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    "slug": "04-chapter-iv",
    "title": "CHAPTER IV.",
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    "words": 6109,
    "text": "## CHAPTER IV.\n\nTHE WORLD PERIODS.\n\nA STRIKING illustration of the uniformities\nof Nature is brought out by the first glance at\nthe occult doctrine in reference to the develop-\nment of man on the earth. The outline of the\ndesign is the same as the outline of the more\ncomprehensive design covering the whole chain\nof worlds. The inner details of this world, as\nregards its units of construction, are the same\nas the inner details of the larger organism of\nwhich this world itself is a unit. That is to\nsay, the development of humanity on this earth\nis accomplished by means of successive waves\nof development which correspond to the succes-\nsive worlds in the great planetary chain. The\ngreat tide of human life, be it remembered —\nfor that has been already set forth — sweeps\nround the whole circle of worlds in successive\nwaves. These primary growths of humanity\nmay be conveniently spoken of as rounds. We\nmust not forget that the individual units, con-\nstituting each round in turn, are identically the\n\nTHE WORLD PERIODS. 95\n\nsame as regards their higher principles, that is,\nthat the individualities on the earth during\nround one come back again after completing\ntheir travels round the whole series of worlds\nand constitute round two, and so on. But\nthe point to which special attention should be\ndrawn here is that the individual unit having\narrived at any given planet of the series, in the\ncourse of any given round, does not merely\ntouch th?tt planet and pass on to the next. Be-\nfore passing on, he has to live through a series\nof races on that planet. And this fact suggests\nthe outline of the fabric which will presently\ndevelop itself in the reader's mind and exhibit\nthat similarity of design on the part of the one\nworld as compared with the whole series to\nwhich attention has already been drawn. As\nthe complete scheme of Nature that we belong\nto is worked out by means of a series of rounds\nsweeping through all the worlds, so the devel-\nopment of humanity on each world is worked\nout by a series of races developed within the\nlimits of each world in turn.\n\nIt is time now to make the working of this\nlaw clearer by coming to the actual figures\nwhich have to do with the evolution of our doc-\ntrine. It would have been premature to begin\nwith them, but as soon as the idea of a system\nof worlds in a chain, and of life evolution on\n\n96 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\neach through a series of re-births, is satisfac-\ntorily grasped, the further examination of the\nlaws at work will be greatly facilitated by pre-\ncise reference to the actual number of worlds\nand the actual number of rounds and races re-\nquired to accomplish the whole purpose of the\nsystem. For the whole duration of the system\nis as certainly limited in time, be it remem-\nbered, as the life of a single man. Probably\nnot limited to any definite number of years set\nirrevocably from the commencement, but that\nwhich has a beginning progresses onward to-\nwards an end. The life of a man, leaving ac-\ncidents quite out of the account, is a termina-\nble period, and the life of a world system leads\nup to a final consummation. The vast periods\nof time, concerned in the life of a world sys-\ntem, dazzle the imagination as a rule, but still\nthey are measurable ; they are divisible into\nsub-periods of various kinds, and these have a\ndefinite number.\n\nBy what prophetic instinct Shakespeare\npitched upon seven hs the number which suited\nhis fantastic classification of the ages of man\nis a question with which we need not be much\nconcerned, but certain it is that lie could not\nhave made a more felicitous choice. In periods\nof sevens the evolution of the races of man may\nbe traced, and the actual number of the objec\n\nTEE WORLD PERIODS. 97\n\ntive worlds which constitute our system, and of\nwhich the earth is one, is seven also. Remem-\nber the occult scientists know this as a fact,\njust as the physical scientists know for a fact\nthat the spectrum consists of seven colors, and\nthe musical scale of seven tones. There are\nseven kingdoms of Nature, not three, as modern\nscience has imperfectly classified them. Man\nbelongs to a kingdom distinctly separate from\nthat of the animals, including beings in a\nhigher state of organization than that which\nmanhood has familiarized us with as yet ; and\nbelow the mineral kingdom there are three\nothers which science in the West knows noth-\ning about ; but this branch of the subject may\nbe set aside for the present. It is mentioned\nmerely to show the regular operation of the\nseptenary law in Nature.