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May we not be permitted to throw a glance at the works of Specialists ? The work on “ Comparative Geology : the World-Life,” by Prof. A. Winchell, furnishes us with curious data. Here we find an opponent of the Nebular theory, a reverend gentleman, smiting with all the force of the hammer of his odium theologicum on the rather contradictory hypothesis of the great stars of Science, in the matter of sidereal and cosmical phenomena based on their respective relations to terrestrial durations. The “ too imaginative physicists and naturalists ” do not fare very easily under this shower of their own speculative figures when placed side by side, and cut rather a sorry figure. Thus he shows : —
“ Sir William Thomson, on the basis of the observed principles of cooling, concludes that no more than ten million years (elsewhere he makes it 100,000,000) can have elapsed since the temperature of the Earth was sufficiently reduced to sustain vegetable life. * Helmholz calculates that twenty million years would suffice for the original nebula to condense to the present dimensions of the sun. Prof. S. Newcomb requires only ten millions to attain a temperature of 212° Fahr. † Croll estimates seventy million years for the diffusion of the heat, etc. ‡ Bischof calculates that 350 million years would be required for the earth to cool from a temperature of 2,000° to 200° Centigrade. Read, basing his estimate on observed rates of denudation, demands 500 million years since sedimentation began in Europe. § Lyell ventured a rough guess of 240 million years ; Darwin thought 300 million years demanded by the organic transformations which his theory contemplates, and Huxley is disposed to demand a 1,000 millions ” (! !).
To this Prof. Winchell observes that “ some biologists . . . . seem to close their eyes tight and leap at one bound into the abyss of millions of years, of which they have no more adequate estimate than of infinity.” || Then he proceeds to give what he takes to be more correct geological figures : a few will suffice.
According to Sir W. Thomson “ the whole incrusted age of the world is 80,000,000 years ” ; and agreeably with Prof. Houghton’s calculations of a minimum limit for the time since the elevation of
* Nat. Philos. App. D., Trans. Royal Soc., Edin.
† “ Popular Astronomy,” p. 509.
‡ “ Climate and Time,” p. 335.
§ Read. Address, “ Liverpool Geolog. Society, 1876.”
|| “ World-Life,” p. 180.
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Europe and Asia, three hypothetical ages for three possible and different modes of upheaval are given : varying from the modest figures of 640,730 years, through 4,170,000 years to the tremendous figures of 27,491,000 years ! !
This is enough, as one can see, to cover our claims for the four continents and even the figures of the Brahmins.
Further calculations, the details of which the reader may find in Prof. Winchell’s work, * bring Houghton to an approximation of the sedimentary age of the globe — 11,700,000 years. These figures are found too small by the author, who forthwith extends them to 37,000,000 years.
Again, according to Croll, † 2,500,000 years “ represents the time since the beginning of the Tertiary age ” in one work ; and according to another modification of his view, 15,000,000 only have elapsed since the beginning of the Eocene period ; ‡ which, being the first of the three Tertiary periods, leaves the student suspended between 2½ and 15 millions. But if one has to hold to the former moderate figures, then the whole incrusted age of the world would be 131,600,000 years. §
As the last glacial period extended from 240,000 to 80,000 years ago (Prof. Croll’s view), therefore, man must have appeared on earth from 100 to 120,000 years ago. But, as says Prof. Winchell, with reference to the antiquity of the Mediterranean race, “ it is generally believed to have made its appearance during the later decline of the continenta glaciers.” Yet, he adds, this “ does not concern, however, the antiquity of the Black and Brown races, since there are numerous evidences of their existence in more southern regions, in times remotely pre-glacial ” (p. 379).
As a specimen of geological certainty and agreement, these figures also may be added. Three authorities — Messrs. T. Belt, F.G.S. ; J. Croll, F.R.S. ; and Robert Hunt, F.R.S., — in estimating the time that has elapsed since the Glacial epoch, give absolutely different figures, namely : —
| Mr. Belt ... | 20,000 | years. |
| Mr. J. Croll ... | 240,000 | |
| Mr. R. Hunt ... | 80,000 |
* “ World-Life,” pp. 367-8.
† “ Climate and Time.”
‡ Quoted in Mr. Ch. Gould’s “ Mythical Monsters,” p. 84.
