all organized existence, we are finally told that the Monera are _their own ancestors_. This may be very scientific, but it is very metaphysical also; too much so, even for the Occultist. If spontaneous generation has changed its methods now—owing, perhaps, to accumulated material on hand—so as to almost escape detection, it was, nevertheless, in full swing in the genesis of terrestrial life. Even the simple physical form and the evolution of species show how Nature proceeds. The scale‐bound, gigantic Saurian, the winged Pterodactyl, the Megalosaurus, and the hundred feet long Iguanodon of the later period, are the transformations of the earliest representatives of the animal kingdom found in the sediments of the primary epoch. There was a time when all the above enumerated “antediluvian” monsters appeared as filamentoid Infusoria without shell or crust, with neither nerves, muscles, organs nor sex, and reproduced their kind by gemmation; as do microscopical animals also, the architects and builders of our mountain ranges, agreeably to the teachings of Science. Why not man in this case? Why should he not have followed the same law in his growth, _i.e._, gradual condensation? Every unprejudiced person would prefer to believe that Primeval Humanity had at first an Ethereal—or, if so preferred, a huge filamentoid, jelly‐like Form, evolved by Gods or natural “Forces,” which grew, condensed throughout millions of ages, and became gigantic in its physical impulse and tendency, until it settled into the huge, physical form of the Fourth Race Man—rather than believe him created of the dust of the Earth (literally), or from some unknown anthropoid ancestor. Nor does our Esoteric theory clash with scientific data, except on first appearance, as Dr. A. Wilson, F.R.S., says, in a letter to _Knowledge_ (Dec. 23, 1881): Evolution—rather nature, in the light of evolution—has only been studied for some _twenty‐five years or so_. That is, of course, a mere fractional space in the history of human thought. And just because of this we do not lose all hope that Materialistic Science will amend its ways, and will gradually accept the Esoteric Teachings—if even at first divorced from their (to Science) too metaphysical elements. Has the last word on the subject of human evolution yet been said? As Processor Huxley says: Each such answer to the great question [man’s real place in nature], invariably asserted by the followers of its propounder, if not by himself, to be _complete and final_, remains in high authority and esteem, it may be for one century, it may be for twenty: but, as invariably, Time proves each reply to have been a _mere approximation to the truth—tolerable chiefly on account of the ignorance of those by whom it was accepted, and wholly intolerable when tested by the larger knowledge of their successors_.(353)