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 rule in all the higher families of animals.... This organism, having advantages in the struggle for life, established itself permanently ... and special organs developed to meet the altered conditions. Thus at length the distinction would be firmly established of a female organ or ovary containing the egg or primitive cell from which the new being was to be developed, and a male organ supplying the fertilizing spore or cell.... This is confirmed by a study of embryology, which shows that in the human and higher animal species the distinction of sex is not developed until a considerable progress has been made in the growth of the embryo.... 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 being, and they are what is called hermaphrodites. Another transition form is Parthenogenesis, or virginal reproduction, in which germ-cells, apparently similar in all respects to egg-cells, develop themselves into new individuals, without any fructifying element.[1572]
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 Huxley-Hæckelian theories to the genus homo. 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, in which the fundamental biogenetic law, we are told, runs as follows:
The development of the embryo (ontogeny) is a condensed and abbreviated repetition of the evolution of the race (phylogeny). This repetition is the more complete, the more the true original order of evolution (palingenesis) has been retained by continual heredity. On the other hand, this repetition is the less complete, the more by varying adaptations the later spurious development (cænogenesis) has obtained.[1573]
This shows us that every living creature and thing on Earth, including man, evolved from one common primal form. 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 divided himself; then, hermaphrodite, have given birth parthenogenetically (on the immaculate principle) to his young ones; the next stage would be the oviparous—at first “without any fructifying element,” then “with the help of the fertilitary spore”; and only after the final and definite evolution of both sexes, would he become a distinct “male 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 which 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 every 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.[1574] 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 prototype.[1575]
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 no [pg 698] 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 Minerva from Jupiter's brain; and in such case the Bible is right, along with other national “revelations.” Hence the scientific scorn, so freely lavished by the author of A Modern Zoroastrian 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-sought-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 picks up the physical man of the Third Race. Eve is not “begotten,” but is extracted out of Adam in the manner of “Amœba A,” contracting in the middle and splitting into Amœba B—by division.[1576]
Nor has human speech developed from the various animal sounds. Hæckel'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,”[1577] is altogether unsound, as argued by Professor Max Müller, among others. He contends that no plausible explanation has yet been given as to how the “roots” of language came into existence. A human brain is necessary 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 30·51 cubic inches; while the average brains of the flat-headed Australian natives—the lowest now of the human 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 conclusions 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 new-born child.[1578]
From the foregoing it is thus very easy to perceive that in order to prove the Huxley-Hæckelian theories of the descent of man, it is not one, but a great number of “missing links”—a true ladder of progressive 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 Hæckel that primitive man was a speechless ape-creature. To this Prof. Joly answers: