Chapter XLVIII: Section VII: Scientific and Geological Proofs of the Existence of Several (4)

495 This is the view taken and adopted by all the Church Fathers, but it
is not the real Esoteric Teaching. The _curse_ did not begin with
the formation of either man or woman, for their separation was a
natural sequence of evolution, but with _the breaking of the law_.

496 By which _human_ nature lives; not even the animal—but the
misguided, sensual and vicious nature, which _men_, not Nature,
created. See the Section “Cross and Circle.”

497 See _Zohar_, i. 172, _a_ and _b_.

498 Compare the Section on “The Mysteries of the Hebdomad” in Part II of
this Volume.

499 Gould’s _Mythical Monsters_, p. 1.

500 _The Unicorn: a Mythological Investigation_, Robert Brown, junr.,
F.S.A. London, 1881.

501 _Mythical Monsters_, pp. 2‐4.

502 _Ibid._, p. 20.

503 _Ibid._, pp. 36, 37.

504 _The Human Species_, p. 52.

505 _Manual of Geology_, p. 301.

506 _Ibid._, p. 17.

507 Gould’s _Mythical Monsters_, p. 16. See also _Recherches, etc., des
Mammifères_, plate 1. Paris, 1868 to 1874.

508 Preface to the _Shan Hai King_, or “Wonders by Land and Sea.”

509 Vol. i. pp. 589, _et seqq._

510 There are Archæologists, who, like Mr. James Fergusson, refuse any
great antiquity to even one single monument in India. In his work,
_Illustrations of the Rock‐Cut Temples of India_, he ventures to
express the very extraordinary opinion that “Egypt had ceased to be
a nation before the earliest of the cave‐temples of India was
excavated.” In short, he does not admit the existence of any cave‐
temple anterior to the reign of Ashoka, and seems anxious to prove
that most of these rock‐cut temples were executed during a period
extending from the time of that pious Buddhist king until the
destruction of the Andhra dynasty of Magadha, in the beginning of
the fifth century. We believe such a claim to be perfectly
arbitrary. Further discoveries will show that it is erroneous and
unwarranted.

511 America, at the time of its discovery, was called _Atlanta_ by some
native tribes.

512 Since then Donnelly’s _Atlantis_ has appeared, and soon its actual
existence will have become a scientific fact.

513 It is so divided to this day, and Theosophists and Occultists, who
have learned something of the occult but undeniable power of
Dugpaship at their own expense, know this but too well.

514 See De Mirville’s _Pneumatologie: Des Esprits_, iii. 57, _et seqq._

515 See Max Müller, _Chips_, i. 339; “Popol Vuh.” Compare also Holmberg,
_Ethnographische Skizzen über die Völker des Russischen Amerika_.
Helsingfors, 1855.

516 _Op. cit._, pp. 13‐15.

517 _Ibid._, p. 308.

518 An approach to the statues at Bamian—also a Buddha 200 feet high—is
found near a Jain settlement in Southern India, and appears to be
the only one that remains at present.

519 Even Wilson admits that Râma and Râvana were personages founded on
historical facts. “The traditions of the South of India uniformly
ascribe its civilization ... and the settlement of civilized Hindûs
[the Fifth Race] to the conquest of Lankâ by Râma” (_Vishnu Purâna_,
iii. 318)—the victory of the “Sons of Gods” over the Atlantean
sorcerers, says the _true_ tradition.

520 Thus we are shown one hero, to give an instance, first born as the
“unrighteous but valiant monarch” (Purusha) of the Daityas,
Hiranyakashipu, slain by the Avatâra Nara‐sinha (Man‐lion). Then he
was born as Râvana, the giant king of Lankâ, and killed by Râma;
after which he is reborn as Shishupâla, the son of Rajarshi (King
Rishi) Damaghosha, when he is again killed by Krishna, the last
incarnation of Vishnu. This parallel evolution of Vishnu (Spirit)
with a Daitya, as man, may seem meaningless, yet it gives us the key
not only to the respective dates of Râma and Krishna but even to a
certain psychological mystery.

521 Compare _Hibbert Lectures_, 1877, Sayce, pp. 134‐138.

522 The Gods became No‐Gods.

523 Race.

524 Yellow‐white.

525 Strictly speaking, it is only from the time of the Atlantean, brown
and yellow giant races, that one ought to speak of _man_, since it
was the Fourth Race only which was the first _completely human
species_, however much larger in size than we are now. In _Man:
Fragments of Forgotten History_ (by two Chelâs), all that is said of
the Atlanteans is quite correct. It is chiefly this Race which
became “black with sin,” that brought the divine names of the
Asuras, the Râkshasas and the Daityas, into disrepute, and passed
them on to posterity as the names of fiends. For, as said, the
Suras, Gods or Devas, having incarnated in the wise men of Atlantis,
the names of Asuras and Râkshasas were given to the ordinary
Atlanteans. Owing to the incessant conflicts of the latter with the
last remnants of the Third Race and the “Sons of Will and Yoga,”
their names have led to the later allegories about them in the
_Purânas_. “Asura was the generic appellation of all the Atlanteans
who were the enemies of the spiritual heroes of the Âryans (Gods).”
(_Man_, p. 77.)

526 In the beginning.

527 The sub‐races.

528 Their colours.

529 Stanza VII, Shloka 24.

530 See Shlokas 32, 34.

531 In general, the so‐called orthodox Christian conceptions about the
“fallen” Angels or Satan, are as remarkable as they are absurd.
About a dozen could be cited, of the most varied character as to
details, and all from the pens of educated lay authors, “university
graduates” of the present quarter of our century. Thus, the author
of _Earth’s Earliest Ages_, G. H. Pember, M.A., devotes a thick
volume to proving Theosophists, Spiritualists, Agnostics, Mystics,
metaphysicians, poets, and every contemporary author on Oriental
speculations, to be the devoted servants of the “Prince of the Air,”
and irretrievably damned. He describes Satan and his Antichrist in
this wise:

“Satan is the ‘Anointed Cherub’ of old.... God created Satan, the
fairest and wisest of all His creatures in this part of His
Universe, and made him Prince of the World, and of the Power of the
Air.... He was placed in an Eden, which was both far anterior to the
Eden of Genesis ... and of an altogether different and more
substantial character, resembling the New Jerusalem. Thus, Satan
being perfect in wisdom, and beauty, his vast empire is our earth,
if not the whole solar system.... Certainly no other angelic power
of greater or even equal dignity has been revealed to us. The
Archangel Michael himself is quoted by Jude as preserving towards
the Prince of Darkness _the respect due to a superior_, however
wicked he may be, until God has formally commanded his deposition.”
Then we are informed that “Satan was from the moment of his creation
surrounded by the _insignia of royalty_” (! !): that he “awoke to
consciousness to find the air filled with the rejoicing music of
those whom God had appointed.” Then the Devil “passes from the
royalty to his _priestly dignity_” (! ! !). “Satan was also a
_priest of the Most High_,” etc., etc. And now—“Antichrist will be
Satan incarnate.” (Chap. III and pp. 56‐59.) The pioneers of the
coming Apollyon have already appeared—they are the Theosophists, the
Occultists, the authors of the _Perfect Way_, of _Isis Unveiled_, of
the _Mystery of the Ages_, and even of the _Light of Asia_ ! ! The
author notes the “avowed origin” of Theosophy from the “descending
angels,” from the “Nephilim,” or the Angels of _Genesis_ (vi), and
the Giants. He ought to note his own descent from them also, as our
_Secret Doctrine_ endeavours to show—unless he refuses to belong to
the present humanity.

532 Compare x. 8, where it speaks of all who have come before Jesus,
being “thieves and robbers.”

533 Verse 14.

534 _Luke_, x. 18.

535 It is not correct to refer to Christ—as some Theosophists do—as
Buddhi, the sixth principle in man. The latter _per se_ is a passive
and latent principle, the Spiritual Vehicle of Âtmâ, inseparable
from the manifested Universal Soul. It is only in union and in
conjunction with _Self‐consciousness_ that Buddhi becomes the Higher
Self and the Divine, discriminating Soul. Christos is the seventh
principle, if anything.

536 xix. 7.

537 _Ibid._, verse 8.

538 xviii. 24.

539 To make it plainer, any one who reads the passage in _Luke_, will
see that the remark follows the report of the _seventy_, who rejoice
that “even the devils [the spirit of controversy and reasoning, or
the opposing power, since Satan means simply ‘adversary’ or
‘opponent’] are subject unto us through thy name.” (_Luke_, x. 17.)
Now, “thy name” means the name of Christos, or Logos, or the Spirit
of true Divine Wisdom, as distinct from the spirit of intellectual
or mere materialistic reasoning—the Higher Self in short. And when
Jesus remarks on this that he has “beheld Satan as lightning fall
from heaven,” it is a mere statement of his clairvoyant powers,
notifying to them that he already knew it, and a reference to the
incarnation of the Divine Ray—the Gods or Angels—which _falls into
generation_. For not all men, by any means, benefit by that
incarnation, and with some the power remains latent and dead during
the whole life. Truly “no man knoweth who the Son is, but the
Father; and who the Father is, but the Son,” as added by Jesus then
and there (verse 22)—the “Church of Christ” less than any one else.
The Initiates alone understood the secret meaning of the terms
“Father” and “Son,” and knew that it referred to Spirit and Soul on
the Earth. For the teachings of Christ were Occult teachings, which
could only be explained at Initiation. They were never intended for
the masses, for Jesus forbade the twelve to go to the Gentiles and
the Samaritans (_Matth._, x. 5), and repeated to his disciples that
the “mystery of the kingdom of God” was for them alone, not for the
multitudes (_Mark_, iv. 11).

540 So, for instance, in the _Purânas_, Pulastya, a Prajâpati, or son of
Brahmâ—the progenitor of the Râkshasas, and the grandfather of
Râvana, the great king of Lankâ in the _Râmâyana_—had, in a _former
birth_, a son named Dattoli, “who is now known as the sage Agastya,”
says _Vishnu Purâna_ (Wilson’s Trans., i. 154). This name of Dattoli
alone, has six more variants to it, or seven meanings. He is called
respectively, Dattoli, Dattâli, Dattotti, Dattotri, Dattobhri,
Dambhobhi and Dambholi. These seven variants have each a secret
sense, and refer in the Esoteric Commentaries to various
ethnological classifications, and also to physiological and
anthropological mysteries of the primitive races. For, surely, the
Râkshasas are not Demons, but simply the primitive and ferocious
Giants, the Atlanteans, who were scattered on the face of the Globe,
as the Fifth Race is now. Vasishtha is a warrant of this, if his
words addressed to Parâshara, who attempted a bit of Jadoo
(sorcery), which he calls “sacrifice,” for the destruction of the
Râkshasas, mean anything. For he says: “Let no more of these
_unoffending_ ‘Spirits of Darkness’ be consumed.” (See for details,
_Mahâbhârata_, Âdi Parvan, s. 176; also _Linga Purâna_, Pûrvârdha,
s. 64; Wilson, _ibid._, i. 8, 9.)

541 We have a passage from a Master’s letter which has a direct bearing
upon these incarnating Angels. Says the letter: “Now there are, and
there must be, failures in the ethereal Races of the many Classes of
Dhyân Chohans, or Devas [_progressed entities_ of a _previous_
Planetary Period], as well as among men. But still, as the
_failures_ are too far progressed and spiritualized to be thrown
back forcibly from Dhyân‐Chohanship into the vortex of a new
primordial evolution through the lower Kingdoms, this then happens.
Where a new Solar System has to be evolved, these Dhyân Chohans are
borne in by influx ‘ahead’ of the Elementals [entities ... to be
developed into humanity at a _future_ time] and remain as a latent
or inactive spiritual force, in the Aura of a nascent World ...
until the stage of human evolution is reached.... Then they become
an _active force_ and commingle with the Elementals, to _develop
little by little the full type of humanity_.” That is to say, to
develop in man, and endow him with his Self‐conscious Mind, or
Manas.

542 Appendix XV, pp. 369, _et seqq._

543 When the Earth with its Planetary Chain and Man were to appear.

544 Our Earth and the physical plane of consciousness.

545 When the pure, celestial Beings or Dhyân Chohans, and the great
Pitris of various classes were commissioned—the one to evolve their
Images or Chhâyâs, and make of them physical man, the others to
inform and thus endow him with divine intelligence and the
comprehension of the Mysteries of Creation.

546 The “dynasties of kings” who all regard themselves as the
“anointed,” reigning by the “Grace of God,” whereas in truth, they
reign by the grace of Matter, the Great Illusion, the Deceiver.

547 _Ibid._, _loc. cit._, verse 10.

548 See the “Primeval Manus of Humanity.”

549 The “Heavenly Man,” please mark again the word, is the “Logos” or
the “Son” Esoterically. Therefore, once that the title was applied
to Christ, who was declared to be God and the very God himself,
Christian Theology had no choice. In order to support its dogma of a
personal Trinity it had to proclaim, as it still does, that the
Christian Logos is the only true one, and that all the Logoi of
other religions are false, and are only the masquerading Evil
Principle, Satan. See whereto this has led Western Theology!

