CHAPTER II
THE RISE AND FALL OF CIVILIZATIONS
In Fig. 12 we have a picture of the world today.
|
|
In its many lands-north and south,
east and west — live many peoples of diverse
races and creeds, and a study of their race-characteristics
and customs is one of great
fascination. The study of peoples, aiming to
...
- 36 -
understand their racial characteristics, is called
Ethnology. We shall be better able to understand
what Theosophy teaches as to the rise
and fall of civilizations, if we first study what
modern scientific research tells us of the living
races of mankind.
The peoples of the world today can be
classified in many ways; among them are two
recognized as trustworthy guides. It is found
that the shape of the head and the texture of
the hair are two fairly safe methods of classification,
as they are characteristics which pass on
from generation to generation with but little
modification. Peoples are first divided into
three groups according to their "cephalic
index", as either dolichocephalous or long-headed,
or brachycephalous or short-headed,
or mesaticephalous or medium-headed. The
"cephalic index" is that figure obtained when
the maximum breadth of the head is stated as a
percentage of its maximum length. Taking
one hundred as the length of the head, then
when its width is below seventy-five, a man is
called dolichocephalous or long-headed; between
seventy-five and eighty he is mesaticephalous
or medium-headed; and above eighty
he is said to be brachycephalous or short-headed.
- 37 -
The second method of classification, according to the texture of the hair, is due to the fact
that hair may be woolly and kinky, or curly
and wavy, or straight and smooth. In woolly
hair, each hair is flattened like a ribbon, and
a transverse section under the microscope is
seen to be a flat ellipse. Smooth and straight
hair is round like a wire, and a microscopical
section shows it to be circular. Wavy and
curly hair is midway between the two peculiarities
of oval and circular, and its section is an
oval ellipse. It is these structural characteristics
which make hair woolly, or straight, or wavy.
These two broad methods of classifications,
according to the cephalic index and according
to the hair, are summed up in Fig. 13.
|
|
Broca's classification shows us three main types of
people. No race in all its individuals follows
one type only; in each may be found long-headed
or medium-headed or short-headed
individuals; but one of the three types will
predominate, and according to that will be the
classification of the race. Sometimes, however,
even though the hair will be a sure indication of
classification, a race may be so mixed
that the ethnologist is uncertain whether it
should be labelled medium-headed rather than
long-headed or short-headed.
- 38 -
The classification of Flower and Lydekker is
but little different, though it also takes into
consideration the facial angle, the color of the
hair and skin, and other physical peculiarities.
It is noteworthy that both these systems of
classification give us in the world today three
principal types of races: (1) the Ethiopian
type, dark-skinned, almost black, with thick
lips, head tending to be dolichocephalic, and
with black, woolly hair; (2) the Mongolian,
with high cheek. bones, yellow or reddish in
complexion, hair black, straight and smooth,
and, in the men, scanty on. the face; (3) the
...
- 39 -
Aryan or Caucasian, either white or brown,
with hair curling or with tendency to curl, in
color flaxen, brown, black or "carroty"; the
beard is usually full.
We have excellent examples of the Ethiopian
type in Figs. 14 and 15. The woolly hair, the
broad nose and thick lips are prominent in
these peoples. Though these two individuals,
chosen as examples of their race-type, are not
handsome according to our standards of
beauty, nevertheless they are not repulsive.
Fig. 14 shows strength and dignity of a kind,
|
|
while Fig. 15 shows a rugged but artistic
modelling that would have delighted the eye
of Rodin.
|
Figs. 16, 17 and 18 give us examples of the
second type. We have it in a crude form in
Fig. 16, which is that of a Red Indian "squaw'"
from British Columbia, with her high cheek
bones and long, lank hair.
|
More typical of the
second type are Figs. 17 and 18; in the former
we have a Red Indian from the north-west of
the United States,
|
and in the latter a Chinese
mandarin; the high cheek bones and the
smooth, hairless face show us at once to which
type they belong.
|
and a
bearded Englishman (Fig. 20).
|
|
In the Aryan
or Caucasian races we have in some respects
the highest forms, not only for beauty of structure,
but also for quick response to external
stimuli and high sensitiveness to the finer philosophical
and artistic thoughts and emotions.