\n\nMan, returning to the kingdom we are most\ninterested in, is evolved in a series of rounds\n(progressions round the series of worlds), and\nseven of these rounds have to be accomplished\nbefore the destinies of our system are worked\nout. The round which is at present going on\nis the fourth. There are considerations of the\nutmost possible interest connected with precise\nknowledge on these points, because each round\nis, as it were, specially allotted to the predomi-\nnance of one of the seven principles in man,\n\n98 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nand in the regular order of their upward grada-\ntion.\n\nAn individual unit, arriving on a planet for\nthe first time in the course of a round, has tq\nwork through seven races on that planet before\nhe passes on to the next, and each of those races\noccupies the earth for a long time. Our old-\nfashioned speculations about time and eternity,\nsuggested by the misty religious systems of the\nWest, have brought on a curious habit of mind\nin connection with problems bearing on the\nactual duration of sucli periods. We can talk\nglibly of eternity, and, going to the other end\nof the scale, we are not shocked by a few thou-\nsand years ; but directly years are numbered\nwith precision in groups which lie in interven-\ning regions of thought, illogical Western theo-\nlogians are apt to regard such numbering as\nnonsense. Now, we at present living on this\nearth — the great bulk of humanity, that is to\nsay, for there are exceptional cases to be con-\nsidered later — are now going through the fifth\nrace of our present fourth round. And yet the\nevolution of that fifth race began about a mill-\nion of years ago. Will the reader, in consid-\neration of the fact that the present cosmogony\ndoes not profess to work with eternity, nerve\nhimself to deal with estimates that do concern\nthemselves with millions of years, and evei)\ncount such millions by considerable numbers?\n\nTHE WORLD PERIODS. 99\n\nEach race of the seven which go to make\nup a round — i. e. which are evolved on the\nearth in succession during its occupation by\nthe great wave of humanity passing round the\nplanetary chain — is itself subject to subdivis-\nion. Were this not the case, the active exist-\nences of each human unit would be indeed few\nand far between. Within the limits of each\nrace there are seven subdivisional races, and\nagain within the limits of each subdivision\nthere are seven branch races. Through all\nthese races, roughly speaking, each individual\nhuman unit must pass during his stay on earth\neach time he arrives there on a round of prog-\nress through the planetary system. On reflec-\ntion, this necessity should not appall the mind\nso much as a hypothesis which would provide\nfor fewer incarnations. For, however many\nlives each individual unit may pass through\nwhile on earth during a round, be their num-\nbers few or many, he cannot pass on until the\ntime comes for the round wave to sweep for-\nward. Even by the calculation already fore-\nshadowed, it will be seen that the time spent\nby each individual unit in physical life, can\nonly be a small fraction of the whole time he\nhas to get through between his arrival on earth\nand his departure for the next planet. The\nlarger part of the time — as we reckon dura-\n\n100 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\ntion of time — is obviousty, therefore, spent in\nthose subjective conditions of existence which\nbelong to the \" World of Effects,\" or spiritual\nearth attached to the physical earth on which\nour objective existence is passed.\n\nThe nature of existence on the spiritual earth\nmust be considered pari passu with the nature\nof that passed on the physical earth and dealt\nwith in the above enumeration of race incarna-\ntions. We must never forget that between\neach physical existence the individual unit\npasses through a period of existence in the cor-\nresponding spiritual world. And it is because\nthe conditions of that existence are defined by\nthe use that has been made of the opportunities\nin the next preceding physical existence that\nthe spiritual earth is often spoken of in occult\nwriting as the world of effects. The earth it-\nself is its corresponding world of causes.