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The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 2 [[Vol. 2, Page]] 778 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. § VII. SCIENTIFIC AND GEOLOGICAL PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF SEVERAL SUBMERGED CONTINENTS. I T 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 a 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: -- [[First Column]] Extract from p. 61 of "Esoteric Buddhism." No. 1. "The sinking of the Atlantis (the group of continents and islands) began during the Eocene period . . . . and it culminated in the Miocene, first in the final disappearance of the largest, an event coincident with the elevation of the Alps, and second in the sinking of the last of the fair islands mentioned by Plato." [[First Column continued on next page]] [[Second Column]] Extract from a Lecture by W. Pengelly, F.R.S ., F.G.S . No. 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 2nd Ed. p. 256 . ) -- a post-Miocene depression might have carried the hypothetical Atlantis into almost abysmal depths. " * [[Second Column continued on next page]] [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Having already given several instances of the vagaries of Science, it is delightful to find such agreement in this particular case. Read in connection with the scientific admission (cited elsewhere) of the geologists' ignorance of even the approximate duration of periods, the following passage is highly instructive: "We are not yet able to assign an approximate date for the most recent epoch at which our Northern Hemisphere was covered with glaciers. According to Mr. Wallace, this epoch may have occurred seventy thousand years ago, while others would assign to it an antiquity of at least two hundred thousand years, and there are yet others who urge strong arguments on behalf of the opinion that a million of years is barely enough to have produced the changes which have taken place since that event." (Fiske, " Cosmic [[Footnote continued on next page]] [[Vol. 2, Page]] 779 GEOLOGY CORROBORATES OCCULTISM. [[First Column continued from previous page]] No. 2. "Lemuria cannot any more be confounded with the Atlantis continent than Europe with America. Both sank and were drowned with all their 'gods'; yet, between the two catastrophes a short period of about some 700,000 years elapsed; Lemuria flourishing and ending her career just about that trifling lapse of time before the early Eocene Age, since its Race was the Third. Behold the relics of that once great race in some of the flat-headed aborigines of your A USTRALIA." ("Esoteric Buddhism," p. 55 . ) [[Second Column continued from previous page]] No. 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 an article in "Popular Science Review," Vol. V. p. 18, by Professor Seemann, Ph.D., F.L.S ., P.A.S .). Haeckel, 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 . . . Papuans and Hottentots . . . Australians . . . one division of the Malays." [[End of Columns]] 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 the Australian civilization (?) indicates a higher grade, is nowhere more clearly proved than here, where everything resounds like the expiring voices of a previous and richer age. The idea that the Australians have no religion or mythology is thoroughly false. But this religion is certainly quite deteriorated. " (Cited in Schmidt's " Doctrine of Descent of Darwinism, " pp. 301-2.) As to his other statement, namely, that the Australians are a "division of the Malays" ( Vide his ethnological theories in the " Pedigree of Man ") , Haeckel is in error, if 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 [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- [[Footnote continued from previous page]] Philosophy, " Vol. II., p. 304). Prof. Lefevre, again, gives us as his estimate 100,000 years. Clearly, then, if modern Science is unable to estimate the date of so comparatively recent an era as the Glacial Epoch, it can hardly impeach the Esoteric Chronology of Race-Periods and Geological Ages. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 780 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. 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.