M. de Quatrefages evidently accepting natural selection, the struggle

for existence, and transformation within species, as proven not once and for ever, but only pro tempore. But it may not be amiss, perhaps, to condense the linguistic case against the "ape ancestor" theory:
Languages have their phases of growth, etc., like all else in Nature. It is almost certain that the great linguistic families pass through three stages.
(i) All words are roots and are merely placed in juxtaposition (Radical languages).
(2) One root defines the other, and becomes merely a determinative element (Agglutinative).
(3) The determinative element (the determinating meaning of which has long lapsed) unites into a whole with the formative element (Inflected).
The problem then is: Whence these roots? Prof. Max Miiller argues that the existence of these ready-made materials of speech is a proof that man cannot be the crown of a long organic series. This potentiality oj forming roots is the great crux which Materialists almost invariably avoid.
• Man he/ort Metals, p. 320, "lutematioDaJ Scieuttfic Series." T Mr. Damnn's Hiiloto^hy 0/ Languag€, 1873.
700
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Von Hartmann explains it as a manifestation of the "Unconsdom* and admits its cogency v^sus mechanical Atheism. Hartmann is a &ar representative of the Metaphysician and Idealist of the present age.
The argument has never been met by the non-pantheistic Eroin- tiouists. To say with Schmidt: "Forsooth we are to Jialt before iht origin of language!*' — is an avowal of dogmatism and of speed; defeat.*
We respect those men of Science who, wise in their generation, say: The Prehistoric Past being utterly beyond our powers of direct obscm. lion, wc are too honest, too devoted to the truth — or what we regards truth — to speculate upon the unknown, giving out our unprov^ theories along with facts absolutely established in Modem Science.
The borderland of [melaphysical] knowledge ia, therefore. bc«t left to tnst which is the best test as lo truth, f
This is a wise and an honest sentence in the mouth of a Materialist But when a Haeckel, after just saying that "historical events of past time," having "occurred many millions of years ago.t . . . are for ever removed from direct observation/' and that neither Geology nor Phylogeny§ can or will "rise to the position of a real 'exact' science," then insists on the development of all organisms — *'frotn the low?>: vertebrate to the highest, from ampbioxus to man'* — we ask for i weightier proof than he can give. Mere " empirical sources of know- ledge," so extolled by the author of Anthropogoty — when he has to be satisfied with the qualification for his own views — are not competent to settle problems lying beyond their domain; nor is it the province of exact Science to place any reliance on them.|| If "empirical" — and
* Cf.\as. Doctrimf of Descemt and Dttrwinitm, p. 304-
t A Mo4frm ZorotutriaH. p. i^b.
T U thus appcain thai in Hi uixietx to prove our noble descrat from tht catarrhlne "bftboos." Hxcktl's school hM piuihed >»ack the llmcfl of pre-hltftoric mui mtlUoat of yeAn. (S«r ndtgwtt «/ Man, p. 273.) OccuUiftts, rentier thnnk.s Id Sciciicir for toch corrobnralian of our ctaimat
) ThiA seems a poor compllmmt to pay Geology, which is, not a ftpcculabve bnt aa exact a Scienn an Aatronomy— «ave, perhaps, it* too risky chrontilogicat speculaliotu. It is maioly a "descHptivf " OA oppoaed to an *'al«trnct" ScJence.
il Such newly-coined words as "peripeneaU of plaatids." "plaslidule souU" (II. and oUien Int comely, inveutcd by Htcvkel. may be very learned and correct in so far as Ihcy may cxpnaa •wj puphlcatly the Idea* (n his own vivid fancy. As Jacts^ however, they remain for his less imagiaati** colleagoies painfully acnogmetic— to use hi* own tcntunology ; »>., for true Science they arc •( speculations, HO loqg as Ihey nrc derived from "empirical aonr^es." Therrforr, when h« prove that "the origin of mnn from olhrr mammals, and most directly from the catarrhtne a] rJeductive law, that follow* necesanrily from the inductive law of the theory of deacent " 1 P^*Kfy, p. 39*. quotes! in flrttigr^ of Afam, p. » onei hare a right to see in this Hciilrnce a merr jugglery of wonls ; a " Iriti'monium paupcrtatii Natural Science"— oa he himself comptaios. speaking, in retnm, of du Dois-Kcj-moud's " asl ignorance." ^See /Viffjn-/^ o/WaN, notea 00 pp. »95. 296.1
SCIENTIFIC TRESPASSERS.
