Chapter I'iii of his latest work, A Afodem Zoroasfn'an, the author begins

by twitting "all ancient religions and philosophies" for "assuming a male and female principle for their gods.*' At first sight, he says:
This dislinction of sex appears &s fundameutal as that of plant antl animal. . . The Spirit of God brooding over Chaos and producing the world is only a later edition, revised according to monotheistic ideas, of the far older Chaldean legend which describes the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos by the cooperation of great gods, male and female . . . Thus, is the orthodox Christian creed we are taught to repeat "begotten, not made," a phrase which is absolute oonsense, or
noH'Sense — that ia, an instance of using wnnls like counterfeit notes, which have no solid value of an idea behind them. For "begotten" is a very definite term, wliicb implies the conjunction of two opposite sexes to produce a new individual.*
However we may agree with the learned author as to the inadvis- ability of using wrong words, and the terrible anthropomorphic and phallic element in the old Scriptures — especially in the orthodox Christian Bible — nevertheless, there may be two extenuating circum- stances in the case. Firstly, all these "ancient philosophies" and "modem religions" are — as has been sufficiently shown in these two Volumes — an exoteric veil thrown over the face of Esoteric Truth; and — as the direct result of this — they are allegorical, i.e., mythological in form; but still they are immensely more philosophical in essence than any of the new scientific theories, so-called. Secondly, from the Orphic Theogony down to Ezra's last remodelling of the Pentateuch, every old Scripture, having in its origin borrowed its facts from the East, has been subjected to constant alterations by friend and foe, until of the original version there has remained but the name, a dead shell from which the spirit had been gradually eliminated.
This alone ought to show that no religious work now extant can be understood without the help of the Archaic Wisdom, the primitive foundation on which they were all built.
But to return to the direct answer expected from Science to our direct question. It is g^ven by the same author, when, following his train of thought on the unscientific euhemerization of the powers of Nature in ancient creeds, he pronounces a condemnatory verdict upon them in the following terms:
Science, however, makes sad havoc with this impression of sexual generation being the origin.al and only mode of repixxluction, and the microscope and dissect- ing knife of the naturalist introduce us to new and altogether unsuspected [?] worlds of Ufe.
So little "unsuspected," indeed, that the original a-sexual "modes of reproduction" must have been known to the ancient Hindus, at any rate — Mr. Laing's assertion to the contrary notwithstanding. In view of the statement in the Vishnu Purana, quoted by us elsewhere, that Daksha "established sexual intercourse as the means of multiplica- tion," only after a series of other "modes," which are all enumerated therein,! it becomes difficult to deny the fact. This assertion, more- over, is fotmd, note well, in an exoteric work. Next, Mr. Laing goes on to tell us that:
op, dt.,^, lai, 103.
t Qp. eii., U. IS, Wilson's Trmiut

THE SECRET DOCTJUWE,
By far the larger proportion of livinR forms, in number at any rate if not it size, have come into existence, without the aid of gexual propaf^ation.
