3. Each sub-race has, in its turn, seven ramifications, which may be called “branch” or “family” races.
4. The little tribes, shoots, and offshoots of the last-named are countless, and depend on Karmic action.
Examine the Genealogical Tree hereto appended, and you will [pg 453] understand. The illustration is purely diagrammatic, and is only intended to assist the reader in obtaining a slight grasp of the subject, amidst the confusion which exists between the terms which have been used at different times for the divisions of Humanity. It is also here attempted to express in figures—but only within approximate limits, for the sake of comparison—the duration of time through which it is possible to definitely distinguish one division from another. It would only lead to hopeless confusion if any attempt were made to give accurate dates to a few; for the Races, sub-races, etc., down to their smallest ramifications, overlap and are entangled with each other until it is nearly impossible to separate them.
The Human Race has been compared to a tree, and this serves admirably as an illustration.
The main stem of a tree may be compared to the Root-Race (a).
Its larger limbs to the various sub-races; seven in number (b1, b2, etc.).
On each of these limbs are seven “branches,” or “family” races (c).
After this the cactus-plant is a better illustration, for its fleshy “leaves” are covered with sharp spines, each of which may be compared to a nation or tribe of human beings.
Now our Fifth Root-Race has already been in existence—as a Race sui generis and quite free from its parent stem—about 1,000,000 years; therefore it must be inferred that each of the four preceding sub-races [pg 454] has lived approximately 210,000 years; thus each family race has an average existence of about 30,000 years, and thus the European “family race” has still a good many thousand years to run, although the nations or the innumerable spines upon it, vary with each succeeding “season” of three or four thousand years. It is somewhat curious to mark the comparative approximation of duration between the lives of a “family race” and a Sidereal Year.