It does not mean that Monads entered Forms in which other Monads already were. They were “Essences,” “Intelligences,” and Conscious Spirits; Entities seeking to become still more conscious by uniting with more developed Matter. Their essence was too pure to be distinct from the Universal Essence; but their “Egos,” or Manas (since they are called Mânasaputra, born of Mahat, or Brahmâ) had to pass through earthly human experiences to become all-wise, and be able to start on the returning ascending cycle. The Monads are not discrete principles, limited or conditioned, but rays from that one universal absolute Principle. The entrance of one ray of sunlight following [pg 177] another through the same aperture into a dark room will not constitute two rays, but one ray intensified. It is not in the course of natural law that man should become a perfect Septenary Being before the Seventh Race in the Seventh Round. Yet he has all these principles latent in him from his birth. Nor is it part of the evolutionary law that the Fifth Principle (Manas), should receive its complete development before the Fifth Round. All such prematurely developed intellects (on the spiritual plane) in our Race are abnormal; they are those whom we have called the “Fifth-Rounders.” Even in the coming Seventh Race, at the close of this Fourth Round, while our four lower principles will be fully developed, that of Manas will be only proportionately so. This limitation, however, refers solely to the spiritual development. The intellectual, on the physical plane, was reached during the Fourth Root-Race. Thus, those who were “half ready,” who received “but a spark,” constitute the average humanity which have to acquire their intellectuality during the present Manvantaric evolution, after which they will be ready in the next for the full reception of the “Sons of Wisdom.” While those which “were not ready” at all, the latest Monads, which had hardly evolved from their last transitional and lower animal forms at the close of the Third Round, remained the “narrow-brained” of the Stanza. This explains the otherwise unaccountable degrees of intellectuality among the various races of men—the savage Bushman and the European—even now. Those tribes of savages, whose reasoning powers are very little above the level of the animals, are not the unjustly disinherited, or the “unfavoured,” as some may think—nothing of the kind. They are simply those latest arrivals among the human Monads, which “were not ready”; which have to evolve during the present Round, as also on the three remaining Globes—hence on four different planes of being—so as to arrive at the level of the average class when they reach the Fifth Round. One remark may prove useful, as food for thought to the student in this connection. The Monads of the lowest specimens of humanity—the “narrow-brained”[387] savage South-Sea Islander, the [pg 178] African, the Australian—had no Karma to work out when first born as men, as their more favoured brethren in intelligence had. The former are spinning out Karma only now; the latter are burdened with past, present and future Karma. In this respect the poor savage is more fortunate than the greatest genius of civilized countries.
Let us pause before giving any more such strange teachings. Let us try and find out how far any ancient Scriptures, and even Science, permit the possibility of, or even distinctly corroborate, such wild notions as are found in our Anthropogenesis.
Recapitulating that which has been said, we find that the Secret Doctrine claims for man: (1) a polygenetic origin; (2) a variety of modes of procreation before humanity fell into the ordinary method of generation; (3) that the evolution of animals—of the mammalians at any rate—follows that of man instead of preceding it. And this is diametrically opposed to the now generally accepted theories of evolution and the descent of man from an animal ancestor.
Let us, giving to Cæsar what is Cæsar's, examine, first of all, the chances for the polygenetic theory among the men of Science.
Now the majority of the Darwinian Evolutionists incline to a polygenetic explanation of the origin of races. On this particular question, however, as in many other cases, Scientists are at sixes and sevens; they agree to disagree.
Does man descend from one single couple or from several groups—monogenism or polygenism? As far as one can venture to pronounce on what in the absence of witnesses [?] will never be known [?], the second hypothesis is far the most probable.[388]
Abel Hovelacque, in his Science of Language, comes to a similar conclusion, arguing from the evidence available to a linguistic enquirer.
In an address delivered before the British Association, Professor W. H. Flower remarked on this question:
The view which appears best to accord with what is now known of the characters and distribution of the races of man ... is a modification of the monogenistic hypothesis[!]. Without entering into the difficult question of the method of man's first appearance upon the world, we must assume for it a vast antiquity, at all events as measured by any historical standard. If we had any approach to a complete palæontological record, the history of man could be re-constructed, but nothing of the kind is forthcoming.
Such an admission must be regarded as fatal to the dogmatism of the Physical Evolutionists, and as opening a wide margin to Occult speculations. [pg 179] The opponents of the Darwinian theory were, and still remain, polygenists. Such “intellectual giants” as John Crawford and James Hunt discussed the problem and favoured polygenesis, and in their day there was a far stronger feeling in favour of than against this theory. It was only in 1864 that Darwinians began to be wedded to the theory of unity, of which Messrs. Huxley and Lubbock became the first coryphæi.