Theos-Talk Archives (July 2006 Message tt00492)

7/24/2006 5:20 PM

	Re:  RE: Brain Size And Fossils    MAN AND APE  COMPARED


Friends:

Any time I read some collective generality offered as an opinion, I cringe
Does the author actually mean what he says?  Is something concealed in the
fuzziness of the definition?

As in all cases the student will have to do the research work himself.

In THEOSOPHY we need FACTS.

Further, let us apply logic, reasonableness, and if possible mathematics to
ensure.
( e.g.:  what is the calculus that establishes for all substances, planes of
consciousness and matter a – number unique to any individual “life atom”  (
MONAD ) somewhere within the range of the two ONES   { S D  I  120  top )
[both being infinities ‰ and  00] --  


Would our own SELF and the “I” within --  an individual consciousness --
seem more reasonable to emerge from the mere physical form of some animal
(an ape ? – because of similar skeletal structure – and, concerning ape
fossils we read in a recent paper [ HUMANITY IN EVOLUTION By Richard
Hiltner, MD, DHt.
 on:  	GEOLOGICAL LOCATION OF APE FOSSILS

"According to Dr. Swindler the earliest anthropoid primates 
[monkeys] were found in the late Oligocene epoch [35 to 24 MYA]. 
Most of the monkeys were found in later period -- Miocene 
[24 to 25 MYA]. Blavatsky revealed that the monkeys originated
approximately 18+ MYA. Considering some of the variables 
in time periods, this could be in the area of Dr. Swindler's estimations.

Dr. Swindler continues [he estimates the Pliocene Epoch to be 
5 -- 1.8 MYA; the Pleistocene about 1.8 to 1 MYA]:

The evolution of the living lesser apes and great apes remains a
mystery...A late Miocene form, Laccopithecus robustus, from
Lufeng, China, is now acknowledged as a true gibbon [Pan Yuerong
1988]. The divergence of gibbons from the hominoid line has been
variously estimated between 17 to 20 MYA or to 12 MYA by DNA and
immunological studies. The Lufeng site has been dated at 8 to 7
MYA, which suggests that the gibbons separated from the hominoid
line somewhat later than suggested by the DNA studies...

The Asian orangutan is considered by most primatologists as being
the descendant of the late Miocene genus sivapithecus of Pakistan
[Kelley and Pilbeam 1986 and Kelly 1994]. There are also fossil
orangutan teeth from the karst caves of south China and Java
dating to the Pleistocene [Hooijer 1948 and Ho et al. 1995].

Fossils of the African great apes are unknown. The living
chimpanzees and gorillas are not related to any of the known
lineages of Miocene apes, but it should only be a matter of time
before an ancestor is found in a late African Miocene or Pliocene
site. The molecular evidence suggests between 6 to 10 MYA for
the separation of the African great apes from the hominoid
stem...	-- INTRODUCTION TO THE PRIMATES, 242-43.
extracted from:  March 1999, THEOS-WORLD"

or

>From a God-like SPIRITUALLY PURE and WISE, an ALL KNOWING BEING
[ATMA-BUDDHI] --who descends as a non-interfering tutor into the primordial
animal form best suited to enshrine such a POWER ?  ( see S D  II  167-8
quoted:

“We now come to an important point with regard to the double evolution of
the human race. The Sons of Wisdom, or the spiritual Dhyanis, had become
"intellectual" through their contact with matter, because they had already
reached, during previous cycles of incarnation, that degree of intellect
which enabled them to become independent and self-conscious entities, on
this plane of matter. They were reborn only by reason of Karmic effects. 

They entered those who were "ready," and became the Arhats, or sages,
alluded to above. This needs explanation. 