\n\nThat which passes naturally into the world\nof effects after an incarnation in the world of\ncauses is the individual unit or spiritual monad ;\nbut the personality just dissolved passes there\nwith it, to an extent dependent on the qualifi-\ncations of such personality, — on the use, that is\nto say, which the person in question has made\nof his opportunities in life. The period to be\nspent in the world of effects — enormously\nlonger in each case than the life which has\n\nTHE WORLD PERIODS. 101\n\npaved the way for existence there — corre-\nsponds to the \" hereafter \" or heaven of ordi-\nnary theology. The narrow purview of ordi-\nnary religious conceptions deals merely with\none spiritual life and its consequences in the\nlife to come. Theology conceives that the en-\ntity concerned had its beginning in this physi-\ncal life, and that the ensuing spiritual life will\nnever stop. And this pair of existences, which\nis shown, by the elements of occult science that\nwe are now unfolding, to constitute a part only\nof the entity's experience during its connection\nwith a branch race, which is one of seven be-\nlonging to a subdivisional race, itself one of\nseven belonging to a main race, itself one of\nseven belonging to the occupation of earth by\none of the seven round waves of humanity\nwhich have each to occupy it in turn before its\nfunctions in Nature are concluded, — this mi-\ncroscopic molecule of the whole structure is\nwhat common theology treats as more than the\nwhole, for it is supposed to cover eternity.\n\nThe reader must here be warned against one\nconclusion to which the above explanations —\nperfectly accurate as far as they go, but not yet\ncovering the whole ground — might lead him.\nHe will not get at the exact number of lives an\nindividual entity has to lead on the earth in the\ncourse of its occupation by one round, if he\n\n102 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nmerely raises seven to its third power. If one\nexistence only were passed in each branch race,\nthe total number would obviously be 343, but\neach life descends at least twice into objectivity\nin the same branch, — each monad, in other\nwords, incarnates twice in each branch race.\nAgain, there is a curious cyclic law which op-\nerates to augment the total number of incarna-\ntions beyond 686. Each subdivisional race has\na certain extra vitality at its climax, which\nleads it to throw off an additional offshoot race\nat that point in its progress, and again another\noffshoot race is developed at the end of the sub-\ndivisional race by its dying momentum, so to\nspeak. Through these races the whole tide of\nhuman life passes, and the result is that the\nactual normal number of incarnations for each\nmonad is not far short of 800. Within rela-\ntively narrow limits it is a variable number,\nbut the bearings of that fact may be considered\nlater on.\n\nThe methodical law which carries each and\nevery individual human entity through the vast\nevolutionary process thus sketched out, is in no\nway incompatible with that liability to fall\naway into abnormal destinies or ultimate anni-\nhilation which menaces the personal entities of\npeople who cultivate very ignoble affinities.\nThe distribution of the seven principles at\n\nTHE WORLD PERIODS. 103\n\ndeath shows that clearly enough, but viewed in\nthe light of these further explanations about\nevolution, the situation may be better realized.\nThe permanent entity is that which lives\nthrough the whole series of lives, not only\nthrough the races belonging to the present\nround wave on earth, but also through those of\nother round waves and other worlds. Broadly\nspeaking, it may in due time, though at some\ninconceivably distant future as measured in\nyears, recover a recollection of ail those lives,\nwhich will seem as days in the past to us. But\nthe astral dross, cast off at each passage into\nthe world of effects, has a more or less depen-\ndent existence of its own, quite separate from\nthat of the spiritual entity from which it has\njust been disunited.\n\nThe natural history of this astral remnant is\na problem of much interest and importance, but\na methodical continuation of the whole subject\nwill require us in the first instance to endeavor\nto realize the destiny of the higher and more du-\nrable spiritual Ego ; and before going into that\ninquiry, there is a good deal more to be said\nabout the development of the objective races.