TOT
Hoeckel himself declares so repeatedly — then they are no better, nor any more reliable, in the sight of exact research, when extended into the remote past, than are our Occult teachings of the East, both having to be placed on the same level. Nor are his phylogenetic and palin- genetic speculations treated any more favourably by the real Scientists, than are our cyclic repetitions of the evolution of the great in the minor races, and the original order of Evolution. For the province of exact, real Science, materialistic though it be. is to carefully avoid anything like guess-work, speculation which cannot be veriSed; in short, all ^uppressio veri and all suggesiio falsi. The business of the men of exact Science is to observe, each in his chosen department, the phenomena of Nature; to record, tabulate, compare and classifj' the facts, down to the smallest minutiae which are presented to the observa- tion of the senses ivith the help of ail the exquisite mechanism that moder^i iyivefUion supplies, not by the aid of metaphysical flights of fancy. All that he has a legitimate right to do, is to correct by the assistance of physical instruments the defects or illusions of his own coarser vision, auditory powers, and other senses. He has no right to trespass on the grounds of Metaphysics and Psycholog>'. His duty is to verify and to rectify all the facts that y^// under his direct observation; to profit by the experiences and mistakes of the Past in endeavouring to trace the working of a certain concatenation of cause and eflfect, which — but only by its constant and unvarying repetition — may be called a Law. This it is which a man of Science is expected to do. if he would become a teacher of men and remain true to his original programme of natural or physical Sciences. Any side path from this royal road becomes speculation.
Instead of keeping to this, what does many a so-called man of Science do in these days? He rushes into the domain of pure Meta- physics, while deriding them. He delights in rash conclusions and calls them **a deductive law from the inductive law" of a theory based upon and drawn out of the depths of his own consciousness — that consciousness being perverted by, and honeycombed with, one-sided Materialism, He attempts to explain the "origin" of things, which are yet embosomed only in his own conceptions. He attacks spiritual beliefs and religious traditions millenniums old, and denounces every- thing, save his own hobbies, as superstition. He suggests theories of the Universe, a cosmogony developed by blind, mechanical forces of Nature alone, far more miraculous and impossible than even one based
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
upon the assumption of fiat lux ex nihiio — and tries to astonish the world by his wild theory: and this theory, being known to enuuuu from a scientific brain, is taken, on blifid fastk» as very scientific anil as the outcome of Science.
Are these the opponents Occultism should dread? Most decidedly not. For such theories are treated no better by real Science than are our own by empirical Science. Haeckel, hurt in his vanity by da Bois-Reymond, is never tired of publicly complaining of the latter'i onslaught on his fantastic theory of descent. Rhapsodizing on "Uie exceedingly rich storehouse of empirical evidence," he calls those "recognized Physiologists" who oppose every speculation of his drawn from the said "storehouse" — ignorant men, and declares;
If many men, and among them c\'ea some Scienlisls of repute — hold thAt tlie whole of pUylogeny is a castle in the air, and genealogical trees [from monkeys?] are empty plays of phantasy, they only in speaking thus demonstrate thdr ignorance of that wealth of empirical soufves of kncwUdge to which reference fau ftl ready been made.*
We open Webster's Dictionary and read the definitions of the won! "empirical":
Depending upon experience or observation alone, withcni dtif regard to mwUrt science and th^ry.
This applies to the Occultists. Spiritualists, Mystics, etc. Again:
An empiric; one who confines himself to applying the results of his own obscm* lions only [which is Harckers ca«e]; one wanting science ... an ignorant and unlicensed practitioner; a quack; a charlatan.
No Occultist or "Magician," has ever been treated to any worse epithets. Yet the Occultist remains on his own metaph>'sical g^oundSk and does not endeavour to rank his knowledge, the fruits of kis personal observation and experience, among the exact Sciences of modern learn- ing. He keeps within his legitimate sphere, where he is master. Bat what is one to think of a rank Materialist, whose duty is clearly traced before him, who uses such an expression as this:
The origin of man from other mammals, aud most directly from the catonlune ape, is a deductive law, that follows necessarily from the inductive law of the Theory of l)escenl.t
A •'theory" is simply a hypothesis, a speculation, and fiot a law.
