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    "slug": "vol-1-cosmogenesis",
    "name": "Volume I — Cosmogenesis"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 44,
    "slug": "46-xiv-forces----modes-of-motion-or-intelligences-601",
    "title": "XIV. FORCES -- MODES OF MOTION OR INTELLIGENCES? ... 601",
    "of": 48,
    "words": 4799,
    "text": "## XIV. FORCES -- MODES OF MOTION OR INTELLIGENCES? ... 601\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, vol 1, bk 3, ch 14\n\n###### The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol.\n1\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 601 HERMES AND KANT.\n\n##### XIV.\nFORCES -- MODES OF MOTION OR INTELLIGENCES?\n\n**T**HIS is, then, the last word of physical science\nup to the present year, 1888. Mechanical laws will never be able\nto prove the homogeneity of primeval matter, except inferentially\nand as a desperate necessity, when there will remain no other\nissue -- as in the case of Ether. Modern Science is secure only\nin its own domain and region; within the physical boundaries of\nour solar system, beyond which everything, every particle of matter,\nis different from the matter it knows: which matter exists in\nstates of which Science can form no idea. *That *matter,\nwhich is truly homogeneous, is beyond human perceptions, if perception\nis tied down merely to the five senses. We feel its effects through\nthose INTELLIGENCES which are the results of its primeval differentiation,\nwhom we name Dhyan-Chohans; called in the Hermetic works the \"Seven\nGovernors,\" those to whom Pymander, the \"Thought Divine,\"\nrefers as the Building Powers, and whom Asklepios calls the \"Supernal\nGods.\" That matter -- the real primordial substance, the\nnoumenon of all the \"matter\" we know of, -- even some\nof the astronomers have been led to believe in, and to despair\nof the possibility of ever accounting for rotation, gravitation,\nand the origin of any mechanical physical laws -- unless these\n*Intelligences *be admitted by Science. In the above-quoted\nwork upon astronomy, by Wolf,* the author endorses fully the theory\nof Kant, and the latter, if not in its general aspect, at any\nrate in some of its features, reminds one strongly of certain\nesoteric teachings. Here we have the world's system *reborn\nfrom its ashes*,* *through a nebula; the emanation\nfrom the bodies, dead and dissolved in Space -- resultant of the\n*incandescence *of the solar centre reanimated by the combustible\nmatter of the planets. In this theory, generated and developed\nin the brain of a young man hardly twenty-five years of age, who\nhad never left his native place, a small town of Northern Prussia\n(Konigsberg) one can hardly fail to recognise either an inspiring\nexternal power, or the *reincarnation *which the Occultists\nsee in it. It fills a gap which Newton, with all his genius, failed\nto bridge. And surely it is our primeval matter, Akasa, that Kant\nhad in view, when proposing to solve Newton's difficulty and his\nfailure to explain, by the natural forces, the primitive impulse\nimparted to the planets, by the postulation of a universally pervading\nprimordial substance. For, as he remarks in chapter viii., if\nit is once admitted that the perfect harmony of the stars and\nplanets and\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* \"**L**ES **H**YPOTHESES **C**OSMOGONIQUES.\n*Examen des Theories Scientifiques modernes sur l*'*Origine\ndes Mondes*,* suivi de la Traduction de la Theorie du Ciel\nde Kant.*\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 602 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nthe coincidence of their orbital planes prove the existence of\na natural cause, which would thus be the primal cause, \"that\ncause *cannot really be the matter which fills to*-*day\nthe heavenly spaces.*\"* *It must be that which\nfilled space -- was space -- originally, whose motion in differentiated\nmatter was the origin of the actual movements of the sidereal\nbodies; and which, \"*in condensing itself in those very\nbodies*,* *thus abandoned the space that is found void\nto-day.