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 Manasaputra, born of "Mahat,"
or Brahma) 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 into a dark room through the same aperture of one ray of
sunlight following another 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 call 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 has to acquire its 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 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" * savage South-Sea Islander, the 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
civilised 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. "  S D  II  167-8


"That the sum of knowledge increases daily in mankind, "but that
intellectual capacity does not increase with it," is shown when the
intellect, if not the physical knowledge, of the Euclids, Pythagorases,
Paninis, Kapilas, Platos, and Socrates, is compared with that of the
Newtons, Kants, and the modern Huxleys and Haeckels. On comparing the
results obtained by Dr. J. Barnard Davis, the Craniologist, worked out in
1868 (Trans. of the Royal Society of London), with regard to the internal
capacity of the skull — its volume being taken as the standard and test for
judging of the intellectual capacities — Dr. Pfaff finds that this capacity
among the French (certainly in the highest rank of mankind) is 88.4 cubic
inches, being thus "perceptibly smaller than that of the Polynesians
generally, which, even among many Papuans and Alfuras of the lowest grade,
amounts to 89 and 89.7 cubic inches"; which shows that it is the quality and
not the quantity of the brain that is the cause of intellectual capacity.
The average index of skulls among various races having been now recognized
to be "one of the most characteristic marks of difference between different
races," the following comparison is suggestive: 

"The index of breadth among the Scandinavians (is) at 75: among the English
at 76; among Holsteiners at 77; in Bresgau at 80; Schiller's skull shows an
index of breadth even of 82 . . . the Madurese also 82!" Finally, the same
comparison between the oldest skulls known and the European, brings to light
the startling fact "that most of these old skulls, belonging to the stone
period, are above rather than below the average of the brain of the now
living man in volume." Calculating the measures for the height, breadth, and
length in inches from the average measurements of several skulls, the
following sums are obtained: — 

1. Old Northern skulls of the stone age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. .18.877 ins. 
2. Average of 48 skulls of the same period from England . . . . . . .18.858
" 
3. Average of 7 skulls of the same period from Wales . . . . . . . . .18.649
" 
4. Average of 36 skulls of the stone age from France . . . . . . . . .
.18.220  " 

The average of the now living Europeans is 18.579 inches; of Hottentots,
17.795 inches! 
Which figures show plainly "that the size of the brain of the oldest
populations known to us is not such as to place them on a lower level than
that of the now living inhabitants of the Earth" ("The Age and Origin of
Man"). Besides which, they show the "missing link" vanishing into thin air.
Of these, however, more anon: we must return to our direct subject. "     S
D  II  522-3


"Let the reader only turn to the excellent work on "Human Species" by the
great French naturalist de Quatrefages, and our statement will at once be
verified. 
Moreover, between the esoteric teaching concerning the origin of man and
Darwin's speculations, no man, unless he is a rank materialist, will
hesitate. This is the description given by Mr. Darwin of "the earliest
ancestors of man." 

"They were without doubt once covered with hair; both sexes having beards;
their ears were pointed and capable of movement; and their bodies were
provided with a tail, having the proper muscles. Their limbs and bodies were
acted on by many muscles which now only occasionally reappear in man, but
which are still normally present in the quadrumana. . . . 

The foot, judging from the condition of the great toe in the foetus, was
then prehensile, and our progenitors, no doubt, were arboreal in their
habits, frequenting some warm forest-clad land, and the males were provided
with canine teeth which served as formidable weapons. . . ." * 

Darwin connects him with the type of the tailed catarrhines, "and
consequently removes him a stage backward in the scale of evolution. The
English naturalist is not satisfied to take his stand upon the ground of his
own doctrines, and, like Haeckel, on this point places himself in direct
variance with one of the fundamental laws which constitute the principal
charm of Darwinism . . . " And then the learned French naturalist proceeds
to show how this fundamental law is broken. "In fact," he says, "in the
theory of Darwin, transmutations do not take place, either by chance or in
every direction. They are ruled by certain laws which are due to the
organization itself. If an organism is once modified in a given direction,
it can undergo secondary or tertiary transmutations, but will still preserve
the impress of the original. It is the law of permanent characterization,
which alone permits Darwin to explain the filiation of groups, their
characteristics, and their numerous relations. 

