Theos-Talk Archives (June 2005 Message tt00496)

June 24 2005

Dear Friends:

Mention of difficulty I S D II


"Man is certainly no special creation, and he is the product of Nature's
gradual 
perfective work, like any other living unit on this Earth. But this is in
only with 
regard to the human tabernacle." SECRET DOCTRINE II p. 728.

"That which lives and thinks in man and survives that frame, the masterpiece
of evolution — is the "Eternal Pilgrim," the Protean differentiation in
space and time of the One Absolute "unknowable."   
[IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING ABOVE QUOTE]

These statements need to be conjoined, as well as read carefully a dozen
pages before and after the quote taken from p. 728 -- to get a perspective.

Some statements ----
==================

Before:

"According to Lyell, one of the highest authorities on the subject, and the
"Father" of Geology: — "The expectation of always meeting with a lower type
of human skull, the older the formation in which it occurs, is based on the
theory of progressive development, and it may prove to be sound;
nevertheless we must remember that as yet we have no distinct geological
evidence that the appearance of what are called the inferior races of
mankind has always preceded in chronological order that of the higher
races." ("Antiq. of Man," p. 25.) Nor has such evidence been found to this
day. Science is thus offering for sale the skin of a bear, which has
hitherto never been seen by mortal eye! 

This concession of Lyell's reads most suggestively with the subjoined
utterance of Professor Max Muller, whose attack on the Darwinian
Anthropology from the standpoint of LANGUAGE has, by the way, never been
satisfactorily answered: — 
"What do we know of savage tribes beyond the last chapter of their history?"
(Cf. this with the esoteric view of the Australians, Bushmen, as well as of
Palaeolithic European man, the Atlantean offshoots retaining a relic of a
lost culture, which throve when the parent Root-Race was in its prime.) "Do
we ever get an insight into their antecedents. . . . How have they come to
be what they are? . . . . Their language proves, indeed, that these
so-called heathens, with their complicated systems of mythology, their
artificial customs, their unintelligible whims and savageries, are not the
creatures of to-day or yesterday. Unless we admit a special creation for
these savages, they must be as old as the Hindus, the Greeks and Romans (far
older). . . . 
722	THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
They may have passed through ever so many vicissitudes, and what we consider
as primitive, may be, for all we know, a RELAPSE INTO SAVAGERY or a
corruption of something that was more rational and intelligible in former
stages." ("India," 1883, F. Max Müller.) 

"The primeval savage is a familiar term in modern literature," remarks
Professor Rawlinson, "but there is no evidence that the primeval savage ever
existed. Rather all the evidence looks the other way." ("Antiq. of Man
Historically Considered.") In his "Origin of Nations," pp. 10-11, he rightly
adds: "The mythical traditions of almost all nations place at the beginning
of human history a time of happiness and perfection, a 'golden age' which
has no features of savagery or barbarism, but many of civilization and
refinement." How is the modern evolutionist to meet this consensus of
evidence? 
We repeat the question asked in "Isis Unveiled": "Does the finding of the
remains in the cave of Devon prove that there were no contemporary races
then who were highly civilized? When the present population of the earth
have disappeared, and some archaeologist belonging to the 'coming race' of
the distant future shall excavate the domestic implements of one of our
Indian or Andaman Island tribes, will he be justified in concluding that
mankind in the nineteenth century was 'just emerging from the Stone Age'?" 

Another strange inconsistency in scientific knowledge is that Neolithic man
is shown as being far more of a primitive savage than the Palæolithic one.
Either Lubbock's "Pre-historic Man," or Evans' "Ancient Stone Implements"
must be at fault, or — both. For this is what we learn from these works and
others: — 

(1) As we pass from Neolithic to Palæolithic Man, the stone implements
become, from gracefully shaped and polished instruments, rude lumbering
makeshifts. Pottery, etc., disappear as we descend the scale. And yet the
latter could engrave such a reindeer! 

(2) Palæolithic Man lived in caves which he shared with hyaenas and lions
also,* whereas Neolithic man dwelt in lake-villages and buildings. 

