Chapter XLV: Section VII: Scientific and Geological Proofs of the Existence of Several (1)

Submerged Continents.

It may not be amiss—for the benefit of those who resolve the tradition of a lost Miocene Atlantis into an “antiquated myth”—to append a few scientific admissions on this point. Science, it is true, is largely indifferent to such questions. But there are Scientists ready to admit that, in any case, a cautious agnosticism as to geological problems concerning the remote past is far more philosophical than _à priori_ denial, or even hasty generalizations on insufficient data.

Meanwhile two very interesting instances, that have been lately met with, may be pointed out as “confirming” certain passages in the letter of a Master, published in _Esoteric Buddhism_. The eminence of the authorities will not be questioned (we italicize the corresponding passages):

Extract from _Esoteric Buddhism_, p. 70.

(1.)

The sinking of Atlantis (the group of continents and isles) began
during the Miocene period ... and it culminated first in the final
disappearance of the largest continent, _an event coincident with
the elevation of the Alps_, and second with that of the last of
the fair islands mentioned by Plato.

Extract from a Lecture by W. Pengelly, F.R.S., F.G.S.

(1.)

Was there, as some have believed, an Atlantis—a continent or
archipelago of large islands occupying the area of the North
Atlantic? There is, perhaps, nothing unphilosophical in the
hypothesis. For since, as geologists state, “_The Alps have
acquired 4,000 and even in some places more than 10,000 feet of
their present altitude since the commencement of the Eocene
epoch_” (Lyell’s _Principles_, p. 256, 2nd Ed.)—_a Post‐Miocene
depression might have carried the hypothetical Atlantis into
almost abysmal depths_.(1824)

Extract from _Esoteric Buddhism_, pp. 64, 65.

(2.)

Lemuria ... should no more be confounded with the Atlantis
Continent than Europe with America. Both sank and were drowned
with their high civilizations and “gods”; yet between the two
catastrophes a period of about 700,000 years elapsed, Lemuria
flourishing and ending her career just about that lapse of time
before the early part of the _Eocene_ age, since its Race was the
Third. Behold _the relics of that once great nation in some of the
flat‐headed aborigines of your Australia_.

Extract from an article in the _Popular Science Review_, v. 18, by
Professor Seemann, Ph.D., F.L.S., V.‐P.A.S.

(2.)

It would be premature to say, because no evidence has yet been
adduced, _that men may not have existed in the Eocene age_,
especially as it can be shown that _a race of men, the lowest we
know of, co‐exists with that remnant of the Eocene flora which
still survives on the continent and islands of Australia_.

Extract from _The Pedigree of Man_, p. 81.

Hæckel, who fully accepts the reality of a former Lemuria, also
regards the _Australians as direct descendants of the Lemurians_.
Persistent forms of both [his Lemurian] stems are in all
probability still surviving, of the former in the Papuans and
Hottentots, of the latter in the _Australians_ and in one division
of the Malays.

With regard to a former civilization, of which a _portion_ of these degraded Australians are the last surviving offshoot, the opinion of Gerland is strongly suggestive. Commenting upon the religion and mythology of the tribes, he writes:

The statement that Australian civilization [?] indicates a higher
grade, is nowhere more clearly proved than here [in the province
of religion] where everything resounds like the expiring voices of
a previous and richer age.... The idea that the Australians have
no trace of religion or mythology is thoroughly false. But this
religion is certainly quite deteriorated.(1825)

As to Hæckel’s view of the relationship between the Australians and the Malays, as two branches of a common stock, he is in error when he classes the Australians with the rest. The Malays and Papuans are a _mixed_ stock, resulting from the intermarriages of the low Atlantean sub‐races with the seventh sub‐race of the Third Root‐Race. Like the Hottentots, they are of indirect Lemuro‐Atlantean descent. It is a most suggestive fact—to those concrete thinkers who demand a _physical_ proof of Karma—that the lowest races of men are now rapidly dying out; a phenomenon largely due to an extraordinary sterility setting in among the women, from the time that they were first approached by the Europeans. A process of decimation is taking place all over the Globe, among those races, whose “time is up”—among just those stocks, be it remarked, which Esoteric Philosophy regards as the senile representatives of lost archaic nations. It is inaccurate to maintain that the extinction of a lower race is _invariably_ due to cruelties or abuses perpetrated by colonists. Change of diet, drunkenness, etc., have done much; but those who rely on such data as offering an all‐sufficient explanation of the crux, cannot meet the phalanx of facts now so closely arrayed. Even the Materialist Lefèvre says:

Nothing can save those that have run their course. It would be
necessary to extend their destined cycle.... _The peoples that
have been relatively most spared, those who have defended
themselves most valiantly, Hawaiians or Maories, have been no less
decimated than the tribes massacred or tainted by European
intrusion._(1826)

True; but is not the phenomenon here confirmed, an instance of the operation of Cyclic Law, difficult to account for on materialist lines? Whence the “destined cycle” and the order here testified to? Why does this (Karmic) sterility attack and root out certain races at their “appointed hour”? The answer that it is due to a “mental disproportion” between the colonizing and aboriginal races is obviously evasive, since it does not explain the sudden “checks to fertility” which so frequently supervene. The dying out of the Hawaiians, for instance, is one of the most mysterious problems of the day. Ethnology will sooner or later have to recognize, with Occultists, that the true solution has to be sought for in a comprehension of the workings of Karma. As Lèfevre remarks:

The time is drawing near when there will remain nothing but three
great human types.

The time is before the Sixth Root‐Race dawns; the three types are the white (Âryan, Fifth Root‐Race), the yellow, and the African negro—with their crossings (Atlanto‐European divisions). Redskins, Eskimos, Papuans, Australians, Polynesians, etc.—all are dying out. Those who realize that every Root‐Race runs through a gamut of seven sub‐races with seven branchlets, etc., will understand the “why.” The tide‐wave of incarnating Egos has rolled past them to harvest experience in more developed and less senile stocks; and their extinction is hence a Karmic necessity. Some extraordinary and _unexplained_ statistics as to race extinction are given by de Quatrefages.(1827) No solution, except on Occult lines, is able to account for these.