\n\nEsoteric science, though interesting itself\nmainly with matters generally regarded as ap-\npertaining to religion, would not be the com-\nplete comprehensive and trustworthy system\n\n104 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nthat it is, if it failed to bring all the facts of\nearth life into harmony with its doctrines. It\nwould have been little able to search out and\nascertain the manner in which the human race\nhas evolved through seons of time and series of\nplanets, if it had not been in a position to ascer-\ntain also, as the smaller inquiry is included in\nthe greater, the manner in which the wave of\nhumanity with which we are now concerned has\nbeen developed on this earth. The faculties, in\nshort, which enable adepts to read the mys-\nteries of other worlds, and of other states of ex-\nistence, are in no way unequal to the task of\ntraveling back along the life-current of this\nglobe. It follows that while the brief record\nof a few thousand years is all that our so-called\nuniversal history can deal with, the earth his-\ntory, which forms a department of esoteric\nknowledge, goes back to the incidents of the\nfourth race which preceded ours, and to those\nof the third race which preceded that. It goes\nback still further indeed, but the second and\nfirst races did not develop anything that could\nbe called civilization, and of them, therefore,\nthere is less to be said than of their successors.\nThe third and fourth did — strange as it may\nseem to some modern readers to contemplate\nthe notion of civilization on the earth several\nmillions of years ago.\n\nTHE WORLD PERIODS. 105\n\nWhere are its traces ? they will ask. How\ncould the civilization with which Europe has\nnow endowed mankind pass away so completely\nthat any future inhabitants of the earth could\never be ignorant that it once existed ? How\nthen can we conceive the idea that any similar\ncivilization can have vanished, leaving no rec-\nords for us ?\n\nThe answer lies in the regular routine of\nplanetary life, which goes on pari passu with\nthe life of its inhabitants. The periods of the\ngreat root races are divided from each other by\ngreat convulsions of Nature and by great geo-\nlogical changes. Europe was not in existence\nas a continent at the time the fourth race flour-\nished. The continent on which the fourth race\nlived was not in existence at the time the third\nrace flourished, and neither of the continents\nwhich were the great vortices of the civilizations\nof those two races are in existence now. Seven\ngreat continental cataclysms occur during the\noccupation of the earth by the human life- wave\nfor one round period. Each race is cut off in\nthis way at its appointed time, some survivors\nremaining in parts of the world, not the proper\nhome of their race ; but these, invariably in\nsuch cases, exhibiting a tendency to decay, and\nrelapsing into barbarism with more or less\nrapidity.\n\n106 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nThe proper home of the fourth race, which\ndirectly preceded our own, was that continent\nof which some memory has been preserved even\nin exoteric literature — the lost Atlantis. But\nthe great island, the destruction of which is\nspoken of by Plato, was really but the last rem-\nnant of the continent. \" In the Eocene age,\"\nI am told, \" even in its very first part, the great\ncycle of the fourth race men, the Atlanteans,\nhad already reached its highest point, and the\ngreat continent, the father of nearly all the\npresent continents, showed the first symptoms\nof sinking, — a process that occupied it down\nto 11,446 years ago, when its last island, that,\ntranslating its vernacular name, we may call\nwith propriety Poseidonis, went down with a\ncrash.\n\n\"Lemuria\" (a former continent stretching\nsouthward from India across what is now the\nIndian Ocean, but connected with Atlantis, for\nAfrica was not then in existence) \" should no\nmore be confounded with the Atlantis conti-\nnent than Europe with America. Both sank\nand were drowned, with their high civilizations\nand ' gods,' yet between the two catastrophes a\nperiod of about 700,000 years elapsed, Lemuria\nflourishing and ending her career just about\nthat lapse of time before the early part of the\nEocene age, since its race was the third. Be-\n\nTHE WORLD PERIODS. 107\n\nhold the relics of that once great nation in some\nof the flat-headed aborigines of your Australia.\"\n\nIt is a mistake on the part of a recent writer\non Atlantis to people India and Egypt with\nthe colonies of that continent, but of that more\nanon.\n\n\" Why should not your geologists,\" asks my\nrevered Mahatma teacher, \" bear in mind that\nunder the continents explored and fathomed\nby them, in the bowels of which they have\nfound the Eocene age, and forced it to de-\nliver to them its secrets, there may be hidden\ndeep in the fathomless, or rather unfathomed\nocean beds, other and far older continents\nwhose strata have never been geologically ex-\nplored ; and that they may some day upset en-\ntirely their present theories. Why not admit\nthat our present continents have, like Lemuria\nand Atlantis, been several times already sub-\nmerged, and had the time to reappear again,\nand bear their new groups of mankind and civ-\nilization ; and that at the first great geological\nupheaval at the next cataclysm, in the series of\nperiodical cataclysms that occur from the be-\nginning to the end of every round, our already\nautopsized continents will go down, and the\nLemurias and Atlantises come up again.\n\n\" Of course the fourth race had its periods of\nthe highest civilization.\" (The letter from\n\n108 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nwhich I am now quoting was written in answer\nto a series of questions I put.) \" Greek, and\nRoman, and even Egyptian civilizations are\nnothing compared to the civilizations that be-\ngan with the third race. Those of the second\nrace were not savages, but they could not be\ncalled civilized.\n\n\" Greeks and Romans were small sub-races,\nand Egyptians part and parcel of our own Cau-\ncasian stock. Look at the latter, and at India.\nHaving reached the highest civilization, and\nwhat is more, learning, both went down; Egypt,\nas a distinct sub-race, disappearing entirely (her\nCopts are but a hybrid remnant); India, as one\nof the first and most powerful offshoots of the\nmother race, and composed of a number of sub-\nraces, lasting to these times, and struggling to\ntake once more her place in history some day.\nThat history catches but a few stray, hazy\nglimpses of Egypt some 12,000 years back,\nwhen, having already reached the apex of its\ncycle thousands of years before, the latter had\nbegun to go down.\n\n\"The Chaldees were at the apex of their\noccult fame before what you term the Bronze\nAge. We hold — but then what warrant can\nyou give the world that we are right? — that\nfar greater civilizations than our own have\nrisen and decayed. It is not enough to say, as\n\nTHE WORLD PERIODS. 109\n\nsome of your modern writers do, that an extinct\ncivilization existed before Rome and Athens\nwere founded. We affirm that a series of civ-\nilizations existed before as well as after the\nglacial period, that they existed upon various\npoints of the globe, reached the apex of glory,\nand died. Every trace and memory had been\nlost of the Assyrian and Phoenician civiliza-\ntions, until discoveries began to be made a few\nyears ago. And now they open a new though\nnot by far one of the earliest pages in the his-\ntory of mankind. And yet how far back do\nthose civilizations go in comparison with the\noldest, and even them histor}7 is slow to accept.\nArchaeology has sufficiently demonstrated that\nthe memory of man runs back vastly further\nthan history has been willing to accept, and\nthe sacred records of once mighty nations pre-\nserved by their heirs are still more worthy of\ntrust. We speak of civilizations of the ante-\nglacial period, and not only in the minds of\nthe vulgar and the profane, but even in the\nopinion of the highly-learned geologist, the\nclaim sounds preposterous. What would you\nsay, then, to our affirmation that the Chinese, —\nI now speak of the inland, the true Chinaman,\nnot of the hybrid mixture between the fourth\nand fifth races now occupying the throne, —\nthe aborigines who belong in their unallied na-\n\n110 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\ntionality wholly to the highest and last branch\nof the fourth race, reached their highest civili-\nzation when the fifth had hardly appeared in\nAsia? When was it? Calculate. The group\nof islands discovered by Nordenskiold, of the\nVega was found strewn with fossils of horses,\nsheep, oxen, etc., among gigantic bones of ele-\nphants, mammoths, rhinoceroses, and other\nmonsters belonging to periods when man, says\nyour science, had not yet made his appearance\non earth. How came horses and sheep to be\nfound in company with the huge antediluvians?\n\" The region now locked in the fetters of\neternal winter, uninhabited by man, that most\nfragile of animals, will very soon be proved\nto have had not only a tropical climate, some-\nthing your science knows and does not dispute,\nbut having been likewise the seat of one of the\nmost ancient civilizations of the fourth race,\nwhose highest relics we now find in the degener-\nate Chinaman, and whose lowest are hopelessly\n(for the profane scientist) intermixed with the\nremnants of the third. I told you before that the\nhighest people now on earth (spiritually) belong\nto the first sub-race of the fifth root race, and\nthose are the Aryan Asiatics ; the highest race\n(physical intellectuality) is the last sub-race of\nthe fifth, — yourselves, the white conquerors.\nThe majority of mankind belongs to the seventh\n\nTHE WORLD PERIODS. Ill\n\nsub-race of the fourth root race, — the above-\nmentioned Chinamen and their offshoots and\nbranchlets (Malayans, Mongolians, Tibetens,\nJavanese, etc., etc.), — with remnants of other\nsub-races of the fourth and the seventh sub-race\nof the third race. All these fallen, degraded\nsemblances of humanity are the direct lineal\ndescendants of highly civilized nations, neither\nthe names nor memory of which have survived,\nexcept in such books as 'Populvuh,' the sacred\nbook of the Guatemalans, and a few others\nunknown to science. \"\n\nI had inquired was there any way of ac-\ncounting for what seems the curious rush of\nhuman progress within the last two thousand\nyears, as compared with the relatively stagnant\ncondition of the fourth round people up to the\nbeginning of modern progress. This ques-\ntion it was that elicited the explanations quoted\nabove, and also the following remarks in regard\nto the recent \"rush of human progress.\"\n\n\" The latter end of a very important cycle.\nEach round, each race, as every sub-race, has\nits great and its smaller cycles on every planet\nthat mankind passes through. Our fourth\nround humanity has its one great cycle, and so\nhave its races and sub-races. ' The curious\nrush ' is due to the double effect of the former\n^- the beginning of its downward course — and\n\n112 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nof the latter (the small cycle of your sub-race)\nrunning on to its apex. Remember you belong\nto the fifth race, yet you are but a Western\nsub-race. Notwithstanding your efforts, what\nyou call civilization is confined only to the lat-\nter and its offshoots in America. Radiating\naround, its deceptive light may seem to throw\nits rays on a greater distance than it does- in\nreality. There is no rush in China, and of\nJapan you make but a caricature.\n\n\" A student of occultism ought not to speak\nof the stagnant condition of the fourth -round\npeople, since history knows next to nothing of\nthat condition, ' up to the beginning of modern\nprogress,' of other nations but the Western.\nWhat do you know of America, for instance,\nbefore the invasion of that country by the\nSpaniards ? Less than two centuries prior to\nthe arrival of Cortez there was as great a rush\ntoward progress among the sub-races of Peru\nand Mexico as there is now in Europe and the\nUnited States. Their sub-race ended in nearly\ntotal annihilation through causes generated by\nitself. We may speak only of the ' stagnant '\ncondition into which, following the law of de-\nvelopment, growth, maturity, and decline, every\nrace and sub-race falls during the transition\nperiods. It is that latter condition your uni-\nversal history is acquainted with, while it re*\n\nTHE WORLD PERIODS. 113\n\nmains superbly ignorant of the condition even\nIndia was in some ten centuries back. Your\nsub-races are now running toward the apex of\ntheir respective cycles, and that history goes no\nfurther back than the periods of decline of a\nfew other sub-races belonging most of them to\nthe preceding fourth race.