And, subsequently, we are notified of:
The gradual modification of one of the ramifications of the Quadrumanous order, into those beings from whom primeval Man himself may claim to have been evolved.[586]
He may; but no one, except a Materialist, can see why he should; as there is not the slightest necessity for it, nor is such an evolution warranted by facts, for those most interested in the proofs thereof confess their utter failure to find one single fact to support their theory. There is no need for the numberless types of life to represent the members of one progressive series. They are “the products of various [pg 270] and different evolutional divergences, taking place now in one direction and now in another.” Therefore it is far more justifiable to say that the monkey evolved into the quadrumanous order, than that primeval man—who has remained stationary in his human specialization since the first fossil skeleton found in the oldest strata, and of whom no variety is found save in colour and facial type—has developed from a common ancestor together with the ape.
That man originates like other animals in a cell and develops “through stages indistinguishable from those of fish, reptile, and mammal until the cell attains the highly specialized development of the quadrumanous and at last the human type,” is an Occult axiom thousands of years old. The Kabalistic axiom: “A stone becomes a plant; a plant a beast; a beast a man; a man a God,” holds good throughout the ages. Hæckel, in his Schöpfungsgeschichte, shows a double drawing representing two embryos—that of a dog six weeks old, and that of a man, eight weeks. The two, with the exception of a slight difference in the head, which is larger and wider about the brain in the man, are indistinguishable.
In fact, we may say that every human being passes through the stage of fish and reptile before arriving at that of mammal, and finally of man.
If we take him up at the more advanced stage, where the embryo has already passed the reptilian form, we find that for a considerable time, the line of development remains the same as that of other mammalia. The rudimentary limbs are exactly similar, the five fingers and toes develop in the same way, and the resemblance after the first four weeks' growth between the embryo of a man and a dog is such that it is scarcely possible to distinguish them. Even at the age of eight weeks the embryo man is an animal with a tail, hardly to be distinguished from an embryo puppy.[587]
Why, then, not make man and dog evolve from a common ancestor, or from a reptile—a Nâga, instead of coupling man with the Quadrumana? This would be just as logical as the latter, if not more so. The shape and the stages of the human embryo have not changed since historical times, and these metamorphoses were known to Æsculapius and Hippocrates as well as to Mr. Huxley. Therefore, since the Kabalists had remarked it from prehistoric times, it is no new discovery.[588]
As the embryo of man has no more of the ape in it than of any other mammal, but contains in itself the totality of the kingdoms of nature, [pg 271] and since it seems to be a “persistent type” of life, far more so than even the Foraminifera, it seems as illogical to make him evolve from the ape as it would be to trace his origin to the frog or the dog. Both Occult and Eastern Philosophies believe in Evolution, which Manu and Kapila[589] give with far more clearness than any Scientist does at present. No need to repeat what has been fully debated in Isis Unveiled, as the reader may find all these arguments and the description of the basis on which all the Eastern doctrines of Evolution rest, in our earlier volumes.[590] But no Occultist can accept the unreasonable proposition that all the now existing forms, “from the structureless Amœba to man,” are the direct lineal descendants of organisms which lived millions and millions of years before the birth of man, in the pre-Silurian epochs, in the sea or land-mud. The Occultists believe in an Inherent Law of Progressive Development.[591] Mr. Darwin never did, and says so himself; for we find him stating that, since there can be no advantage “to the infusorian animalcule or an intestinal worm ... to become highly organized,” therefore, “natural selection,” not necessarily including progressive development—leaves the animalcule and the worm, the “persistent types,” quiet.[592]
There does not appear much uniform law in such behaviour of Nature; and it looks more like the discriminative action of some super-physical selection; perhaps, that aspect of Karma, which Eastern Occultists would call the “Law of Retardation,” may have something to do with it.
But there is every reason to doubt whether Mr. Darwin himself ever gave such an importance to his law as is now given to it by his atheistic followers. The knowledge of the various living forms in the geological periods that have gone by is very meagre. The reasons given for this by Dr. Bastian are very suggestive: