SECTION I.

Archaic, or Modern Anthropology?
Whenever the question of the Origin of Man is offered seriously to an unbiassed, honest, and earnest man of Science, the answer comes invariably: **We do not know.*' De Quatrefages with his agnostic attitude is one of such Anthropologists.
This does not imply that the rest of the men of Science are neither fair-minded nor honest, as such a remark would be questionably dis- creet. But it is estimated that 75 per cent, of European Scientists are Evolutionists. Are these representatives of Modern Thought all guilty of flagrant misrepresentation of the facts? No one says this — but there are a few very exceptional cases. However, the Scientists, in their anti-clerical enthusiasm and in despair of any alternative theory to Darwinism except that of "special creation." are unconsciously in- sincere in "forcing" a hj'pothesis the elasticity of which is inadequate, and which resents the severe strain to which it is now subjected. Insincerity on the same subject is, however, patent in ecclesiastical circles. Bishop Temple has come forward as a thorough-going supporter of Darwinism in his Religion and Science. This clerical writer goes so far as to regard Matter — after it has received its "primal impress" — as the unaided evolver of all cosmic phenomena. This view only differs from that of Hieckel, in postulating a hypothetical Deity at "the back of beyont,'* a Deity which stands entirely aloof from the interphiy of forces. Such a metaphysical entity is no more the Thco-
683
THB SECRET DOCTRINE.
logical God than is that of Kant. Bishop Temple's truce with mate- rialistic Science is. in our opinion, impolitic — apart from the fact that it involves a total rejection of the biblical cosmogony. In the presence of this display of flunkeyism before the materialism of our ^'learned" age, we Occultists can but smile. But how about loyalty to the Master such theological truants profess to serve — Christ, and Christendom at large?
However, we have no desire^ for the present, to throw down the gauntlet to the clerg>', our business bein^ now with materialistic Science alone. The latter, in the person of its best representatives, answers to our question. ^'We do not know;" yet the majority of them act as though Omniscience were their heirloom, and they knew all things.
For, indeed, this negative reply has not prevented the majority of Scientists from speculating on the question, each seeking to have his own special theory accepted to the exclusion of all others. Thus, from Maillet in 1748, down to Hseckel in 1870, theories on the origin of the human race have differed as much as the personalities of their inventors themselves. Buffon, Bor>' de St. Vincent, Lamarck, E. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Gaudry, Naudin. Wallace, Darwin, Owen, Ha^ckel, Filippi, Vogt, Huxley, Agassiz, etc., each has evolved a more or less scientific h>"pothesis of genesis. De Quatxefages arranges these theories in two principal groups — one based on a rapid, and the other on a very gradual transmutation; the former favouring a new type (man) produced by a being entirely different, the latter teaching the evolution of man by progressive differentiations.
Strangely enoilgh, it is from the most scientific of these authorities that has emanated the most unscientific of all the theories upon the subject of the Origin of Man. This is now so evident, that the hour is rapidly approaching when the current teaching about the descent of man from an ape-like mammal will be regarded with less respect than the formation of Adam out of clay, and of Eve out of Adam's rib. For
It is evident, especially after the most fumlameutal principles of Darwinian], that an organized being cannot be a descendant of another whose development is in an inverse order to its own. Consequently, in accordance with these principles, man cannot be considered as the descendant of any simian type whatever.*
• De Quatrcfncm, 7^ Numam Specus, p. m. The rcspccUvc dcvelopmcat* of Utc hutnsn aad feiiman brtUns are referred to. "In ihe ape the tcmporo-ipbenfyidal convoltitioDft. which form U>e middle lobe, make their appeamiice and arc complete*! befurr the antcriur couvolutiouit which form the frontal lobe. In man, on the cootrary. the froatnl convolutions arc the fint to appear, aod thoac of the middle lobe are formed later." [Ibid.^
PHYSlOtOGICAL" VERSUS "NATURAL" SELECTION.
683
Lucae's argument versus the Ape-theoc. based on the dififerent flexures of the bones constituting the axis of the skull in the cases of man and the anthropoids, is fairly discussed by Schmidt. He admits that:
The ape as he grows becomes more bestial ; man . . . more hamau —
and seems» indeed, to hesitate a moment before he passes on:
This flexure of the cranial axis may, therefore, still be emphasized as a human character, in contradistinction to the apes: the peculiar characteristic of an order can scarcely be elicited from it; and especially as to the doctrine of descent, this circumstance seems in no way decisive.*
The writer is evidently not a little disquieted by his own argument. He assures us that it upsets any possibility of the present apes having been the progenitors of mankind. But does it not also negative the bare possibility of the man and the anthropoid having had a common — though, so far, an absolutely theoretical — ancestor?