The peoples of the world today have their
civilizations; but no nation continues for ever,
and the fate of Nineveh and Tyre, of Greece
and Rome, will be the fate of all. Some will
vanish utterly, leaving hardly a trace; others
like Greece, will leave to mankind a mighty
message of the art of life. We may know something
of the rise and fall of civilizations by a
study of history, but in historical studies we see
the past through the refracting medium of time
and tradition, and we can never be fully certain
that our conclusions are not partial or erroneous.
Yet without a study of the past of
humanity, we cannot judge of the present or
construct the future, and our philosophy of
life cannot be true to fact.
Theosophy opens a new way to study the
civilizations that have been, a method in which,
for the time, the past becomes the present, and
therefore written records or traditions are not
...
- 41 -
essential. Difficult as is this subject to expound,
yet an attempt must be made, for it is
one of the fundamental truths of existence, to
which we shall have to refer again and again
in the course of this exposition of Theosophy.
In Chapter I it was mentioned that behind
all life and form, as their heart and soul, is a
great Consciousness. It is His manifestation
that is the evolutionary process, and "in Him
we live and move and have our being". Of
Him Theosophists today speak as the
Logos.
To that Consciousness there is no Past, and
what to us has been is with Him an event that
is happening even Now. To the Logos,
the Past is as the Present, and the event of each
moment of past time is still happening in Him,
is still a part of His present Self. Mortal
mind can little understand the "Eternal Now";
and yet it is one of the greatest of truths, which,
when grasped, shows new values to all things.
Mysterious and incredible as is this "Eternal
Now", yet man too may know something of it.
Man, the individual evolving soul, is in truth
made in the image of his Maker, and what
He is in His fullness now, that man will become
someday. Hence it is that, by a certain
development of faculties latent in the human
consciousness, men can touch even now the
...
- 42 -
fringe, as it were, of the Consciousness of the
Logos, and so, with Him, see the Past as happening
even now. It is no picture which
passes before the vision of the investigator, no
panorama which unveils itself before him, as
on a stage; it is an actual living in the so-called
Past. He has but to select that part of the
"Past" which he desires to investigate, and
then he is of it, and in it. Does he desire to see
the earth before its crust has solidified? Then
he lives millions of years ago, and round him
is the earth with its seething molten metals,
and he can watch what is happening, hear the
explosions, and feel the heat and the pressure.
And this in no dream condition, but exactly
as he may go into a busy thoroughfare today,
hear the roar of the traffic, watch the people as
they go to and fro, or look up at the sun and the
clouds, and note whatsoever thing interests
him. Does he desire to hear an oration of
Pericles or see a triumph of Caeser? Then he
is in Athens or in Rome; the life of that day is
all around him; he hears the musical Greek
or the sonorous Latin; he watches the actors
in life's drama of those days. The Book of
Time is spread out before him, and it is for
him to select an event which, to us, happened
a thousand years since; but, as he puts himself
...
- 43 -
in touch with the Memory of the Logos, the Past
becomes for him the Present, and he may study
it with such faculties as he possesses today.
Theosophical investigators, of present and
past generations, have thus investigated the
Past of the earth by watching this Record in
the Memory of the Logos; and much information
gathered in this way forms a part of
Theosophical teaching. What they have
found in their researches into past civilizations
is as follows.
Long, long ago — over one million years
ago — the distribution of land and water was as
shown in Fig. 21, the dark, shaded parts
representing land.
|
|
We know that the surface of
...
- 44 -
the earth is changing all the time, with here a
coastline slowly sinking, and there new land
rising out of the waves; but how may anyone
know exactly what was the distribution of land
and water a million years ago? It is this that is
possible; first, by watching the Record, and
secondly, by study in the museum of the
Adept
Brotherhood. The Hierarchy, or the Great Brotherhood,
mentioned in the Introduction,
has preserved, from the day man began his
habitation of the earth, fossils and skeletons,
maps, models and manuscripts, illustrative of
the development of the earth and its inhabitants,
animal and human. To those who,
through utter renunciation of self and service
of man, earn the privilege, the study of past
forms and civilizations in this wonderful museum
is a never-failing delight. There, the
Theosophical investigator finds models in clay
of the appearance of the earth long ago, before
this or that cataclysm, patiently constructed
for the guidance of later generations of students
by the Adept investigators of past civilizations.
The maps of Figs. 21-24 have been drawn after
a survey of the land and water by watching
the earth's changes, and afterwards checking
such survey with the globes in the museum of
the Brotherhood.