550 “For the Mind, a deity abounding in both sexes, being Light and
Life, brought forth by its Word another Mind or Workman; which,
being God of the Fire and the Spirit, fashioned and formed seven
other Governors, which in their Circles contain the Phenomenal
World, and whose disposition is called Fate or Destiny.” (Sect. ix.
c. 1, ed. of 1579.)

Here it is evident that Mind, the Primeval Universal Divine Thought,
is neither the Unknown Unmanifested One, since it abounds in both
sexes—is male and female—nor yet the Christian “Father,” as the
latter is a male and not an androgyne. The fact is that the
“Father,” “Son,” and “Man” are hopelessly mixed up in the
translations of _Pymander_.

551 The allegory of the fire of Prometheus is another version of the
rebellion of the proud Lucifer, who was hurled down to the
“bottomless pit,” or simply on to our Earth, to live as man. The
Hindû Lucifer, the Mahâsura, is also said to have become envious of
the Creator’s resplendent Light, and, at the head of inferior Asuras
(not Gods, but Spirits), to have rebelled against Brahmâ; for which
Shiva hurled him down to Pâtâla. But, as philosophy goes hand in
hand with allegorical fiction in Hindû myths, the “Devil” is made to
repent, and is afforded the opportunity to progress: he is a sinful
man _esoterically_, and can by Yoga, devotion, and adeptship, reach
his status of “one with the deity,” once more. Hercules, the Sun‐
God, descends to Hades (the Cave of Initiation) to deliver the
victims from their tortures, etc. The Christian Church alone creates
_eternal_ torment for the Devil and the damned that she has
invented.

552 Why, for instance, should Éliphas Lévi, the very fearless and
outspoken Kabalist, have hesitated to divulge the mystery of the
Fallen Angels so‐called? That he knew the fact and the real meaning
of the allegory, both in its religious and mystical, as well as in
its physiological sense, is proved by his voluminous writings and
frequent allusions and hints. Yet Éliphas, after having alluded to
it a hundred times in his previous works, says in his later
_Histoire de la Magie_ (pp. 220, 221): “We protest with all our
might against the sovereignty and the ubiquity of Satan. We _pretend
neither to deny nor affirm here the tradition on the Fall of the
Angels_.... But if so ... then the prince of the Angelic Rebels can
be at best the last and the most powerless among the condemned—now
that he is separated from deity—which is the principle of every
power.” This is hazy and evasive enough; but see what Hargrave
Jennings writes in his weird, staccato‐like style:

“Both Saint Michael and Saint George are types. They are sainted
personages, or dignified heroes, or powers apotheosized. They are
each represented with their appropriate faculties and attributes.
These are reproduced and stand multiplied—distinguished by different
names in all the mythologies [including the Christian]. But the idea
regarding each is a general one. This idea and representative notion
is that of the all‐powerful champion—child‐like in his ‘virgin
innocence’—so powerful that this God‐filled innocence (the Seraphim
‘know most,’ the Cherubim ‘love most’) can shatter the world
(articulated—so to use the word—in the magic of Lucifer, but
condemned), in opposition to the artful constructions, won out of
the permission of the Supreme—artful constructions (‘this side
life’)—of the magnificent apostate, the mighty rebel, but yet, at
the same time, the ‘Light‐bringer,’ the Lucifer—the ‘Morning Star,’
the ‘Son of the Morning’—the very highest title ‘out of heaven,’ for
in heaven it cannot be, but out of heaven it is everything. In an
apparently incredible side of his character—for let the reader
carefully remark that qualities are of no sex—this Archangel Saint
Michael is the invincible, sexless, celestial ‘Energy’—to dignify
him by his grand characteristics—the invincible ‘Virgin‐Combatant,’
clothed ... and at the same time armed, in the denying mail of the
Gnostic ‘refusal to create.’ This is another myth, a ‘myth within
myths,’ ... a stupendous ‘mystery of mysteries,’ because it is so
impossible and contradictory. Unexplainable as the Apocalypse.
Unrevealable as the ‘Revelation.’ ” (_Phallicism_, pp. 212, 213.)

Nevertheless, this _unexplainable_ and _unrevealable_ mystery will
now be explained and revealed by the doctrines of the East. Though,
of course, as the very erudite, but still more puzzling author of
_Phallicism_ gives it, no uninitiated mortal would ever understand
his real drift.

553 “Creation”—out of preëxistent eternal Substance, or Matter, of
course, which Substance, according to our teachings, is Boundless,
Ever‐existing Space.

554 The Luciferians, a sect of the fourth century who are alleged to
have taught that the soul was a _carnal_ body transmitted to the
child by its father, and the Lucianists, another and earlier sect of
the third century A.D., who taught all this, and further, that the
_animal_ soul was not immortal, philosophized on the grounds of the
real Kabalistic and Occult teachings.

555 This “Central Sun” of the Occultists even Science is obliged to
accept astronomically, for it cannot deny the presence in sidereal
space of a central body in the Milky Way, a point unseen and
mysterious, the ever‐hidden centre of attraction of our Sun and
System. But this “Sun” is viewed differently by the Occultists of
the East. While the Western and Jewish Kabalists—and even some pious
modern Astronomers—claim that in this Sun the God‐head is specially
present, referring to it the volitional acts of God—the Eastern
Initiates maintain that, as the Supra‐divine Essence of the Unknown
Absolute is equally in every domain and place, the “Central Sun” is
simply the centre of Universal Life‐Electricity; the reservoir
within which that Divine Radiance, already differentiated at the
beginning of every “creation,” is focussed. Though still in a Laya,
or neutral condition, it is, nevertheless, the one attracting, as
also the ever‐emitting, Life‐Centre.

556 _Op. cit._, pp. 287‐289.

557 See Commentary to Stanza VII, Volume I.

558 The _fourth_ and the _fifth_ from _below_ beginning with the
Physical Body; the _third_ and the _fourth_, if we reckon from Âtmâ.

559 _New Aspects of Life._

560 Angelic, Spiritual Essences, immortal in their Being, because
unconditioned in Eternity; but periodical and conditioned in their
Manvantaric manifestations.

561 _Op. cit._, pp. 97, 98, 2nd ed., 1887.