But we have digressed from our direct subject. Let us hear now what Professor Huxley has to say on the subject of former Atlantic and Pacific Continents.

He writes in _Nature_:

There is nothing, so far as I am aware, in the biological or
geological evidence at present accessible, to render untenable the
hypothesis that _an area of the Mid‐Atlantic or Pacific sea‐bed as
big as Europe_, should have been upheaved as high as Mont Blanc,
and have subsided again any time since the Palæozoic epoch, if
there were any grounds for entertaining it.(1828)

That is to say, then, that there is nothing to militate against _positive_ evidence of the fact; nothing, therefore, against the geological postulates of the Esoteric Philosophy. Dr. Berthold Seemann assures us in the _Popular Science Review_ that:

The facts which botanists have accumulated for reconstructing
these lost maps of the globe are rather comprehensive; and they
have not been backward in demonstrating the former existence of
several large tracts of solid land in parts now occupied by great
oceans. The many striking points of contact between the present
floras of the United States and Eastern Asia, induced them to
assume that, during the present order of things, there existed a
continental connection between South‐Eastern Asia and Western
America. The singular correspondence of the present flora of the
Southern United States with that of the lignite flora of Europe
induces them to believe that, in the Miocene period, Europe and
America were connected by a land passage, of which Iceland,
Madeira, and the other Atlantic islands are remnants; that, in
fact, the story of an Atlantis, which an Egyptian priest told to
Solon, is not purely fictitious, but rests upon a solid historical
basis.... Europe of the Eocene period received the plants which
spread over mountains and plains, valleys and river‐banks (from
Asia generally), neither exclusively from the South nor from the
East. The West also furnished additions, and if at that period
these were rather meagre, they show, at all events, that the
bridge was already building, which, at a later period, was to
facilitate communication between the two continents in such a
remarkable manner. At that time some plants of the Western
Continent began to reach Europe by means of the island of
Atlantis, then probably just [?] just rising above the
ocean.(1829)

And in another number of the same review(1830) Mr. W. Duppa Crotch, M.A., F.L.S., in an article entitled “The Norwegian Lemming and its Migrations,” alludes to the same subject:

Is it probable that land could have existed where now the broad
Atlantic rolls? All tradition says so: old Egyptian records speak
of Atlantis, as Strabo and others have told us. The Sahara itself
is the sand of an ancient sea, and the shells which are found upon
its surface prove that, no longer ago than the Miocene period, a
sea rolled over what is now desert. The voyage of the “Challenger”
has proved the existence of three long ridges(1831) in the
Atlantic Ocean,(1832) one extending for more than three thousand
miles, and lateral spurs may, by connecting these ridges, account
for the marvellous similarity of the fauna of the Atlantic
islands.(1833)...

The submerged continent of _Lemuria_, in what is now the Indian
Ocean, is considered to afford an explanation of many difficulties
in the distribution of organic life, and, I think, the existence
of a _Miocene Atlantis_ will be found to have a strong elucidative
bearing on subjects of greater interest [truly so!] than the
migration of the lemming. At all events, if it can be shown that
land existed in former ages where the North Atlantic now rolls,
not only is a motive found for these apparently suicidal
migrations, but also a strong collateral proof that what we call
instincts are but the blind and sometimes even prejudicial
inheritance of previously acquired experience.

At certain periods, we learn, multitudes of these animals swim to sea and perish. Coming, as they do, from all parts of Norway, the powerful instinct which survives throughout ages as an inheritance from their progenitors impels them to seek a continent, once existing but now submerged beneath the ocean, and to court a watery grave.

In an article containing a criticism of Mr. A. R. Wallace’s _Island Life_—a work devoted largely to the question of the distribution of animals, etc.—Mr. Starkie Gardiner writes:

By a process of reasoning supported by a large array of facts of
different kinds, he arrives at the conclusion that the
distribution of life upon the land as we now see it has been
accomplished without the aid of important changes in the relative
positions of continents and seas. Yet if we accept his views, we
must believe that Asia and Africa, Madagascar and Africa, New
Zealand and Australia, Europe and America, have been united at
some period not remote geologically, and that seas to the depth of
1,000 fathoms have been bridged over; but we must treat as
“utterly gratuitous and entirely opposed to all the evidences at
our command” [! !], the supposition that temperate Europe and
temperate America, Australia, and South America, have ever been
connected, except by way of the Arctic or Antarctic Circles, and
that lands now separated by seas of more than 1,000 fathoms depth
have ever been united.

Mr. Wallace, it must be admitted, has succeeded in explaining the
chief features of existing life distribution, without bridging the
Atlantic or Pacific, except towards the Poles, yet I cannot help
thinking that some of the facts might perhaps be more easily
explained by admitting the former existence of the connection
between the coast of Chili and Polynesia(1834) and Great Britain
and Florida, shadowed by the sub‐marine banks which stretch
between them. Nothing is urged that renders these more direct
connections impossible, and no physical reason is advanced why the
floor of the ocean should not be upheaved from any depth. The
route by which [according to the Anti‐Atlantean and Lemurian
hypotheses of Wallace] the floras of South America and Australia
are supposed to have mingled, is beset by almost insurmountable
obstacles, and the apparently sudden arrival of a number of
subtropical American plants in our Eocenes necessitates a
connection more to the South than the present 1,000 fathom line.
Forces are unceasingly acting, and there is _no reason why an
elevating force once set in action in the centre of an ocean
should cease to act until a continent is formed_. They have acted
and lifted out from the sea, in comparatively recent geological
time, the loftiest mountains on earth. Mr. Wallace himself admits
repeatedly that sea‐beds have been elevated 1,000 fathoms, and
islands have risen up from the depths of 3,000 fathoms; and to
suppose that the upheaving forces are limited in power, is, it
seems to me, to again quote from _Island Life_, “utterly
gratuitous and entirely opposed to all the evidences at our
command.”(1835)

The “father” of English Geology—Sir Charles Lyell—was a uniformitarian in his views of continental formation. We find him saying:

Professors Unger (_Die Versunkene Insel Atlantis_) and Heer
(_Flora Tertiaria Helvetiæ_) have advocated on botanical grounds
_the former existence of an Atlantic Continent during some part of
the tertiary period_, as affording the only plausible explanation
that can be imagined of the analogy between the Miocene flora of
Central Europe, and the existing flora of Eastern America.
Professor Oliver, on the other hand, after showing how many of the
American types found fossil in Europe are common to Japan,
inclines to the theory, first advanced by Dr. Asa Gray, that the
migration of species, to which the community of types in the
Eastern States of North America, and the Miocene flora of Europe
is due, took place when there was an overland communication from
America to Eastern Asia between the fiftieth and sixtieth
parallels of latitude, or south of Behring’s Straits, following
the direction of the Aleutian islands. By this course they may
have made their way, at any epoch, Miocene, Pliocene, or
Postpliocene, antecedently to the Glacial epoch, to Amoorland, on
the East coast of Northern Asia.(1836)

The unnecessary difficulties and complications here incurred in order to avoid the hypothesis of an Atlantic Continent, are really too apparent to escape notice. _If the botanical evidences stood alone_, scepticism would be partially reasonable; but in this case all branches of Science converge to one point. Science has made blunders, and has exposed itself to greater errors than it would be exposed to by the admission of our two now invisible Continents. It has denied even the undeniable, from the days of the Mathematician Laplace down to our own, and that only a few years ago.(1837) We have Professor Huxley’s authority for saying that there is no _à priori_ improbability whatever against possible evidences supporting the belief. But now that the _positive evidence is brought forward_, will that eminent Scientist admit the corollary?

Touching on the problem in another place Sir Charles Lyell tells us:

Respecting the cosmogony of the Egyptian priests, we gather much
information from writers of the Grecian sects, who borrowed almost
all their tenets from Egypt, and amongst others that of the former
successive destruction and renovation of the world [_continental_,
not cosmic, catastrophes]. We learn from Plutarch that this was
the theme of one of the hymns of Orpheus, so celebrated in the
fabulous ages of Greece. It was brought by him from the banks of
the Nile; and we even find in his verses, as in the Indian
systems, a definite period assigned for the duration of every
successive world. The returns of great catastrophes were
determined by the period of the Annus Magnus, or great year, a
cycle composed of the revolutions of the sun, moon, and planets,
and terminating when these return together to the same sign whence
they were supposed at some remote epoch to have set out.... We
learn particularly from the _Timæus_ of Plato that the Egyptians
believed the world to be subject to occasional conflagrations and
deluges. The sect of Stoics adopted most fully the system of
catastrophes destined at certain intervals to destroy the world.
These, they taught, were of two kinds—the cataclysm, or
_destruction by deluge_, which sweeps away the whole human race,
and annihilates all the animal and vegetable productions of
nature, and the _ecpyrosis_, or _conflagration_, which destroys
the globe itself [submarine volcanoes]. From the Egyptians they
derived the doctrine of the gradual debasement of man from a state
of innocence [nascent simplicity of the first sub‐races of each
Root‐Race]. Towards the termination of each era the gods could no
longer bear with the wickedness of men [degeneracy into magical
practices and gross animality of the Atlanteans], and a shock of
the elements, or a deluge, overwhelmed them; after which calamity,
Astræa again descended on the earth to renew the golden age [dawn
of a new Root‐Race].(1838)

Astræa, the Goddess of Justice, is the last of the deities to forsake the Earth, when the Gods are said to abandon it and to be taken up again into heaven by Jupiter. But, no sooner does Zeus carry from Earth Ganymedes—the object of _lust_, personified—than the Father of the Gods throws down Astræa on the Earth again, on which she falls _upon her head_. Astræa is Virgo, the constellation of the Zodiac. Astronomically it has a very plain significance, and one which gives the key to the occult meaning. But it is inseparable from Leo, the sign that precedes it, and from the Pleiades and their sisters, the Hyades, of which Aldebaran is the brilliant leader. All these are connected with the periodical renovations of the Earth, with regard to its continents—even Ganymedes, who in astronomy is Aquarius. It has already been shown that while the South Pole is the “Pit” (or the infernal regions figuratively and cosmologically), the North Pole is geographically the First Continent; while astronomically and metaphorically the Celestial Pole, with its Pole Star in Heaven, is Meru, or the Seat of Brahmâ, the Throne of Jupiter, etc. For in the age when the Gods forsook the Earth and were said to ascend into Heaven, the ecliptic had become parallel with the meridian, and part of the Zodiac appeared to descend from the North Pole to the north horizon. Aldebaran was in conjunction then with the Sun, as it was 40,000 years ago, at the great festival in commemoration of that Annus Magnus, of which Plutarch spoke. Since that Year—40,000 years ago—there has been a retrograde motion of the equator, and about 31,000 years ago Aldebaran was in conjunction with the vernal equinoctial point. The part assigned to Taurus, even in Christian Mysticism, is too well known to need repetition. The famous Orphic Hymn on the great periodical cataclysm divulges the whole Esotericism of the event. Pluto, in the Pit, carries off Eurydice, bitten by the Polar Serpent. Then Leo, the Lion, is vanquished. Now, when the Lion is “in the Pit,” or below the South Pole, then Virgo, as the next sign, follows him, and when her head, down to the waist, is below the southern horizon—she is inverted. On the other hand, the Hyades are the rain or Deluge constellations; and Aldebaran—he who follows, or _succeeds_ the daughters of Atlas, or the Pleiades—looks down from the eye of Taurus. It is from this point of the ecliptic that the calculations of the new cycle were commenced. The student has to remember also, that when Ganymedes—Aquarius—is raised to heaven—or above the horizon of the North Pole—Virgo or Astræa, who is Venus‐Lucifer, descends head downwards below the horizon of the South Pole, or the Pit; which Pit, or the Pole, is also the Great Dragon, or the Flood. Let the student exercise his intuition by placing these facts together; no more can be said. Lyell remarks:

The connection between the doctrine of successive catastrophes and
repeated deteriorations in the moral character of the human race,
is more intimate and natural than might at first be imagined. For,
in a rude state of society, all great calamities are regarded by
the people as judgments of God on the wickedness of man.... In
like manner in the account given to Solon by the Egyptian priests
of the submersion of the island of Atlantis under the waters of
the ocean, after repeated shocks of an earthquake, we find that
_the event happened when Jupiter had seen the moral depravity of
the inhabitants_.(1839)

True; but was it not owing to the fact that all Esoteric truths were given out to the public by the Initiates of the temples _under the guise of allegories_? “Jupiter,” is merely the personification of that immutable Cyclic Law, which arrests the downward tendency of each Root‐Race after attaining the zenith of its glory.(1840) We must admit allegorical teaching, unless we hold with Prof. John Fiske’s singularly dogmatic opinion that a myth:

Is an explanation by the uncivilized mind, of some natural
phenomenon; not an allegory, not an esoteric symbol, for the
ingenuity is wasted [!!] which strives to detect in myths the
remnants of a refined primeval science—but an explanation.
Primitive men had no profound science to perpetuate by means of
allegory [how does Mr. Fiske know?], nor were they such sorry
pedants as to talk in riddles when plain language would serve
their purpose.(1841)

We venture to say the language of the initiated few was far more “plain,” and their Science‐Philosophy far more comprehensive and satisfying alike to the physical and _spiritual_ wants of man, than even the terminology and system elaborated by Mr. Fiske’s master—Herbert Spencer. What, however, is Sir Charles Lyell’s “explanation” of the “myth”? Certainly, he in no way countenances the idea of its “astronomical” origin, as asserted by some writers.

The two interpreters are entirely at variance with one another. Lyell’s solution is as follows. A disbeliever in cataclysmal changes from the absence (?) of any reliable historical data on the point, as well as from a strong bias to the uniformitarian conceptions of geologic changes,(1842) he attempts to trace the Atlantis “tradition” to the following sources:

(1) Barbarous tribes connect catastrophes with an avenging God, who is assumed in this way to punish immoral races.

(2) Hence the commencement of a new race is logically a virtuous one.

(3) The primary source of the geologic basis of the tradition was Asia—a continent subject to violent earthquakes. Exaggerated accounts would thus be handed down the ages.

(4) Egypt, being herself free from earthquakes, nevertheless based her not inconsiderable geologic knowledge on these cataclysmal traditions.

An ingenious “explanation,” as all such are! But proving a negative is proverbially a difficult task. Students of Esoteric Science, who know what the resources of the Egyptian priesthood really were, need no such laboured hypothesis. Moreover, while an imaginative theorist is always able to furnish a reasonable solution of problems which, in one branch of Science, seem to necessitate the hypothesis of periodical cataclysmic changes on the surface of our planet, the impartial critic who is not a specialist, will recognize the immense difficulty of explaining away the cumulative evidences—namely, the archaeological, ethnological, geological, traditional, botanical, and even biological—in favour of former continents now submerged. When each science is fighting for its own hand, the cumulative force of the evidence is almost invariably lost sight of.

In the _Theosophist_ we wrote:

We have as evidence the most ancient traditions of various and
wide‐separated peoples—legends in India, in ancient Greece,
Madagascar, Sumatra, Java, and all the principal isles of
Polynesia, as well as the legends of both Americas. Among savages,
and in the traditions of the richest literature in the world—the
Sanskrit literature of India—there is an agreement in saying,
that, ages ago, there existed in the Pacific Ocean, a large
Continent, which by a geological upheaval was engulfed by the
sea(1843) [Lemuria]. And it is our firm belief ... that most, if
not all, of the islands from the Malayan Archipelago to Polynesia,
are fragments of that once immense submerged Continent. Both
Malacca and Polynesia, which lie at the two extremities of the
ocean, and which, since the memory of man, never had nor could
have any intercourse with, or even a knowledge of each other, have
yet a tradition common to all the islands and islets, that their
respective countries extended far, far into the Sea; that there
were in the world but two immense continents, one inhabited by
yellow, the other by dark men; and that the Ocean, by command of
the Gods, and to punish them for their incessant quarrelling,
swallowed them up. Notwithstanding the geographical fact that New
Zealand, and Sandwich and Easter Islands, are at a distance from
each other of between 800 and 1,000 leagues, and that, according
to every testimony, neither these nor any other intermediate
islands, for instance, the Marquesan, Society, Fiji, Tahitian,
Samoan, and other islands, could, since they became islands,
ignorant as their people were of the compass, have communicated
with each other before the arrival of Europeans; yet they one and
all maintain that their respective countries extended far toward
the West, on the Asian side. Moreover with very small differences,
they all speak dialects evidently of the same language, and
understand each other with little difficulty, have the same
religious beliefs and superstitions, and pretty much the same
customs. And as few of the Polynesian islands were discovered
earlier than a century ago, and the Pacific Ocean itself was
unknown to Europe until the days of Columbus, and these islanders
have never ceased repeating the same old traditions since the
Europeans first set foot on their shores, it seems to us a logical
inference that our theory is nearer to the truth than any other.
Chance would have to change its name and meaning, were all this
due but to chance alone.(1844)