\"\n\nI had asked to what epoch Atlantis belonged,\nand whether the cataclysm by which it was\ndestroyed came in an appointed place in the\nprogress of evolution, corresponding for the de-\nvelopment of races to the obscuration of plan-\nets. The answer was : —\n\n\" To the Miocene times. Everything comes\nin its appointed time and place in the evolution\nof rounds, otherwise it would be impossible for\nthe best seer to calculate the exact hour and\nyear when such cataclysms great and small\nhave to occur. All an adept could do would\nbe to predict an approximate time, whereas\nnow events that result in great geological\nchanges may be predicted with as mathemat-\nical a certainty as eclipses and other revolu-\ntions in space. The sinking of Atlantis (the\ngroup of continents and isles) began during the\nMiocene period, — as certain of your continents\nare now observed to be gradually sinking, —\nand it culminated first in the final disappear-\nance of the largest continent, an event coinci-\n\n114 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\ndent with the elevation of the Alps ; and second,\nwith that of the last of the fair islands men-\ntioned by Plato. The Egyptian priests of Sais\ntold his ancestor Solon, that Atlantis (i. e., the\nonly remaining large island) had perished nine\nthousand years before their time. This was not\na fancy date, since they had for millenniums\npreserved most carefully their records. But\nthen, as I say, they spoke but of the Poseidonis,\nand would not reveal even to the great Greek\nlegislator their secret chronology. As there\nare no geological reasons for doubting, but, on\nthe contrary, a mass of evidence for accepting\nthe tradition, science has finally accepted the\nexistence of the great continent and archipel-\nago, and thus vindicated the truth of one more\n< fable.'\n\n\" The approach of every new obscuration is\nalways signaled by cataclysms of either fire or\nwater. But apart from this, every root race\nhas to be cut in two, so to say, by either one\nor the other. Thus having reached the apex\nof its development and glory, the fourth race\n— the Atlanteans — were destroyed by water ;\nyou find now but their degenerate fallen rem-\nnants, whose sub-races nevertheless, each of\nthem, had its palmy days of glory and relative\ngreatness. What they are now, you will be\nsome day, the law of cycles being one and im-\n\nTHE WORLD PERIODS. 115\n\nmutable. When your race, the fifth, will have\nreached its zenith of physical intellectuality,\nand developed its highest civilization (remem-\nber the difference we make between material\nand spiritual civilizations), unable to go any\nhigher in its own cycle, its progress toward\nabsolute evil will be arrested (as its predeces-\nsors, the Lemurians and the Atlanteans, the\nmen of the third and fourth races, were arrested\nin their progress toward the same) by one of\nsuch cataclysmic changes, its great civilization\ndestroyed, and all the sub-races of that race\nwill be found going down their respective\ncycles, after a short period of glory and learn-\ning. See the remnants of the Atlanteans, the\nold Greeks and Romans (the modern belong to\nthe fifth race). See how great and how short,\nhow evanescent were their days of fame and\nglory. For they were but sub-races of the seven\noffshoots of the root race.1 No mother race,\nany more than her sub-races and offshoots, is\nallowed by the one reigning law to trespass\nupon the prerogatives of the race, or sub-race\nthat will follow it ; least of all to encroach\nupon the knowledge and powers in store for its\nsuccessor.\"\nThe \"progress toward absolute evil,\" arrested\n\n1 Branches of the subdivisions, according to vhe nomenclature I\nbave adopted previously,\n\n116 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nby the cataclysms of each race in turn, sets\nin with the acquisition, by means of ordinary\nintellectual research and scientific advance-\nment, of those powers over Nature which ac-\ncrue even now in adeptship from the premature\ndevelopment of higher faculties than those we\nordinarily employ. I have spoken slightly of\nthese powers in a preceding chapter, when en-\ndeavoring to describe our esoteric teachers ; to\ndescribe them minutely would lead me into a\nlong digression on occult phenomena. It is\nenough to say that they are such as cannot but\nbe dangerous to society generally, and provo-\ncative of all manner of crimes which would\nutterly defy detection, if possessed by persons\ncapable of regarding them as anything else but\na profoundly sacred trust. Now some of these\npowers are simply the practical application of\nobscure forces of Nature, susceptible of dis-\ncovery in the course of ordinary scientific prog-\nress. Such progress had been accomplished\nby the Atlanteans. The worldly men of sci-\nence in that race had learned the secrets of\nthe disintegration and reintegration of matter,\nwhich few but practical spiritualists as yet\nknow to be possible, and of control over the\nelementals, by means of which that and other\neven more portentous phenomena can be pro-\nduced. Such powers in the hands of persons\n\nTEE WORLD PERIODS. 