562 The history of Prometheus, Karma, and human consciousness, is to be
found in Part II, Section V.

563 By an Englishman whose erratic genius killed him. The son of a
Protestant clergyman, he became a Mohammedan; then a rabid Atheist;
after meeting with a Master, a Guru, he became a Mystic; then a
Theosophist who doubted, despaired—threw up _white_ for _black_
magic, went insane and joined the Roman Church. Then again turning
round, anathematized her, re‐became an Atheist, and died cursing
humanity, knowledge, and God, in whom he had ceased to believe.
Furnished with all the Esoteric data to write his “War in Heaven,”
he made a semi‐political article out of it, mixing Malthus with
Satan, and Darwin with the Astral Light. Peace be to his—_Shell_. He
is a warning to the Chelâs who fail. His forgotten tomb may now be
seen in the Mussulman burial ground of Joonaghur, Kathiawar, India.

564 The author talks of the _active, fighting_, damning Jehovah as
though he were a synonym of Parabrahman! We have quoted from this
article to show where it dissents from Theosophic teachings;
otherwise it would be quoted some day against us, as everything
published in the _Theosophist_ generally is.

565 _The Theosophist_, vol. iii. p. 68.

566 Explaining the _Kabalah_, Dr. Henry Pratt says: “Spirit was to man
[to the Jewish Rabbin, rather!] a bodiless, disembodied, or
deprived, and degraded being, and hence was termed by the ideograph
Nahash, ‘Deprived’; represented as appearing to and seducing the
human race—man through the woman.... In the picture from this
Nahash, this spirit was represented by a serpent, because from its
_destitution of bodily members_, the serpent was looked upon as a
deprived and depraved and degraded creature.” (_New Aspects of
Life_, p. 235.) Symbol for symbol there are those who would prefer
that of the serpent—the symbol of wisdom and eternity, deprived of
limbs as it is—to the Jod (י)—the poetical ideograph of Jehovah in
the _Kabalah_—the God of the male symbol of generation.

567 _Zohar_, iii. 61c.

568 Daksha, the “intelligent, the competent.” “This name generally
carries with it the idea of _creative power_.” He is a son of Brahmâ
and of Aditi, and agreeably to other versions, a self‐born power,
which, like Minerva, sprang from his father’s body. He is the chief
of the Prajâpatis, the Lords or Creators of Being. In _Vishnu
Purâna_, Parâshara says of him: “In every Kalpa [or Manvantara]
Daksha and the rest are born and are again destroyed.” And the _Rig
Veda_ says that “Daksha sprang from Aditi and Aditi from Daksha,” a
reference to the eternal cyclic re‐birth of the same divine Essence.

569 _Bhâgavata Purâna_, iv. 24, 4.

570 No one of these Orders is distinct from the Pitris or Progenitors.
As says Manu (iii. 284): “The wise call our fathers Vasus; our
paternal grandfathers, Rudras; our paternal great grandfathers,
Âdityas; agreeably to a text of the Vedas.” “This is an everlasting
Vedic text,” says another translation.

571 As now discovered by the late G. Smith in the Babylonian cylinder
literature, it was the same in Chaldæan Theogony. Ishtar, “eldest of
Heaven and of Earth.” Below him the Igigi or Angels of Heaven, and
the Anûnaki, or Angels of Earth. Below these again various classes
of Spirits and “Genii” called Sadu, Vadukku, Ekimu, Gallu—of which
some were good, some evil. (See Smith’s _Babylonian Mythology_, also
Sayce’s _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 141.)

572 Some superior, others inferior, _to suit the Karma_ of the various
reïncarnating Monads, which could not all be of the same degree of
purity in their last births in other Worlds. This accounts for the
difference of races, the inferiority of the savage and other human
varieties.

573 “There are,” says Topinard in the English edition of his
_Anthropology_, with a preface by Professor Broca, “_three_
fundamental elements of colour in the human organism—namely, the
_red_, the _yellow_, and the _black_, which, mixed in variable
quantities with the white of the tissues, give rise to those
numerous shades seen in the human family.” Here is Science again
unintentionally supporting Occultism.

574 It must be remembered that the “last remnants” here spoken of, refer
to those portions of the “Great Continent” which still remained, and
not to any of the numerous islands which existed contemporaneously
with the Continent. Plato’s “island,” for instance, was one of such
remnants; the others having sunk at various periods previously. An
Occult “tradition” teaches that such submersions occur whenever
there is an eclipse of the “Spiritual Sun.”

575 See the remarks on the Root and Seed Manus _infra_, and the Section
on “The Primeval Manus of Humanity,” at the end of the Commentaries
on this Stanza.

576 Mr. Gladstone’s unfortunate attempt to reconcile the Genetic account
with Science (see his “Dawn of Creation” and “Proem to Genesis,” in
_The Nineteenth Century_, 1886), has brought upon him the Jovian
thunderbolt hurled by Mr. Huxley. The dead‐letter account warranted
no such attempt; and his fourfold order, or division, of animated
creation, has turned into the stone which, instead of killing the
fly on the sleeping friend’s brow, killed the man himself. Mr.
Gladstone has killed _Genesis_ for ever. But this does not prove
that there is no Esotericism in the latter. The fact that the Jews
and all the Christians, the modern as well as the early sects, have
accepted the narrative _literally_ for two thousand years, proves
only their ignorance, and shows the great ingenuity and constructive
ability of the Initiated Rabbis, who built the two accounts—the
Elohistic and Jehovistic—Esoterically, and purposely confused the
meaning by the vowelless glyphs or word‐signs in the original text.
The six days (Yom) of creation do mean six periods of evolution, and
the seventh day is that of culmination, of perfection—not of rest.
These refer to the seven Rounds and the seven Races with a distinct
“creation” in each; though the use of the words Boker, “dawn” or
“morning,” and Ereb, “evening twilight”—which have Esoterically the
same meaning as Sandhyâ, “twilight,” in Sanskrit—have led to a
charge of the most crass ignorance of the order of evolution.

577 _Modern Science and Modern Thought_, p. 337.

578 Dowson’s _Hindû Classical Dictionary_, _sub voce_.

579 _Op. cit._, p. 335.

580 “Follow the law of analogy”—the Masters teach. Âtmâ‐Buddhi is dual
and Manas is triple, inasmuch as the former has two aspects, and the
latter three, _i.e._, as a “principle” _per se_, which gravitates,
in its higher aspect, to Âtmâ‐Buddhi, and follows, in its lower
nature, Kâma, the seat of terrestrial and animal desires and
passions. Now compare the evolution of the Races, the First and the
Second of which are of the nature of Âtmâ‐Buddhi, of which they are
the passive Spiritual progeny, while the Third Root‐Race shows three
distinct divisions or aspects physiologically and psychically—the
earliest sinless, the middle portions awakening to intelligence, and
the third and last decidedly _animal_, _i.e._, Manas succumbs to the
temptations of Kâma.