§ According to Bischof, 1,004,177 years — according to Chevandier’s calculations 672,788 years — were required for the so-called coal formation. “ The tertiary strata, about 1,000 feet in thickness, required for their development about 350,000 years.” See “ Force and Matter,” Büchner, J. F. Collingwood’s edition.
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(But see “ The Ice-Age Climate and Time,” Popular Science Review, Vol. xiv., p. 242.)
No wonder if Mr. Pengelly confesses that “ it is at present and perhaps always will be impossible to reduce, even approximately, geological time into years or even into millenniums ” ( Vide supra, foot-note). A wise word of advice from the Occultists to the gentlemen geologists : they ought to imitate the cautious example of Masons. As chronology, they say, cannot measure the era of the creation, therefore, their “ Antient and Primitive Rite ” uses 000,000,000 as the nearest approach to reality.
The same uncertainty, contradictions and disagreement reign on all other subjects.
The scientific authorities on the Descent of Man are again, for all practical purposes, a delusion and a snare. There are many anti-Darwinists in the British Association, and “ Natural Selection ” begins to lose ground. Though at one time the saviour, which seemed to rescue the learned theorists from a final intellectual collapse into the abyss of fruitless hypothesis, it begins to be distrusted. Even Mr. Huxley is showing signs of truancy to “ Selection,” and thinks “ natural selection not the sole factor ” : —
“ We greatly suspect that she (Nature) does make considerable jumps in the way of variation now and then, and that these saltations give rise to some of the gaps which appear to exist in the series of known forms ” (Review of Kölliker’s Criticisms).
Again, in “ Fallacies of Darwinism,” (p. 160), C. R. Bree, M.D., argues in this wise in considering the fatal gaps in Mr. Darwin’s theory : —
“ It must be again called to mind that the intermediate forms must have been vast in numbers. Mr. St. George Mivart believes that
change in evolution may occur more quickly than is generally believed ; but Mr. Darwin sticks manfully to his belief, and again tells us ‘ natura non facit saltum ’ ” — wherein the Occultists are at one with Mr. Darwin.
Esoteric teaching fully corroborates the idea of nature’s slowness and dignified progression. “ Planetary impulses ” are all periodical. Yet this Darwinian theory, correct as it is in minor particulars, agrees no more with Occultism than with Mr. Wallace, who, in his “ Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection,” shows pretty conclusively that something more than “ natural selection ” was requisite to produce physical man.
Let us, meanwhile, examine the scientific objections to this scientific theory, and see what they are.
Mr. St. George Mivart is found arguing that —
. . . . “ . . . . it will be a moderate computation to allow 25,000,000 for the deposition of the strata down to and including the Upper Silurian. If,
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then, the evolutionary work done during this deposition only represents a hundredth part of the sum total, we shall require 2,500,000,000 years for the complete development of the whole animal Kingdom to its present state. Even one quarter of this, however, would far exceed the time which physics and astronomy seem able to allow for the completion of this process. Finally, a difficulty exists as to the reason of the absence of rich fossiliferous deposits in the oldest strata — if life was then as abundant and varied, as on the Darwinian theory it must have been. Mr. Darwin himself admits ‘ the case at present must remain inexplicable ’ ; and this may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views entertained in his own work. . . . .
“ Thus, then, we find a wonderful (and on Darwinian principles all but inexplicable) absence of minutely transitional forms. All the most marked groups . . . . . appear at once upon the scene. Even the horse, the animal whose pedigree has been probably best preserved, affords no conclusive evidence of specific origin by infinitesimal fortuitous variations ; while some forms, as the labyrinthodonts and trilobites, which seemed to exhibit gradual change, are shown by further investigation to do nothing of the sort. . . . All these difficulties are avoided if we admit that new forms of animal life of all degrees of complexity appear from time to time with comparative suddenness, being evolved according to laws in part depending on surrounding conditions, in part internal — similar to the way in which crystals (and perhaps from recent researches the lowest forms of life) build themselves up according to the internal laws of their component substance and in harmony and correspondence with all environing influences and conditions.” (“ Genesis of Species,” p. 142.)
“ The internal laws of their component substance.” These are wise words, and the admission of the possibility, a prudent one. But how can these internal laws be ever recognized, if Occult teaching is discarded ? As a friend writes, while drawing our attention to the above speculations : “ In other words, the doctrine of Planetary Life-Impulses must be admitted. Otherwise, why are species now stereotyped, and why do even domesticated breeds of pigeons and many animals relapse into their ancestral types when left to themselves ? ” But the teaching about planetary life-impulses has to be clearly defined and as clearly understood if present confusion would not be made still more perplexing. All these difficulties would vanish as the shadows of night disappear before the light of the rising Sun, if the following esoteric axioms were admitted : (a) the enormous antiquity (and the existence) of our planetary chain ; (b) the actuality of the Seven Rounds ; (c) the separation of human races (outside the purely anthropological division) into Seven distinct Root-Races, of which our present European Humanity is the fifth ; (d) the antiquity of Man in this (Fourth) Round ; and finally (e) that as these Races evolve from ethereality to materiality, and from the latter back again into relative physical tenuity of texture, so every living (so-called) organic species of animals with vegetation included, changes with every new Root-Race. Were this admitted, if even only
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along with other, and surely, on maturer consideration, no less absurd, suppositions, if Occult theories have to be considered “ absurd ” at present, then every difficulty would be made away with. Surely, Science ought to try and be more logical than it now is, as it can hardly maintain the theory of man’s descent from an anthropoidal ancestor, and deny in the same breath any reasonable antiquity to that man ! Once Mr. Huxley talks of “ the vast intellectual chasm between the man and ape,” and “ the present enormous gulf between the two,” * and if he admits the necessity of extending Scientific allowances for the age of man on earth for such slow and progressive development, then all those men of Science, who are of his way of thinking, at any rate, ought to come to some approximate figures, at least, and agree upon the probable duration of those Pliocene, Miocene, and Eocene periods of which so much is said, and about which nothing definite is known — if they dare not venture beyond. But no two scientists seem to agree. Every period seems to be a mystery in its duration, and a thorn in the side of the geologists ; and, as just shown, they are unable to harmonize their conclusions even with regard to the comparatively recent geological formations. Thus, no reliance can be placed on their figures when they do give any, for with them it is all either millions or simply thousands of years !
That which is said may be strengthened by the confessions made by themselves and the synopsis of it, found in that “ Circle of Sciences,” the Encyclopædia Britannica, which shows the mean accepted in the geological and anthropological riddles. In that work the cream of the most authoritative opinions is skimmed off ; nevertheless, we find in it the refusal to assign any definite chronological date, even to such, comparatively speaking, late epochs as the Neolithic era, though, for a wonder, an age is established for the beginnings of certain geological periods ; at any rate of some few, the duration of which could hardly be shortened any more, without an immediate conflict with facts.
Thus, it is surmised in the great Encyclopædia (Vol. X., art. “ Geology,” p. 227), that “ 100 million years have passed . . . . . since the solidification of our Earth, when the earliest form of life appeared upon it. † ”
But it seems quite as hopeless to try to convert the modern Geologists and Ethnologists as it is to make Darwinian Naturalists perceive their mistakes. About the Aryan Root-Race and its origins,
* “ Man’s Place in Nature,” p. 102, note.
† “ 100,000,000 of years is probably amply sufficient for all the requirements of Geology,” says the text. In France, some savants do not find it nearly “ sufficient.” Le Couturier claims for the same 350 million years ; Buffon was satisfied with 34 millions — but there are those in the more modern schools who will not be content under 500 million years.
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Science knows as little as of the men from other planets. With the exception of Flammarion and a few mystics among astronomers, even the habitableness of other planets is mostly denied. Yet such great adept astronomers were the Scientists of the earliest races of the Aryan stock, that they seem to have known far more about the races of Mars and Venus than the modern Anthropologist knows of those of the early stages of the Earth.
Let us leave modern Science aside for a moment and turn to ancient knowledge. As we are assured by Archaic Scientists that all such geological cataclysms — from the upheaval of oceans, deluges, and shifting of continents, down to the present year’s cyclones, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, and even the extraordinary weather and seeming shifting of seasons which perplexes all European and American meteorologists — are due to, and depend on the moon and planets ; aye, that even modest and neglected constellations have the greatest influence on the meteorological and cosmical changes, over, and within our earth, let us give one moment’s attention to our sidereal despots and rulers of our globe and men. Modern Science denies any such influence ; archaic Science affirms it. We may see what both say with regard to this question.