The Secret Doctrine, page 196
That is to say, then, that there is nothing to militate against positive evidence of the fact; nothing, therefore, against the geological postulates of the Esoteric Philosophy. Dr. Berthold Seemann assures us in the Popular Science Review that:
The facts which botanists have accumulated for reconstructing these lost maps of the globe are rather comprehensive; and they have not been backward in demonstrating the former existence of several large tracts of solid land in parts now occupied by great oceans. The many striking points of contact between the present floras of the United States and Eastern Asia, induced them to assume that, during the present order of things, there existed a continental connection between South-Eastern Asia and Western America. The singular correspondence of the present flora of the Southern United States with that of the lignite flora of Europe induces them to believe that, in the Miocene period, Europe and America were connected by a land passage, of which Iceland, Madeira, and the other Atlantic islands are remnants; that, in fact, the story of an Atlantis, which an Egyptian priest told to Solon, is not purely fictitious, but rests upon a solid historical basis.... Europe of the Eocene period received the plants which spread over mountains and plains, valleys and river-banks (from Asia generally), neither exclusively from the South nor from the East. The West also furnished additions, and if at that period these were rather meagre, they show, at all events, that the bridge was already building, which, at a later period, was to facilitate communication between the two continents in such a remarkable manner. At that time some plants of the Western Continent began to reach Europe by means of the island of Atlantis, then probably just (?) just rising above the ocean.1829
And in another number of the same review1830 Mr. W. Duppa Crotch, M.A., F.L.S., in an article entitled “The Norwegian Lemming and its Migrations,” alludes to the same subject:
Is it probable that land could have existed where now the broad Atlantic rolls? All tradition says so: old Egyptian records speak of Atlantis, as Strabo and others have told us. The Sahara itself is the sand of an ancient sea, and the shells which are found upon its surface prove that, no longer ago than the Miocene period, a sea rolled over what is now desert. The voyage of the “Challenger” has proved the existence of three long ridges1831 in the Atlantic Ocean,1832 one extending for more than three thousand miles, and lateral spurs may, by connecting these ridges, account for the marvellous similarity of the fauna of the Atlantic islands.1833...
The submerged continent of Lemuria, in what is now the Indian Ocean, is considered to afford an explanation of many difficulties in the distribution of organic life, and, I think, the existence of a Miocene Atlantis will be found to have a strong elucidative bearing on subjects of greater interest (truly so!) than the migration of the lemming. At all events, if it can be shown that land existed in former ages where the North Atlantic now rolls, not only is a motive found for these apparently suicidal migrations, but also a strong collateral proof that what we call instincts are but the blind and sometimes even prejudicial inheritance of previously acquired experience.
At certain periods, we learn, multitudes of these animals swim to sea and perish. Coming, as they do, from all parts of Norway, the powerful instinct which survives throughout ages as an inheritance from their progenitors impels them to seek a continent, once existing but now submerged beneath the ocean, and to court a watery grave.
In an article containing a criticism of Mr. A. R. Wallace's Island Life—a work devoted largely to the question of the distribution of animals, etc.—Mr. Starkie Gardiner writes:
By a process of reasoning supported by a large array of facts of different kinds, he arrives at the conclusion that the distribution of life upon the land as we now see it has been accomplished without the aid of important changes in the relative positions of continents and seas. Yet if we accept his views, we must believe that Asia and Africa, Madagascar and Africa, New Zealand and Australia, Europe and America, have been united at some period not remote geologically, and that seas to the depth of 1,000 fathoms have been bridged over; but we must treat as “utterly gratuitous and entirely opposed to all the evidences at our command” (! !), the supposition that temperate Europe and temperate America, Australia, and South America, have ever been connected, except by way of the Arctic or Antarctic Circles, and that lands now separated by seas of more than 1,000 fathoms depth have ever been united.
Mr. Wallace, it must be admitted, has succeeded in explaining the chief features of existing life distribution, without bridging the Atlantic or Pacific, except towards the Poles, yet I cannot help thinking that some of the facts might perhaps be more easily explained by admitting the former existence of the connection between the coast of Chili and Polynesia1834 and Great Britain and Florida, shadowed by the sub-marine banks which stretch between them. Nothing is urged that renders these more direct connections impossible, and no physical reason is advanced why the floor of the ocean should not be upheaved from any depth. The route by which (according to the Anti-Atlantean and Lemurian hypotheses of Wallace) the floras of South America and Australia are supposed to have mingled, is beset by almost insurmountable obstacles, and the apparently sudden arrival of a number of subtropical American plants in our Eocenes necessitates a connection more to the South than the present 1,000 fathom line. Forces are unceasingly acting, and there is no reason why an elevating force once set in action in the centre of an ocean should cease to act until a continent is formed. They have acted and lifted out from the sea, in comparatively recent geological time, the loftiest mountains on earth. Mr. Wallace himself admits repeatedly that sea-beds have been elevated 1,000 fathoms, and islands have risen up from the depths of 3,000 fathoms; and to suppose that the upheaving forces are limited in power, is, it seems to me, to again quote from Island Life, “utterly gratuitous and entirely opposed to all the evidences at our command.”1835
The “father” of English Geology—Sir Charles Lyell—was a uniformitarian in his views of continental formation. We find him saying:
Professors Unger (Die Versunkene Insel Atlantis) and Heer (Flora Tertiaria Helvetiæ) have advocated on botanical grounds the former existence of an Atlantic Continent during some part of the tertiary period, as affording the only plausible explanation that can be imagined of the analogy between the Miocene flora of Central Europe, and the existing flora of Eastern America. Professor Oliver, on the other hand, after showing how many of the American types found fossil in Europe are common to Japan, inclines to the theory, first advanced by Dr. Asa Gray, that the migration of species, to which the community of types in the Eastern States of North America, and the Miocene flora of Europe is due, took place when there was an overland communication from America to Eastern Asia between the fiftieth and sixtieth parallels of latitude, or south of Behring's Straits, following the direction of the Aleutian islands. By this course they may have made their way, at any epoch, Miocene, Pliocene, or Postpliocene, antecedently to the Glacial epoch, to Amoorland, on the East coast of Northern Asia.1836
The unnecessary difficulties and complications here incurred in order to avoid the hypothesis of an Atlantic Continent, are really too apparent to escape notice. If the botanical evidences stood alone, scepticism would be partially reasonable; but in this case all branches of Science converge to one point. Science has made blunders, and has exposed itself to greater errors than it would be exposed to by the admission of our two now invisible Continents. It has denied even the undeniable, from the days of the Mathematician Laplace down to our own, and that only a few years ago.1837 We have Professor Huxley's authority for saying that there is no à priori improbability whatever against possible evidences supporting the belief. But now that the positive evidence is brought forward, will that eminent Scientist admit the corollary?
Touching on the problem in another place Sir Charles Lyell tells us:
Respecting the cosmogony of the Egyptian priests, we gather much information from writers of the Grecian sects, who borrowed almost all their tenets from Egypt, and amongst others that of the former successive destruction and renovation of the world (continental, not cosmic, catastrophes). We learn from Plutarch that this was the theme of one of the hymns of Orpheus, so celebrated in the fabulous ages of Greece. It was brought by him from the banks of the Nile; and we even find in his verses, as in the Indian systems, a definite period assigned for the duration of every successive world. The returns of great catastrophes were determined by the period of the Annus Magnus, or great year, a cycle composed of the revolutions of the sun, moon, and planets, and terminating when these return together to the same sign whence they were supposed at some remote epoch to have set out.... We learn particularly from the Timæus of Plato that the Egyptians believed the world to be subject to occasional conflagrations and deluges. The sect of Stoics adopted most fully the system of catastrophes destined at certain intervals to destroy the world. These, they taught, were of two kinds—the cataclysm, or destruction by deluge, which sweeps away the whole human race, and annihilates all the animal and vegetable productions of nature, and the ecpyrosis, or conflagration, which destroys the globe itself (submarine volcanoes). From the Egyptians they derived the doctrine of the gradual debasement of man from a state of innocence (nascent simplicity of the first sub-races of each Root-Race). Towards the termination of each era the gods could no longer bear with the wickedness of men (degeneracy into magical practices and gross animality of the Atlanteans), and a shock of the elements, or a deluge, overwhelmed them; after which calamity, Astræa again descended on the earth to renew the golden age (dawn of a new Root-Race).1838