581 Laing, _op. cit._, _ibid._

582 The whole trouble is this: neither Physiologists nor Pathologists
will recognize that the cell‐germinating substance, the
Cytoblastema, and the mother‐lye from which crystals originate, are
one and the same essence, save in differentiation for certain
purposes.

583 Huxley, _Proceedings of the Royal Institution_, iii. 151.

584 _Introduction to the Study of the Foraminifera_, p. xi.

585 _Transactions of the Geological Society of Glasgow_, vol. iii. Very
strangely, however, he has recently again changed his opinion. The
Sun, he says, is only 15,000,000 years old.

586 Bastian, _The Beginnings of Life_, ii. 622.

587 Laing, _Modern Science and Modern Thought_, p. 171.

588 In _Isis Unveiled_, vol. i. p. 389, this is noticed and half
explained.

589 Hence the philosophy in the allegory of the 7, 10, and finally 21,
Prajâpatis, Rishis, Munis, etc., who all are made the “fathers” of
various beings and things. The order of the seven classes, or orders
of plants, animals, and even inanimate things, given at random in
the _Purânas_, is found in several commentaries in the correct
rotation. Thus, Prithu is the father of the Earth. He “milks” her,
and makes her bear every kind of grain and vegetable, all enumerated
and specified. Kashyapa is the “father” of all the reptiles, snakes,
demons, etc.

590 See vol. i. pp. 151, _et seqq._, concerning the “Tree of
Evolution”—the “Mundane Tree.”

591 Checked and modified, however, by the Law of Retardation, which
imposes a restriction on the advance of all species when a _higher
type_ makes its appearance.

592 See _Origin of Species_, p. 145.

593 Bastian, _Beginnings of Life_, ii. pp. 622, 623.

594 Vol. ii. p. 278.

595 _Op. cit._, i. 9.

596 _Ibid._, ii. 283, 284.

597 See his _Lettres sur l’Atlantide_.

598 This is shown by Faber, again a pious Christian, who says that: “The
Noëtic family also ... bore the appellations of Atlanteans and
Titans; and the great patriarch himself was called, by way of
eminence, Atlas and Titan.” (_Ibid._, ii. 285.) And if so, then,
_according to the Bible_, Noah must have been the progeny of the
Sons of God, the Fallen Angels, agreeably to the same authority, and
of the “daughters of men who were fair.” (See _Genesis_, vi.) And
why not, since his father Lamech slew a man, and was, with all his
sons and daughters, who perished in the Deluge, as bad as the rest
of mankind?

599 In that wonderful volume of Donnelly, _Atlantis, the Antediluvian
World_, the author, speaking of the Âryan colonies from Atlantis,
and of the arts and sciences—the legacy of our Fourth Race—bravely
announces that “the roots of the institutions of to‐day reach back
to the Miocene age.” This is an enormous allowance for a modern
scholar to make; but civilization dates still further back than the
Miocene Atlanteans. Secondary‐period man will be discovered, and
with him his long forgotten civilization.

600 Nature is the _Natural_ Body, the Shadow of the Progenitors.

601 Man is the “Heavenly Man,” as already stated.

602 _Divine Pymander_, i. 16.

603 The _Pymander_ of our museums and libraries is an abridgment of one
of the Books of Thoth, by a Platonist of Alexandria. In the Third
Century it was remodelled after old Hebrew and Phœnician MSS. by a
Jewish Kabalist, and called the _Genesis of Enoch_. But even its
disfigured remnants show how closely its text agrees with the
Archaic Doctrine, as is shown in the creation of the Seven Creators
and Seven Primitive Men. As to Enoch, Thoth or Hermes, Orpheus and
Cadmus, these are all generic names, branches and offshoots of the
seven primordial Sages—incarnated Dhyân Chohans or Devas, in
_illusive_, not mortal bodies—who taught Humanity all it knew, and
whose earliest disciples assumed their Master’s names. This custom
passed from the Fourth to the Fifth Race. Hence the sameness of the
traditions about Hermes—of whom Egyptologists count five—Enoch,
etc.; they are all inventors of letters; none of them die; they
still live, and are the first Initiators into, and Founders of, the
Mysteries. It was only very lately that the _Genesis of Enoch_
disappeared from among the Kabalists. Guillaume Postel saw it. It
was most certainly in a great measure a transcript from the Books of
Hermes, and far anterior to the Books of Moses, as Éliphas Lévi
tells his readers.

604 Uranus is a modified Varuna, the “universal encompasser,” the “all‐
embracer,” and one of the oldest of the Vedic Deities—Space, the
maker of Heaven and Earth, since both are manifested out of his (or
its) seed. It is only later that Varuna became the chief of the
Âdityas and a kind of Neptune riding on the “Leviathan”—Makara, now
the most sacred and mysterious of the Signs of the Zodiac. Varuna,
without whom “no creature can even wink,” was degraded like Uranus,
and, like him, _fell into generation_; his functions—“the grandest
cosmical functions,” as Muir calls them—having been degraded from
Heaven to Earth by exoteric anthropomorphism. As the same
Orientalist says: “The attributes and functions ascribed to Varuna
[in the Vedas] impart to his character a moral elevation and
sanctity far surpassing that attributed to any other Vedic Deity.”
But to understand correctly the reason of his fall, like as that of
Uranus, one has to see in every exoteric religion the imperfect and
sinful work of man’s fancy, and also to study the mysteries which
Varuna is said to have imparted to Vasishtha. Only “his secrets and
those of Mitra _are not to be revealed to the foolish_.”

605 _Mythologie de la Grèce Antique_, p. 7.

606 Cronus is not only Χρόνος, Time, but also, as Bréal showed, in his
_Hercule et Cacus_ (p. 57), comes from the root _kar_, “to make, to
create.” Whether Bréal and Decharme, who quotes him, are as right in
saying that in the _Vedas_, Krânan (_sic_) is a Creative God, we
have our doubts. Bréal probably meant Karma, or rather Visvakarman,
the Creative God, the “omnificent” and the “great architect of the
world.”

607 See Stanzas III—X, _et seqq._, and also Berosus’ account of primeval
creation.

608 The Titanic struggle, in Theogony at least, is the fight for
supremacy between the children of Uranus and Gæa (or Heaven and
Earth in their abstract sense), the Titans, against the children of
Cronus, whose chief is Zeus. It is the everlasting struggle going on
to this day between the Spiritual Inner Man and the man of flesh, in
one sense.

609 Just as the “Lord God,” or Jehovah, is Cain, esoterically, and the
“tempting serpent” as well; the male portion of the androgynous
Eve—before her “Fall,” the female portion of Adam Kadmon—the left
side, or Binah, of the right side, Chokmah, in the first Sephirothal
Triad.