\" In other words, it is that same matter of which\nare now composed the planets, comets, and the Sun himself, which,\nhaving in the origin formed itself into those bodies, has preserved\nits inherent quality of motion; which quality, now centred in\ntheir nuclei, directs all motion. A very slight alteration of\nwords is needed, and a few additions, to make of this our Esoteric\nDoctrine.\n\nThe latter teaches that it is this original, primordial *prima\nmateria*,* *divine and intelligent, the direct emanation\nof the Universal Mind -- the *Daiviprakriti *(the divine\nlight emanating from the *Logos**)* *-- which formed\nthe nuclei of all the \"self-moving\" orbs in Kosmos.\nIt is the informing, ever-present moving-power and life-principle,\nthe vital soul of the suns, moons, planets, and even of our Earth.\nThe former latent: the last one active -- the invisible Ruler\nand guide of the gross body attached to, and connected with, its\nSoul, which is the spiritual emanation, after all, of these respective\nplanetary Spirits.\n\nAnother quite occult doctrine is the theory of Kant, that the\nmatter of which the inhabitants and the animals of other planets\nare formed is of *a lighter and more subtle nature and of a\nmore perfect conformation in proportion to their distance from\nthe Sun. *The latter is too full of Vital Electricity, of\nthe physical, life-giving principle. Therefore, the men on Mars\nare more ethereal than we are, while those of Venus are more gross,\nthough far more intelligent, if less spiritual.\n\nThe last doctrine is not quite ours -- yet those Kantian theories\nare as metaphysical, and as transcendental as any occult doctrines;\nand more than one man of Science would, if he but *dared *speak\nhis mind, accept them as Wolf does. From this Kantian mind and\nsoul of the Suns and Stars to the **M**AHAT (mind)\nand Prakriti of the Puranas, there is but a step. After all, the\nadmission of this by Science would be only the admission of a\nnatural cause, whether it would or would not stretch its belief\nto such metaphysical heights. But then *Mahat*,* *the\nMIND, is a \"God,\" and physiology admits \"mind\"\nonly as a temporary function of the material brain, and no more.\n\nThe Satan of Materialism now laughs at all alike, and denies the\nvisible as well as the invisible. Seeing in light, heat, electricity,\nand even in the *phenomenon of life*,* *only properties\ninherent in matter, it\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Which \"Light\" we call *Fohat.*\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 603 THE VITAL PRINCIPLE.\n\nlaughs whenever life is called **V**ITAL **P**RINCIPLE,\nand derides the idea of its being independent of and distinct\nfrom the organism.\n\nBut here again scientific opinions differ as in everything else,\nand there are several men of science who accept views very similar\nto ours. Consider, for instance, what Dr. Richardson, **F.R.S**.\n(elsewhere quoted at length) says of that \"Vital principle,\"\nwhich he calls \"nervous ether\" (\"*Popular Science\nReview*,\"* Vol. *10): --\n\n\"I speak only of a veritable *material agent*,* *refined,\nit may be, to the world at large, but *actual and substantial*:\nan agent having quality of weight and of volume, an agent susceptible\nof chemical combination, and thereby of change of physical state\nand condition, an agent passive in its action, moved always, that\nis to say, by influences apart from itself,* obeying other influences,\nan agent possessing no initiative power, no *vis or* *energia\nnaturae*,*** *but still playing a most important, if not\na primary part in the production of the phenomena resulting from\nthe action of the *energeia *upon visible matter\" (*p.*\n379).\n\nAs Biology and Physiology now deny, *in toto*,* *the\nexistence of a \"vital principle,\" this extract, together\nwith de Quatrefages' admission, is a clear confirmation that there\nare men of science who take the same views about \"things\noccult\" as theosophists and occultists do. These recognise\na distinct vital principle independent of the organism -- material,\nof course, *as physical force cannot be divorced from matter*,*\n*but of a substance existing in a state unknown to Science.\n*Life for them is something more than the mere interaction\nof molecules and atoms. *There is a vital principle without\nwhich no molecular combinations could ever have resulted in a\nliving organism, least of all in the so-called \"inorganic\"\nmatter of our plane of consciousness.