He then instances HEeckel's Moneron, "multiplying by self- division." The next stage the author shows in the nucleated cell, "which does exactly the same thing." The following stage is that in
Which the organism doe« not divide into two equal parts, but a small portion of it swells out . . . and finally parts company and starts on a separate existence, which grows to the size of the parent by its inherent faculty of mannfactnrioic fresh protoplasm from surrounding inorganic materials.*
This is followed by a many-celled organism which is formed by
Germ-buds reduced to spores, or single cells, which are emitted from the parent . . . We are now at the threshold of that system of sexual propagation, which has [now] become the role in all the higher families of animals . . . Thi» organism^ having advantages in the struggle for life, established itself pcnuaneatlj . . . and special organs developed to meet the altered conditions. Thus at len^tli the distinction would be firmly established of a female organ or ovary conLiininj; the egg or primitive cell from which the new being was to be deve]ope organ supplying the fertiliiiing spore or celL . . . This is confirmed by a stndy of embryology, which shows that iu the human and higher animal species the dis* tiaction of sex is uot developed until a considerable progress has been made in the growth of the embr>'o. ... In the great majority of plants, and in some of the lower families of animals . . . the male and female organs are developed within the same l)eing, and they are what is called hermaphrodites. Another transitioa form is Parthenogenesis, or virginal reproduction, in which germ-cells, apparentljr similar in all respects to egg-cells, develop themselves into new individuals, with- out any fructifying elcraent.t
Of all this we are as perfectly well aware as we are aware that the above was never applied by the very learned English popularizer of Hiixley-Hacckclian theories to the genus honio. He limits this to specks of protoplasm, plants, bees, snails, and so on. But if he would be true to the theory of descent, he must be as true to ontogenesis, ia which the fundamental biogenetic law, we are told, runs as follows:
The development of the embryo (ontogeny) is a condensed and abbreviated repe- tition of the evolution of the race (phylogeny). This repetition is the more coai- plete. the more the true original order of evolution (palingenesis) has 1>een retaiaol by continual heredity. On the other hand, this repetition is the leas complete, the more by varying adaptations the later spurious development (csnogenesis^ obtained.!
* op. cit., p. 104. Id Uiia, u has bc«n shown in Part I, Modem Science hiu ofrain been far beyond lu own speculatloas, by Archaic Science. ■» /friJ., pp. 104-106. t Antkrop., 3rd ecUtion, p. 11.
VARIOUS MODES OF REPRODUCTION.
697
rhis shows us that every living creature and thing on Earth, includ- ing man, evolved from one common primal fo^-m. Physical man must have passed through the same stages of the evolutionary process in the various modes of procreation as other animals have done; he must have dixnded himself; then, hermaphrodite, have given birth pariheno- gauiicaiiy (on the immaculate principle) to his young ones; the next stage would be the oviparous — at first "without any fructifying ele- ment," then "with the help of the fertilitary spore"; and only after the final and definite evolution of both sexes, would he become a distinct **niale and female," when reproduction through sexual union would grow into universal law. So far. all this is scientifically proven. There remains but one thing to be ascertained; viz., the plain and comprehensively described processes of such ante-sexual reproduction. This is done in the Occult books, a slight outline of whictf has been attempted by the writer in Part I of this Volume.
Either this, or — man is a distinct being. Occult Philosophy may call him that, because of his distinctly dual nature. Science cannot do so, once that it rejects every interference save mechanical laws, and admits of no principle outside Matter. The former — Archaic Science — allows the human physical frame to have passed through everj' form, from the lowest to the very highest, its present one, or from the simple to the complex — to use the accepted terms. But it claims that in this Cycle, the Fourth, the frame having already existed among the types and models of Nature from the preceding Rounds — it was quite ready for man from the beginning of this Round.* The Monad had but to step into the Astral Body of the Progenitors, in order that the work of physical consolidation should begin around the shadowy prototj-pe.f
What would Science say to this? It would answer, of course, that as man appeared on Earth as the latest of the mammalians, he had na
* TheooophiBtft will remember Uuit, arcordln^ to Occult tenching, cyclic Pralayu ao*c*lIed are but "ObKiirations." durini: which periods Nature. i>., cveryUiinf visible and lorisible on a reHtlng- Planet —remains in statu gno. Nature rests and slumbent, no work of defitmction goiop ou upon Uie Globe evrn if no activr work he done. All foniis. iu» «rell an their astral types, remain as llicy were at the last moment or its activity. The "Night" or a Ilaiiet has bardty any twilight preceding^ it. It is caught like a huge mammoth by un avalanche, and rcinaiu!i slumberinf; and frozen till the next dawn of it* new Day— a verj- short one indeed in comparison to tbe I>fty of Brabmi.
t Thia will be [woh-poohed, because it will not be undcnitood by our modem men of Science: but cver>" Occultiat and Tbeosopbisi will eaMly realiie the proccM. There can he mo objective form on Earth, nor in tbe tTnivcrse either, without its astml prototj-pe being first formed in Space. From Phidias down to the humblest workman in the ceramic art. a sculptor has had to create &rtt of all a model in his mind, then sketch It in dimensional lines, and then only can be reproduce it in a three dimensional or objective figure. And if the human mind is a living demonstration of «iich Huccea- fiive stages in the process of Evolution, how can it be otherwise when Nature's Mind and creative powen aic concerned?
698
THB SECRET DOCTRINE.
need, any more than these mammals, to pass through the primitive stages of procreation as above described. His mode of procreation was already established on Earth when he appeared. In this case, we may reply: Since to this day not the remotest sign of a link between man and the animal has yet been found, then (if the Occult Doctrine is to be repudiated) he must have sprung miraculously in Nature, like a fully armed Miner\'a from Jupiter's brain; and in such case the Bible is right, along with other national "revelations." Hence the scien- tific scorn, so freely lavished by the author of A Modem Zoroaslrian upon ancient philosophies and exoteric creeds, becomes premature and uncalled for. Nor would the sudden discovery of a "missing- link"-like fossil mend matters at all. For neither one such solitary specimen nor the scientific inductions therefrom, could insure its being the long-s!bught-for relic, i.e., that of an undeveloped, still a once- speaking, Man. Something more would be required as a final proof. Besides this, even Genesis takes up man, her Adam of dust, only where the Secret Doctrine leaves her **Sons of God and Wisdom** and pidcs up the physical man of the Third Race. Eve is not "begotten/' but b extracted out of Adam in the manner of '* Amceba A," contracting in the middle and splitting into Amoeba B — by division.*
Nor has human speech developed from the various animal sounds. Hseckel's theory that "speech arose gradually from a few simple^ crude animal sounds/' as such "speech still remains amongst a few races of lowest rank," f is altogether unsound, as argued by Professor Max Miiller, among others. He contends that no plausible explanation has yet been given as to how the "roots" of language came into existence. A hitman brain is necessarj' for human speech. And figures relating to the size of the respective brains of man and ape show how deep is the gulf which separates the two. Vogt says that the brain of the largest ape, the gorilla, measures no more than 30*5 1 cubic inches; while the average brains of the fiat-headed Australian natives — the lowest now of the humao races — amount to 99-35 cubic inches! Figures are awkward witnesses and cannot lie. Therefore, as truly observed by Dr. F. Pfaff, whose premises are as sound and correct as his biblical couclusions are silly:
The brain of the apes most like man does not amount to quite a third of the brain of the lowest races of men: it is not half the size of the brain of a aew-bon child.!
* ficc A Modent Zoroastrian. p. 103.
t " Unrwinuu) Theory " in l^4xgtet of Afon, p, u.
t The Age and Origin 0/ Man.
K&ADY-lfADB MATERIAI^ OF SPEECH.
699
From the foreg^oing it is thus very easy to perceive that in onier to prove the Huxley-Haeckelian theories of the descent of man, it is not one, but a great number of "missing links'* — a true ladder of progres- sive evolutionary steps — that would have to be first found and then presented by Science to thinking and reasoning humanity, before it would abandon belief in Gods and the immortal Soul for the worship of quadrumanic ancestors. Mere myths are now greeted as "axiomatic truths." Even Alfred Russel Wallace maintains with Haeckel that primi- tive man was a speechless ape-creature. To this Prof. Joly answers:
Man never was, in my opinion, this pithecanthropus alalus whose portrait Hccckel has drawn as if he had seen and known him, whose singular and completely hypothetical genealogy he has even given, from the mere mass of living protoplasm to the man endowed with speech and a civilization analogous to that of the Australians and Papuans.*
Hseckel, among other things, often comes into direct conflict with the "science of languages." In the course of his attack on Evolutionism! Prof. Max Miiller stigmatized the Darwinian theory as "\Tilnerable at the beginning and at the end." The fact is, that only the partial truth of many of the secondary "laws" of Darwinism is beyond question —