C. Darwinism And The Antiquity Of Man: The Anthropoids And Their Ancestry.
The public has been notified by more than one eminent modern Geologist and man of Science, that:
All estimate of geological duration is not merely imperfect, but necessarily impossible; for we are ignorant of the causes, though they must have existed, which quickened or retarded the progress of the sedimentary deposits.[1625]
And now another man of Science, as well known (Croll) calculating that the Tertiary age began either fifteen or two-and-a-half million years ago—the former being a more correct calculation, according to Esoteric Doctrine, than the latter—there seems in this case, at least, no very great disagreement. Exact Science, refusing to see in man a “special creation” (to a certain degree the Secret Sciences do the same), is at liberty to ignore the first three, or rather two-and-a-half Races—the spiritual, the semi-astral, and the semi-human—of our teachings. But it can hardly do the same in the case of the Third, at its closing period, the Fourth, and the Fifth Races, since it already divides mankind into Palæolithic and Neolithic man.[1626] The Geologists of France place man in the Mid-Miocene age (Gabriel de Mortillet), and some even in the Secondary period, as de Quatrefages suggests; [pg 725] while the English savants do not generally accept such antiquity for their species. But they may know better some day. For, as says Sir Charles Lyell:
If we consider the absence or extreme scarcity of human bones and works of art in all strata, whether marine or fresh-water, even in those formed in the immediate proximity of land inhabited by millions of human beings, we shall be prepared for the general dearth of human memorials in glacial formations, whether recent, pleistocene, or of more ancient date. If there were a few wanderers over lands covered with glaciers, or over seas infested with icebergs, and if a few of them left their bones or weapons in moraines or in marine drifts, the chances, after the lapse of thousands of years, of a geologist meeting with one of them must be infinitesimally small.[1627]
The men of Science avoid pinning themselves down to any definite statement concerning the age of man, as indeed they are hardly able to make any, and thus leave enormous latitude to bolder speculations. Nevertheless, while the majority of the Anthropologists carry back the existence of man only into the period of the post-glacial drift, or what is called the Quaternary period, those of them who, as Evolutionists, trace man to a common origin with the monkey, do not show great consistency in their speculations. The Darwinian hypothesis demands, in reality, a far greater antiquity for man, than is even dimly suspected by superficial thinkers. This is proven by the greatest authorities on the question—Mr. Huxley, for instance. Those, therefore, who accept the Darwinian evolution, ipso facto hold very tenaciously to an antiquity of man so very great, indeed, that it falls not so far short of the Occultist's estimate.[1628] The modest thousands of years of the Encyclopædia Britannica and the 100,000 years, to which Anthropology in general limits the age of Humanity, seem quite microscopical when compared with the figures implied in Mr. Huxley's bold speculations. The former, indeed, makes of the original race of men ape-like cave-dwellers. The great English Biologist, in his desire to prove man's pithecoid origin, insists that the transformation of the primordial ape [pg 726] into a human being must have occurred millions of years back. For in criticizing the excellent cranial capacity of the Neanderthal skull, notwithstanding his assertion that it is overlaid with “pithecoid bony walls,” coupled with Mr. Grant Allen's assurances that this skull—
Possesses large bosses on the forehead, strikingly [?] suggestive of those which give the gorilla its peculiarly fierce appearance[1629]—
still Mr. Huxley is forced to admit that, in the said skull, his theory is once more defeated by the—
Completely human proportions of the accompanying limb-bones, together with the fair development of the Engis skull.
In consequence of all this we are notified that these skulls—