\n\nBy \"molecular combinations\" is meant, of course, those\nof the matter of our present illusive perceptions, which matter\nenergises only on this, our plane. And this is the chief point\nat issue.***\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* This is a mistake, which implies a material agent, distinct\nfrom the influences which move it, *i.e.* blind matter\nand perhaps \"God\" again, whereas this ONE Life is the\nvery God and Gods \"Itself.\"\n\n** The same error.\n\n*** \"Is the *Jiva *a myth, as science says, or is\nit not?\" ask some Theosophists, wavering between materialistic\nand idealistic Science. The difficulty of really grasping esoteric\nproblems concerning the \"ultimate state of matter\" is\nagain the old crux of the* objective* and the *subjective.\n*What is matter? Is the matter of our present objective consciousness\nanything but our SENSATIONS? True, the sensations we receive come\n*from without*, but can we really (except in terms of phenomena)\nspeak of the \"gross matter\" of this plane as an entity\napart from and independent of us? To all such arguments Occultism\nanswers: True, in* reality* matter is not independent of,\nor existent outside, our perceptions. Man is an *illusion*:*\n*granted. But the existence and actuality of other, still\nmore illusive, but not less *actual*, entities than we\nare, is not a claim which is lessened, but rather strengthened\nby this doctrine of Vedantic and even Kantian Idealism.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 604 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nThus the Occultists are not alone in their beliefs. Nor are they\nso foolish, after all, in rejecting even the \"gravity\"\nof modern Science along with other *physical *laws, and\nin accepting instead *attraction *and *repulsion. *They\nsee, moreover, in these two opposite Forces only the two* aspects\n*of the universal unit, called \"**M**ANIFESTING\n**M**IND\"; in which aspects, Occultism, through\nits great Seers, perceives an innumerable Host of operative Beings:\nCosmic Dhyan-Chohans, Entities, whose essence, in its *dual\n*nature, is the Cause of all terrestrial phenomena. For that\nessence is co-substantial with the universal Electric Ocean, which\nis **L**IFE; and being dual, as said -- positive\nand negative -- it is the emanations of that duality that act\nnow on earth under the name of \"modes of motion\"; even\n*Force *having now become objectionable as a word, for\nfear it should lead someone, even in thought, to separate it from\nmatter! It is, as Occultism says, the dual *effects *of*\n*that dual essence, which have now been called centripetal\nand centrifugal forces, negative and positive poles, or polarity,\nheat and cold, light and darkness, etc., etc.\n\nAnd it is maintained that even the Greek and Roman Catholic Christians,\nare wiser in believing, as they do -- even if blindly connecting\nand tracing them all to an anthropomorphic god -- in Angels, Archangels,\nArchons, Seraphs, and Morning Stars: in all those theological\n*Deliciae humani generis*,* *in short, that rule\nthe cosmic elements, than Science is, in disbelieving in them\naltogether, and advocating its mechanical Forces. For these act\nvery often with more than human intelligence and pertinency. Nevertheless,\nthat intelligence is denied and attributed to blind chance. But,\nas De Maistre was right in calling the law of gravitation merely\na *word *which replaced \"the thing unknown\" (*Soirees*),*\n*so are we right in applying the same remark to all the other\n*Forces* of Science. And if it is objected that the Count\nwas an ardent Roman Catholic, then we may cite Le Couturier, as\nardent a materialist, who said the same thing, as also did Herschell\nand many others. (*Vide Musee des Sciences*,* August*,\n1856.)\n\nFrom *Gods *to* men*,* *from Worlds to atoms,\nfrom a star to a rush-light, from the Sun to the vital heat of\nthe meanest organic being -- the world of Form and Existence is\nan immense chain, whose links are all connected. The law of Analogy\nis the first key to the world-problem, and these links have to\nbe studied co-ordinately in their occult relations to each other.