To say otherwise is one of the many liberties taken now-a-days by
Scientists. They enunciate an absurdity, and then hide it behind the
shield of Science. A deduction from theoretical speculation is nothing
* fuUgrtt Hf Man, p. t7S
BXTINGUISHKR.
more than a speculation on a speculation. Sir William Hamilton has already shown that the word theory is now used
In avery loose and improper sense . . . that it is convertible itxtti hypothesis, znA hypothesisi^commQxiXy used as another term for conjecture, whereas the terms "theory" and "theoretical" are properly used in opposition to the terms practice and practical.
But Modern Science puts an extinguisher on the latter statement. And mocks at the idea. Materialistic Philosophers and Idealists of Europe and America may be agreed with the Evolutionists as to the physical origin of man, yet it will never become a general truth with the true Metaphysician ; and the latter defies the Materialists to make good their arbitrary assumptions. Tliat the ape-theory theme* of Vogt and Darwin, on which the Huxley- Hseckelians have of late composed such extraordinary variations, is far less scientific — ^because clashing with the fundamental laws of that theme itself — than ours can ever be shown to be. is very easy of demonstration. Let the reader only turn to the excellent work on Human Species by the great French Naturalist de Quatrefages, and our statement will at ouce be verified.
Moreover, between the Esoteric teaching concerning the Origin of Man and Darwin's speculations, no man, unless he is a rank Materialist, will hesitate. This is the description given by Mr. Darwin of "the early progenitors of man.*'
They must have been once covered with hair, both sexes haWng beards; their ears were probably pointed and capable of movement; and their bodies were pro- vided with a tail, having the proper muscles. Their liml>s and bodies were also acted on by many muscles whicli now only occasioually reappear, but are normally present in the Quadnimana. . . . The foot was theu prehensile, jndjfinj? from the condition of the ^eat toe in the foetus; and our progenitors, no doubt, were arboreal in their habits, and frequented some warm forest-clad land. The males had great cauiue teeth, which served them as formidable wcapon&t
* The mfmtal barrier twtwecii mnn and ape. characteriaed by Hnxley as an ''enonaous ^p, « distance pracUcally immcasnrable " (! I) is. indeed, in Itself conclusive. Certainly it coutitutes n ■taaditiK puzzle to the Materialist, who relies on the fmil rrcd of " oalunil selection." The physio- logical differences between Man and the Apes ore in rrality — despite a curious community of certain (eaturea— equally striking^. Says Dr. Schweinfurth, one of the most cautious and experienced of Naturalists:
"In modern times tlierc are no nnitnaU in creation that have attracted a larifer amount of atten. tion from the scientific student of nature than these ffreat quDdrumana [the anthropoids], which are stamped with gnch a singular resemblance to the human form as to have justified the epithet of anthropomorphic. . . . But all investiipatiou at present ouly leads human iuteUigcncc Co a con- fession of its inEufficiency : and nowhere is caution more to be advocated, nowhere is premature }udj[Tncnt more to be deprecated than in the attempt to brid^ over the mysterious chasm which separates man and beast." (Heart of Africa.^ i., jjo. Bd., 1873. )
t The Dtsctmt of Man. p. i&o. Hd. 1S88. K ridiculous tofitance of evolutionist contradiction* is aSbrded by Schmidt {Doctrint of Deicent and Dartvinism, p. 293). He says: "Man's kinship with the apes is . . . not imputed by the bestial strength of the teeth of a male oraof or gporiUa." Mr. I>arwin, on the contrary, endows this fabulous being with teeth used bs we^KXUt
704 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Darwin connects man with the type of the tailed cataxrhines:
And conBcqucnlly removes him a stage backward in Uie scale of evolution. The English naturalist is not satisfied to take his stand upon the ^jround of hii ova doctrines, and, like Ha'ckel, 011 this point places himself in direct variance with one of the fundamental laws which constitute the principal charm of Dtf>
winism.
And then the learned French Naturalist proceeds to show how thii fundamental law is broken. He says:
In fact, in the theory of Darwin, transmutations do not take place, cither br chance or in every direction. They are ruled by certain laws which are due to the organization itself. If an organism is once modified in a given direction, it eta undergo secondary or tertiary transmutations, but will still preserve the imprefsof the original. It is the law of pcrmammt ckanutervsalion^ which atone permit* Darwin to explain the filiation of groups, their characteristics, and their numcrou relations. It is by virtue of this law that all the descendents of the first moUuK have been molluscs; all the descendants of the first vertebrate have been rerlB» brates. It is clear that this constitutes one of the foundations of the doctrine. It follows that two beings belonging to two distinct t)'pes can be referred to € (Omtnon ancestor, hut the one cannot be the descendant of the other.
Now man and apes present a very striking contrast in resprct to type. Their organs . . . correspond almost exactly term for term: but these organs irt arranged after a very different plan. In man they are so arranged that be is esaeo> lially a ivalker^ while in apes they necessitate his being a ciimbcr. . . . 7*licrrt» here an anatomical aud mechanical distinction. ... A glance at the p3|:e where Huxley has figurctl side by side a human skeleton and the skeletons of the moat highly developed apes is a sufficiently convincing proof.
The consequence of these facts, from the point of view of the logical applicatioo of the law oi pfrmanefii chanutrrtzaiions^ is that man cannot be descended from an ancestor who is already characterized as an ape, any more than a catarrhine tailleM ape can l>e descenderl from a tailed catarrhine. A walking; animal cannot be descended from a clitHbing owe. This was clearly understood by Vogt.
In placing man among the primates, he declares without hesitation that the lowest class of apes have passed the landmark (the common ancestor), from which the different types of this family have originated and diverged. [This ancestor of the apes. Occult Science sees in the lowest human group during the Atlantcan period, as shown before.] We must, then, place the origin of man beyond the last ape [corroborating our doctrine], if we wish to adhere to one the laws most emphatically necessary to the Darwinian theory. We then coi the prosimiie of Hteckel, the loris, indris, etc. But these animals »1»0 ore climl we must go further, therefore, in search of our first direct ancestor. Bat genealogy by Hreckcl brings us from the latter to the marsupials. From men the kangaroo the distance is certainly great. Now neither living nor extinct fat show the intermediate tv^^s which ought to serve as landmarks. This difficulty
AN ABSOLUTELY TUEORETICAL PITHECOID MAN.
705
causes but slifi^ht embarrassment to Darwin.* We know that he considers the want of information upon similar questions as a proof in his favour. Hsckel doubtless is as little embarrassed. He admits the existence of an absolutely theoretical pitk^md man.
Thus, since it has been proved that, according to Darwinism itself, the origin of man must be placed beyond the eighteenth stage, and since it becomes, in conse- quence, necessary to fill up the gap between marsupials and man, wiU Heeclcel admit the existence o( four unknown intermediate groups instead of one? Will he complete his geqealo^ in this manner? It is not for me to answer.t
But see Haeckel's famous genealogy, in The Pedigree of Man ^ called by him the ''Ancestral Series of Man.'* In the "Second Division" (eighteenth stage) he describes —
Prosimise, allied to the Loris ^Stenops) and Makis (Lemur), without marsupial bones and cloaca, with p[acenia.X
And now turn to de Quatrcfagcs* 7^e Human Species,^ and see his proofs, based on the latest discoveries, to show that the Prosimiae of Haeckel have no decidua and a diffuse placenta. They cannot be the ancestors of the apes even, let alone man, according to a fundamental law of Darwin himself, as the great French Naturalist shows. But this does not dismay the "animal theorists" in the least, for self-con- tradiction and paradoxes are the ver>* soul of modem Darwinism. Witness — Mr. Huxley; having himself shown, with regard to fossil man and the "missing link," that:
Neither in Quaternary ages nor at the present time does any intermediary being fill the gap which separates man from the Troglo
and that to "deny the existence of this gap would be as reprehensible as absurd,'' the great man of Science denies his own words in actu by supporting with all the weight of his scientific authority that mosi *• absurd" of all theories — the descent of man from an ape!
Says de Quatrefages:
This genealogy is wrong throughout, and is founded on a material error.
Indeed, Hseckel bases his descent of man on the seventeenth and eighteenth stages, the Marsupialia and Prosimse — (genus Hfeckelii?). Applying the latter term to the Lemuridte — hence making of them animals with a placenta — he commits a zoological blunder. For after
* According even to a fcUow-thinker. Profcitaor Schmidt, Darwin has evolved "a certainly not flntteriiiK, and perhaps in many polnla not correct, portrait of our presumptive ancestors In the ptaaw of dawning' humanity." {Doctrint of Deuxnt and D^rannism, p. 284.)
t Tht Human SptcUt, pp. io6-io&
{ Op. cit., p. 77-
) Pp. 109, no.
