Band 2 Anthropogenesis - H.P. Blavatsky

the modern notions upon this subject -- those of the physiologists included -- are too uncertain and fluctuating to permit
them an absolute denial a priori of such a fact.
A careful perusal of the Commentaries would make one think that the Being that the new "incarnate" bred with, was
called an "animal," not because he was no human being, but rather because he was so dissimilar physically and mentally
to the more perfect races, which had developed physiologically at an earlier period. Remember Stanza VII. and what is
said in its first verse (24th):-- that when the "Sons of Wisdom" came to incarnate the first time, some of them incarnated
fully, others projected into the forms only a spark, while some of the shadows were left over from being filled and
perfected, till the Fourth Race. Those races, then, which "remained destitute of knowledge," or those again which were
left "mindless," remained as they were, even after the natural separation of the sexes. It is these who committed the first
cross-breeding, so to speak, and bred monsters; and it is from the descendants of these that the Atlanteans chose their
wives. Adam and Eve were supposed, with Cain and Abel, to be the only human family on Earth. Yet we see Cain going
to the land of Nod and taking there a wife. Evidently one race only was supposed perfect enough to be called human;
and, even in our own day, while the Singhalese
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[[Vol. 2, Page]] 287 THE RACES OF MEN NOT ALL HUMAN.
regard the Veddhas of their jungles as speaking animals and no more, some British people believe firmly, in their
arrogance, that every other human family -- especially the dark Indians -- is an inferior race. Moreover there are
naturalists who have sincerely considered the problem whether some savage tribes -- like the Bushmen for instance --
can be regarded as men at all. The Commentary says, in describing that species (or race) of animals "fair to look at" as a
biped:-- "Having human shape, but having the lower extremities, from the waist down, covered with hair." Hence the race
of the satyrs, perhaps.
If men existed two million years ago, they must have been -- just as the animals were -- quite different physically and
anatomically from what they have become; and they were nearer then to the type of pure mammalian animal than they
are now. Anyhow, we learn that the animal world breeds strictly inter se, i.e., in accordance with genus and species --
only since the appearance on this earth of the Atlantean race. As demonstrated by the author of that able work, "Modern
Science and Modern Thought," this idea of the refusal to breed with another species, or that sterility is the only result of
such breeding, "appears to be a prima facie deduction rather than an absolute law" even now. He shows that "different
species, do, in fact, often breed together, as may be seen in the familiar instance of the horse and ass. It is true that in
this case the mule is sterile. . . . but this rule is not universal, and recently one new hybrid race, that of the leporine, or
hare-rabbit, has been created which is perfectly fertile." The progeny of wolf and dog is also instanced, as that of several
other domestic animals (p. 101); "like foxes and dogs again, and the modern Swiss cattle shown by Rutimeyer as
descended from three distinct species of fossil-oxen, the Bos primigenius, Bos longifrons and Bos frontosus." Yet some of
those species, as the ape family, which so clearly resembles man in physical structure, contain, we are told, "numerous
branches, which graduate into one another, but the extremes of which differ more widely than man does from the highest
of the ape series" -- the gorilla and chimpanzee, for instance (see Addenda).
Thus Mr. Darwin's remark -- or shall we say the remark of Linnaeus? -- natura non facit saltum, is not only corroborated
by Esoteric Science but would -- were there any chance of the real doctrine being accepted by any others than its direct
votaries -- reconcile in more than one way, if not entirely, the modern Evolution theory with facts, as also with the absolute
failure of the Anthropologists to meet with the "missing link" in our Fourth Round geological formations.
We will show elsewhere that, however unconsciously to itself, modern Science pleads our case upon its own admissions,
and that de Quatrefages is perfectly right, when he suggests in his last work, that it is far more likely that the anthropoid
ape should be discovered to be
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[[Vol. 2, Page]] 288 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
the descendant of man, than that these two types should have a common, fantastic and nowhere-to-be-found ancestor.
Thus the wisdom of the compilers of the old Stanzas is vindicated by at least one eminent man of Science, and the
Occultist prefers to believe as he ever did that --
"Man was the first and highest (mammalian) animal that appeared in this (Fourth Round) creation. Then came still huger
animals; and last of all the dumb man who walks on all fours." For, "the Rakshasas (giant-demons) and Daityas (Titans)
of the "White Dwipa" (continent) spoiled his (the dumb man's) Sires." (Commentary.)
Furthermore, as we see, there are anthropologists who have traced man back to an epoch which goes far to break down
the apparent barrier that exists between the chronologies of modern science and the Archaic Doctrine. It is true that
English scientists generally have declined to commit themselves to the sanction of the hypothesis of even a Tertiary Man.
They, each and all, measure the antiquity of Homo primigenius by their own lights and prejudices. Huxley, indeed,
ventures to speculate on a possible Pliocene or Miocene Man. Prof. Seeman and Mr. Grant Allen have relegated his
advent to the Eocene, but, speaking generally, English scientists consider that we cannot safely go beyond the
quaternary. Unfortunately, the facts do not accommodate the too cautious reserve of these latter. The French school of
anthropology, basing their views on the discoveries of l'Abbe Bourgeois, Capellini, and others, has accepted, almost
without exception, the doctrine that the traces of our ancestors are certainly to be found in the Miocene, while M. de
Quatrefages now inclines to postulate a Secondary-Age Man. Further on we shall compare such estimates with the
figures given in the Brahminical exoteric books which approximate to the esoteric teaching.
(d) . . . . Then, "the third eye acted no longer," says the Stanza, because MAN had sunk too deep into the mire of matter.
What is the meaning of this strange and weird statement in Verse 42, concerning the "third eye of the Third Race which
had died and acted no longer"?