\n\nWhen, therefore, the Secret Doctrine -- postulating that conditioned\nor limited space (location) has no real being except in this world\nof illusion, or, in other words, in our perceptive faculties --\nteaches that every one of the higher, as of the lower worlds,\nis interblended with our own objective world; that millions of\nthings and beings are, in point of\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 605 OCCULT AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES.\n\nlocalization, around and *in *us, as we are around, with,\nand in them; it is no metaphysical figure of speech, but a sober\nfact in Nature, however incomprehensible to our senses.\n\nBut one has to understand the phraseology of Occultism before\ncriticising what it asserts. For example, the Doctrine refuses\n(as Science does, in one sense) to use the words \"above\"\nand \"below,\" \"higher\" and \"lower,\"\nin reference to *invisible *spheres, as being without meaning.\nEven the terms \"East\" and \"West\" are merely\nconventional, necessary only to aid our human perceptions. For,\nthough the Earth has its two fixed points in the poles, North\nand South, yet both East and West are variable relatively to our\nown position on the Earth's surface, and in consequence of its\nrotation from West to East. Hence, when \"*other *worlds\"\nare mentioned -- whether better or worse, more spiritual or still\nmore material, though both invisible -- the Occultist does not\nlocate *these spheres *either *outside *or *inside\n*our Earth, as the theologians and the poets do; for their\nlocation is nowhere in the space *known *to, and conceived\nby, the profane. They are, as it were, blended with our world\n-- interpenetrating it and interpenetrated by it. There are millions\nand millions of worlds and firmaments visible to us; there still\ngreater numbers beyond those visible to the telescopes, and many\nof the latter kind do not belong to our *objective *sphere\nof existence. Although as invisible as if they were millions of\nmiles beyond our solar system, they are yet with us, near us,\n*within *our own world, as objective and material to their\nrespective inhabitants as ours is to us. But, again, the relation\nof these worlds to ours is not that of a series of egg-shaped\nboxes enclosed one within the other, like the toys called Chinese\nnests; each is entirely under its own special laws and conditions,\nhaving no direct relation to our sphere. The inhabitants of these,\nas already said, may be, for all we know, or feel, passing *through\n*and *around *us as if through empty space, their very\nhabitations and countries being interblended with ours, though\nnot disturbing our vision, because we have not yet the faculties\nnecessary for discerning them. Yet by their spiritual sight the\nAdepts, and even some seers and sensitives, are always able to\ndiscern, whether in a greater or smaller degree, the presence\nand close proximity to us of Beings pertaining to other spheres\nof life. Those of the (spiritually) higher worlds, communicate\nonly with those terrestrial mortals who ascend to them, through\nindividual efforts, on to the higher plane they are occupying.\n. . .\n\n\"**T**HE SONS OF *Bhumi *(**E**ARTH)\nREGARD THE **S**ONS OF *Deva*-*lokas *(ANGEL-SPHERES)\nAS THEIR GODS; AND THE **S**ONS OF LOWER KINGDOMS\nLOOK UP TO THE MEN OF *Bhumi*,* *AS TO THEIR *devas\n*(GODS); MEN REMAINING UNAWARE OF IT IN THEIR BLINDNESS. .\n. . **T**HEY (*me*n) TREMBLE\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 606 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nBEFORE THEM WHILE USING THEM (*for magical purposes*).\n. . . **T**HE FIRST **R**ACE OF **M**EN\nWERE THE \"*Mind*-*born sons*\"* *OF\nTHE FORMER. **T**HEY (*the pitris and devas*)*\n*ARE OUR PROGENITORS. . . . (*Book II. of Commentary on\nthe Book of DZYAN.*)\n\n\"Educated people,\" so-called, deride the idea of Sylphs,\nSalamanders, Undines, and Gnomes; the men of science regard as\nan insult any mention of such superstitions; and with a contempt\nof logic and common good sense, that is often the prerogative\nof \"accepted authority,\" they allow those, whom it is\ntheir duty to instruct, to labour under the absurd impression\nthat in the whole Kosmos, or at any rate in our own atmosphere,\nthere are no other conscious, intelligent beings, save ourselves.