- 45 -
As we look at the map in Fig. 21, we see
that most of the land today was under the
waves then, while most of the land of those
days has sunk below the sea, leaving here and
there remnants, as in Australasia and in parts
of other continents. The continent which is
seen to extend along the equator and south of
it, covering much of the present Pacific Ocean,
is called Lemuria by the students of Theosophy.
The term is taken from the naturalist Sclater,
who believed in the existence of some such
continent, because of the unusual distribution
over wide territories of the Lemur monkeys.
Even in the days of Lemuria, men peopled the
earth, and the Lemurian peoples were of our
first type, as in Figs. 14 and 15. The pure
Negroes and other woolly-haired races today
are remnants of the ancient Lemurians, with
little change of type, except a diminution of
stature.
Slowly, as years passed, the configuration became
as in Fig. 22.
|
|
and as we come to the days of Fig.
24, there remains of the once vast continent of
Atlantis only a large island in the Atlantic
Ocean.
|
The story of its sinking as narrated
to Solon, Plato's ancestor, by the Egyptian
priests, is given by Plato in his Timaeus and
Kritias. In 9564 B.C. mighty convulsions destroyed
this last remnant of Atlantis, and the
...
- 47 -
island sank so rapidly under the sea that it
created a huge tidal wave which swept the low-lands
of the earth, and left in men's minds the
...
- 48 -
tradition of a vast, devastating "flood". As
Atlantis sank under the waves, other parts of
the earth, such as the desert of Sahara, rose up;
and what was once an inland sea of Central
Asia became what is now the Gobi Desert, and
the earth took on more or less its appearance
of today.
That Atlantis is not a mere myth is easily
seen when we look at Fig. 25.
|
|
It gives us in
outline the bed of the Atlantic Ocean, as mapped
out according to deep sea soundings.
Round the Azores, the land does not slope
gently down, as in the ordinary coast lands, but
descends precipitously; for, when Atlantis was
above the level of the ocean, the present Azores
were the inaccessible, snow-clad tops of the
...
- 49 -
highest mountain range of the sunken continent.
Long before the destruction of Atlantis,
however, a new race of men had sprung up
round the southern shores of the Central Asian
sea. These are the Aryans or Caucasians,
our third type, of Figs. 19 and 20.
Southwards
and westwards they spread, becoming Hindus,
Arabs and Persians, Greeks and Romans, Celts,
Slavs and Teutons.
Thus in Lemuria, Atlantis and Asia, arose
the three races whose descendants people the
earth today.
Theosophy teaches that the rise and fall of
civilizations is not a mechanical development,
"a Checkerboard of Nights and Days where
Destiny with Men for Pieces plays". Nations
come, and nations go, but always according to
a Plan. The Logos, from the beginning of
human existence, has planned what races, and
what religions and sciences appropriate to
them, shall appear one after the other, and
His Agents on earth, the Great Brotherhood,
carry out His Plan. It is the Adept Brothers
who, using all nature's forces, visible and invisible,
direct the evolutionary process throughout the millions of years. In that Brotherhood,
there are two Adepts whose work is to
...
- 50 -
mould the destiny of each great race. One
is called the Manu, who directs the physical
development of the race, forming the new
race-type by modification from that already
existing, according to the Plan of the Logos
set before Him. It is the Manu who guides
the migrations of the race, gives to each people
its polity, and directs each to do its appointed
work. The other guardian of the race is its
Bodhisattva, or Spiritual Teacher, who watches
over its intellectual and emotional development,
and arranges for each people such religions,
arts and sciences as shall enable it to
play its role in the drama written by the Logos.
Following the Plan of the Logos, during
that period of time in which humanity evolves
on earth, seven great race-types are made to
appear, called "Root-races ". So far in the
evolution of men, only five of the seven have
appeared; of them the First and the Second
appeared so long ago that they have left no
direct descendants.
Each Root-race has seven modifications,
called "sub-races". A sub-race has the fundamental
characteristics of the Root-race, but it
has also some tendency or modification peculiar
to itself. In Fig. 26 we have the names of the
three Root-races and their sub-races, whose
...
- 51 -
representatives we have seen in the three race-types already studied.
|
|
The Third Root-race
is the Lemurian, and its earlier sub-races, the
first, second and third, have left no trace at all.
