Page 94 (part 5)

The "portrait" of the "Reindeer feeding," from the Thayngin grotto in Switzerland, and those of the man running, with two horse's heads sketched close to him -- a work of the Reindeer period, i.e., at least 50,000 years ago -- are pronounced by Mr. Laing not only exceedingly well done, but, especially the reindeer feeding, as one that " would do credit to any modern animal painter " [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * On the data furnished by modern science, physiology, and natural selection, and without resorting to any miraculous creation, two negro human specimens of the lowest intelligence -- say idiots born dumb -- might by breeding produce a dumb Pastrana species, which would start a new modified race, and thus produce in the course of geological time the regular anthropoid ape. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 718 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. -- by no means exaggerated praise, as anyone may see ( Vide infra ) . Now, since side by side with the modern Esquimaux, who also have a tendency, like their Palaeolithic ancestors of the Reindeer period, the rude and savage human species, to be constantly drawing with the point of their knives sketches of animals, scenes of the chase, etc., we have our greatest painters of Europe, why could not the same have happened in those days? Compared with the specimens of Egyptian drawing and sketching -- "7,000 years ago" -- the " earliest portraits" of men, horses' heads, and reindeer, made 50,000 years ago, are certainly superior. Nevertheless, the Egyptians of those periods are known to have been a highly civilized nation, whereas the Palaeolithic men are called savages of the lower type. This is a small matter seemingly, yet extremely suggestive as showing that every new geological discovery is made to fit in with current theories, instead of the reverse. Yes; Mr. Huxley is right in saying, "Time will show." It will, and must vindicate Occultism. Meanwhile, the most uncompromising materialists are driven by necessity into the most occult-like admissions. Strange to say, it is the most materialistic -- those of the German school -- who, with regard to physical development, come the nearest to the teachings of the Occultists. Thus, Professor Baumgartner, who believes that "the germs for the higher animals could only be the eggs of the lower animals"; who thinks that "besides the advance of the vegetable and animal world in development, there occurred in that period the formation of new original germs, " which formed the basis of new metamorphoses, etc. -- thinks also that "the first men who proceeded from the germs of animals beneath them, lived first in a larva state." Just so, in a larva state, we say, too; only from no "animal" germ, and that "larva" was the soulless astral form of the pre-physical Races. And we believe, as the German professor does, with several other men of Science in Europe now, that the human races "have not descended from one pair, but appeared immediately in numerous races"; ( Anfange zu einer Physiologischen Schopfungs-geschichte der Pflanzen und Thierwelt, 1885). Therefore, when we read "Force and Matter," and find that Emperor of Materialists, Buchner, repeating after Manu and Hermes, that "the plant passes imperceptibly into the animal, and the animal into man" (p. 85), we need only add "and man into a spirit," to complete the Kabalistic axiom. The more so, since on page 82 of the same work we read the following admission: . . . "Produced in the way of spontaneous generation . . . it is by the aid of intense natural forces and endless periods of time (that) there has progressively arisen that rich and infinitely modified organic world by which we are at present surrounded." . . . And (page 84) "Spontaneous generation played, no doubt, [[Vol. 2, Page]] 719 BETWEEN TWO VOIDS. a more important part in the primeval epoch than at present ; nor can it be denied that in this way beings of a higher organization were produced than now,"* for this is the claim of Occultism. The whole difference lies in this: Modern Science places her materialistic theory of primordial germs on earth, and the last germ of life on this globe, of man, and everything else, between two voids. Whence the first germ, if both spontaneous generation and the interference of external forces, are absolutely rejected now? Germs of organic life, we are told, by Sir W. Thomson, came to our earth in some meteor? This helps in no way and only shifts the difficulty from this earth to the supposed meteor. These are our agreements and disagreements with Science. About the endless periods we are, of course, at one even with materialistic speculation; for we believe in Evolution, though on different lines. Professor Huxley very wisely says: "If any form of progressive development is correct, we must extend by long epochs the most liberal estimate that has yet been made of the antiquity of man." But when we are told that this man is a product of the natural forces inherent in matter, force, according to modern views, being but a quality of matter, a "mode of motion," etc.; and when we find Sir W. Thomson repeating in 1885 what was asserted by Buchner and his school thirty years ago, we fear all our reverence for real Science is vanishing into thin air! One can hardly help thinking that materialism is, in certain cases, a disease. For when men of Science, in the face of the magnetic phenomena and the attraction of iron particles through insulating substances, like glass, maintain that the said attraction is due to "molecular motion," or to the "rotation of the molecules of the magnet," then, whether the teaching comes from a "credulous" Theosophist innocent of any notion of physics, or from an eminent man of Science, it is equally ridiculous. The individual who asserts such a theory in the teeth of fact, is only one more proof that "When people have not a niche in their minds in which to shoot facts, so much the worse for the facts." As present the dispute between the spontaneous generationists and their opponents is at rest, having ended in the provisional victory of the latter. But even they are forced to admit, as Buchner did, and Messrs. Tyndall and Huxley still do -- that spontaneous generation must have occurred once, under "special thermal conditions." Virchow refuses even to argue the question; it must have taken place sometime in the history of our planet: and there's an end of it. This seems to look more natural than Sir W. Thomson's hypothesis just quoted, that the germs of organic life fell on our earth in some meteor; or that other [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * "Force and Matter," by Dr. Louis Buchner, translated and edited by J.