It is by virtue of this law that all the descendants of the first mollusc
have been molluscs; all the descendants of the first vertebrate have been
vertebrates. It is clear that this constitutes one of the foundations of the
doctrine. . . . It follows that two beings belonging to two distinct types
can be referred to a common ancestor, but the one cannot be the descendant
of the other"; (p. 106). 

"Now man and ape present a very striking contrast in respect to type. Their
organs . . . correspond almost exactly term for term: but these 

 
* A ridiculous instance of evolutionist contradictions is afforded by
Schmidt ("Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism," on page 292). He says, "Man's
kinship with the apes is not impugned by the bestial strength of the teeth
of the male orang or gorilla." Mr. Darwin, on the contrary, endows this
fabulous being with teeth used as weapons! 

.

organs are arranged after a very different plan. In man they are so arranged
that he is essentially a walker, while in apes they necessitate his being a
climber. . . . There is here an anatomical and mechanical distinction. . . .
A glance at the page where Huxley has figured side by side a human skeleton
and the skeletons of the most highly developed apes is a sufficiently
convincing proof." 
The consequence of these facts, from the point of view of the logical
application of the law of permanent characterizations, is that man cannot be
descended from an ancestor who is already characterized as an ape, any more
than a catarrhine tailless ape can be descended from a tailed catarrhine. A
walking animal cannot be descended from a climbing one. 

"Vogt, in placing man among the primates, declares without hesitation that
the lowest class of apes have passed the landmark (the common ancestor),
from which the different types of this family have originated and diverged."
(This ancestor of the apes, occult science sees in the lowest human group
during the Atlantean period, as shown before.) . . . 

"We must, then, place the origin of man beyond the last apes," goes on de
Quatrefages, thus corroborating our Doctrine, "if we would adhere to one of
the laws most emphatically necessary to the Darwinian theory. We then come
to the prosimiae of Haeckel, the loris, indris, etc. But those animals also
are climbers; we must go further, therefore, in search of our first direct
ancestor. But the genealogy by Haeckel brings us from the latter to the
marsupials. . . . From men to the Kangaroo the distance is certainly great.
Now neither living nor extinct fauna show the intermediate types which ought
to serve as landmarks. This difficulty causes but slight embarrassment to
Darwin.* We know that he considers the want of information upon similar
questions as a proof in his favour. Haeckel doubtless is as little
embarrassed. He admits the existence of an absolutely theoretical pithecoid
man." 

"Thus, since it has been proved that, according to Darwinism itself, the
origin of man must be placed beyond the eighteenth stage, and since it
becomes, in consequence, necessary to fill up the gap between marsupials and
man, will Haeckel admit the existence of four unknown intermediate groups
instead of one?" asks de Quatrefages. "Will he complete his genealogy in
this manner? It is not for me to answer." ("The Human Species," p. 107-108.)
"	S D   II  666-7


"Therefore, there is nothing new whatever given to the world or to
philosophy, in such volumes as Mivart's "Man and Apes," or Messrs. Fiske and
Huxley's defence of Darwinism. But what are those crucial proofs of man's
descent from a pithecoid ancestor? If the Darwinian theory is not the true
one — we are told — if man and ape do not descend from a common ancestor,
then we are called upon to explain the reason of: — 

(I.) The similarity of structure between the two; the fact that the 


higher animal world — man and beast — is physically of one type or pattern. 

(II.) The presence of rudimentary organs in man, i.e., traces of former
organs now atrophied by disuse. Some of these organs, it is asserted, could
not have had any scope for employment, except for a semi-animal,
semi-arboreal monster. Why, again, do we find in Man those "rudimentary"
organs (as useless as its rudimentary wing is to the Apteryx of Australia),
the vermiform appendix of the cœcum, the ear muscles, * the "rudimentary
tail" (with which children are still sometimes born), etc., etc.? 
Such is the war cry; and the cackle of the smaller fry among the Darwinians
is louder, if possible, than even that of the scientific Evolutionists
themselves! 