Even "Natural Selection" itself is with every day more threatened. The deserters from the Darwinian camp are many, and those who were at one time its most ardent disciples are, owing to new discoveries, slowly but steadily preparing to turn over a new leaf. In the Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society ioi October, 1886, we may read as follows;
Physiological Selkction. — Mr. G. J. Romanes finds certain difficulties tn regarding natural selection as a theory for the origin of species, as it is rather a theory of the origin of adaptive structures. He proposes to replace it by what he calls physiological selection, or segregation of the fit. His view is based on the extreme sensitiveness of the reproductive system to small changes in the condi- tions of life, and he thinks that variations in the direction of greater or less sterility must frequently occur in wild species. If the variation be such that the reproductive system, while showing some degree of sterility with the parent form, continues to be fertile within the limits of the varietal form, the variation would neither be swamped by intercrossing nor die out on account of sterility. When a variation of this kind occurs, the physiological barrier must divide the species into two parts. The author, iu fine, regards mutual sterility, not as one of the effects of specific differentiation, but a.s the cause of it.t
An attempt is made to show the above to be a complement of, and sequence to, the Darwinian theory. This is a clumsy attempt at best.
• Doctrine cf Descent and Darwinism, p. aqo.
+ Series II, Vol. VI, p. 769 iJ3A- 1^86). To this an editorUI remark adds thmt an "F.J.B.," in the Athrmrum (No. 3o6(}, Aug. xt, 1M6, pp. M3>3), points out that Nataralists hsve lonjr recoinitKd that there arc *^niorpliolacicar' and " phyaiotoiicnl " species. The former have their origin tn men's minds, the Utter In a scries of changes sufficient to aflect the internal as wrll as the external organs of n STOup of sUicd indivldualft. The " physiotogicul Mtection " of morphological spedea is a con> fusion of ideas; that of physiological species a redundancy of tenns-
j^ THK SECRET DOCTRmB.
The public will soon be asked to believe that Mr. C. Dixon's Evoiuiion iviihoui Natural Selection is also Darwinism — expanded, as the author certainly claims it to be!
But it is like splitting the body of a man into three pieces, and then maintaining that each piece is the identical man he was before, only — expanded. Yet the author states:
Let it be clearly understood that not one single syllable in the foregoing pages has been written antagonistic to Darwin's theory of Natural Selection. All I have done is to explain certain phenomena . . . the more one studies Darwm*s works, the more one is convinced of the truth of his hypothesis [! !].•
And before this, he alludes to:
The overwhelming array of facts which Darwin gave in support of his hypo- thesis, and which triumphantly carried the theory of Natural Selection over all obstacles and objections, t
This does not prevent the learned author, however, from upsetting this theory as "triumphantly," and from even openly calling his work Evolution without Natural Selection, or, in so many words, with Darwin's fundamental idea knocked to atoms in it.
As to Natural Selection itself, the utmost misconception prevails among many present-day thinkers, who tacitly accept the conclusions of Darwinism. It is, for instance, a mere device of rhetoric to credit Natural Selection with the power of originating species. Natural Selection is no entity; it is merely a convenient phrase for describing the mode in which the survival of the fit and the elimination of the unfit among organisms are brought about by the Struggle for Existence. Every group of organisms tends to multiply beyond the means of sut>* sistence; the constant battle for life — the "struggle to obtain enough to eat and to escape being eaten" added to the environmental coudi- tions — necessitates a perpetual weeding out of the unfit. The /lite of any stock, thus sorted out, propagate the species and transmit their organic characteristics to their descendants. All useful variations are thus perpetuated, and a progressive improvement is effected. But Natural Selection — in the writer*s humble opinion, "Selection, as a Power*" — is in reality a pure myth; especially when it is resorted to as an explanation of the Origin of Species. It is merely a representative term expressive of the manner in which "useful variations" are stereo- typed when produced. Of itself, "if* can produce — nothing, and only operates on the rough material presented to "it." The real question at issue is: What cause — combined with other secondary causes — pro-
4
1
• Qp. cit., p. 79.
T /»»/., p. 48.
THE OCCtaT AND THE MODERN DOCTRINES.