Astræa, the Goddess of Justice, is the last of the deities to forsake the Earth, when the Gods are said to abandon it and to be taken up again into heaven by Jupiter. But, no sooner does Zeus carry from Earth Ganymedes—the object of lust, personified—than the Father of the Gods throws down Astræa on the Earth again, on which she falls upon her head. Astræa is Virgo, the constellation of the Zodiac. Astronomically it has a very plain significance, and one which gives the key to the occult meaning. But it is inseparable from Leo, the sign that precedes it, and from the Pleiades and their sisters, the Hyades, of which Aldebaran is the brilliant leader. All these are connected with the periodical renovations of the Earth, with regard to its continents—even Ganymedes, who in astronomy is Aquarius. It has already been shown that while the South Pole is the “Pit” (or the infernal regions figuratively and cosmologically), the North Pole is geographically the First Continent; while astronomically and metaphorically the Celestial Pole, with its Pole Star in Heaven, is Meru, or the Seat of Brahmâ, the Throne of Jupiter, etc. For in the age when the Gods forsook the Earth and were said to ascend into Heaven, the ecliptic had become parallel with the meridian, and part of the Zodiac appeared to descend from the North Pole to the north horizon. Aldebaran was in conjunction then with the Sun, as it was 40,000 years ago, at the great festival in commemoration of that Annus Magnus, of which Plutarch spoke. Since that Year—40,000 years ago—there has been a retrograde motion of the equator, and about 31,000 years ago Aldebaran was in conjunction with the vernal equinoctial point. The part assigned to Taurus, even in Christian Mysticism, is too well known to need repetition. The famous Orphic Hymn on the great periodical cataclysm divulges the whole Esotericism of the event. Pluto, in the Pit, carries off Eurydice, bitten by the Polar Serpent. Then Leo, the Lion, is vanquished. Now, when the Lion is “in the Pit,” or below the South Pole, then Virgo, as the next sign, follows him, and when her head, down to the waist, is below the southern horizon—she is inverted. On the other hand, the Hyades are the rain or Deluge constellations; and Aldebaran—he who follows, or succeeds the daughters of Atlas, or the Pleiades—looks down from the eye of Taurus. It is from this point of the ecliptic that the calculations of the new cycle were commenced. The student has to remember also, that when Ganymedes—Aquarius—is raised to heaven—or above the horizon of the North Pole—Virgo or Astræa, who is Venus-Lucifer, descends head downwards below the horizon of the South Pole, or the Pit; which Pit, or the Pole, is also the Great Dragon, or the Flood. Let the student exercise his intuition by placing these facts together; no more can be said. Lyell remarks:
The connection between the doctrine of successive catastrophes and repeated deteriorations in the moral character of the human race, is more intimate and natural than might at first be imagined. For, in a rude state of society, all great calamities are regarded by the people as judgments of God on the wickedness of man.... In like manner in the account given to Solon by the Egyptian priests of the submersion of the island of Atlantis under the waters of the ocean, after repeated shocks of an earthquake, we find that the event happened when Jupiter had seen the moral depravity of the inhabitants.1839
True; but was it not owing to the fact that all Esoteric truths were given out to the public by the Initiates of the temples under the guise of allegories? “Jupiter,” is merely the personification of that immutable Cyclic Law, which arrests the downward tendency of each Root-Race after attaining the zenith of its glory.1840 We must admit allegorical teaching, unless we hold with Prof. John Fiske's singularly dogmatic opinion that a myth:
Is an explanation by the uncivilized mind, of some natural phenomenon; not an allegory, not an esoteric symbol, for the ingenuity is wasted (!!) which strives to detect in myths the remnants of a refined primeval science—but an explanation. Primitive men had no profound science to perpetuate by means of allegory (how does Mr. Fiske know?), nor were they such sorry pedants as to talk in riddles when plain language would serve their purpose.1841
We venture to say the language of the initiated few was far more “plain,” and their Science-Philosophy far more comprehensive and satisfying alike to the physical and spiritual wants of man, than even the terminology and system elaborated by Mr. Fiske's master—Herbert Spencer. What, however, is Sir Charles Lyell's “explanation” of the “myth”? Certainly, he in no way countenances the idea of its “astronomical” origin, as asserted by some writers.