Furthermore, the latter themselves — with their great leader Mr. Huxley, and
such eminent zoologists as Mr. Romanes and others — while defending the
Darwinian theory, are the first to confess the almost insuperable
difficulties in the way of its final demonstration. And there are as great
men of science as the above-named, who deny, most emphatically, the
uncalled-for assumption, and loudly denounce the unwarrantable exaggerations
on the question of this supposed similarity. It is sufficient to glance at
the works of Broca, Gratiolet, of Owen, Pruner-Bey, and finally, at the last
great work of de Quatrefages, "Introduction a l'Etude des Races Humaines, 

Questions generales," to discover the fallacy of the Evolutionists. We may
say more: the exaggerations concerning such similarity of structure between
man and the anthropomorphous ape have become so glaring and absurd of late,
that even Mr. Huxley found himself forced to protest against the too
sanguine expectations. It was that great anatomist personally who called the
"smaller fry" to order, by declaring in one of his articles that the
differences in the structure of the human body and that of the highest
anthropomorphous pithecoid, were not only far from being trifling and
unimportant, but were, on the contrary, very great and suggestive: "each of
the bones of the gorilla has its own specific impress on it that
distinguishes it from a similar human bone." Among the existing creatures
there is not one single intermediate form that could fill the gap between
man and the ape. To ignore that gap, he added, "was as uncalled-for as it
was absurd." † 

----------------------------------------------
 
* Professor Owen believes that these muscles — the attollens, retrahens, and
attrahens aurem — were actively functioning in men of the Stone Age. This
may or may not be the case. The question falls under the ordinary "occult"
explanation, and involves no postulate of an "animal progenitor" to solve
it. 
† Quoted in the Review of the "Introduction a l'Etude des Races Humaines,"
by de Quatrefages. We have not Mr. Huxley's work at hand to quote from. Or
to cite another good authority: — "We find one of the most man-like apes
(gibbon), in the —Footnote continued on next page—

Finally, the absurdity of such an unnatural descent of man is so palpable in
the face of all the proofs and evidence of the skull of the pithecoid as
compared to that of man, that even de Quatrefages resorted unconsciously to
our esoteric theory by saying that it is rather the apes that can claim
descent from man than vice versa. As proven by Gratiolet, with regard to the
cavities of the brain of the anthropoids, in which species that organ
develops in an inverse ratio to what would be the case were the
corresponding organs in man really the product of the development of the
said organs in the apes — the size of the human skull and its brain, as well
as the cavities, increase with the individual development of man. His
intellect develops and increases with age, while his facial bones and jaws
diminish and straighten, thus being more and more spiritualized: whereas
with the ape it is the reverse. In its youth the anthropoid is far more
intelligent and good-natured, while with age it becomes duller; and, as its
skull recedes and seems to diminish as it grows, its facial bones and jaws
develop, the brain being finally crushed, and thrown entirely back, to make
with every day more room for the animal type. The organ of thought — the
brain — recedes and diminishes, entirely conquered and replaced by that of
the wild beast — the jaw apparatus. 

Thus, as wittily remarked in the French work, a gorilla would have a perfect
right to address an Evolutionist, claiming its right of descent from
himself. It would say to him, "We, anthropoid apes, form a retrogressive
departure from the human type, and therefore our development and evolution
are expressed by a transition from a human-like to an animal-like structure
of organism; but in what way could you, men, descend from us — how can you
form a continuation of our genus? For, to make this possible, your
organization would have to differ still more than ours does from the human
structure, it would have to approach still closer to that of the beast than
ours does; and in such a case justice demands that you should give up to us
your place in nature. You are lower than we are, once that you insist on
tracing your genealogy from our kind; for the structure of our organization
and its development are such that we are unable to generate forms of a
higher organization than our own." 
This is where the Occult Sciences agree entirely with de Quatrefages 