Professor Schmidt, writing in defence of the hypothesis of a former Lemuria, declares:

A great series of animal‐geographical facts is explicable only on
the hypothesis of the former existence of a Southern Continent of
which the Australian mainland is a remnant.... [The distribution
of species] points to the vanished land of the south, where
perhaps the home of the progenitors of the Maki of Madagascar may
also be looked for.(1845)

Mr. A. R. Wallace, in his _Malay Archipelago_, arrives at the following conclusion after a review of the mass of evidence at hand:

The inference that we must draw from these facts is undoubtedly
that the whole of the islands eastwards beyond Java and Borneo do
essentially form a part of a former Australian or Pacific
Continent, although some of them may never have been actually
joined to it. This continent must have been broken up not only
before the Western Islands were separated from Asia, but probably
before the extreme south‐eastern portion of Asia was raised above
the waters of the ocean, for a great part of the land of Borneo
and Java is known to be geologically of quite recent
formation.(1846)

According to Hæckel:

Probably Southern Asia itself was not the earliest cradle of the
human race; but Lemuria, a continent that lay to the South of
Asia, and sank later on beneath the surface of the Indian
Ocean.(1847)

In one sense Hæckel is right as to Lemuria—the “cradle of the human race.” That Continent _was_ the home of the first _physical_ human stock—the later Third‐Race Men. Previous to that epoch the Races were far less consolidated and physiologically quite different. Hæckel makes Lemuria extend from Sunda Island to Africa and Madagascar and eastwards to Upper India.

Professor Rütimeyer, the eminent Palæontologist, asks:

Need the conjecture that the almost exclusively graminivorous and
insectivorous marsupials, sloths, armadilloes, ant‐eaters and
ostriches, once possessed an actual point of union in a Southern
Continent of which the present flora of Terra del Fuego and
Australia must be the remains—need this conjecture raise
difficulties at a moment when, from their fossil remains, Heer
restores to our sight the ancient forests of Smith’s Sound and
Spitzbergen?(1848)

Having now dealt generally with the broad scientific attitude on the two questions, it will, perhaps, conduce to an agreeable brevity, if we sum up the more striking isolated facts in favour of that fundamental contention of Esoteric Ethnologists—the reality of Atlantis. Lemuria is so widely accepted, that further pursuit of the subject is unnecessary. With regard, however, to the former, it is found that:

(1) The Miocene floræ of Europe have their most numerous and striking analogues in the floræ of the United States. In the forests of Virginia and Florida are found the magnolias, tulip‐trees, evergreen oaks, plane trees, etc., which correspond with European Tertiary flora, term for term. How was the migration effected, if we exclude the theory of an Atlantic Continent bridging the ocean between America and Europe? The proposed “explanation” to the effect that the transition was by way of Asia and the Aleutian Islands is a mere uncalled‐for theory, obviously upset by the fact that a large number of these floræ only appear _East_ of the Rocky Mountains. This also negatives the idea of a Trans‐Pacific migration. They are now superseded by European continents and islands to the North.

(2) Skulls exhumed on the banks of the Danube and Rhine bear a _striking similarity_ to those of the Caribs and Old Peruvians (Littré). Monuments have been exhumed in Central America, which bear representations of undoubted _negro_ heads and faces. How are such facts to be accounted for except on the Atlantean hypothesis? What is now N.W. Africa was once connected with Atlantis by a network of islands, few of which now remain.

(3) According to Farrar the “_isolated_ language” of the Basques has no affinities with the other languages of Europe,(1849) but with:

The aboriginal languages of the vast opposite continent [America]
and those alone.(1850)

Professor Broca is also of the same opinion.

Palæolithic European man of the Miocene and Pliocene times was a pure Atlantean, as we have previously stated. The Basques are, of course, of a much later date than this, but their affinities, as here shown, go far to prove the original extraction of their remote ancestors. The “mysterious” affinity between their tongue and that of the Dravidian races of India will be understood by those who have followed our outline of continental formations and shiftings.

(4) Stones have been found in the Canary Islands bearing sculptured symbols similar to those found on the shore of Lake Superior. Berthollet was induced by such evidence to postulate the unity of race of the early men of the Canary Islands and America.(1851)

The Guanches of the Canary Islands were lineal descendants of the Atlanteans. This fact will account for the _great stature_ evidenced by their old skeletons, as well as by those of their European congeners, the Cro‐Magnon Palæolithic men.

(5) Any experienced mariner has but to navigate the fathomless ocean along the Canary Islands to ask himself the question when or how that group of volcanic and rocky little islands has been formed, surrounded on every side by that vast watery space. Frequent questions of this kind led finally to the expedition of the famous Leopold von Buch, which took place in the first quarter of the present century. Some Geologists maintained that the volcanic islands had been raised right from the bottom of the ocean, the depth of which in the immediate vicinity of the island varies from 6,000 to 18,000 feet. Others were inclined to see in these groups—including Madeira, the Azores, and the islands of Cape de Verde—the remnants of a gigantic but submerged continent which had once united Africa with America. The latter men of Science supported their hypothesis by a mass of evidence in its favour, drawn from ancient “myths.” Hoary “superstitions,” such as the fairy‐like Atlantis of Plato, the Garden of the Hesperides, Atlas supporting the world on his shoulders, all of them mythoi connected with the Peak of Teneriffe, did not go far with sceptical Science. The identity of animal and vegetable species, showing either a previous connection between America and the remaining groups of the islands—the hypothesis of their having been drifted from the New to the Old World by the waves was too absurd to stand long—found more serious consideration. But it is only quite lately, and after Donnelly’s book had been published several years, that the theory has had a greater chance than ever of becoming an accepted fact. Fossils found on the _Eastern Coast_ of South America have now been _proved_ to belong to the Jurassic formations, and are nearly identical with the Jurassic fossils of _Western_ Europe and _Northern_ Africa. The geological structure of both coasts is also almost identical; the resemblance between the smaller marine animals dwelling in the more shallow waters of the South American, the Western African, and the South European coasts, is also very great. All such facts are bound to bring Naturalists to the conclusion that there has been, in distant pre‐historic ages, a continent which extended from the coast of Venezuela, across the Atlantic Ocean, to the Canarese Islands and North Africa, and from Newfoundland nearly to the coast of France.