610 Decharme, _op. cit._, p. 284.

611 In the Egyptian legend, called the “Two Brothers,” translated by M.
Maspéro (the ex‐director of the Boulaq Museum), the original of
Pandora is given. Noom, the famous heavenly artist, creates a
marvellous beauty, a girl whom he sends to Batoo, after which the
happiness of the latter is destroyed. Batoo is man, and the girl
Eve, of course. (See _Revue Archéologique_, March, 1878, and also
Decharme, _ibid._, p. 285.)

612 Yima is not the “first man” in the _Vendîdâd_, but only in the
theories of the Orientalists.

613 Bœotia was submerged and subsequently ancient Athens and Eleusis.

614 _Opera et Dies_, v. 108.

615 _Nem._, VI. i.

616 See _Apollod._, i. 7, 2; and Ovid, _Metam._, i. 260, _et seqq._

617 _Deutsche Mythol._, i. 545, 3rd edit., and Hanusch _Schlawische
Myth._, p. 235. See Decharme, _ibid._, p. 288, who gives “nine
times,” and not seven.

618 Hesiod, _Opera et Dies_, 143‐155.

619 See Æschylus, _Septem contra Thebas_.

620 Decharme, _ibid._, pp. 289, 290.

621 Races.

622 It was said.

623 In Sanskrit Dâkinî.

624 The name is used here in the sense, and as a synonym, of
“sorcerers.” The Atlantean Races were many, and their evolution
lasted for millions of years. All of them were not bad, but became
so towards the end of their cycle, as we, the Fifth Race, are now
fast becoming.

625 The “Gods of the Elements” are by no means the Elementals. The
latter are at best used by them as vehicles and materials in which
to clothe themselves.

626 Cain was the “sacrificer,” as shown at first in Chap. iv. of
_Genesis_, of “the fruit of the ground,” of which he was the _first
tiller_, while Abel “brought of the firstlings of his flock” to the
Lord. Cain is the symbol of the first male, Abel of the first female
humanity, Adam and Eve being the types of the Third Race. The
“murdering” is blood‐shedding, but not taking life.

627 _Genesis_, vi.

628 It is, perhaps, with an eye to this _degradation_ of the highest and
purest Spirits, who broke through the intermediate planes of lower
consciousness, the “Seven Circles of Fire” of _Pymander_, that St.
James is made to say “This wisdom (_sophia_) descendeth not from
above, but is earthly, sensual, _devilish_”; now this Sophia is
Manas, the “Human Soul,” the Spiritual Wisdom or Soul being Buddhi,
which being so near the Absolute, is, _per se_, only _latent_
consciousness, and is dependent upon Manas for manifestation beyond
its own plane.

629 This is the “Undying Race,” as it is called in Esotericism, and
exoterically the fruitless generation of the first progeny of
Daksha, who curses Nârada, the divine Rishi, for having dissuaded
the Haryashvas and the Shabalâshvas (the sons of Daksha) from
procreating their species, by saying: “Be born in the womb; there
shall not be a resting place for thee in all these regions.” After
this, Nârada, the representative of that race of _fruitless_
ascetics, is said, as soon as he dies in one body, to be reborn in
another.

630 Âdi Parvan, p. 113.

631 _Vishnu Purâna_, Wilson’s Trans., ii. 12.

632 The traditions of every country and nation point to this fact.
Donnelly quotes from Father Duran’s _Historia Antigua de la Nueva
España_ of 1885, in which a native of Cholula, a centenarian,
accounts for the building of the great pyramid of Cholula, as
follows: “In the beginning, before the light of the sun had been
created, this land [Cholula] was in obscurity and darkness ... but
immediately _after the light of the sun arose in the East_, there
appeared gigantic men ... who built the said pyramid, its builders
being scattered after that to all parts of the earth.”

“A great deal of the Central American history is taken up with the
doings of an ancient race of Giants called Quinanes,” says the
author of _Atlantis_ (p. 204).

633 _Histoire de la Terre_, p. 154.

634 There are critics who, finding no evidence for the existence of
Tertullian save in the writings of Eusebius, “the veracious,” are
inclined to doubt it.

635 _Heroica_, p. 35.

636 _Hist. Nat._, VII. xvi.

637 See for the above De Mirville, _Pneumatologie Des Esprits_, iii.
46‐48.

638 _Élévations_, p. 56.

639 And that, notwithstanding the formal prohibition at the great Church
Council of Elyrus in A.D. 303, when it was declared that “the form
of God, which is immaterial and invisible, shall not be limited by
figure or shape.” In 692, the Council of Constantinople similarly
prohibited the faithful “to paint or represent Jesus _as a lamb_,”
as also “to bow the knee in praying, as it is the act of idolatry.”
But the Council of Nicæa (787) brought this idolatry back, while
that of Rome (883) excommunicated John, the Patriarch of
Constantinople, for showing himself an enemy of image worship.

640 _Genesis_, v. Treating of the Chinese Dragon and the literature of
China, Mr. Charles Gould, in his _Mythical Monsters_ (p. 212),
writes: “Its mythologies, histories, religions, popular stories, and
proverbs, all teem with references to a mysterious being _who has a
physical nature and spiritual attributes_. Gifted with an accepted
form, which he has the supernatural power of casting off for the
assumption of others, he has the power of influencing the weather,
producing droughts or fertilizing rains at pleasure, of raising
tempests and allaying them. Volumes could be compiled from the
scattered legends which everywhere abound relating to this subject.”

This “mysterious being” is the _mythical_ Dragon, _i.e._, the symbol
of the _historical_ and actual Adept, the Master and Professor of
Occult Sciences of old. It has already been stated elsewhere, that
the great “Magicians” of the Fourth and Fifth Races were generally
called “Serpents” and “Dragons” after their Progenitors. All these
belonged to the Hierarchy of the so‐called “Fiery Dragons of
Wisdom,” the Dhyân Chohans, answering to the Agnishvâtta Pitris, the
Maruts and Rudras generally, as the issue of Rudra their father, who
is identified with the God of Fire. More is said in the text. Now
Clement, an initiated Neo‐Platonist, knew, of course, the origin of
the word “Dragon,” and why the initiated Adepts were so called, as
he knew the secret of the Agathodæmon, the Christ, the seven‐
vowelled Serpent of the Gnostics. He knew that the dogma of his new
faith required the transformation of all the _rivals_ of Jehovah—the
Angels supposed to have rebelled against that “Elohim,” as the Titan
Prometheus rebelled against Zeus, the usurper of his father’s
kingdom—and that “Dragon” was the mystic appellation of the “Sons of
Wisdom”; from this knowledge came his definition, as cruel as it was
arbitrary, “serpents and giants signify _demons_,” _i.e._, not
“Spirits,” but _Devils_, in Church parlance.