 
—Footnote continued from previous page—tertiary period, and this species is
still in the same low grade, and side by side with it at the end of the
Ice-period, man is found in the same high grade as to-day, the ape not
having approximated more nearly to the man, and modern man not having become
further removed from the ape than the first (fossil) man . . . these facts
contradict a theory of constant progressive development." (Pfaff.) When,
according to Vogt, the the average Australian brain = 99.35 cub. inches;
that of the gorilla 30.51 cub. in., and that of the chimpanzee only 25.45,
the giant gap to be bridged by the advocate of "Natural" Selection becomes
apparent. 


fages. Owing to the very type of his development man cannot descend from
either an ape or an ancestor common to both, but shows his origin from a
type far superior to himself. And this type is the "Heavenly man" — the
Dhyan Chohans, or the Pitris so-called, as shown in the first Part of this
volume. On the other hand, the pithecoids, the orang-outang, the gorilla,
and the chimpanzee can, and, as the Occult Sciences teach, do, descend from
the animalized Fourth human Root-Race, being the product of man and an
extinct species of mammal — whose remote ancestors were themselves the
product of Lemurian bestiality — which lived in the Miocene age. The
ancestry of this semi-human monster is explained in the Stanzas as
originating in the sin of the "Mind-less" races of the middle Third Race
period. 

When it is borne in mind that all forms which now people the earth, are so
many variations on basic types originally thrown off by the MAN of the Third
and Fourth Round, such an evolutionist argument as that insisting on the
"unity of structural plan" characterising all vertebrates, loses its edge.
The basic types referred to were very few in number in comparison with the
multitude of organisms to which they ultimately gave rise; but a general
unity of type has, nevertheless, been preserved throughout the ages. The
economy of Nature does not sanction the co-existence of several utterly
opposed "ground plans" of organic evolution on one planet. Once, however,
that the general drift of the occult explanation is formulated, inference as
to detail may well be left to the intuitive reader. 

Similarly with the important question of the "rudimentary" organs discovered
by anatomists in the human organism. Doubtless this line of argument, when
wielded by Darwin and Haeckel against their European adversaries, proved of
great weight. Anthropologists, who ventured to dispute the derivation of man
from an animal ancestry, were sorely puzzled how to deal with the presence
of gill-clefts, with the "tail" problem, and so on. Here again Occultism
comes to our assistance with the necessary data. 
The fact is that, as previously stated, the human type is the repertory of
all potential organic forms, and the central point from which these latter
radiate. In this postulate we find a true "Evolution" or "Unfolding" — a
sense which cannot be said to belong to the mechanical theory of natural
selection. Criticising Darwin's inference from "rudiments," an able writer
remarks: "Why is it not just as probably a true hypothesis to suppose that
Man was created with the rudimentary sketches in his organization, and that
they became useful appendages in the lower animals into which man
degenerated, as to suppose that these parts existed in full development in
the lower animals out of which man was generated?" ("Creation or Evolution?"
Geo. T. Curtis, p. 76.) 


Read for "into which Man degenerated," "the prototypes which man shed in the
course of his astral developments," and an aspect of the true esoteric
solution is before us. But a wider generalization is now to be formulated."
S D  II  681-4

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


Best wishes,

Dallas

==============================================

-----Original Message-----
From: carlosaveline
Sent: Monday, July 24, 2006 12:54 PM
To: 
Subject: Theos-World RAJA YOGA BY JUDGE

Dear Mark and friends, 

Thanks a lot for your posting on "modern ideas". 

To those who are against "Victorian" views of life, I would only add that
Raja Yoga and Jnana Yoga were not created by the British Empire. As we all
know. 

So why label HPB or her teachings as "Victorian"? 

HPB taught Jnana and Raja Yogas. And some Karma Yoga, too. That has nothing
to do with the often false morality of 19th century in Europe and the UK. 

As to liberty of thought, I agree we must not have censorship. In my view
both these "modern" ideas and Mark Jacqua's remarks about them can be
accepted by everybody with tranquility of mind. 

		SNIP