Every one who has followed even superficially the geological discoveries of
our day, knows that a gradual improvement in workmanship is found, from the
clumsy chipping and rude chopping of the early Palæolithic haches, to the
relatively graceful stone celts of that part of the Neolithic period
immediately preceding the use of metals. But this is in Europe, a few
portions only of which were barely rising from the waters in the days 
 
* In such a case Palæolithic man must have been endowed in his day with
thrice Herculean force and magic invulnerability, or else the lion was as
weak as a lamb at that period, for both to share the same dwelling. We may
as well be asked to believe next that it is that lion or hyaena which has
engraved the deer on the antler, as be told that this bit of workmanship was
done by a savage of such a kind. 
723	ENTRAPPED BY THE REINDEER.
of the highest Atlantean civilizations. There were rude savages and highly
civilized people then, as there are now. If 50,000 years hence, pigmy
Bushmen are exhumed from some African cavern together with far earlier pigmy
elephants, such as were found in the cave deposits of Malta by Milne
Edwards, will that be a reason to maintain that in our age all men and all
elephants were pigmies? Or if the weapons of the Veddhas of Ceylon are
found, will our descendants be justified in setting us all down as
Palæolithic savages? All the articles which geologists now excavate in
Europe can certainly never date earlier than from the close of the Eocene
age, since the lands of Europe were not even above water before that period.
Nor can what we have said be in the least invalidated by theorists telling
us that these quaint sketches of animals and men by Palæolithic man, were
executed only toward the close of the Reindeer period — for this explanation
would be a very lame one indeed, in view of the geologists' ignorance of
even the approximate duration of periods. 

The Esoteric Doctrine teaches distinctly the dogma of the risings and falls
of civilization; and now we learn that: "It is a remarkable fact that
cannibalism seems to have become more frequent as man advanced in
civilization, and that while its traces are frequent in Neolithic times they
. . . . altogether disappear in the age of the mammoth and the reindeer."
("Mod. Science and Mod. Thought," p. 164.) 

Another evidence of the cyclic law and the truth of our teachings. Esoteric
history teaches that idols and their worship died out with the Fourth Race,
until the survivors of the hybrid races of the latter (Chinamen, African
negroes, &c.) gradually brought the worship back. The Vedas countenance no
idols; all the modern Hindu writings do. 

"In the early Egyptian tombs, and in the remains of the pre-historic cities
excavated by Dr. Schliemann, images of owl and ox-headed goddesses, and
other symbolical figures, or idols, are found in abundance. But when we
ascend into Neolithic times, such idols are no longer found . . . . the only
ones which may be said with some certainty to have been idols are one or two
discovered by M. de Braye in some artificial caves of the Neolithic period .
. . which appear to be intended for female figures of life size" . . . . (p.
199 Ibid.) 

And these may have been simply statues. Anyhow, all this is one among the
many proofs of the cyclic rise and fall of civilization and religion. The
fact that no traces of human relics or skeletons are so far found beyond
post-tertiary or "Quaternary" times — though Abbe Bourgeois' flints may
serve as a warning * — seems to point to the truth of another esoteric
statement, 
S D II 721-23


------------------------------

After:

S D II 731-2

ORGANIC EVOLUTION AND CREATIVE CENTRES.

IT is argued that the Universal Evolution, otherwise, the gradual
development of species in all the kingdoms of nature, works by uniform laws.
This is admitted, and the law enforced far more strictly in Esoteric than in
modern Science. But we are told also, that it is equally a law that
"development works from the less to the more perfect, and from the simpler
to the more complicated, by incessant changes, small in themselves, but
constantly accumulating in the required direction." It is from the
infinitesimally small that the comparatively gigantic species are produced. 

Esoteric Science agrees with it, but adds that this law applies only to what
is known to it as the Primary Creation — the evolution of worlds from
primordial atoms, and the pre-primordial ATOM, at the first differentiation
of the former; and that during the period of cyclic evolution in space and
time, this law is limited and works only in the lower kingdoms. It did so
work during the first geological periods, from simple to complex, on the
rough material surviving from the relics of the Third Round, which relics
are projected into objectivity when terrestrial activity recommences. 

No more than Science, does esoteric philosophy admit design or "special
creation." It rejects every claim to the "miraculous," and accepts nothing
outside the uniform and immutable laws of Nature. But it teaches a cyclic
law, a double stream of force (or spirit) and of matter, which, starting
from the neutral centre of Being, develops in its cyclic progress and
incessant transformations. 