68s
duces the "variations" in the organisms themselves? Many of these secondarj' causes are purely physical — climatic, dietarj', etc. Very well. But beyond the secondar>' aspects of organic evolution, a deeper principle has to be sought for. The Materialist's "spontaneous varia- tions," and '^accidental divergencies" are self-contradictory terms in a universe of "Matter, Force and Necessity^'' Mere variability of type, apart from the supervisory presence of a quasi-intelligent impulse, is powerless to account for the stupendous complexities and marvels of the human body, for instance. The insufficiency of the Darwinists' mechanical theory has been exposed at length by Dr. Von Hartmann among other purely negative thinkers. It is an abuse of the reader's intelligence to write, as does Haeckel, of blind indiflferent cells, "arranging themselves into organs." The Esoteric solution of the origin of animal species is given elsewhere.
Those purely secondary causes of differentiation, grouped under the head of sexual selection, natural selection, climate, isolation, etc., mis- lead the Western Evolutionist and offer no real explanation whatever of the "whence" of the "ancestral types" which served as the starling point for physical development. The truth is that the differentiating "causes" known to Modem Science only come into operation after the physicalization of the primei'al animal root-types out of the astral. Darwinism only meets Evolution at its midway point — that is to say, when astral evolution has given place to the play of the ordinary physical forces with which our present senses acquaint us. But even here the Darwinian Theory, even with the "expansions" recently attempted, is inadequate to meet the facts of the case. The cause underlying physiological variation in species — one to which all other laws are subordinate and secondar>' — is a sub-conscious intelli- gence pervading matter, ultimately traceable to a reflection of the Divine and Dhyain-Chohanic wisdom.* A not altogether dissimilar conclusion has been arrived at by so well known a thinker as Ed. von Hartmann, who. despairing of the efficacy of unaided Natural Selec- tion, regards Evolution as being intelligently guided by the Uncon- scious— the Cosmic Logos of Occultism. But the latter acts only mediately through Fohat, or DhySn-Chohanic energ>', and not quite in the direct manner which the great pessimist describes.
* NlgcU's "priaeiptc ctf perfectibiUty"; von de Ba«r's "striTtng towards the purpose " ; Brtiun's "dtvine breath as the inward impulse in the rvolutiouury history of Nature"; Professor Owco's "tendency to perfectibility," etc., ore all expressive of the veiled manUeatalJoiu of the universal fiuding Fohat, rich with the Oivinc aod Ufay&n-Chobaiiic tbouffht.
It is this divergence among men of Science, their raiittial, and their j/'^-contradictions, that gives the writer of the present volt the courage to bring to light other and older teachings — if only hypotheses ior future scientific appreciation. So evident, even to the humble recorder of this archaic teaching, though not in any way verr learned in Modem Sciences, are the scientific fallacies and g^^ps, tlut she has determined to touch upon all these, in order to place the two teachings on parallel lines. For Occultism, it is a question of self- defence, and nothing more.
So far, Tiu Secret Doeiri^u has concerned itself with metaphysit pure and simple. It has now landed on Earth, and finds itself with! the domain of physical Science and practical Anthropology, or those' branches of study which materialistic Naturalists claim as their rightful domain, coolly asserting, furthermore, that the higher and more perfect the working of the Soul, the more amenable it is to the analysis and explanations of the Zoologist and ike Physiologist alone.^ This stupendous pretension comes from one, who, to prove his pithecoid descent, has not hesitated to include the Lemuridsc among the ancestors of man; these have been promoted by him to the rank of Prosimiae, indeciduaie mammals, to which he very incorrectly contributes a decidua and a discoidal placenta.f For this Hjeckel was taken severely to task by de Quatrefages, and criticised by his own brother Materialists and Agnostics — Virchow and du Bois-Reymoud, as great, if not greater authorities than himself.J
Such opposition notwithstanding, Haeckel's wild theories are, to this day, still called by some scientific and logical. The mysterious nature of Consciousness, of Soul, of Spirit in Man being now explained as a mere advance on the functions of the protoplasmic molecules of the lively Protista, and the gradual evolution and growth of human mind and "social instincts*' toward civilization having to be traced back to their origin in the civilization of ants, bees, and other creatures — the chances left for an impartial hearing of the doctrines of Archaic Wisdom are few indeed. The educated profane are told that:
• Hceckel on "C«]l -Souls and Soul -Cells." Pedtf^reeof Man. AvcUnir's Trans., see |ip. 136, 130.
