Page 90 (part 4)

The idealism of the present day, not only contrives to absorb, on the one hand, the basic negations of Atheism, but lands its votaries in a tangle of unreality, which culminates in a practical Nihilism. Argument with such writers is almost out of the question. Idealists, therefore, will be still more antagonistic to the Occult teachings now given than even the Materialists. But as no worse fate can befall the exponents of Esoteric Anthropo- Genesis than being openly called by their foes by their old and time-honoured names of "lunatics" and "ignoramuses," the present archaic theories may be safely added to the many modern speculations, and bide their time for their full or even partial recognition. Only, as the existence itself of these "archaic theories" will probably be denied, we have to give our best proofs and stand by them to the bitter end. In our race and generation the one "temple in the Universe" is in rare cases -- within us; but our body and mind have been too defiled by both Sin and Science to be outwardly now anything better than a fane of iniquity and error. And here our mutual position -- that of Occultism and Modern Science -- ought to be once for all defined. We, Theosophists, would willingly bow before such men of learning as the late Prof. Balfour Stewart, Messrs. Crookes, Quatrefages, Wallace, Agassiz, Butlerof, and several others, though we may not agree, from the stand-point of esoteric philosophy, with all they say. But nothing could make us consent to even a show of respect for the opinions of other men of science, such as Haeckel, Carl Vogt, or Ludwig Buchner, in Germany; or even of Mr. Huxley and his co-thinkers in materialism in England -- the colossal erudition of the first named, notwithstanding. Such men are simply the intellectual and moral murderers of future generations; especially Haeckel, whose crass materialism often rises to the height of idiotic naivetes in his reasonings. One has but to read his "Pedigree of Man, and Other Essays" ( Aveling ' s transl. ) to feel a desire, in the words of Job, that his [[Vol. 2, Page]] 652 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. remembrance should perish from the earth, and that he "shall have no name in the streets." Hear him deriding the idea of the origin of the human race "as a supernatural (?) phenomenon," as one "that could not result from simple mechanical causes, from physical and chemical forces, but requires the direct intervention of a creative personality. . . " . . . . "Now the central point of Darwin's teaching," . . goes on the creator of the mythical Sozura, "lies in this, that it demonstrates the simplest mechanical causes, purely physico-chemical phenomena of nature, as wholly sufficient to explain the highest and most difficult problems. Darwin puts in the place of a conscious creative force, building and arranging the organic bodies of animals and plants on a designed plan, a series of natural forces working blindly ( or we say ) without aim, without design. In place of an arbitrary act of operation, we have a necessary law of Evolution . . . . " (So had Manu and Kapila, and, at the same time, guiding, conscious and intelligent Powers). . . "Darwin had very wisely . . . put on one side the question as to the first appearance of life. But very soon that consequence, so full of meaning, so wide reaching, was openly discussed by able and brave scientific men, such as Huxley, Carl Vogt, Ludwig Buchner. A mechanical origin of the earliest living form, was held as the necessary sequence to Darwin's teaching . . and we are at present concerned with a single consequence of the theory, the natural origin of the human race through ALMIGHTY EVOLUTION" (pp. 34, 37). To which, unabashed by this scientific farrago, Occultism replies: in the course of Evolution, when the physical triumphed over, and nearly crushed under its weight, spiritual and mental evolutions, the great gift of Kriyasakti* remained the heirloom of only a few elect men in every age . . . . Spirit strove vainly to manifest itself in its fulness in purely organic forms (as has been explained in Part I. of this Volume), and the faculty, which had been a natural attribute in the early humanity of the Third Race, became one of the class regarded as simply phenomenal by the Spiritualists and Occultists, and as scientifically impossible by the materialists. In our modern day the mere assertion that there exists a power which can create human forms -- ready-made sheaths for the " conscious monads" or Nirmanakayas of past Manvantaras to incarnate within -- is, of course, absurd, ridiculous! That which is regarded as quite natural, on the other hand, is the production of a Frankenstein's monster, plus moral consciousness, religious aspirations, genius, and a feeling of one's own immortal nature within one's self -- by "physico-chemical forces, guided by blind Almighty Evolution" ("Pedigree of Man"). [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * For explanation of the term Kriyasakti, see Com. 2 in Stanza 26. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 653 SCIENCE IS SILENT ON EVERY PROBLEM. As to the origin of that man, not ex-nihilo, cemented by a little red clay, but from a living divine Entity consolidating the astral body with surrounding materials -- this conception is too absurd even to be mentioned in the opinion of the materialists. Nevertheless, Occultists and Theosophists are ready to have their claims and theories -- however unscientific and superstitious at first glance -- compared as to their intrinsic value and probability, with those of the modern evolutionists. Hence the esoteric teaching is absolutely opposed to the Darwinian evolution, as applied to man, and partially so with regard to other species. It would be interesting to obtain a glimpse of the mental representation of Evolution in the Scientific brain of a materialist. What is E VOLUTION? If asked to define the full and complete meaning of the term, neither Huxley nor Haeckel will be able to do it any better than Webster does: "the act of unfolding; the process of growth, development; as the evolution of a flower from a bud, or an animal from the egg." Yet the bud must be traced through its parent-plant to the seed, and the egg to the animal or bird that laid it; or at any rate to the speck of protoplasm from which it expanded and grew. And both the seed and the speck must have the latent potentialities in them for the reproduction and gradual development, the unfolding of the thousand and one forms or phases of evolution, through which they must pass before the flower or the animal are fully developed?