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The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 2 [[Vol. 2, Page]] 263 MILLIONS OF YEARS HENCE. [[This page continued from previous section ]] A P ANORAMIC V IEW OF THE E ARLY R ACES. There is a period of a few millions of years to cover between the first "mindless" race and the highly intelligent and intellectual later "Lemurians"; there is another between the earliest civilization of the Atlanteans and the historic period. As witnesses to the Lemurians but a few silent records in the shape of half a dozen broken colossi and old cyclopean ruins are left. These are not allowed a hearing, as they are "productions of blind natural forces," we are assured by some; "quite modern" we are told by others. Tradition is left contemptuously unnoticed by sceptic and materialist, and made subservient to the Bible in every case by the too zealous Churchman. Whenever a legend, however, refuses to fit in with the Noachian "deluge theory," it is declared by the Christian clergy "the insanely delirious voice of old superstition." Atlantis is denied, when not confused with Lemuria and other departed continents, because, perhaps, Lemuria is half the creation of modern science, and has, therefore, to be believed in; while Plato's Atlantis is regarded by most of the scientists as a dream. Atlantis is often described by believers in Plato as a prolongation of Africa. An old continent is also suspected to have existed on the Eastern coast. Only Africa, as a continent, was never part and parcel of either Lemuria or Atlantis, as we have agreed to call the Third and Fourth Continents. Their archaic appellations are never mentioned in the [[Vol. 2, Page]] 264 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. Puranas, nor anywhere else. But with simply one of the esoteric keys in hand it becomes an easy task to identify these departed lands in the numberless "lands of the gods," Devas and Munis described in the Puranas, in their Varshas, Dwipas, and zones. Their Sweta-Dwipa, during the early day of Lemuria, stood out like a giant-peak from the bottom of the sea; the area between Atlas and Madagascar being occupied by the waters till about the early period of Atlantis (after the disappearance of Lemuria), when Africa emerged from the bottom of the ocean, and Atlas was half-sunk. It is of course impossible to attempt, within the compass of even several volumes, a consecutive and detailed account of the evolution and progress of the first three races -- except so far as to give a general view of it, as will be done presently. Race the first had no history of its own. Of race the second the same may be said. We shall have, therefore, to pay careful attention only to the Lemurians and the Atlanteans before the history of our own race (the Fifth) can be attempted. What is known of other continents, besides our own, and what does history know or accept of the early races? Everything outside the repulsive speculations of materialistic science is daubed with the contemptuous term "Superstition." The wise men of to-day will believe nothing. Plato's "winged" and hermaphrodite races, and his golden age, under the reign of Saturn and the gods, are quietly brought back by Haeckel to their new place in nature: our divine races are shown to be the descendants of Catarrhine apes, and our ancestor, a piece of sea slime. Nevertheless, as expressed by Faber, "the fictions of ancient poetry . . . . will be found to comprehend some portion of historical truth." However one-sided the efforts of the learned author of the " Mysteries of the Kabiri, " -- efforts directed throughout his two volumes to constrain the classical myths and symbols of old paganism, "to bear testimony to the truth of Scripture," -- time and further research have avenged, partially at least, that "truth" by showing it unveiled. Thus it is the clever adaptations of Scripture, on the contrary, which are made to bear evidence to the great wisdom of archaic paganism. This, notwithstanding the inextricable confusion into which the truth about the Kabiri -- the most mysterious gods of antiquity -- was thrown by the wild and contradictory speculations of Bishop Cumberland, Dr. Shuckford, Cudworth, Vallancey, etc., etc., and finally by Faber. Nevertheless, all, from first to last, of these scholars had to come to a certain conclusion framed by the latter. "We have no reason to think," he writes, "that the idolatry of the Gentile world was of a merely arbitrary contrivance; on the contrary, it seems to have been built, almost universally, upon a traditional remembrance of certain real events. These events I apprehend to be the destruction of [[Vol. 2, Page]] 265 BAILLY AND FABER. the first (the fourth in esoteric teachings) Race of mankind by the waters of the Deluge. " ( Chap. I. p. 9). To this, Faber adds: -- "I am persuaded that the tradition of the sinking of the Phlegian isle is the very same as that of the sinking of the island Atlantis. They both appear to me to allude to one great event, the sinking of the whole world beneath the waters of the deluge, or, if we suppose the arch of the earth to have remained in its original position, the rising of the central water above it. M. Bailly, indeed, in his work upon the Atlantis of Plato, the object of which is evidently to depreciate the authority of Scriptural chronology, labours to prove that the Atlanteans were a very ancient northern nation, long prior to the Hindoos, the Phoenicians, and the Egyptians." ( "A Dissertation on the Kabiri," p. 284.) In this Faber is in agreement with Bailly, who shows himself more learned and intuitional than those who accept Biblical chronology. Nor is the latter wrong when saying that the Atlanteans were the same as the Titans and the giants. ( See " Lettres sur l ' Atlantide. ") Faber adopts the more willingly the opinion of his French confrere, as Bailly mentions Cosmas Indico-Pleustes, who preserved an ancient tradition about Noah -- that he "formerly inhabited the island Atlantis" ( ibid ). This island, whether it was the "Poseidonis" mentioned in "Esoteric Buddhism," or the Continent of Atlantis, does not much matter. The tradition is there, recorded by a Christian. No Occultist would ever think of dispossessing Noah of his prerogatives, if he is claimed to be an Atlantean; for this would simply show that the Israelites repeated the story of Vaivasvata Manu, Xisuthrus, and so many others, and that they only changed the name, to do which they had the same right as any other nation or tribe.