7o6
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
having himself divided mammals according to their anatomical differ- ences into two groups — the indeciduaia, which have no decidua (or special membrane uniting the placenfce), and the deciduata^ those who possess it — he includes the Prosimia? in the latter group. Now we have shown elsewhere what other men of Science had to sa3'' to this. As de Quatrefages says :
The anatomical investi|^tions of . . . Milne Edwards and Grandidirr opoa the animals . . . place it beyond all doubt that the pro^imiae of H;eclcel havr no decidua and a diffuse placenta. They are indeciduata. Far from any possibility of their being the ancestors of the apes, according to the principles laid down by Haeckel himself, they cannot even be regarded as the ancestors of the zonoplacental mammals . . . andought to be connected with the Pachydermata, the Gdentata, and the Cctacea.* .
And yet Haeckers inventions pass with some as exact Science! ^H
The above mistake, if indeed it be one, is not even hinted at itj Hieckel's Pedigree of Man^ translated by Aveling. If the excuse miy stand good that at the time the famous '* genealogies" were made. "the erabryogenesis of the Prosimiae was not known/' it is familiar now. We shall see whether the next edition of Aveling*s translation will have this important error rectified, or if the seventeenth and eighteenth stages will remain as they are to blind the profane, as one of the real intermediate links. But. as the French Naturalist observes Their [Darwin's and HiEckel's] process is always the same, considering the oji kuown as a proof in favour of their theory.
It comes to this. Grant to man an immortal Spirit and Soul ; end the whole animate and inanimate creation with the monadic princi gradually evolving from latent and passive into active and positive polarity — and Haeckel will not have a leg to stand upon, whatever his admirers may say.
But there are important divergencies even between Darwin and Haeckel. While the former makes us proceed from the taiUd catarrhiae. Haeckel traces our hypothetical ancestor to the tailless ape, though, the same time, he places him in a h>T)othetical "stage" immediat preceding this — Menocerca with tails (nineteenth stage).
Nevertheless, we have one thing in common with the Darwinian school, that is the law of gradual and extremely slow Evolution, em bracing many million years. The chief quarrel, it appears, is wi regard to the nature of the primitive "ancestor." We shall be toll that the Dhyan Chohan. or the "progenitor" of Manu. is a hypothetical
M
1^
■
THE SOZURA A CREATURB ENTIRELY UNKNOWN TO SCIENCE. 707
being unknown on ike physical plane. We reply that it was believed in by the whole of Antiquity, and is by nine-tenths of the present humanity; whereas not only is the pithecoid man, or ape-man, a purely hj-pothetical creature of Hseckers creation, unknown and untraceable on this Earth, but further its genealogy' — as invented by him — clashes with scientific facts and all the known data of modem discover>' in Zoolog>'. It is simply absurd, even as a fiction. As de Quatrefages demonstrates in a few words, Hseckel ''admits the existence of an absolutely theoretical pithecoid man" — a hundred times more diffi- cult to accept than any Deva ancestor. And it is not the only instance in which he proceeds in a similar manner in order to complete his genealogical table. In fact he very naively admits his inventions himself. Does he not confess the non-existence of his Sozura (fourteenth stage) — a creature entirely unknown to Science — by confessing over his own signature, that:
The proof of its existence arises from the necessity of an intennediate type between the thirteenth and the fourteenth stages [!].
If so, we might maintain with as much scientific right, that the proof of the existence of our three ethereal Races, and of the three-eyed men of the Third and Fourth Root-Races, "arises also from the necessity of an intermediate type" between the animal and the Gods. What reason would the Haeckelians have to protest in this special case?
Of course there is a ready answer: Because we do not grant the presence of the Monadic Essence. The manifestation of the Logos as individual consciousness in the animal and human creation is not accepted by exact Science, nor does it cover the whole ground, of course. But the failures of Science and its arbitrary assumptions are far greater on the whole than any '* extravagant" Esoteric doctrine can ever furnish.* Even thinkers of the school of Von Hartmann have become tainted with the general epidemic. They accept the Darwinian Anthropology (more or less), though they also postulate the individual Ego as a manifestation of the Unconscious (the Western presentation of the Logos or Primeval Di\'ine Thought). They say the evolution of the physical man is from the animal, but that mind in its various phases is altogether a thing apart from material facts, though organism, as a UpSdhi, is necessary for its manifestation.