(6) The great resemblance between the Jurassic fossils of South America, North Africa, and Western Europe is a striking enough fact in itself, and admits of no explanation, unless the ocean is bridged with an Atlantis. But why, also, is there so marked a similarity between the fauna of the (now) isolated Atlantic islands? Why did the specimens of Brazilian fauna dredged up by Sir C. Wyville Thompson resemble those of Western Europe? Why does a resemblance exist between many of the West African and West Indian animal groups? Again:

When the animals and plants of the Old and New World are compared,
one cannot but be struck with their identity; all, or nearly all,
belong to the same genera, while many, even of the species, are
common to both continents ... indicating that they radiated from a
common centre [Atlantis].(1852)

The horse, according to Science, originated in America. At least, a large proportion of the once “missing links” connecting it with inferior forms have been exhumed from American strata. How did the horse penetrate into Europe and Asia, if no land communication bridged the oceanic interspaces? Or if it is asserted that the horse originated in the Old World, how did such forms as the hipparion, etc., get into America in the first instance on the migration hypothesis?

Again:

Buffon had ... remarked the repetition of the African in the
American fauna, how, for example, the llama is a juvenescent and
feeble copy of the camel, and how the puma of the New represents
the lion of the Old World.(1853)

(7) The following quotation runs with No. 2, but its significance is such and the writer cited is so authoritative, that it deserves a place to itself:

With regard to the primitive dolichocephalæ of America, I
entertain a hypothesis still more bold, namely, that they are
nearly related to the Guanches of the Canary Islands, and to the
Atlantic populations of Africa, the Moors, Tuaricks, Copts, which
Latham comprises under the name of Egyptian‐Atlantidæ. We find one
and the same form of skull in the Canary Islands, in front of the
African coast, and in the Carib islands, on the opposite coast
which faces Africa. The colour of the skin on both sides of the
Atlantic is represented in these populations as being of a
reddish‐brown.(1854)

If, then, Basques and Cro‐Magnon Cave‐Men are of the same race as the Canarese Guanches, it follows that the former are also allied to the aborigines of America. This is the conclusion necessitated by the independent investigations of Retzius, Virchow, and de Quatrefages. The Atlantean affinities of these three types become patent.

(8) The sea‐soundings undertaken by H.M.S. “Challenger” and the “Dolphin,” have established the fact that a huge elevation some 3,000 miles in length, projecting upwards from the abysmal depths of the Atlantic, extends from a point near the British Islands southwards, curving round near Cape de Verde, and running in a south‐easterly direction along the West African coast. This elevation averages some 9,000 feet in height, and rises above the waves at the Azores, Ascension, and other places. In the ocean depths around the neighbourhood of the former the ribs of a once massive piece of land have been discovered.(1855)

The inequalities, the mountains and valleys of its surface could
never have been produced in accordance with any known laws for the
deposition of sediment, nor by submarine elevation; but, on the
contrary, must have been carved by agencies acting above the
water‐level.(1856)

It is most probable that necks of land formerly existed knitting Atlantis to South America, somewhere above the mouth of the Amazon, to Africa near Cape de Verde, while a similar point of juncture with Spain is not unlikely, as contended for by Donnelly.(1857) Whether the latter existed or not, is of no consequence, in view of the fact that what is now N.W. Africa was—before the elevation of the Sahara and the rupture of the Gibraltar connection—an extension of Spain. Consequently no difficulty can be raised as to how the migration of the European fauna, etc., took place.

Enough has now been said from the purely scientific standpoint, and it is needless, in view of the manner in which the subject has already been developed on the lines of Esoteric Knowledge, to swell the mass of testimony further. In conclusion, the words of one of the most intuitive writers of the day may be cited as admirably illustrative of the opinions of the Occultist, who awaits in patience the dawn of the coming day:

We are but beginning to understand the past; one hundred years ago
the world knew nothing of Pompeii or Herculaneum; nothing of the
lingual tie that binds together the Indo‐European nations; nothing
of the significance of the vast volume of inscriptions upon the
tombs and temples of Egypt; nothing of the meaning of the arrow‐
headed inscriptions of Babylon; nothing of the marvellous
civilizations revealed in the remains of Yucatan, Mexico, and
Peru. We are on the threshold. Scientific investigation is
advancing with giant strides. Who shall say that one hundred years
from now, the great museums of the world may not be adorned with
gems, statues, arms, and implements from Atlantis, while the
libraries of the world shall contain translations of its
inscriptions, throwing new light upon all the past history of the
human race, and all the great problems which now perplex the
thinkers of to‐day.(1858)

And now to conclude.

