Owing to the very type of his development man cannot descend from either an ape or an ancestor common to both, but shows his origin from a type far superior to himself. And this type is the "Heavenly man" . . . . . . .On the other hand, the pithecoids, the orang-outang, the gorilla, and the chimpanzee . . . . . descend from the animalized Fourth human Root-Race, being the product of man and an extinct species of mammal-whose remote ancestors were themselves the product of Lemurian bestiality-which lived in the Miocene age. The ancestry of this semi-human monster is explained in the Stanzas as originating in the sin of the "Mind-less" races of the middle Third Race period. When it is borne in mind that all forms which now people the earth, are so many variations on basic types originally thrown off by the MAN of the Third and Fourth Round, such an evolutionist argument as that insisting on the "unity of structural plan" characterising all vertebrates, loses its edge. The basic types referred to were very few in number in comparison with the multitude of organisms to which they ultimately gave rise; but a general unity of type has, nevertheless, been preserved throughout the ages. The economy of Nature does not sanction the co-existence of several utterly opposed "ground plans" of organic evolution on one planet. The fact is that . . . . the human type is the repertory of all potential organic forms, and the central point from which these latter radiate. In this postulate we find a true "Evolution" or "unfolding"-a sense which cannot be said to belong to the mechanical theory of natural selection ….. ( Secret Doctrine, p 683)

1. There may be many other theosophical books, but the Secret Doctrine should be treated as the primary source for all theosophical studies
2. in the third round (a previous earth) man 'threw off' the forms which now constitute all the reptile species
3. in the earlier parts of this, the fourth round (this earth now) man threw off the patterns that now constitute the animal kingdoms, and the monkeys and apes
4. Later, he emerged himself
5. the fourth human Root-Race was the Atlantean - we are the fifth (Arian) root race. There is also a complex picture of seven sub races or each root race
6. The third Root-Race was the Lemurian, and there were two previous races, of which little is known
7. The Miocene was 23 to 5 mya (see Appendix 1 - science for names and dates of ages)
   

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More from the SD on this topic is given in Appendix 2 - More Theosophical background - further passages on evolution