* or course Uie Btotn-ic system of Poiuth Roiuid Evolution fft much morr complex thna Uie par.i ■ p«ph and quotAtians rcfermi to categorically aj»ert. It is practically a r^rvria/— both in eint»70- logical inrerence and succefjtioD in lime of apede*— of the cormt Weatem conception.
1
708
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
PUASTIDULAR SOULS. AND CONSCIOUS NERVE-CELLS.
But one can never see the end of such wonders with Haeckel and his school, whom the Occultists and Theosophists have every right to consider as materialistic tramps trespassing on private metaphysical grounds. Not satisfied with the paternity of Bathybius (HseckeltiV "plastidular souls'* and "atom -souls'** are now invented, on the basis of purely blind mechanical forces of matter. We are informed that:
The study of the evoluliou of soul-life shows us that this has worked its way up frotn the lower stages of the simple cell-soul, through an astonishing series of gradual stages in ei-olutioti. up to the soul of man.t
"Astonishing," truly — based as this wild speculation is on the «?«- sciousness of the "nerve cells." For as he tells us:
Little as we are in a position, at the present time, to explain fully the nature of consciousness,! yet the comparative and genetic ol>servation of it clearly shon. that it is only a higher and more complex function of the nerve celU.^
Mr. Herbert Spencer's song on consciousness — is sung, it seems, and may henceforth be safely stored up in the lumber room of obsolete speculations. Where, however, do Haeckel's "complex functions" of hf's scientific •'ner\'e-cells" land him? Once more right into the Occult and mystic teachings of the Kabalah about the descent of Souls as conscious and unconscious Atoms; among the Pythagorean Monad and the Monads of Leibnitz, and the "Gods, Monads, and Atoms" our Esoteric teaching; U into the dead Utter of Occult teachings, left
* AccordifiK to HtcckH. there ore also "cell-Aoiila" and "atom-cells"; an "laorpuiic molecular soul " without, and a "plostidular lont " with, or pooscssing, memory. What orr our Biiotrnu temch- inira to this; The diviru and human Aoul of the oevcn piiociplca la man miut. of courac, pale and give way before such a &tupendouB re\trIation I
t Tht ndigrtr of Afan, p, 390.
; A valuable confession. thiB. Only it niake« the attempt to trace the tittcrnt of consciousne man. as well as of his physical body, frotn Bathybius Ufcckelii. still tuorc humorous and /««/( In theoenae of Webster's second definitioti.
» /bid.
II Those who take the opposite Wew and look upon the existence of the human Soul — "as a super Dsturnl. a spiritual phenomenon, conditioned by forves altogcLhcr diCTerent from ordiiiary phy»caJ forces." mock, he thinlcA. "in cousetjuence. all exptanstion tliat is simply scientific." They have no right it seems, 10 assert that "psychology Is, in part, or in whole, a spiritual science, not a physical one." The new discoveiy by Bicckel — one taught for thousanils of >'ears in all the Eastern rcU^uov however— that animals hai-e .lOuts. will, and K-nsation, hence, soul-lunctions. lead« him to make of Psychology the science of the Zoologists. The archaic teschiuR that the " aouI " ( the animal m»A human souls, or Kflmaand Mamu)"ha9 its developmental history "—is claimed by Ka.H:kel h» bb own discovery and innovation on an "untrodden [?] path " ! He, Haeckel, will work out the compars- tive evolution of the soul in man and In other animals. The comparative morphology of the soul- organs, and the comparative physiology of the soul-functions, both founded on Bvolutioo. thus become the psychological [really materialistic] problem of the scientific maa. ("CcllsottU aad Sout-cells,** pp. 135, 130, 137. Pfdieref 0/ Mam.)
OS 10
ji
A CAUTIOUS MOVE TOWARDS "MAGIC.