T See iN/rti, M. lie Quatrefagett' expoit of Hacckel, in Set:tion II, "The Ancestors Mankind li ofleird by Science."
X stricUy speaklrif?. du BoUKcymoud b an Affoofltic. and not a MateiiaUst. He has pcotesCcd uiOKt vehemently againnl the tnatciiallsUc doctrine, which aAnna mental phenomeua to be mer^y the product of molecular moiion. The inont accurate physioUtfical knowledj^ of the Ntnicturt of Llie liraia leaven tis "nothing but matter ta motion," he ouertj; "n^ mnxt go further, and admit iJtc utterly incomprehensible nature of the psychical principle, vrhlcfa It Is impossibtt to rtgard as a mer« outcome of material causes."
'THK TESTIMONIUM PAITFEKTATIS OF NATURAI, SCESNCB.
687
The social instincts of the lower animals bavCf of late, been rej^arded for varioas reasons as clearly the origin of morals, even of those of man [?J. . . .
— and that our divine consciousness, our soul, intellect, and aspirations liave worked their "way up from the lower stages of the simple cell- soul" of the gelatinous Bathybius — * and they seem to believe it. For such men, the Metaphysics of Occultism must produce the effect that our grandest oratorios produce on the Chinaman — sounds that jar upon their nerves.
Yet, are our Esoteric teachings about "Angels," the first three pre- animal human Races, and the downfall of the Fourth, on a lower level of fiction and self-delusion than the Hseckelian "plastidular." or the inorganic '^molecular souls of the Protista"? Between the evolution of the spiritual nature of man from the above amoebian souls, and the alleged development of his physical frame from the protoplastic dweller in the ocean slime, there is an abyss which will not easily be crossed by any man in the full possession of his intellectual faculties. Physical Evolution, as Modem Science teaches it, is a subject for open controversy; spiritual and moral development on the same lines is the insane dream of a crass Materialism.
Furthermore, past as well as present daily experience teaches that no truth has ever been accepted by learned bodies unless it has dove- tailed with the habitually preconceived ideas of their professors. "The crown of the innovator is a crown of thorns" — said Geoffroy St. Hilaire. It is only that which fits in with popular hobbies and accepted notions that as a general rule gains ground. Hence the triumph of the Hseckelian ideas, notwithstanding that they are proclaimed by Virchow, du Bois-Reymond, and others as the *' tesUtnonium paupertalis of Natural Science."
Diametrically opposed as may be the materialism of the German Evolutionists to the spiritual conceptions of Esoteric Philosophy, radically inconsistent as is their accepted anthropological system with the real facts of Nature — the pseudo-idealistic bias now colouring English thought is almost more pernicious. The pure Materialistic Doctrine admits of a direct refutation and an appeal to the logic of facts. 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 almcst out of the question. Idealists,
• See HBdcel's "Pietut PoslHon of Brolotloii," 9p. at., pp. 73, 24. 496, 197, ttotee.
DOCTMSTE.
tfieicfoic, wOl bestfll more
thaa even tbe
tbexr fixft
the Occult tear^ifngs nom gtren. Bat as do wocae &te en
exponents of Esoteric Anthropc^eoesis at the hands oc than besi^ openly called by thcxr old and tiae-hoBCMiBd saaaes of "hmabcs" and "^iffMnmascsT the preacst ardiaic cbeones mmy be safely added to the manf a»odeni ^>rralatiotta> aad bide their tioac Sue their fnll or even partial reoogaition. Only, as the very eaosfecoce of these archaic theories will probably be dexued, «r hare to giw aai best proo& and stand by them to the bitter end.
In onr race and generation the one "temple in the nnivefse'' is in rare cases — mrUkim as; but oar body and nuod have been too d^fil^ fay both "sin" axid " science'^ to be ocstwaidly aaythtug better maw than a £uie of iniquity and error. And here oar aivtaal position — that of OrmHism and Jdodem Science — ongfat to be oaoe for all defined.