Negroes, Negritos, Negrillos, and other woolly-haired
peoples represent the later sub-races of
the Lemurian Root-race. Hardly anywhere is
a Root-race to be found now quite pure, but
though it may have intermingled with other
races, usually it still shows its peculiar characteristics.
- 52 -
From the seventh sub-race of the Lemurian,
the Manu of the Fourth Root-race developed
the new Root-race, the Fourth or the Atlantean.
It too has its seven sub-races. Of the
first and second of its sub-races no pure descendants
are living, but the skeleton of the
"Furfooz man" is a fair specimen of the first,
and that of the "Cro-Magnon man" of the
second. The third, the Toltec sub-race, still
remains in the "Indios" (Indians) of South
and Central America, and the Red Indians of
the United States and Canada. The fourth
migrated from Atlantis, and went eastwards,
past Babylonia, along the Yellow River into
the plains of China. Its peoples are represented
in certain parts of China today by a
tall, yellow Chinese race, quite distinct from
the later seventh sub-race Chinese. The "original
Semites", the fifth sub-race, have left
their descendants for us in the white pure Jews,
and in the Kabyles of North Africa. The
sixth, the Akkadians, were the Phoenicians, who
traded in the Mediterranean Seas; and the
seventh, or Mongolians, were developed out of
the fourth or Turanian on the plains of China,
and became the modern Chinese. Two races,
the Japanese and the Malays, belong hardly
to any special one of its sub-races, having in
...
- 53 -
them the mixture of two or more. With the
Japanese especially, it is as though they are a
final ebullition of the whole Root-race, as a
crowning effort, before the energies of the race
begin their slow decline; hence they possess
many qualities which differentiate them from
the seventh sub-race, the Chinese.
From the fifth or "original Semite" sub-race
of the Atlantean, the Manu of the Fifth Root-race
evolved His new type. The Fifth or
Aryan Root-race also has its Seven subdivisions,
but so far only five of them have appeared. Of the first are the Aryan Hindus, as also
one type among the ancient Egyptians — that
to which the upper ruling classes belonged.
The second is the Aryan Semite, distinct from
the "original Semite", and it has its representatives
today in the Arabs and the Moors.
The third is the Iranian, to which belonged
the ancient Persians, and whose descendants.
are the Iranians and Parsis of today. Of the
fourth sub-race, or the Celts, were the ancient.
Greeks and Romans; and to it belong, with
the exception of those of Teutonic descent,
their modern descendants in Italy, Greece,
France, Portugal and Spain and their descendants
in South and Central America,
Mexico and the Antilles. The Irish, the Scots,
...
- 54 -
the Welsh, the Manx and the Bretons must
also be numbered among the Celts.
To the Teutonic sub-race belong the Slavs,
the Scandinavians, the Dutch; the Germans,
the English, and their descendants all over the
world. By an intermingling of several sub-races,
the Manu of the Race is now developing
the sixth sub-race, which is called in the diagram
the "Austral-American". It is in process
of formation in the United States, Australia
and New Zealand. The seventh sub-race,
whose work is still far in the future, is
already showing faint indications of its future
type. In a child here and there in Brazil one
may note a moulding of the face which shows
that the type is not Austral-American, but
another variant still of the Aryan race. The
seventh sub-race may well be called "Latin-American",
to distinguish it from the sixth,
the Austral-American.
The Manu of the Sixth Root-race will develop
His future type later on from the sixth sub-race
of the Aryan, and tens of thousands of
years hence the Manu of the Seventh Root-race
will develop His new type from the seventh
sub-race of the Sixth Root-race.
Root-races and sub-races play their roles in the
drama of the Logos, in order to give
...
- 55 -
experiences to us, His children, whom He sends
to be born in them. For that it is, that the
Manu brings about differences in His sub-races
of color and other physical peculiarities, and
places them among mountains or by the sea;
for that it is, that the Bodhisattva of the race
sends to the sub-races different aspects of the
one Truth, in the many religions and philosophies
which appear in them under His guidance.
In Fig. 27 we have something of the characteristics
of the races, and to understand the
...