We have concerned ourself with the ancient records of the nations, with the doctrine of chronological and psychic cycles, of which these records are the tangible proof; and with many other subjects, which may, at first sight, seem out of place in this Volume. But they are necessary in truth. In dealing with the secret annals and traditions of so many nations, whose very origins have never been ascertained on more secure grounds than inferential suppositions, in giving out the beliefs and philosophy of more than pre‐historic races, it is not quite as easy to deal with the subject matter as it would be if only the philosophy and evolution of one special race, were concerned. The Secret Doctrine was the common property of the countless millions of men born under various climates, in times with which history refuses to deal, and to which Esoteric Teachings assign dates incompatible with the theories of Geology and Anthropology. The birth and evolution of the Sacred Science of the Past are lost in the very night of Time, and that even which is historic—_i.e._, that which is found scattered hither and thither throughout ancient classical literature—is, in almost every case, attributed by modern criticism to lack of observation in the ancient writers, or to superstition born out of the ignorance of antiquity. It is, therefore, impossible to treat this subject as one would the ordinary evolution of an art or science in some well‐ known historical nation. It is only by bringing before the reader an abundance of proofs all tending to show that in every age, under every condition of civilization and knowledge, the educated classes of every nation made themselves the more or less faithful echoes of one identical system and its fundamental traditions—that he can be made to see that so many streams of the same water must have had a common source from which they started. What was this source? If coming events are said to cast their shadows before, past events cannot fail to leave their impress behind them. It is, then, by those shadows of the hoary Past and their fantastic silhouettes on the external screen of every Religion and Philosophy, that we can, by checking them as we go along and comparing them, trace out finally the body that produced them. There must be truth and fact in that which every people of antiquity accepted and made the foundation of its religions and its faith. Moreover, as Haliburton said:

Hear one side, and you will be in the dark; hear both sides, and
all will be clear.

The public has hitherto had access to, and has heard but one side, or rather the one‐sided views of two diametrically opposed classes of men, whose _primâ facie_ propositions or respective premises differ widely, but whose final conclusions are the same—the men of Science and Theology. And now our readers have an opportunity of hearing the other, and so of learning the defendants’ justification and the nature of our arguments.

If the public is to be left to its old opinions—namely, on one side, that Occultism, Magic, the legends of old etc., are all the outcome of ignorance and superstition; and on the other, that everything outside the orthodox groove is the work of the devil—what will be the result? In other words, had no theosophical and mystic literature obtained a hearing for the last few years, the present work would have had but a poor chance of impartial consideration. It would have been proclaimed—and by many will still be proclaimed—a fairy tale woven out of abstruse problems, poised in, and based on the air; built of soap‐bubbles, bursting at the slightest touch of serious reflection, with no foundation to stand upon. Even the ancient “superstitious and credulous” classical writers have no word of reference to it in clear and unmistakable terms, and the symbols themselves fail to yield a hint of the existence of such a system. Such would be the verdict of all. But when it becomes undeniably proven that the claim of the modern Asiatic nations to a Secret Science and an Esoteric History of the world is based on fact; that though hitherto unknown to the masses and a veiled mystery even to the learned—because they have never had the key to a right understanding of the abundant hints thrown out by the ancient classics—it is still no fairy tale, but an actuality; then the present work will become but the pioneer of many more such books. The statement that hitherto even the keys discovered by some great scholars have proved too rusty for use, and that they are but the silent witnesses that there do exist mysteries behind the veil which are unreachable without a new key, is borne out by too many proofs to be easily dismissed. An instance may be given as an illustration out of the history of Freemasonry.

In his _Maçonnerie Occulte_, Ragon, an illustrious and learned Belgian Mason, rightly or wrongly reproaches the English Masons with having materialized and dishonoured Masonry, once based upon the Ancient Mysteries, by adopting, owing to a mistaken notion of the origin of the craft, the name of “Free Masonry” and “Free Masons.” The mistake is due, he says, to those who connect Masonry with the _building_ of Solomon’s Temple. He derides the idea, and says:

The Frenchman knew well, when he adopted the title of Freemason,
that it was no question of building the smallest wall, but that,
initiated into the Mysteries veiled under the name of Freemasonry,
which could only be the continuation or the renovation of the
ancient Mysteries, he was to become a “Mason” after the manner of
Apollo or Amphion. And do not we know that the ancient initiated
poets, when speaking of the _foundation of a city_, meant thereby
the establishment of a doctrine? Thus Neptune, God of reasoning,
and Apollo, God of hidden things, presented themselves as masons
before Laomedon, Priam’s father, to help him to build the city of
Troy—that is to say, to establish the Trojan religion.(1859)

Such veiled sentences with double meaning abound in ancient classical writers. Therefore, if an attempt had been made to show that, for instance, Laomedon was the founder of a branch of Archaic Mysteries, in which the earth‐bound material soul, the Fourth Principle, was personified in Menelaus’ faithless wife, the fair Helen, and if Ragon had not come to corroborate what we asserted, we might have been told that no classical author speaks of it, and that Homer shows Laomedon building a _city_, not founding an _Esoteric Worship_ or _Mysteries_. Who are those left now, save a few Initiates, who understand the language and correct meaning of such symbolical terms?

But though we have pointed to many a misconceived symbol bearing on our thesis, there still remains more than one difficulty to be overcome. Most important among several such obstacles is that of chronology. But this could hardly be helped. Wedged in between theological chronology and that of the Geologists, backed by all the materialistic Anthropologists, who assign dates to man and nature which fit in with their own theories alone—what could the writer do except what she has done? Since Theology places the Deluge 2448 B.C., and the World’s Creation only 5890 years ago; and since the accurate researches by the methods of “exact” Science, have led the Geologists and Physicists to assign to the incrusted age of our Globe between ten million and one thousand million of years(1860) (a _trifling_ difference, verily!); and since the Anthropologists, to vary their divergence of opinion as to the appearance of man, ask for between 25,000 and 500,000 years—what can one who studies the Occult Doctrine do, but bravely present the Esoteric calculations before the world?

