This is perfectly scientific, and we have nothing against that; for it all relates to the shell of man—his body, which, in its growth, is subject, of course, like every other once so-called morphological unit, to such metamorphoses. It is not those who teach the transformation of the mineral atom through crystallization—which is the same function, [pg 267] and bears the same relation to its so-called inorganic Upâdhi, or basis, as the formation of cells to their organic nuclei, through plant, insect and animal into man—it is not they who will reject this theory, as it will finally lead to the recognition of a Universal Deity in Nature, ever-present, and as ever invisible and unknowable, and of intra-cosmic Gods, who were all once men.[582]
But we would ask, what does Science and its exact discoveries and now axiomatic theories prove against our Occult theory? Those who believe in the law of evolution and gradual progressive development from a cell—which from a vital became a morphological cell, until it finally awoke as protoplasm pure and simple—can surely never limit their belief to one line of evolution! The types of life are innumerable; and the progress of evolution, moreover, does not go at the same rate in every kind of species. The constitution of primordial matter in the Silurian age—we mean the “primordial” matter of Science—was the same in every essential particular, save its degree of present grossness, as the primordial living matter of to-day. Nor do we find that which ought to be found, if the now orthodox theory of evolution were quite correct, namely, a constant, ever-flowing progress in every species of being. Instead of this, what does one see? While the intermediate groups of animal beings all tend toward a higher type, and while specializations, now of one type and now of another, develop through the geological ages, change forms, assume new shapes, appear and disappear with a kaleidoscopic rapidity, in the description of Palæontologists from one period to another, the two solitary exceptions to the general rule are those at the two opposite poles of life and type, namely—man and the lower genera of being!
Certain well-marked forms of living beings have existed through enormous epochs, surviving not only the changes of physical conditions, but persisting comparatively unaltered, while other forms of life have appeared and disappeared. Such forms may be termed “persistent types” of life; and examples of them are abundant enough in both the animal and the vegetable worlds.[583]
Nevertheless, we are not given any good reason why Darwin links together reptiles, birds, amphibians, fishes, mollusca, etc., as off-shoots of a moneric ancestry. Nor are we told whether reptiles, for instance, are direct descendants of the amphibia, the latter of fishes, and fishes [pg 268] of lower forms—which they certainly are. For the Monads have passed through all these forms of being up to Man, on every Globe, in the three preceding Rounds; every Round, as well as every subsequent Globe, from A to G, having been, and still having to be, the arena of the same evolution, only repeated each time on a more solid material basis. Therefore the question, “What relation is there between the Third Round astral prototypes and ordinary physical development in the course of the origination of pre-mammalian organic species?”—is easily answered. One is the shadowy prototype of the other, the preliminary, hardly defined, and evanescent sketch on the canvas, of objects which are destined to receive their final and vivid form under the brush of the painter. The fish evolved into an amphibian—a frog—in the shadows of ponds, and man passed through all his metamorphoses on this Globe in the Third Round as he did in this, his Fourth Cycle. The Third Round types contributed to the formation of the types in the present Round. On strict analogy, the cycle of seven Rounds in their work of the gradual formation of man through every Kingdom of Nature, is repeated on a microscopical scale in the first seven months of gestation of a future human being. Let the student think over and work out this analogy. As the seven months' old unborn baby, though quite ready, yet needs two months more in which to acquire strength and consolidate; so man, having perfected his evolution during seven Rounds, remains two periods more in the womb of Mother-Nature before he is born, or rather reborn a Dhyâni, still more perfect than he was before he launched forth as a Monad on the newly built Chain of Worlds. Let the student ponder over this mystery, and then he will easily convince himself that, as there are also physical links between many classes, so there are precise domains wherein the Astral merges into Physical Evolution. Of this Science breathes not one word. Man has evolved with and from the monkey, it says. But now see the contradiction.
Huxley proceeds to point out plants, ferns, club-mosses, some of them generically identical with those now living, which are met with in the Carboniferous epoch, for:
The cone of the oolitic Araucaria is hardly distinguishable from that of existing species.... Sub-kingdoms of animals yield the same instances. The Globigerina of the Atlantic soundings is identical with the cretaceous species of the same genus ... the tabulate corals of the Silurian epoch are wonderfully like the millepores of our own seas.... The Arachnida, the highest group of which, the scorpions, is represented in the coal by a genus differing from its living congeners only in ... the eyes. [etc.]
All of which may be closed with Dr. Carpenter's authoritative statement about the Foraminifera:
There is no evidence of any fundamental modification or advance in the foraminiferous type from the palæozoic period to the present time.... The foraminiferous fauna of our own series probably present a greater range of variety than existed at any previous period; but there is no indication of any tendency to elevation towards a higher type.[584]
Now, as in the Foraminifera, Protozoa of the lowest type of life, mouthless and eyeless, there is no indication of change except their now greater variety—so man, who is on the uppermost rung of the ladder of being, indicates still less change, as we have seen; the skeleton of his palæolithic ancestor being even found superior in some respects to his present frame. Where is, then, the uniformity of law which is claimed—the absolute rule for one species shading off into another and thus, by insensible gradations, into higher types? We see Sir William Thomson admitting as much as 400,000,000 years for the time since the surface of the Globe became sufficiently cool to permit of the presence of living things;[585] and during that enormous lapse of time in the Oolitic period alone, the so-called “Age of Reptiles,” we find a most extraordinary variety and abundance of Saurian forms, the Amphibian type reaching its highest development. We learn of Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri in the lakes and rivers, and of winged crocodiles or lizards flying in the air. After which, in the Tertiary period:
We find the Mammalian type exhibiting remarkable divergences from previously existing forms ... Mastodons, Megatheriums, and other unwieldy denizens of the ancient forests and plains.