The two interpreters are entirely at variance with one another. Lyell's solution is as follows. A disbeliever in cataclysmal changes from the absence (?) of any reliable historical data on the point, as well as from a strong bias to the uniformitarian conceptions of geologic changes,1842 he attempts to trace the Atlantis “tradition” to the following sources:
(1) Barbarous tribes connect catastrophes with an avenging God, who is assumed in this way to punish immoral races.
(2) Hence the commencement of a new race is logically a virtuous one.
(3) The primary source of the geologic basis of the tradition was Asia—a continent subject to violent earthquakes. Exaggerated accounts would thus be handed down the ages.
(4) Egypt, being herself free from earthquakes, nevertheless based her not inconsiderable geologic knowledge on these cataclysmal traditions.
An ingenious “explanation,” as all such are! But proving a negative is proverbially a difficult task. Students of Esoteric Science, who know what the resources of the Egyptian priesthood really were, need no such laboured hypothesis. Moreover, while an imaginative theorist is always able to furnish a reasonable solution of problems which, in one branch of Science, seem to necessitate the hypothesis of periodical cataclysmic changes on the surface of our planet, the impartial critic who is not a specialist, will recognize the immense difficulty of explaining away the cumulative evidences—namely, the archaeological, ethnological, geological, traditional, botanical, and even biological—in favour of former continents now submerged. When each science is fighting for its own hand, the cumulative force of the evidence is almost invariably lost sight of.
In the Theosophist we wrote:
We have as evidence the most ancient traditions of various and wide-separated peoples—legends in India, in ancient Greece, Madagascar, Sumatra, Java, and all the principal isles of Polynesia, as well as the legends of both Americas. Among savages, and in the traditions of the richest literature in the world—the Sanskrit literature of India—there is an agreement in saying, that, ages ago, there existed in the Pacific Ocean, a large Continent, which by a geological upheaval was engulfed by the sea1843 (Lemuria). And it is our firm belief ... that most, if not all, of the islands from the Malayan Archipelago to Polynesia, are fragments of that once immense submerged Continent. Both Malacca and Polynesia, which lie at the two extremities of the ocean, and which, since the memory of man, never had nor could have any intercourse with, or even a knowledge of each other, have yet a tradition common to all the islands and islets, that their respective countries extended far, far into the Sea; that there were in the world but two immense continents, one inhabited by yellow, the other by dark men; and that the Ocean, by command of the Gods, and to punish them for their incessant quarrelling, swallowed them up. Notwithstanding the geographical fact that New Zealand, and Sandwich and Easter Islands, are at a distance from each other of between 800 and 1,000 leagues, and that, according to every testimony, neither these nor any other intermediate islands, for instance, the Marquesan, Society, Fiji, Tahitian, Samoan, and other islands, could, since they became islands, ignorant as their people were of the compass, have communicated with each other before the arrival of Europeans; yet they one and all maintain that their respective countries extended far toward the West, on the Asian side. Moreover with very small differences, they all speak dialects evidently of the same language, and understand each other with little difficulty, have the same religious beliefs and superstitions, and pretty much the same customs. And as few of the Polynesian islands were discovered earlier than a century ago, and the Pacific Ocean itself was unknown to Europe until the days of Columbus, and these islanders have never ceased repeating the same old traditions since the Europeans first set foot on their shores, it seems to us a logical inference that our theory is nearer to the truth than any other. Chance would have to change its name and meaning, were all this due but to chance alone.1844