But to do this, corroboration by even a few “historical” proofs has been necessary, though all know the real value of the so‐called “historical evidence.” For, whether man appeared on Earth 18,000 or 18,000,000 years ago, can make no difference to profane history, since it only begins about a couple of thousand years before our era, and since, even then, it grapples hopelessly with the clash and din of contradictory and mutually‐ destroying opinions around it. Nevertheless, in view of the respect in which the average reader has been brought up for exact Science, even that short Past would remain meaningless, unless the Esoteric Teachings were corroborated and supported on the spot—_whenever possible_—by references to historical names of a so‐called historical period. This is the only guide that can be given to the beginner before he is permitted to start among the, to him, unfamiliar windings of that dark labyrinth called the pre‐historic ages. This necessity has been complied with. It is only hoped that the desire to do so, which has led the writer to be constantly bringing ancient and modern evidence as a corroboration of the archaic and quite unhistoric Past, will not bring on her the accusation of having sorely jumbled up, without order or method, the various and widely‐ separated periods of history and tradition. But literary form and method had to be sacrificed to the greater clearness of the general exposition.

To accomplish the proposed task, the writer has had to resort to the rather unusual means of dividing each Volume into three Parts; the first of which only is the consecutive, though very fragmentary, history of the Cosmogony and the Evolution of Man on this Globe. In treating of Cosmogony and then of the Anthropogenesis of mankind, it was necessary to show that on religion, from the very earliest, has ever been based entirely on fiction, that none was the object of special revelation, and that it is dogma alone which has ever been killing primeval truth; finally, that no human‐born doctrine, no creed, however sanctified by custom and antiquity, can compare in sacredness with the religion of Nature. The Key of Wisdom that unlocks the massive gates leading to the arcana of the innermost sanctuaries can be found hidden in her bosom only; and that bosom is in the countries pointed to by the great seer of the past century, Emanuel Swedenborg. There lies the Heart of Nature, that shrine whence issued the early races of primeval humanity, and which is the cradle of _physical_ man.

Thus far have proceeded the rough outlines of the beliefs and tenets of the archaic, earliest Races, contained in their hitherto secret scriptural Records. But our explanations are by no means complete, nor do they pretend to give out the full text, or to have been read by the help of more than three or four keys out of the sevenfold bunch of Esoteric interpretation; and even this has only been partially accomplished. The work is too gigantic for any one person to undertake, far more to accomplish. Our main concern has been simply to prepare the soil. This, we trust we have done. These two Volumes only constitute the work of a pioneer who has forced his way into the well‐nigh impenetrable jungle of the virgin forests of the Land of the Occult. A commencement has been made in felling and uprooting the deadly upas trees of superstition, prejudice, and conceited ignorance, so that these two Volumes should form for the student a fitting prelude for other works. Until the rubbish of the ages is cleared away from the minds of the Theosophists to whom these pages are dedicated, it is impossible that the more practical teaching contained in the Third Volume should be understood. Consequently, it entirely depends upon the reception with which Volumes I and II shall meet at the hands of Theosophists and Mystics, whether the last Volume will ever be published.

SATYÂT NÂSTI PARO DHARMAH.

THERE IS NO RELIGION HIGHER THAN TRUTH.

END OF VOLUME II.

[Transcriber’s Note: Obvious printer’s errors have been corrected.]

FOOTNOTES

1 See _Genesis_ ii. 19. Adam is formed in verse 7, and in verse 19 it
is said: “Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the
field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see
what he would call them.” Thus man was created _before_ the animals;
for the animals mentioned in chapter i are the signs of the Zodiac,
while the man, “male and female,” is not man, but the Host of the
Sephiroth, Forces, or Angels, “made in his [God’s] image and after
his likeness.” The Adam, man, is not made in that likeness, nor is
it so asserted in the _Bible_. Moreover, the Second Adam is
Esoterically a septenary which represents seven men, or rather
groups of men. For the first Adam, the Kadmon, is the synthesis of
the _ten_ Sephiroth. Of these, the upper Triad remains in the
Archetypal World as the future “Trinity,” while the seven lower
Sephiroth create the manifested material world; and this septennate
is the Second Adam. _Genesis_, and the mysteries upon which it was
fabricated, came from Egypt. The “God” of the 1st chapter of
_Genesis_ is the Logos, and the “Lord God” of the 2nd chapter the
Creative Elohim, the lower Powers.

2 Thus saith Pymander: “This is the mystery that to this day was
hidden. Nature being mingled with the Heavenly Man [Elohim, or
Dhyânis], brought forth a wonder ... seven Men, all males and
females [Hermaphrodite] ... according to the nature of the seven
Governors” (ii. 29), or the seven Hosts of the Pitris or Elohim, who
projected or created him. This is very clear, but yet, see the
interpretations of even our modern theologians, men supposed to be
intellectual and learned. In the _Theological and Philosophical
Works of Hermes Trismegistus, Christian [?] Neoplatonist_, a work
compiled by John David Chambers, of Oriel College, Oxford, the
translator wonders “for whom these seven Men are intended?” He
solves the difficulty by concluding that, as “the original pattern
Man [Adam Kadmon of _Genesis_ i] was masculine‐feminine, ... the
seven may signify the succeeding patriarchs named in _Genesis_” (p.
9). A truly theological way of cutting the Gordian knot!

3 George Smith’s _Chaldean Account of Genesis_, p. 103.

4 Compare _Zohar_, _Siphra Dtzenioutha_, _Idra Suta_, 2928, Franck,
_La Kabbale_, p. 205.

5 _Siphra Dtzenioutha._

6 As it is now asserted that the Chaldæan tablets, which give the
allegorical description of Creation, the Fall, and the Flood, even
to the legend of the Tower of Babel, were written “before the time
of Moses” (Smith’s _Chaldean Account of Genesis_), how can the
_Pentateuch_ be called a “revelation”? It is simply another version
of the same story.

7 _Philosophumena_, v. 7; Miller’s edition, p. 98.

8 _Ibid._, p. 108.

9 P. 86.

10 See Pliny, iv, c. 12; Strabo, 10; Herodotus, vii, c. 109; Pausanias,
vii, c. 4, etc.