The record-union., 1894-02-12
EVOLUTION OF THE RACES.
The Subject as Viewed from the The.
osophical Standpoint.

osophical Standpoint.
The address at the Theosophical head
quarters last evening was given by the
Librarian. 1t was an exposition of the
Evolution of the Races" according to
Thesophy.
In beginning the address the speaker
said: 1.-THE estimates of science as to the
age of the earth since it became possible
home for man are so extremely divergent
that they are practically useless, cover
ing, as Professor Winchell shows in his
Comparative Geology variation of
some q, 100000 years. The Secret Doc
trine maintains that physical humanity
has existed on this globe for the last 49,,
100000 years, and that this period was
preceded by SOC, 600 years of the min
eral and vegetable development; that the
present round or cycle of evolution is the
fourth, the middle point of the life allot-
ted to our globe, the period Of its greatest
development, and, therefore, of the great
est cataclysmlc disturbances, which nave
been far more intense and terrible during
this round when matter is less f1uIdlc
and therefore more resiStant) than during
any of the three preceding rounds, the
cycle of the earth's earlier psychic and
spiritual life, and of its semi-ethereal con-
ditions.
between the profane and the esoteric
sciences depends upon the belief in and
the demonstration of the existence of an
astral body within the physical, the
former Independent of the latter But
why the scientists should accept the the
Ory of a once ethereal earth, and reject
that of a once ethereal man, it is hard to
realize.
Analogy is the guiding law in nature,
the only true Ariadne'S thread that can
lead us through the ineXtricable paths OF
her domain, toward her primal and hnal
mysteries. If we can conceive of ball
OF fre-nist becoming gradually-as 1t
rolls through aeOns of time in the inter
stellar spaces-a planet, selt-lumlnous
globe, to settle into man bearing world
or earth, thus having passed from soIt,
plastic body into rock bound globe, and
If we see everything on it evolving from
moneron,a "a single homogeneous particle
of albumen, into the animal form, 10
grow the gigantic reptiles of the mesoZolc
times, and then dwindle again into the
comparatively dWarfish crocodile OF the
tropics, and the still smaller universal
lizard, how can man alone escape the
common law?
There was a time when all the so-called
'antediluvian' monsters appeared as fila
mental infusOrla without she'll or crust,
with neither nerves, muscles, organs nor
sex, and reproduced their kind by gem
nation. Why not man alSo?"
The theosophical doctrine of evolution
was then given, proceeding from the
earlier shadowy, astral races down
through continually increasing material
ity-trom the first to the present, our
fifth race. each developing and pertecting
q sense, and with each race new ele-
ment comes to perfection. Already the
fifth element (ether) is beginning to be
recognized even by the scientists.
Mrs. Besant pointed out how, ''side by
side with the position of humanity at this
moment, is the development Of this fifth
element of ether in the material plane
1t matters not whether you turn to the
physicist, the chemist, or the electrician"
she said, "you will see that each one Of
these classes of scientific men have been
investigating ether, studying ether"
And Professor Crookes has said that ''in
its vibrations, vibrations hardly under
stood yet, lie possibilities OF the hidden
powers of communication of human
thought, possibilities of a new organ in
the human brain answering to these
vibrations as the eye answers to the
vibrations which we know as light"
And so the way is being prepared for the
development of that sixth sense which
will be the distinguishing characteristic
of the coming race.