a fiction now, by those who have ceased to believe in the existence of an immortal principle in man,) that Descartes saw in the pineal gland the Seat of the Soul. Although it is joined to every part of the body, he said, there is one special portion of it in which the Soul exercises its functions more specially than in any other. And, as neither the heart, nor yet the brain could be that "special" locality, he concluded that it was that little gland tied to the brain, yet having an action independent of it, as it could easily be put into a kind of swinging motion " by the animal Spirits* which cross the cavities of the skull in every sense." Unscientific as this may appear in our day of exact learning, Descartes was yet far nearer the occult truth than is any Haeckel. For the pineal gland, as shown, is far more connected with Soul and Spirit than with the physiological senses of man. Had the leading Scientists a glimmer of the real processes employed by the Evolutionary Impulse, and the winding cyclic course of this great law, they would know instead of conjecturing; and feel as certain of the future physical transformations of the human kind by the knowledge of its past forms. Then, would they see the fallacy and all the absurdity of their modern "blind-force" and mechanical processes of nature; realizing, in consequence of such knowledge, that the said pineal gland, for instance, could not but be disabled for physical use at this stage of our cycle. If the odd "eye" in man is now atrophied, it is a proof that, as in the lower animal, it has once been active; for nature never creates the smallest, the most insignificant form without some definite purpose and use. It was an active organ, we say, at that stage of evolution when the spiritual element in man reigned supreme over the hardly nascent intellectual and psychic elements. And, as the cycle ran down toward that point when the physiological senses were developed by, and went pari passu with, the growth and consolidation of the physical man, the interminable and complex vicissitudes and tribulations of zoological development, that median "eye" ended by atrophying along with the early spiritual and purely psychic characteristics in man. The eye is the mirror and also the window of the soul, says popular wisdom,** and Vox populi Vox Dei. [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * The "Nervous Ether" of Dr. B. W. Richardson, F.R.S . -- the nerve-aura of occultism. The "animal spirits" (?) are equivalent to the currents of nerve-auric compound circulation. ** Let us remember that the First Race is shown in Occult sciences as spiritual within [[Footnote continued on next page]] [[Vol. 2, Page]] 299 THE EVOLUTION OF THE EYE. In the beginning, every class and family of living species was hermaphrodite and objectively one-eyed. In the animal, whose form was as ethereal (astrally) as that of man, before the bodies of both began to evolve their coats of skin, viz., to evolve from within without the thick coating of physical substance or matter with its internal physiological mechanism -- the third eye was primarily, as in man, the only seeing organ. The two physical front eyes developed* later on in both brute and man, whose organ of physical sight was, at the commencement of the Third Race, in the same position as that of some of the blind vertebrata, in our day, i.e ., beneath an opaque skin.** Only the stages of the odd, or primeval eye, in man and brute, are now inverted, as the former has already passed that animal non-rational stage in the Third Round, and is ahead of mere brute creation by a whole plane of consciousness. Therefore, while the "Cyclopean" eye was, and still is, in man the organ of spiritual sight, in the animal it was that of objective vision. And this eye, having performed its function, was replaced, in the course of physical evolution from the simple to the complex, by two eyes, and thus was stored and laid aside by nature for further use in AEons to come. This explains why the pineal gland reached its highest development proportionately with the lowest physical development.