We. Theosophists, are willing to bow before sndi men of Icantiag as the late Prof. Balfoor Stewart. Ifessrs. Croohesv de Qoatrelase^ Wallace, Agassiz, BnlleroC and others, thongh, from the stand-point of the Esoteric Philosophy, we may not agree with all they say. Bm nothing will make us consent to even a show of respect for the opinions of such other men of Science as Hae^eL Carl Vogt; or Ludwig Biichner. in Gennany, or even Mr. Huxley and his co-thinkers in Materialism in England — the colossal erudition of the first named. notwithstanding. Such men are simply the inteUectnal and moral murderers of future generations; especially Hseckel, whose crass Materialism often rises to the height of idiotic naix?cth in his reasomngs. One has but to read his Pcdtgneof Man, and Oiktr Essays (Avelings Translation) to feel a desire that, in the words of Job. his remembrance should perish from the Earth, and that he "shall have no name in the streets.*' Hear the creator of the mythical Sozura 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 require* the direct inlervcation of a creative personality. . . . N"ow the ccntrAl |K)iDt of Darwin's teaching . . . lies in this, that it demonstrates the ahnplest mechanical causes, ptirely ph>'sico-chemical phenomena of nature. a» wholly sufficient to explain the highest and most difficult problems. Darwin puts is the place of a conscious creative force, building and arranging the organic bodies of AuimaU And plants on a designed plan, a series of natural forces working blindly (as wc s(iy) without aim, without design. In place of an arbitrary act of operatioa. Wt have a neceasar\' law of Kvolution . , . [So had Manu and Kapilo, and. «1
'^AIMIGUTY EVOLUTION?
689
the same time, guiding, conscious and intelligent Powers]. Darwin very wisely , . . had put on one aide the question as to the first appearance of life. But very soon that consequence, so full of meaning, so wide-reaching, was openly dis- cussed by able and brave scientific men, such as Huxley. Carl Vogt, Ludwig Biichner. A mechanical origin of the earliest living form was held as the necessary sequence to Darwin's teaching ... we are at present only concerned with a single consequence of the theorj', the natural origin of the human race through almighty Evolution.*
To this, unabashed by such a scientific farrago. Occultism replies: In the course of Evolution, when the physical triumphed over the spiritual and mental evolution, aud nearly crushed it under its weight, the great ^ft of Kriyashakti remained the heirloom of only a few elect men in every age. Spirit strove vainly to manijcsl itscif 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 Spiritualists and Occultists, and as scienlifically impossible by Mate- rialists.
In our modem day the mere assertion that there exists a power which can create httman forms — ready-made Sheaths within which can incarnate the conscious Monads or Nirmanakdyas of past Manvantaras — is, of course, absurd, ridiculous! Ttiat 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 his own immortal nature within himself— by "physico- chemical forces," guided by blind '*Almighty Evolution." 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 — such a 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 compared as to their intrinsic value and probability with those of the modern Evolutionists — however unscientific and superstitious these theories may at the first glance appear. 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 represen- tation of Evolution in the scientific brain of a Materialist. What is
Evolution? If asked to define the full and complete meaning of the
~~^ _^ -^
• op, ««., pp. 34. 35. 36-
THE SKCRET DOCTRINE.
terra, neither Huxley nor Haeckel will be able to do so any better tlian does Webster:
The act of unfolding; the process of growth, development; as the evolation 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 repro- duction 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 is fully developed? Hence, the future plan— if not a design — must be there. Moreover, that seed has to be traced, and its nature ascertained. Have the Darwinians been successful in this? Or will the Moneron be cast in our teeth? But this atom of the Watery Abysses is not homogeneous matter; and there must be something or somebody that had moulded and cast it into being.
Here Science is once more silent. But since there is no self- consciousness as yet in speck, seed, or germ, according to both Materialists and Psychologists of the modern school — Occultists agree- iuR in this for once with their natural enemies — what is it that guides the force or forces so unerringly in this process of Evolution? "Blind force"? As well call "blind" the brain which evolved in Haeckel hii^J Pedigree of Man and other lucubrations. We can easily conceive thal^l the said brain lacks an important centre or two; for whoever knows anything of the anatomy of the human, or even of any animal, body, and is still an Atheist and a Materialist, must be "hopelessly insane," According to Lord Herbert, who rightly sees in the frame of man's body and the coherence of its parts, something so strange and paradojcical that he holds it to be the "greatest miracle of nature." Blind forces and "w Science would hesitate to say that, even from the little he knows and has hitherto discovered of the forces at work in Kosmos, he sees very plainly that every part, every speck and atom, are in harmony with thei fellow atoms, and these with the whole, each having its distinct mission throughout the life-cycle. But, fortunately, the greatest, the most eminent Thinkers and Scientists of the day are now beginning to rise against this "Pedigree," and even against Darwin's Natural Selection theory, though its author had never, probably, contemplated such widely stretched conclusions. The Russian scientist N. T. Danilevsky,
1
PHYSICAr* AND SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION RECONCILED.
