Page 74 (part 4)

Gould, the well-known geologist, says: "Can we suppose that we have at all exhausted the great museum of nature? Have we, in fact, penetrated yet beyond its antechambers? Does the written history of man, comprising a few thousand years, embrace the whole course of his intelligent existence? Or have we in the long mythical eras, extending over hundreds of thousands of years, and recorded in the chronologies of Chaldea and of China, shadowy mementos of pre-historic man, handed down by tradition, and perhaps transported by a few survivors to existing lands from others, which, like the fabled (?) Atlantis of Plato, may have been submerged, or the scene of some great catastrophe which destroyed them with all their civilization" ( "Mythical Monsters," p . 19). After this one can turn with more confidence to the words of a Master who wrote, several years before these words were penned by Mr. Gould: -- "The Fourth Race had its periods of the highest civilization. Greek and Roman and even Egyptian civilizations are nothing com- [[Vol. 2, Page]] 430 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. pared to the civilizations that began with the Third Race" -- after its separation. But if this civilization and the mastery of arts and sciences are denied to the Third and Fourth Races, no one will deny that between the great civilizations of antiquity, such as those of Egypt and India, there stretched the dark ages of crass ignorance and barbarism ever since the beginning of the Christian era up to our modern civilization; during which period all recollection of these traditions was lost. As said in Isis Unveiled: "Why should we forget that, ages before the prow of the adventurous Genoese clove the Western waters, the Phoenician vessels had circumnavigated the globe, and spread civilization in regions now silent and deserted? What archaeologist will dare assert that the same hand which planned the Pyramids of Egypt, Karnak, and the thousand ruins now crumbling to oblivion on the sandy banks of the Nile, did not erect the monumental Nagkon-Wat of Cambodia? or trace the hieroglyphics on the obelisks and doors of the deserted Indian village, newly discovered in British Columbia by Lord Dufferin? or those on the ruins of Palenque and Uxmal, of Central America? Do not the relics we treasure in our museums -- last mementos of the long 'lost arts' -- speak loudly in favour of ancient civilization? And do they not prove, over and over again, that nations and continents that have passed away have buried along with them arts and sciences, which neither the first crucible ever heated in a mediaeval cloister, nor the last cracked by a modern chemist, have revived, nor will -- at least, in the present century." And the same question may be put now that was put then; it may be once more asked: "How does it happen that the most advanced standpoint that has been reached in our times, only enables us to see in the dim distance up the Alpine path of knowledge the monumental proofs that earlier explorers have left to mark the plateaux they had reached and occupied? "If modern masters are so much in advance of the old ones, why do they not restore to us the lost arts of our postdiluvian forefathers? Why do they not give us the unfading colours of Luxor -- the Tyrian purple; the bright vermilion and dazzling blue which decorate the walls of this place, and are as bright as on the first day of their application? The indestructible cement of the pyramids and of ancient aqueducts; the Damascus blade, which can be turned like a corkscrew in its scabbard without breaking; the gorgeous, unparalleled tints of the stained glass that is found amid the dust of old ruins and beams in the windows of ancient cathedrals; and the secret of the true malleable glass? And if chemistry is so little able to rival even the early mediaeval ages in some arts, why boast of achievements which, accord- [[Vol. 2, Page]] 431 MISTAKES OF THE EGYPTOLOGISTS. ing to strong probability, were perfectly known thousands of years ago? The more archeology and philology advance, the more humiliating to our pride are the discoveries which are daily made, the more glorious testimony do they bear in behalf of those who, perhaps on account of the distance of their remote antiquity, have been until now considered ignorant flounderers in the deepest mire of superstition." Among other arts and sciences, the ancients -- ay, as a heirloom from the Atlanteans -- had those of astronomy and symbolism, which included the knowledge of the Zodiac. As already explained, the whole of antiquity believed, with good reason, that humanity and its races are all intimately connected with the planets, and these with Zodiacal signs. The whole world's History is recorded in the latter. In the ancient temples of Egypt this was proved by the Dendera Zodiac; but except in an Arabic work, the property of a Sufi, the writer has never met with a correct copy of these marvellous records of the past, as also of the future, history of our globe. Yet the original records exist, most undeniably. As Europeans are unacquainted with the real Zodiacs of India, nor do they understand those they happen to know (witness Bentley), the reader is advised, in order to verify the statement, to turn to the work of Denon ( Travels in Egypt, Vol. II. ) in which, if understood, the two famous Egyptian Zodiacs, can be found and examined. Having seen them personally, the writer has no longer need to trust to what other students -- who have examined and studied both very carefully - have to say of them. As asserted by the Egyptian Priests to Herodotus, who was informed that the terrestrial Pole and the Pole of the Ecliptic had formerly coincided, thus was it found and corroborated by Mackey.* For he states that the Poles are represented on the Zodiacs in both positions, "And in that which shows the Poles (polar axes) at right angles, there are marks which prove that 'it was not the last time they were in that position; but the first ' -- after the Zodiacs had been traced." "Capricorn," he adds, "is represented at the North Pole, and Cancer is divided, near its middle, at the South Pole; which is a confirmation that originally they had their winter when the Sun was in Cancer; but the chief characteristics of its being a monument commemorating the first time that the Pole had been in that position, are the Lion and the Virgin." (See in Part II ., §"A Mystery of the Zodiac.") Broadly calculated, it is believed by the Egyptologists that the great Pyramid was built 3,350 B.C. ( See Proctor, Knowledge, Vol. I. pp .