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Frederick Collingwood, F.R.S ., F.G.S ., 1864. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 720 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. scientific hypothesis coupled to the recently adopted belief that there exists no "Vital principle" whatever, but only vital phenomena, which can all be traced to the molecular forces of the original protoplasm. But this does not help Science to solve the still greater problem -- the origin and the descent of Man, for here is a still worse plaint and lamentation. "While we can trace the skeletons of Eocene mammals through several directions of specialization in succeeding Tertiary times, man presents the phenomenon of an unspecialized skeleton which cannot fairly be connected with any of these lines." ("Origin of the World," p. 39, by Sir W. Dawson, LL.D ., F.R.S .) The secret could be soon told, not only from the esoteric but even from the standpoint of every religion the world over, without mentioning the Occultists. The "specialized skeleton" is sought for in the wrong place, where it can never be found. It is expected to be discovered in the physical remains of man, in some pithecoid "missing link," with a skull larger than that of the ape's, and with a cranial capacity smaller than in man, instead of looking for that specialization in the super-physical essence of his inner astral constitution, which can hardly be excavated from any geological strata! Such a tenacious, hopeful clinging to a self-degrading theory is the most wonderful feature of the day. R EINDEER ENGRAVED ON A NTLER BY P ALAEOLITHIC M AN. ( After Geikie .) Meanwhile, this is a specimen of an engraving made by a Palaeolithic "savage": Palaeolithic meaning the "earlier Stone-age" man, one supposed to have been as savage and brutal as the brutes he lived with. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 721 THE PALAEOLITHIC LANDSEER. Leaving the modern South Sea Islander, or even any Asiatic race, aside, we defy any grown-up schoolboy, or even a European youth, one who has never studied drawing, to execute such an engraving or even a pencil sketch. Here we have the true artistic raccourci, and correct lights and shadows without any plane model before the artist, who copied direct from nature, thus exhibiting a knowledge of anatomy and proportion. The artist who engraved this reindeer belonged, we are asked to believe, to the primitive "semi-animal" savages (contemporaneous with the mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros), whom some over-zealous Evolutionists once sought to picture to us as distinct approximations to the type of their hypothetical "pithecoid man"! This engraved antler proves as eloquently as any fact can that the evolution of the races has ever proceeded in a series of rises and falls, that man, perhaps, is as old as incrustated Earth, and -- if we can call his Divine ancestor "Man" -- far older still. Even de Mortillet himself seems to experience a vague distrust of the conclusions of modern archaeologists, when he writes: -- "The prehistoric is a new science, far, very far, from having said its last word." (" Prehist. Antiq. of Man, " 1883.) According to Lyell, one of the highest authorities on the subject, and the "Father" of Geology: -- "The expectation of always meeting with a lower type of human skull, the older the formation in which it occurs, is based on the theory of progressive development, and it may prove to be sound; nevertheless we must remember that as yet we have no distinct geological evidence that the appearance of what are called the inferior races of mankind has always preceded in chronological order that of the higher races. " (" Antiq. of Man, " p . 25.) Nor has such evidence been found to this day. Science is thus offering for sale the skin of a bear, which has hitherto never been seen by mortal eye! This concession of Lyell's reads most suggestively with the subjoined utterance of Professor Max Muller, whose attack on the Darwinian Anthropology from the standpoint of LANGUAGE has, by the way, never been satisfactorily answered: -- "What do we know of savage tribes beyond the last chapter of their history? " (Cf. this with the esoteric view of the Australians, Bushmen, as well as of Palaeolithic European man, the Atlantean offshoots retaining a relic of a lost culture, which throve when the parent Root-Race was in its prime.) "Do we ever get an insight into their antecedents. . . . How have they come to be what they are? . . . . Their language proves, indeed, that these so-called heathens, with their complicated systems of mythology, their artificial customs, their unintelligible whims and savageries, are not the creatures of to-day or yesterday. Unless we admit a special creation for these savages, they must be as old as the Hindus, the Greeks and Romans (far older). . . . [[Vol. 2, Page]] 722 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. They may have passed through ever so many vicissitudes, and what we consider as primitive, may be, for all we know, a RELAPSE INTO SAVAGERY or a corruption of something that was more rational and intelligible in former stages." ("India," 1883, F. Max Muller.) "The primeval savage is a familiar term in modern literature," remarks Professor Rawlinson, "but there is no evidence that the primeval savage ever existed. Rather all the evidence looks the other way. " (" Antiq. of Man Historically Considered. ") In his "Origin of Nations," pp. 10-11, he rightly adds: " The mythical traditions of almost all nations place at the beginning of human history a time of happiness and perfection, a 'golden age' which has no features of savagery or barbarism, but many of civilization and refinement." How is the modern evolutionist to meet this consensus of evidence? We repeat the question asked in "Isis Unveiled": "Does the finding of the remains in the cave of Devon prove that there were no contemporary races then who were highly civilized? When the present population of the earth have disappeared, and some archaeologist belonging to the 'coming race' of the distant future shall excavate the domestic implements of one of our Indian or Andaman Island tribes, will he be justified in concluding that mankind in the nineteenth century was 'just emerging from the Stone Age'?" Another strange inconsistency in scientific knowledge is that Neolithic man is shown as being far more of a primitive savage than the Palaeolithic one. Either Lubbock's "Pre-historic Man," or Evans' "Ancient Stone Implements" must be at fault, or -- both.