*\nAny other humanity (composed of distinct *human *beings)\nthan a mankind with two legs, two arms, and a head with man's\nfeatures on it, would not be called human; though the etymology\nof the word would seem to have little to do with the general appearance\nof a creature. Thus, while Science sternly rejects even the possibility\nof there being such (to us, generally) invisible creatures, Society,\nwhile believing in it all *secretly*,* *is made\nto deride the idea openly. It hails with mirth such works as the\n*Count de Gabalis*,* *and fails to understand that\n*open satire is the securest mask.*\n\nNevertheless, such invisible worlds do exist. Inhabited as thickly\nas our own is, they are scattered throughout apparent Space in\nimmense number; some far more material than our own world, others\ngradually etherealizing until they become formless and are as\n\"*Breaths.*\"* *That our physical eye does\nnot see them, is no reason to disbelieve in them; physicists can\nsee neither their ether, atoms, nor \"modes of motion,\"\nor Forces. Yet they accept and teach them.\n\nIf we find, even in the natural world with which we are acquainted,\nmatter affording a partial analogy in the difficult conception\nof such *invisible *worlds, there seems little difficulty\nin recognizing the possibility of such a presence. The tail of\na comet, which, though attracting our attention by virtue of its\nluminosity, yet does not disturb or impede our vision of objects,\nwhich we perceive through and beyond it, affords the first stepping-stone\ntoward a proof of the same. The tail of a comet passes rapidly\nacross our horizon, and we should neither feel it, nor be cognizant\nof its passage, but for the brilliant coruscation, often perceived\nonly by a few interested in the phenomenon, while everyone else\nremains ignorant of its presence and passage *through*,*\n*or across, a portion of our globe. This tail may, or may\nnot, be an integral portion of the being of the comet, but its\ntenuity sub-\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Even the question of the plurality of worlds inhabited by sentient\ncreatures is rejected or approached with the greatest caution!\nAnd yet see what the great astronomer, Camille Flammarion, says\nin his \"*Pluralite des Mondes.*\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 607 PLURALITY OF WORLDS.\n\nserves our purpose as an illustration. Indeed, it is no question\nof superstition, but simply a result of transcendental science,\nand of logic still more, to admit the existence of worlds formed\nof even far more attenuated matter than the tail of a comet. By\ndenying such a possibility, Science has played for the last century\ninto the hands of neither philosophy nor true religion, but simply\ninto those of theology. To be able to dispute the better the plurality\nof even material worlds, a belief thought by many churchmen incompatible\nwith the teachings and doctrines of the Bible,* Maxwell had to\ncalumniate the memory of Newton, and try to convince his public\nthat the principles contained in the Newtonian philosophy are\nthose \"which lie at the foundation of all atheistical systems.\"\n(*Vide *Vol. II., \"*Plurality of Worlds.*\")\n\n\"Dr. Whewell disputed the plurality of worlds by appeal to\nscientific evidence,\" writes Professor Winchell.** And if\neven the habitability of physical worlds, of planets, and distant\nstars which shine in myriads over our heads is so disputed, how\nlittle chance is there for the acceptance of invisible worlds\nwithin the apparently transparent space of our own!\n\nBut, if we can conceive of a world composed (for *our *senses)\nof matter still more attenuated than the tail of a comet, hence\nof inhabitants in it who are as ethereal, in proportion to *their\n*globe, as we are in comparison with *our *rocky, hard-crusted\nearth, no wonder if we do not perceive them, nor sense their presence\nor even existence. Only, in what is the idea contrary to science?\nCannot men and animals, plants and rocks, be supposed to be endowed\nwith quite a different set of senses from those we possess? Cannot\ntheir organisms be born, developed, and exist, under other laws\nof being than those that rule our little world? Is it absolutely\nnecessary that every corporeal being should be clothed in \"coats\nof skin\" like those that Adam and Eve were provided with\nin the legend of Genesis? Corporeality, we are told, however,\nby more than one man of science, \"may exist under very divergent\nconditions.\"*** Do not we know through the\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Nevertheless, it will be shown on the testimony of the Bible\nitself, and of such good Christian theologians as Cardinal Wiseman,\nthat this plurality is taught in both the *Old* and the\n*New* Testaments.\n\n** See \"The Plurality of the Worlds,\" wherein the list\nof many men of Science, who wrote to prove the theory, is given.\n\n*** Professor A. Winchell -- arguing upon the plurality of the\nworlds -- makes the following remarks: \"It is not at all\nimprobable that substances of a refractory nature might be so\nmixed with other substances, known or unknown to us, as to be\ncapable of enduring vastly greater vicissitudes of heat and cold\nthan is possible with terrestrial organisms. The tissues of terrestrial\nanimals are simply suited to terrestrial conditions. Yet even\nhere we find different types and species of animals adapted to\nthe trials of extremely dissimilar situations. . . . . . That\nan animal should be a quadruped or a [[Footnote continued on next\npage]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 608 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\ndiscoveries of that very all-denying science that we are surrounded\nby myriads of invisible lives? If these microbes, bacteria and\nthe *tutti quanti *of the infinitesimally small, are invisible\nto us by virtue of their minuteness, cannot there be, at the other\npole of it, beings as invisible owing to the quality of their\ntexture or matter -- to its tenuity, in fact? Conversely, as to\nthe effects of cometary matter, have we not another example of\na half visible form of life and matter? The ray of sunlight entering\nour apartment, reveals in its passage myriads of tiny beings living\ntheir little life and ceasing to be, independent and heedless\nof whether they are perceived or not by our grosser materiality.\nAnd so again, of the microbes and bacteria and such-like unseen\nbeings in other elements. We passed them by, during those long\ncenturies of dreary ignorance, after the lamp of knowledge in\nthe heathen and highly philosophical systems had ceased to throw\nits bright light on the ages of intolerance and bigotry during\nearly Christianity; and we would fain pass them by again now.\n\nAnd yet these *lives* surrounded us *then *as they\ndo now. They have worked on, obedient to their own laws, and it\nis only as they were gradually revealed by Science that we have\nbegun to take cognisance of them, as of the effects produced by\nthem.\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]] biped is something not\ndepending on the necessities of organization, or instinct, or\nintelligence. That an animal should possess just five senses is\nnot a necessity of percipient existence. There may be animals\non the earth with neither smell nor taste. There may be beings\non other worlds, and *even on this*,* *who possess\nmore numerous senses than we. The possibility of this is apparent\nwhen we consider the high probability that other properties and\nother modes of existence lie among the resources of the Kosmos,\nand even of terrestrial matter. There are animals which subsist\nwhere rational man would perish -- in the soil, in the river,\nand the sea\" . . . (and why not *human* beings of\ndifferent organizations, in such case?) . . . \"Nor is incorporated\nrational existence conditioned on warm blood, nor on any temperature\nwhich does not change the forms of matter of which the organism\nmay be composed. *There may be intelligences corporealized\n*after some concept not involving the processes of injection,\nassimilation, and reproduction. Such bodies would not require\ndaily food and warmth. They might be lost in the abysses of the\nocean, or laid up on a stormy cliff through the tempests of an\nArctic winter, or plunged in a volcano for a hundred years, and\nyet retain consciousness and thought. It is conceivable. Why might\nnot psychic natures be enshrined in indestructible flint and platinum?\nThese substances are no further from the nature of intelligence\nthan carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and lime. But, not to carry the\nthought to such an extreme (?), might not high intelligences be\nembodied in frames as indifferent to external conditions as the\nsage of the western plains, or the lichens of Labrador, the rotifers\nthat remain dried for years, or the spores of bacteria which pass\nliving through boiling water. . . . These suggestions are made\nsimply to remind the reader how little can be argued respecting\nthe necessary conditions of intelligent, organized existence,\nfrom the standard of corporeal existence found upon the earth.\nIntelligence is, from its nature, as universal and as uniform\nas the laws of the Universe. Bodies are merely the local fitting\nof intelligence to particular modifications of universal matter\nor Force.\" (*World*-*Life*,* or Comparative\nGeology*,* *pp. 496-498 *et seq.*)\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 609 THE GEOLOGY OF ENOCH.\n\nHow long has it taken the world, as it is now, to become what\nit is? If it can be said of cosmic dust that some of it comes\nto the present day \"*which had never belonged to the earth\nbefore*\"* *(\"*World*-*Life*\"),*\n*how* *much more logical to believe -- as the Occultists\ndo -- that through the countless ages and millions of years that\nhave rolled away, since that dust aggregated and formed the globe\nwe live in around its *nucleus *of *intelligent*\nprimeval substance -- many humanities, differing from our present\nmankind, as greatly as the one which will evolve millions of years\nhence will differ from our races, appeared but to disappear from\nthe face of the earth, as our own will. Those primitive and far-distant\nhumanities, having, as geologists think, left no tangible relics\nof themselves, are denied. All trace of them is swept away, and\ntherefore they have never existed. Yet their relics -- a very\nfew of them, truly -- are to be found, and they have to be discovered\nby geological research. Though, even if they were never to be\nmet with, there is no reason to say that no men could have ever\nlived in those geological times, to which the period of their\npresence on earth is assigned. For their organisms needed no warm\nblood, no atmosphere, no feeding; the author of \"World-Life\"\nis right, and it is no such *great extreme *to believe\neven as we do, that as there may be, on scientific hypotheses,\n\"psychic natures enshrined in indestructible flint and platinum\"\nto this day, so there were psychic natures enshrined in forms\nof equal *indestructible *primeval matter -- the real forefathers\nof our fifth race.\n\nWhen we speak, therefore, as in Book II., of men who inhabited\nthis globe 18,000,000 years back, we have in the mind neither\nthe men of our present races, nor the present atmospheric laws,\nthermal conditions, etc. The Earth and mankind, like the Sun,\nMoon, and planets, have all their growth, changes, developments,\nand gradual evolution in their life-periods; they are born, become\ninfants, then children, adolescents, grown-up bodies, grow old,\nand finally die. Why should not *Mankind *be* *also\nunder this universal law? Says Uriel to Enoch: \"Behold, I\nhave showed thee all things. Thou seest the Sun, Moon, and those\nwhich conduct the stars of heaven, *which cause all their operations*,*\n*seasons, and arrivals to return. . . . *In the days of\nsinners *the years shall be shortened . . . everything done\non Earth shall be subverted . . . the moon shall change its laws\"\n. . . etc. (Ch. *lxxix.*)\n\nThe \"days of Sinners\" meant the days when matter would\nbe in its full sway on Earth, and man would have reached the apex\nof physical development in stature and animality. That came to\npass during the period of the Atlanteans, about the middle point\nof their Race (the 4th), which was drowned as prophesied by Uriel.\nSince then man began decreasing in physical stature, strength,\nand years, as will be shown in\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 610 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nBook II. But as we are in the mid-point of our *sub*-*race\n*of the Fifth Root Race -- the acme of materiality in each\n-- therefore the animal propensities, though more refined, are\nnot the less developed for that: and they are so chiefly in civilized\ncountries.\n\n-------\n\n[[This page continued in next section]]\n\nNext Section\n\nContents",
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