709
For this is
the aviaimr Kabalists and professors of ceremonial Magic, what he says, in explaining his newly-coined terminology:
Plastidule-Souls. The plastidules or protoplasmic molecules, the smallest, homogeneous parts of the protoplasm are, on our p1asti liie active factors of all life-functions. The plastidular soul diifers from the in- organic molecular soul in that it possesses memory.*
This he develops in his mirific lecture on the "Perigenesis of Plasti- dule, or the Wave-motions of Living Particles." It is an impro\*ement on Darwin's theory of " Pangenesis," and a further approach, a cautious move, towards "Magic.** The former is a conjecture that:
Some of the actual identical atoms which formed part of ancestral bodies are thus transmitted through their descendants for generation after generation, so that we are literally "flesh of the flesh" of the primeval creature who has developed into man
— explains the author of A Modem Zoroasfrian.\ The latter, Occult- ism, teaches that— (a) the life-atoms of our (Prfina) Life-Principle, are never entirely lost when a man dies. That the atoms best impregnated with the Life- Principle, an independent, eternal, conscious factor, are partially transmitted from father to son by heredity, and are partially drawn once more together and become the animating principle of the new body in every new incarnation of the Monads. Because (^), as the Individual Soul is ever the same, so are the atoms of the lower principles (the body, its astral, or life-double, etc.), drawn as they are by aflanity and Karmic law always to the same individuality in a series of various bodies. J
To be just and, to say the least, logical, our modem Haeckelians ought to pass a resolution that henceforth the '* Perigenesis of the Plastidule,*' and otlier similar lectures, should be bound up with those on "Esoteric Buddhism'* and "The Seven Principles in Man/* Thus the public will have a chance, at any rate, of comparing the two teach- ings and then of judging which is the more or the less absurd, even from the standpoint of materialistic and exact Science.
Now the Occultists, who trace every atom in the Universe, whether an aggregate or single, to One Unity, the Universal Life; who do tiot recognize that anything in Nature can be inorganic; who know of no
• 7%e ftdifree of Man, note ao, p. aqft.
* P. 119.
J Sec " Tnuismig^nitiofi of [.irc-Atonu." in Fivf »a#-j 0/ Thfttsophy. pp. S33-539- The collective affgregation of tbeae atoms forms thus the Anima Mundi of our Solar Sysletn, tbe Soul of our Utile Univrne. each atom of which in of course a Soul, a Moood, a litUc uui verve cmlowed with cooAcioiU- nc». tacncc with memory. (Vol. 1, Part m. "Cotb. Monads, and Atoms.")
7IO
THK SECRJffT DOCTRINE.
such thing as dead Matter— the Occultists are consistent with their doctrine of Spirit and Soul when speaking of memory in every atom, of will and sensation. But what can a Materialist mean by the qualifi- cation? The law of biogenesis, in the sense applied to it by the Fia^ckelians, is the result of the ignorance on the part of the man of Science of Occult Physics. We know and speak of "life-atoms," and of "sleeping-atoms," because we regard these two forms of energy — the kinetic and the potential — as produced by one and the same force, or the One Life, and regard the latter as the source and mover of all. But what is it that furnished with energy, and especially with memory, the "plastidular souls" of Haeckel? The *'wave motion of living par- ticles" becomes comprehensible on the theory of a Spiritual One I^fe. of a universal Vital Principle independent of our Matter, and mani- festing as atomic energy only on our plane of consciousness. It is that which, individualized in the human cycle, is transmitted from father to son.
Now Haeckel, modifying Darwin's theory, suggests "more plausibly," as the author of A Modem Zoroastrian thinks:
That not the identical atoms, bat their peculiar motions and mode or aggrega- tion have been thus transmitted [by heredity].*
If Ha?ckel, or any other Scientist, knew more than any of them does kuow of the nature of the atom, he would not have improved the occa- sion in this way. For he only states, in more metaphysical language than Darwin, one and the same thing. The Life-Principle, or Life Energy, which is omnipresent, eternal, indestructible, is a Force and a Principle as noumenoHy while it is Atoms, BSphenoniefton. It is one and the ^ame thing, and cannot be considered as separate except in Materialism. f
Further, Hseckel enunciates concerning the Atom-Souls that which, at £rst sight, appears as occult as the Monad of Leibnitz:
• op. at., p. 119.
t In "The TransmiiTT'tlou of Life-Atoms" [Five Vears of Thfosftpky, p. 515), WC say cjf U»e Jlvn. oc Life- Principle, in order to better explain a position which is but too often misunderstood: "II Is omnipresent . . . though [on this plane of manifefetation ofteti] . . in a dormiuit state {as in stone], . . . The definttiou which slater that when thi« iiidt-sslruclihlc force is * disconaected with one set of atoms [mo/nuUs ought to hove been said] it becomes immediately ettmcted by oUMr»v* does not imply that it abandons entirely the first set [because the atomn themselves would then dis- appear], but only that it transfers its xn't tt'va, or living power— the ener^ of motion, to another wt. But because it manifests itself in the next set as what is called kineUc energy, It does not foUow that the first set is deprived of it altogether; for It is still in it, as potential energy or life latent." Now what can Haxkel mean by his "not identical atoms, but their peculiar motion and mode of aggieya- tlon." if it is not the same kinetic energy we have been explaining? Before evolving such Uieone*. he must have read Paracelsus and studied Atw years 0/ Throwpky without properly dlgcatiiiy the teachings.