The primitive germ from which all vertebrate life has developed throughout
the ages, being distinct from the primitive germ from which the vegetable
and the animal life have evolved, there are side laws whose work is
determined by the conditions in which the materials to be worked upon are
found by them, and of which Science — physiology and anthropology especially
— seems to be little aware. Its votaries speak of that "primitive germ," and
maintain that it is shown beyond any doubt that the "design" and the
"designer," if there be any, in the case of man, with the wonderful
structure of his limbs, and his hand especially, "must be placed very much
farther back, and (the design) is, in fact, involved in the primitive germ,"
from which not only all vertebrate life, but, "probably all life, animal and
vegetable, have been slowly developed" (p. 94 of "Modern Science and Modern
Thought"). 

732	THE SECRET DOCTRINE.

This is as true of the "primitive germ" as it is false that that "germ" is
only "very much farther back" than man is; for it is at an immeasurable and
inconceivable distance (in time, though not in space) from the origin even
of our Solar system. As the Hindu philosophy very justly teaches, the
"Aniyamsam Aniyasam," can be known only through false notions. It is the
"many" that proceed from the ONE — the living spiritual germs or centres of
forces — each in a septenary form, which first generate, and then give the
PRIMARY IMPULSE to the law of evolution and gradual slow development. 

Limiting the teaching strictly to this, our earth, it may be shown that, as
the ethereal forms of the first Men are first projected on seven zones by
seven Dhyan-Chohanic centres of Force, so there are centres of creative
power for every ROOT or parent species of the host of forms of vegetable and
animal life. This is, again, no "special creation," nor is there any
"Design," except in the general "ground-plan" worked out by the universal
law. But there are certainly "designers," though these are neither
omnipotent nor omniscient in the absolute sense of the term. They are simply
Builders, or Masons, working under the impulse given them by the
ever-to-be-unknown (on our plane) Master Mason — the ONE LIFE and Law.
Belonging to this sphere, they have no hand in, or possibility of working on
any other, during the present Manvantara, at any rate. That they work in
cycles and on a strictly geometrical and mathematical scale of progression,
is what the extinct animal species amply demonstrate; that they act by
design in the details of minor lives (of side animal issues, etc.) is what
natural history has sufficient evidence for. In the creation of new species,
departing sometimes very widely from the Parent stock, as in the great
variety of the genus Felis — like the lynx, the tiger, the cat, etc. — it is
the "designers" who direct the new evolution by adding to, or depriving the
species of certain appendages, either needed or becoming useless in the new
environments. Thus, when we say that Nature provides for every animal and
plant, whether large or small, we speak correctly. For, it is those
terrestrial spirits of Nature, who form the aggregated Nature; which, if it
fails occasionally in its design, is neither to be considered blind, nor to
be taxed with the failure; since, belonging to a differentiated sum of
qualities and attributes, it is in virtue of that alone conditioned and
imperfect. "
S D II 731-2

-----------------------


Read ON and BEFORE that. I think it is important t see the whole setting.

2

Why do races die out ?

"You wrote: ." P728 SD2. 

If the ancestor of the ape, is from the union between man and a she animal,
why didn't this form "die at birth" or become infertile, as happens in
other species when cross-breeding occurs?"

--------------------------------

Here are some possible leads:


"IN our own times we have instances of the disappearance of races, and very
often it is attributed to the influence of civilized vices. The Hottentots
have entirely gone, and the decimation of the Hawaiian Islanders is about
complete. Similarly the Red Indians of the Continents of North and South
America have been surely, if slowly, passing away, so that now there is only
a remnant of them left, and soon after the Spanish conquest the great masses
of the aboriginal inhabitants had faded away.

The Hottentots had reached almost the acme of decline when we knew them, but
the Aztecs, Toltecs, and other South Americans had not reached such a pitch
when they encountered the Spanish. The Red Indians had gone down between the
two, while the Hawaiians were still below the Indians. It has always seemed
to me that the claim that these races were destroyed by taking up our vices
is not well founded. It is pleasant, perhaps, to the pessimist who dislikes
this civilization, but it will not agree with all the facts. The decrease of
population in the Hawaiian Islands cannot be justly attributed to rum and
social evils taken over from us, although a great deal of injury no doubt
arose from those abuses. 