641 Part IV, Ch. xxvii, p. 291.

642 “What would you say to our affirmation that the Chinese—I now speak
of the inland, the true Chinamen, not of the hybrid mixture between
the Fourth and Fifth Races now occupying the throne—the aborigines
who belong in their unallied nationality wholly to the highest and
last branch of the Fourth Race, reached their highest civilization
when the Fifth had hardly appeared in Asia.” (_Esoteric Buddhism_,
p. 67.) And this handful of the inland Chinese are all of a very
high stature. Could the most ancient MSS. in the Lolo language (that
of the aborigines of China) be got at and correctly translated, many
a priceless piece of evidence would be found. But they are as rare
as their language is unintelligible. So far, one or two European
Archæologists only have been able to procure such priceless works.

643 Quoted in De Mirville, _op. cit._, iii. 53. Remember the same
statement in the _Book of Enoch_, as also the ladder seen by Jacob
in his dream. The “two worlds” mean, of course, the two _planes_ of
Consciousness and Being. A seer can commune with Beings of a higher
plane than the Earth, without quitting his arm‐chair.

644 See the Commentary on the Four Races—and on the “Sons of Will and
Yoga,” the immaculate progeny of the Androgynous Third Race.

645 In the _Kabalah_ the pronunciation of the four‐lettered _ineffable_
Name is “a most secret arcanum”—“a secret of secrets.”

646 _The Chaldean Account of Genesis_, p. 81.

647 _Ibid._, p. 84, lines 12, 14 and 15.

648 Returning once more to this most important subject in Archaic
Cosmogony, even in the Norse legends, in the Sacred Scrolls of the
Goddess Saga, we find Loki, the brother by blood of Odin—just as
Typhon, Ahriman, and others are respectively brothers of Osiris and
Ormazd—becoming evil only later, when he had mingled too long with
humanity. Like all other Fire or Light Gods—Fire burning and
destroying as well as warming and giving life—he ended by being
regarded in the destructive sense of “Fire.” The name _Loki_, we
learn from _Asgard and the Gods_ (p. 250), has been derived from the
old word _liuhan_, to enlighten. It has, therefore, the same origin
as the Latin _lux_, light. Hence Loki is identical with Lucifer or
Light‐bringer. This title, being given to the Prince of Darkness, is
very suggestive and is in itself a vindication against theological
slander. But Loki is still more closely related to Prometheus, for
he is shown chained to a sharp rock, while Lucifer, also identified
with Satan, was chained down in Hell; a circumstance, however, which
prevented neither of them from acting with all freedom on Earth, if
we accept the theological paradox in its fulness. Loki is a
beneficent, generous and powerful God in the beginnings of time, and
the principle of good, and not of evil, in early Scandinavian
Theogony.

649 The Greek mythos alluded to a few pages back, namely the mutilation
of Uranus by his son Cronus, is an allusion to this “theft” of the
_divine creative Fire_ by the Son of the Earth and Heavens. If
Uranus, the personification of the Celestial Powers, has to cease
creating (he is made impotent by Cronus (Chronos), the God _in
Time_), so, in the Egyptian Cosmogony, it is Thot, the God of
Wisdom, who regulates this fight between Horus and Set, the latter
being served by the former as Uranus is by Cronus. (See _Book of the
Dead_, xvii, line 26.) In the Babylonian account it is the God Zu,
who strips the “Father of the Gods” of “_umsimi_”—the ideal creative
organ, not the “crown” (!) as G. Smith thought (_op. cit._, pp. 115,
116). For, in the fragment K. 3454 (British Museum), it is said very
clearly, that Zu having stripped the “venerable of heaven” of his
_desire_, he carried away the “_umsimi_ of the gods,” and burnt
thereby “the _tereti_ [the power] of all the gods,” thus “governing
the whole of the _seed_ of all the angels.” As the _umsimi_ was “_on
the seat_” of Bel, it could hardly be the “crown.” A fourth version
is in the _Bible_. Ham is the Chaldæan Zu, and both are cursed for
the same allegorically described crime.

650 Quoted by Christian Ginsburg from the _Kabalah_.

651 Schlagintweit, _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 248. These are the Beings
whose legendary existence has served as a ground‐work upon which to
build the Rabbinical Lilith, and what the believers in the _Bible_
would term the Antediluvian women, and the Kabalists the Pre‐Adamite
races. They are no fiction—this is certain, however fantastic the
exuberance of later growth.

652 _Op. cit._, pp. 101, 102.

653 For suggestiveness, we would recommend a short article by Visconde
de Figanière, F.T.S., in _The Theosophist_, entitled “Esoteric
Studies.” Its author expounds therein quite an Occult theory, though
to the world a new idea—“the _progress_ of the Monad concurring with
the _retrogression_ of Form, _i.e._, with decrease of the _vis
formativa_.” (Vol. viii. p. 666.) He says, “Who knows what shape
vehicled the Ego in remote rings [Rounds, or Races?]?... May not
man’s type ... have been that of the Simiadæ in its variety? Might
not the Monkey‐kingdom of Râmâyana fame rest on some far‐off
tradition relating to a period when that was the common lot, or
rather aspect, of man?” And the author winds up a very clever,
though too short, exposition of his theory by saying that which
every true Occultist will endorse: “With physico‐ethereal man there
must be _involution_ of sex. As physico‐astral man depended on
entities of the sub‐human class (evolved from animal prototypes) for
rebirth, so will physico‐ethereal man find among the graceful,
shapely orders issuing from the _air_‐plane, one or more which will
be developed for his successive embodiments _when procreated forms
are given_—a process which will include all mankind only very
gradually. The [_Pre_‐?] Adamic and Post‐Adamic races were giants;
their ethereal counterparts may possibly be liliputians—beauteous,
luminous, diaphanous—but will assuredly be giants in mind” (p. 671).

654 It may be objected that this is a contradiction. That, as the first
Root‐Race appeared 300,000,000 years after the vegetation had
evolved, the Seed of vegetable life could not be in the First Race.
We say it could; for up to man’s appearance in _this_ Round, the
vegetation was of quite another kind to what it is now, and quite
ethereal; this, for the simple reason that no grass or plants could
have been physical, before there were animal or other organisms to
breathe out the carbonic acid which vegetation has to imbibe for its
development, its nutrition and growth. They are interdependent in
their _physical_ and achieved forms.

655 _Zohar_, i. 21a.

656 _Ibid._, iii. 48a.

