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 [pg 828]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 [pg 829]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 [pg 830] 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.