691
in his remarkable work, Darwinism, a Critical Investigation of the Theory, upsets such Darwinism completely and without appeal, and so does de Quatrefages in his last work. Our readers are recommended to examine the learned paper by Dr. Bourges, a member of the Paris Anthropological Society, read by its author at a recent meeting of that society and called "Evolutionary Psycholog>'; the Evolution of Spirit, etc." In it he completely reconciles the two teachings — namely of physical and spiritual evolution. He explains the origin of the variety of organic forms — which are made to fit their environments with such evidently intelligent design — by the existence and the mutual help and interaction of two Principles in manifested Nature, the inner conscious Principle adapting itself to physical Nature and the innate potentialities of the latter. Thus the French scientist has to return to our old friend Archaeus, or the Life-Principle — without naming it — as Dr. Richardson has done in England in his Nerve-Force. The same idea was recently developed in Germany by Baron Hellenbach, in his remarkable work, Individuality in ihe Light of Biology and Modem Philosophy,
We find the same conclusions arrived at in yet another excellent volume by a deep thinking Russian, N. N. Strachof, who says in his Fundamental Conceptions of PsycJwlogy and Physiology :
The most clear, as the most familiftr, type of development may be found iu our owu mental or physical evolution, which has served others as a model to follow. . . . Tf organisms are entities . . . then it is only just to conclude and assert that the organic life strives to beget psychic life; but it would be still more correct and in accordance with the spirit of these two categories of evolution to say, that the true cause of organic life is the tendency of spirit to manifest in sub- stantial forms, to clothe itself in substantial reality. It is the highest form which contains the complete explauatiou of the lowest, never the reverse.
This is admitting, as Bourges does in the Memoire above mentioned, the identity' of this mysterious, integrally acting and organizing Prin- ciple with the Self-Conscious and Inner Subject, which we call the Ego and the world at large the Soul. Thus all the best Scientists and Thinkers are gradually approaching the Occultists in their general conclusions.
But such metaphysically inclined men of Science are out of court and will hardly be listened to. Schiller, iu his magnificent poem on the Veil of Isis, makes the mortal youth who dared to lift the impene- trable covering fall down dead, after beholding the naked Truth in the face of the stem Goddess. Have some of our Darwinians, so tenderly
692
TBR SBCSST DOCTKINB.
anited in natural selection and affinity, also gazed at the Sajtic Mother bereft of ber veils? One might almost suspect it after reading their theories. Their great intellects must have collapsed while gauging too closely the uncovered face of Nature, leaving only the grey matter and ganglia in their brains to respond to "blind'* physico-chemical forces. At any rate Shakspere's lines apply admirably to our modem Evoln- lionist, who symbolizes that "proud man/* who —
Dnst in a little brief antbority:
Moot xgnoranl of what be*s most assnied.
His glassy csseuce. like An azi^r>- ape.
Plays sach fsntartic tricks before bigb beaven,
As make tbe angels weep ! *
These have nought to do with the '* Angels.'* Their only concern is with the human ancestor, the pithecoid Noah who gave birth to three sons— the tailed Cynocephalus, the tailless Ape. and the "arboreal** Paleolithic man. On this point, they will not be contradicted. Every doubt expressed is immediately set down as an attempt to cripple scientific enquiry. The insuperable difficulty at the very foundation of the Evolntion theory, namely, that no Darwinian is able to give even an approximate definition of the period at wdich. and the form « which, the first man appeared, is smoothed down to a trifling impedi- ment, which is •* really of no account.'* Every branch of knowledge is in the same predicament, we are informed. The Chemist bases hi5 most abstnise calculations simply
rpon a hypothesis of atoms and molecules, of whicb uol one has ever been seen. iMolated. weiglied, or defined. Tbe electrician speaks of magnetic fluids which have never inngibly revealed tbemseh-cs. No definite origin can be assigned either to molecules or magnetism. Science cannot and does not pretend to any know- ledge of lh« beginnings of law. matter, or life.t
And. withal, to reject a scientific hypothesis, however absurd, is to commit the one unpardonable sin! We risk it.
• Mmtmt9M MtOiutf, Act U, Scene x.
« A'lnrilr^^, January, il