About the Hottentots we may feel pretty sure, because their degradation was
almost complete when they were discovered, and the Mexicans and South
American people had no time to adopt Spanish vices, nor did such exist in a
degree to kill off the inhabitants.

The theory outlined by H. P. Blavatsky is that when the Egos inhabiting any
race have reached the limit of experience possible in it, they begin to
desert that race environment and seek for another, which, in the sure
processes of natures evolution, is certain to be in existence elsewhere on
the globe. The Egos then having left the old families, the latter begin to
die out through sterility attacking the females, so that fewer and fewer
bodies are made for inhabitancy. This goes on from century to century pari
passu with mental decay. And this mental deterioration arises from the fact
that the small stock of what we might call the retarded Egos who come in
during the process have not had the experience and training in that
particular environment which had been gone through by those who have
deserted to another race, and hence--on the theosophical theory that brain
is not the producer of mind--the whole personnel of the old race rushes down
in the scale, sooner or later presenting the sad spectacle of a dying race.
Final extinction is the result when the process has gone far enough.

At the time when the first steps toward old age and decrepitude are taken by
such a race, the eternal cyclic laws that always bring about a universal
correspondence between the affairs of man and the operations of cosmos cause
cataclysms to happen, and even in the seeming height of a nation's power
great numbers of bodies are destroyed. Some indications of this may be seen
in our own day in the great destruction of human life that has begun to
overtake the older portions of the Chinese nation. These are finger posts
that declare the beginning of the exodus of the Egos who have had such a
long experience in that race environment that they have begun to emigrate
elsewhere because their experience has wrought in their character changes
which unfit them for dealing with the old bodies, and those are left for the
starting of other less progressed men. 

After the lapse of more years the natural cataclysms will increase in
violence and extent, engulfing more and more millions of bodies and
preparing for other cycles.

We may suppose that the Red Indians predecessors went through similar
experiences, for there are in the Americas evidences of great convulsions
such as upheavals from below and overflowing by water that deposited great
masses of mud. In one of the States there was lately found good evidence
that animals had been thus buried for ages. The men, having reason to guide
them, removed themselves to other parts to carry out the sad decrees of
Karma which had ordered their demise. And under the suggestion made above,
the egos untried in that environment only occupied the racial body for the
sake of the experience which might be gained during the time that is left.
Now our civilization with weapons and other means is completing the work, as
it on its part fulfils the law by creating on the old soil an entirely new
race in which the experience gained by the mind in prior cycles of existence
may show itself forth.

This process is almost exactly that which happens in families. Reincarnating
egos continue in families that suit their mental progress just so long as is
needed; and if no more egos are in the cycle of rebirth exactly fitted to
the physical, psychical, and mental state of the family, it begins to die
out. And it even exhibits often in its own small way the phenomena of
natural cataclysm, for we know that sudden ruin and quick extinction often
carry off an entire family, leaving not even a descendant in the very
remotest degree.

Hence I conclude that, like families, Races disappear when they are of no
further use in the gaining of experience by the great pilgrim soul.

WILLIAM Q. JUDGE	Path, October, 1891
 
----------------------------------------



Dallas
 
===================================================

-----Original Message-----
>From Perry Coles
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 12:50 AM
To: 
Subject: Re: Some musings on the study of theosophy

Hi Cass,
You wrote:	." P 728, S D 2. 

If the ancestor of the ape, is from the union between man and a she animal,
why didn't this form "die at birth" or become infertile, as happens in
other species when cross-breeding occurs?"
........

Sorry Cass I have no idea but I have read that passage before and 
have to say the idea has never sat well with me and so don't accept 
it at this point in time anyway (for what that's worth!)

I suppose the point I was really trying to make was that the idea of 
an ethical, intelligent, compassionate and interconnected cosmos in 
other words the fundamentals of the theosophical worldview rather 
than the specifics of what HPB said in the SD.

It's my understanding this realization comes through compassionate 
and ethical understandings rather than simply empirical methods which 
of course have an important and needed place in the scheme of things.

These ethical issues have arisen in many areas for example the 
cloning of human beings for body parts or the splicing of genes
http://www.theosophycanada.com/fohat_donot.htm

I think this area of ethics is the important area we as humans need 
to look very closely at rather than rushing headlong into things that 
may have implications and repercussions for eons to come if we head 
down a certain path simply for temporary material or physical benefit.

Regards

Perry