657 _Ibid._, ii. 76a.

658 _Op. cit._, p. 666.

659 It is stated in the _Zohar_ that the “primordial worlds” (sparks)
could not continue because _man was not as yet_. “The _human_ form
contains everything; and as it did not as yet exist, the worlds were
destroyed.”

660 “The Sacred Books of the East,” vol. iv; _The Vendîdâd_, J.
Darmesteter; Fargard ii. vv. 27 (70) and 28 (74).

661 This is the meaning when the allegory and symbol are opened and read
by means of the _human_ key, or the key to Terrestrial
Anthroposophy. This interpretation of the “Ark” symbolism does not
in the least interfere with its astronomical, or even theogonic
keys; nor with any of the other six meanings. Nor does it seem less
scientific than the modern theories about the origin of man. As
said, it has seven keys to it, like the rest.

662 _Ibid._, v. 30 (87).

663 _Ibid._, v. 31 (93).

664 _Ibid._, v. 40 (131).

665 See also _Bund._, xv.

666 _Ibid._, 42 (137).

667 _Bund._, xix and xxiv.

668 S. L. MacGregor Mathers, _Kabbalah Unveiled_, p. 104.

669 _Zohar_, ii. 8b.

670 _Zohar_, iii. 278a; Myer’s _Qabbalah_, p. 217.

671 Darwinian Evolutionists who are so wont to refer to the evidence of
_reversion to type_—the full meaning of which, in the case of human
monsters, is embraced in the Esoteric solution of the embryological
problem—as proof of their arguments, would do well to enquire into
those instances of _modern giants_ who are often 8, 9, and even 11
feet high. Such _reversions_ are imperfect, yet undeniable
reproductions of the original towering man of primeval times.

672 See _Mythical Monsters_, by Ch. Gould, from whose interesting and
scientific volume a few passages are quoted further on. See also, in
A. P. Sinnett’s _Occult World_, the description of a cavern in the
Himâlayas filled with relics of giant human and animal bones.

673 _I.e._, the Third Eye was at the back of the head. The statement
that the latest hermaphrodite humanity was “four‐armed,” unriddles
probably the mystery of all the representations and idols of the
exoteric Gods of India. On the Acropolis of Argos, there was a
ξόανον, a rudely carved wooden statue, attributed to Dædalus,
representing a three‐eyed colossus, which was consecrated to Zeus
Triôpês, the “Three‐eyed.” The head of the “god” has two eyes in its
face and one above on the top of the forehead. It is considered the
most archaic of all the ancient statues. (_Schol. Vatic, ad Eurip.
Troad._, 14.)

674 The _inner vision_ could henceforth be acquired only through
training and initiation, save in the cases of “natural and born
magicians”—sensitives and mediums, as they are called now.

675 This expression “petrified” instead of “ossified” is curious. The
“back eye,” which is of course the Pineal Gland, so‐called, the
small pea‐like mass of grey nervous matter attached to the back of
the third ventricle of the brain, is said to almost invariably
contain _mineral concretions_ and _sand_, and “nothing more.”

676 “Deeply placed within the head, covered by thick skin and muscles,
true eyes, that cannot see, are found in certain animals,” says
Hæckel. “Among the Vertebrata there are blind moles and field‐mice,
blind snakes and lizards.... They shun the daylight, dwelling ...
under the ground.... [They] were _not originally blind_, but have
evolved from ancestors that lived in the light and had well‐
developed eyes. The atrophied eye beneath the opaque skin may be
found in these blind beings in every stage of reversion.” (Hæckel,
_Pedigree of Man_, “Sense Organs.” p. 343: Aveling’s Trans.) And if
_two_ eyes could become so atrophied in lower animals, why not _one_
eye—the Pineal Gland—in man, who is but a higher animal in his
physical aspect?

677 _Op. cit._, ii. 830, 831, ninth edition; “The Thalamencephalon or
Inter‐brain.”

678 The “nervous ether” of Dr. B. W. Richardson, F.R.S.; the nerve‐aura
of Occultism. The “animal spirits” (?) are equivalent to the
currents of nerve‐auric compound circulation.

679 Let us remember that the _First_ Race is shown, in Occult Science,
as spiritual within and ethereal without; the _Second_, psycho‐
spiritual mentally, and ethereo‐physical bodily; the _Third_, still
bereft of intellect in its beginning, is astro‐physical in its body,
and lives an inner life, in which the psycho‐spiritual element is in
no way as yet interfered with by the hardly nascent physiological
senses. Its two front eyes look before them without seeing either
past or future. But the Third Eye “_embraces Eternity_.”

680 But in a very different manner to that pictured by Hæckel as an
“_evolution by Natural Selection in the struggle for existence_”
(_Pedigree of Man_, “Sense Organs,” p. 335; Aveling’s Trans.). The
mere “thermal sensibility of the skin,” to hypothetical light‐waves,
is absurdly incompetent to account for the beautiful combination of
adaptations existing in the eye. We have shown that “natural
selection” is a pure myth when credited with the _origination_ of
variations, as the “survival of the fittest” can only take place
after useful variations have sprung up, together with improved
organisms. Whence came the “useful variations,” which developed the
eye? Only from “blind forces ... without aim, without design”? The
argument is puerile. The true solution of the mystery is to be found
in the impersonal Divine Wisdom, in its Ideation—reflected through
Matter.

681 Palæontology has ascertained that in the animals of the Mesozoic
age—the Saurians especially, such as the antediluvian Labyrinthodon,
whose fossil skull exhibits a perforation otherwise inexplicable—the
third, or odd eye must have been much developed. Several
Naturalists, among others E. Korscheldt, feel convinced that
whereas, notwithstanding the opaque skin covering it, such an eye in
the reptiles of the present period can only distinguish light from
darkness (as the human eyes do when bound with a handkerchief, or
even tightly closed), in the now extinct animals that eye functioned
and was a real organ of vision.

682 Gould’s _Mythical Monsters_, p. 27.

683 Karma is a word of many meanings, and has a special term for almost
every one of its aspects. As a synonym of sin, it means the
performance of some action for the attainment of an object of
_worldly_, hence _selfish_, desire, which cannot fail to be hurtful
to somebody else. Karma is action, the cause; and Karma again is the
“Law of Ethical Causation”; the _effect_ of an act produced
egotistically, in face of the great Law of Harmony which depends on
altruism.

684 Objectors to the doctrine of Karma should recall the fact that it is
absolutely out of the question to attempt a reply to the Pessimists
on other data. A firm grasp of the principles of Karmic Law knocks
away the whole basis of the imposing fabric reared by the disciples
of Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann.