num_pages: 406
description: This work reviews the evidence from anthropology and paleontology to support the claim of evolution science that man derives from an animal ancestor and finds both the evidence and the theses of science to be faulty and riddled with contradictions and unwarranted logical leaps of faith. Likewise, many of the tenets of creationist Christianity are found to be illogical and based upon literal readings of allegorical teachings. Both sides in the current Evolution vs. Intelligent design debate are found to be seriously deficient in truth content; this work presents a third alternative point of view, one that is both rational and religious: the possibility that Man has both an animal and a divine origin. The pendulum of thought oscillates between extremes. Having now finally emancipated herself from the shackles of theology, Science has embraced the opposite fallacy; and in the attempt to interpret Nature on purely materialistic lines, she has built up that most extravagant theory of the ages - the derivation of man from a ferocious and brutal ape. So rooted has this doctrine, in one form or another, now become, that the most Herculean efforts will be needed to bring about its final rejection. The Darwinian anthropology is the incubus of the ethnologist, a sturdy child of modern Materialism, which has grown up and acquired increasing vigour, as the ineptitude of the theological legend of Man's "creation" became more and more apparent. It has thriven on account of the strange delusion that - as a scientist of repute puts it - "All hypotheses and theories with respect to the rise of man can be reduced to two (the Evolutionist and the Biblical exoteric account). There is no other hypothesis conceivable"! The anthropology of the secret volumes is, however, the best possible answer to such a worthless contention.
language: English
title: Evolution and Intelligent Design in The Secret Doctrine by HP Blavatsky
publisher: Theosophy Trust