117\n\nwilling to use them for merely selfish and un-\nscrupulous ends, must not only be productive of\nsocial disaster, but also for the persons who hold\nthem, of progress in the direction of that evilly-\nspiritual exaltation, which is a far more terri-\nble result than suffering and inconvenience in\nthis world. Thus it is, when physical intellect,\nunguarded by elevated morality, runs over into\nthe proper region of spiritual advancement, that\nthe natural law provides for its violent repres-\nsion. The contingency will be better under-\nstood when we come to deal with the general\ndestinies toward which humanity is tending.\n\nThe principle under which the various races\nof man as they develop are controlled collec-\ntively by the cyclic law, however they may in-\ndividually exercise the free will they unques-\ntionably possess, is thus very plainly asserted.\nFor people who have never regarded human\naffairs as covering more than the very short\nperiod with which history deals, the course of\nevents will perhaps, as a rule, exhibit no cyclic\ncharacter, but rather a checkered progress, has-\ntened sometimes by great men and fortunate\ncircumstances, sometimes retarded by war, big-\notry, or intervals of intellectual sterility, but\nmoving continually onward in the long ac-\ncount at one rate of speed or another. As the\nesoteric view of the matter, fortified by the\n\n118 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nwide range of observation which occult science\nis enabled to take, has an altogether opposite\ntendency, it seems worth while to conclude\nthese explanations with an extract from a dis-\ntinguished author, quite unconnected with the\noccult world, who nevertheless, from a close\nobservation of the mere historical record, pro-\nnounces himself decisively in favor of the theory\nof cycles. In his u History of the Intellectual\nDevelopment of Europe,\" Dr. J. W. Draper\nwrites as follows : —\n\n\" We are, as we often say, the creatures of\ncircumstances. In that expression there is a\nhigher philosophy than might at first sight ap-\npear. . . . From this more accurate point of\nview we should therefore consider the course\nof these events, recognizing the principle that\nthe affairs of men pass forward in a determi-\nnate way, expanding and unfolding themselves.\nAnd hence we see that the things of which we\nhave spoken as though they were matters of\nchoice, were in reality forced upon their appar-\nent authors by the necessity of the times. But\nin truth they should be considered as the pres-\nentation of a certain phase of life which nations\nin their onward course sooner or later assume.\nTo the individual, how well we know that a\nsober moderation of action, an appropriate grav.\nity of demeanor, belong to the mature period\n\nTHE WORLD PERIODS. 119\n\nof life, change from the wanton willfulness of\nyouth, which may be ushered in, or its begin-\nning marked by many accidental incidents ; in\none perhaps by domestic bereavements, in an-\nother by the loss of fortune, in a third by ill\nhealth. We are correct enough in imputing to\nsuch trials the change of chnracter ; but we\nnever deceive ourselves by supposing that it\nwould have failed to take place had those in-\ncidents not occurred. There runs an irresisti-\nble destiny in the midst of all these vicissitudes.\n. . . There are analogies between the life of a\nnation and that of an individual, who, though\nhe may be in one respect the maker of his own\nfortunes, for happiness or for misery, for good\nor for evil, though he remains here or goes\nthere as his inclinations prompt, though he\ndoes this or abstains from that as he chooses, is\nnevertheless held fast by an inexorable fate, —\na fate which brought him into the world in-\nvoluntarily, as far as he was concerned, which\npresses him forward through a definite career,\nthe stages of which are absolutely invariable,—\ninfancy, childhood, youth, maturity, old age,\nwith all their characteristic actions and pas-\nsions,— and which removes him from the scene\nat the appointed time, in most cases against his\nwill. So also it is with nations ; the voluntary\nis only the outward semblance, covering but\n\n120 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.\n\nhardly hiding the predetermined. Over the\nevents of life we may have control, but none\nwhatever over the law of its progress. There\nis a geometry that applies to nations an equa-\ntion of their curve of advance. That no mortal\nman can touch.\"",
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