THE MEANING OF SOUI, WITH HvECKEt.
7n
Tbe recent conteat as to the nature of atoms, which we must regard as in some form or otlier the ultimate factors in all physical and chemical processes, seems to be capable of easiest settlement by the conception that these very minute masses possess, as centres of force, a persistent soul, that every atom has sensation and the power of movement.*
He does not say a word concerning the fact that this is Leibnitz' theory, and one that is preeminently Occult. Nor does he understand the term "soul" as we do; for, with Hoeckel it is simply, along with consciousness, the product of the gjrey matter of the brain, a thing which, as the cell-soul
Is as indissolubly bound up with the protoplasmic body as is the human soul with
the brain and spinal cord.t
He rejects the conclusions of Kant. Herbert Spencer, of du Bois- Reymond and Tyndall. The latter expresses the opinion of all the great men of Science, as of the greatest thinkers of this and past ages, in saying that:
The passage from the physics of the brain to the correspondiu^ facts of con- sciousness is unthinkable. Were our minds and senses so . . . illuminated as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the brain ; were we capable of following all their motions, all their groupings . . . electric discharges . . . we should be as far as ever from the solution of the problem. . . . The chasm between the two classes of phenomena would still remain inteUectually impassable.
But the complex function of the nerve-cells of the great German Empiric, or, in other words, his consciousness, will not permit him to follow the conclusions of the greatest thinkers of our globe, //e is greater than they. He asserts this, and protests against all:
No one has the right to hold that in the future we shall not be able to pass beyond these limits of our knowledge that to-day seem impassable.^
And he quotes from Darwin's introduction to The Descent of Man the following words, which he modestly applies to his scientific opponents
and himself:
It is always those who know little, and not those who know much, that positively affirm that this or that problem will never be solved by Science.
The world may rest satisfied. The day is not far off when the "thrice great" Haeckel will have shown, to his own satisfaction, that the consciousness of Sir Isaac Newton was, physiologically speaking, but the reflex action (or minus consciousness) caused by the perigenesis of the plastidules of our common ancestor and old friend, the Moneron
* op. n'l.. note si, p. 396.
f fBui.. note 19.
/ftftf.. note 93.
712
THK SECRET DOCTRIKE.
Hseckelii. Though the said Bathybius has been found out and ex; as a pretender simulating the organic substance it is not, and though among the children of men» Lot's wife alone — and even this, only after her disagreeable metamorphosis — could claim as her forefather the pinch of salt it is: all this will not dismay him in the least. He will go on asserting, as coolly as he has always done, that it was only the peculiar mode and motion of the ghost of the long- vanished atojns our Father Bathybius, which — transmitted across a^ons of time into the cell-tissue of the grey matter of the brains of every great man— caused Sophocles and ^schylus. and Shakspere as well, to write their tragedies, Newton, his Principia, Humboldt, his Cosmos, etc. It also prompted Hasckel to invent Graeco-Latin names three inches long, pretending to mean a good deal, and meaning — nothing.
Of course we are quite aware that the true, honest Evolutionist agrees with us; and that he is the first to say that not only is the geological record imperfect, but that there are enormous gaps in the series of hitherto discovered fossils, which can never be filled. He will tell us, moreover, that "no Evolutionist assumes that man is descended from any existing ape or any extinct ape either," but that man and apes originated probably aeons back, in some common root stock. Still, as de Quatrefages points out, he will urge as an evidence corroborating his claim this wealth of absent proofs as well, saying that:
All Ii%'ing forms have not been preserved in the fossil series, the chances of pre- servation being few and far between . . . [even primitive man] burying ok ^ burning bis dead.
This is just what we ourselves claim. It is just as possible that the future may have in store for us the discovery of the giant skeleton of an Atlantean, thirty feet high, as of the fossil of a pithecoid ''missing link*'; only the former is moi^ probabU.
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