- 56 -
significance of the table let us imagine a soul
as he is born in sub-race after sub-race, in them
all.
|
|
Starting with a birth in the first sub-race
of the Atlantean what strange experiences he
would have as a primitive, giant-like man; and
then how different those as a mountaineer,
taciturn and hardy, sensitive to changes of sun
and cloud. In a birth as a Toltec, in Atlantis
or Peru, his life would be as an administrator of
some kind in the wonderful patriarchal government
that was the glory of the Toltecs; he
would have thrust upon his shoulders the welfare
of a village or province, would be trained
to sink his individuality in some life-work for
his fellow-men. As a Turanian colonist, he
would know of wanderings in search of new
lands, of the struggle to tame nature in a new
settlement. As an original Semite, he would
be first and foremost a fighter, who developed
quickness of decision and was taught that his
life was not his, but belonged to his tribe. As
an Akkad, he would know something of the
magic of the sea, the need to sense the psychological
moment in the disposal of his wares,
and would develop much mental strength in
business competition. And then as a Chinaman,
a farmer, hardly leaving for a day his
ancestral farm, how intimately he would know
...
- 57 -
a few of his village, share their griefs and sorrows,
and learn much of the inner meaning of
life away from the turmoil of war or trade!
Imagine how different, too, would be the
soul's experiences in those same sub-races,
should he then be born in each in a woman's
form, with a woman's duties; new standpoints
and sensibilities would be developed, for the
lack of which surely the soul would be all the
poorer.
Following the soul's journeyings in rebirths,
let us watch his entrance among the Aryans.
Surely a life in India would leave an indelible
mark on him, giving him something of the
Hindu philosophical and detached view of life.
Later, in Egypt of old, among its practical and
happy people, not given to dreams, he would
develop another phase of his nature. As an
Arab, born in the bosom of the desert, would
not that desert leave an impress upon the soul,
in a quick sensitiveness and in the sense of the
peopled solitude and the vastness of nature?
As an Iranian, born in a civilization forcing
him to a life of success through mercantile
pursuits, what might he not learn of inventiveness
and initiative, and of industry and integrity?
He could not speak but his thought
would take poetical form, and even if he had
...
- 58 -
nothing of poetry in him, a life as an Iranian
would put him into touch with another phase
of life. Then as a Celt — as a Greek of Athens
perhaps — what a new conception of life he
would have, believing that the gods were
everywhere on sea and on land, that he was
descended from them, born to make an art of
life, to have as his ideal to know something of
everything, and so develop a rounded nature
and a health of heart; or as a Roman, firm in
the conviction that religion and the family and
the State are one, with his deep sense of law
and reverence for it, and a readiness to obey, in
order that he might learn how to rule; or as a
Frenchman or an Italian, sensitive and quick
to respond to emotions, dazzled by ideas because
they are ideas, irrespective of material
considerations; or as an Irishman, perhaps a
descendant of the Tuatha de Danaan, with
his dreams and intuitions, with his exaltations
and depressions.
And then born a Teuton, in Scandinavia or
England or America — what new qualities
would not the soul add to those already acquired?
A practical outlook, impersonality
through scientific research, conscientiousness
through business, and individualism, would
he gain; and would not Beethoven, too, and
...
- 59 -
Wagner, and Shakespeare, give him a new
message of life?
Of the future sub-race, the sixth, the "Austral-American",
now arising in America, Australia
and New Zealand, we can already forecast some qualities: fraternal, as in the new
conception of the relation of parent and child;
cooperative, with combinations and "mergers"
in business and in the work of material
development; intuitive, with an ability to approach anew the world problem, untrammelled
by the traditions of the old world; and a delight in sunshine and open air and in all things
which bring men together in congregations.
And what of the seventh sub-race? Though
still in the womb of time, its faint stirrings of
life may today be noted in the craving of
Latin-America for architecture, poetry and
music, remembering subconsciously "the glory
that was Greece and the grandeur that was
Rome". In that far-off future, men will live
a fuller life than even Greece dreamed of; from
the treasure-house of Beauty which a man will
then find in his heart and mind, he will know
that he is divine, and realize his Divinity by
creation.
Thus civilizations rise and fall, and develop
this or that quality; but the meaning of it all is
...
- 60 -
Reincarnation. They come and go, only to
give us training-grounds for the experiences we
need life after life. Our Father in Heaven
makes them out of the dust, lets them play their
parts, and sinks them under the waves, or destroys
them in a fiery cataclysm; but they are
all only scenes in the drama which He has
written for us, His children, so that by playing
well and truly our roles in them, we may someday become like Him.
- 61 -
|
|
