Long before Darwin, Naudin, who gave the name of Blastema to that which the Darwinists call Protoplasm, put forward a theory half Occult and half scientifico‐materialistic. He made Adam, the A‐sexual, spring suddenly from the _clay_, as it is called in the _Bible_, the Blastema of Science. As Naudin explains: It is from this larval form of mankind, that the evolutive force effected the completion of species. For the accomplishment of this great phenomenon, Adam had to pass through a phase of immobility and unconsciousness, very analogous to the nymphal state of animals undergoing metamorphosis.(272) For the eminent Botanist, Adam was not one man, however, but _mankind_, which remained Concealed within a temporary organism, already distinct from all others, and incapable of contracting an alliance with any of them. He shows the differentiation of sexes accomplished by A process of germination similar to that of medusæ and ascidians. Mankind, thus constituted physiologically, Would retain a sufficient evolutive force for the rapid production of the various great human races. De Quatrefages criticizes this position in _The Human Species_. It is _unscientific_, he says, or, properly speaking, Naudin’s ideas “do not form a scientific theory,” inasmuch as Primordial Blastema is connected in his theory with the “_first cause_,” which is credited with having made potentially in the Blastema all past, present, and future beings, and thus of having in reality _created_ these beings _en masse_; moreover, Naudin does not even consider the “_second causes_,” or their action in this evolution of the organic world. Science, which is only occupied with “second causes,” has thus Nothing to say to the theory of M. Naudin.(273) Nor will it have any more to say to the Occult teachings, which are to some extent approached by Naudin. For if we but see in his “Primordial Blastema” the Dhyân‐Chohanic Essence, the Chhâyâ or Double of the Pitris, which contains within itself the potentiality of all forms, we are quite in accord. But there are two real and vital differences between our teachings. M. Naudin declares that evolution has progressed by sudden leaps and bounds, instead of extending slowly over millions of years; and his Primordial Blastema is endowed only with blind instincts—a kind of _unconscious_ First Cause in the Manifested Kosmos—which is an absurdity. Whereas it is our Dhyân‐Chohanic Essence—the _Causality_ of the Primal Cause which creates _physical_ man—which is the living, active and potential Matter (pregnant _per se_ with that animal consciousness of a superior kind, such as is found in the ant and the beaver) which produces the long series of physiological differentiations. Apart from this, his “ancient and general process of _creation_” from Proto‐organisms is as Occult as any theory of Paracelsus or Khunrath could be.