It is quite clear, therefore, that if we reduce the natural years of Methuselah to lunar years the result would be to vitiate the whole of the chronology, and, moreover, if we did so in regard to the years of Methuselah we must also do so in regard to others of the Patriarchs. This would mean that Mahalaleel was born to Cainan when the latter was just over seven year of age; or that Methuselah was born to Enoch in the sixth year of his age! If there is any improbability in the record at all, it is rather in the idea of these patriarchal infants than in that of the extreme longevity of Methuselah. If a mere tortoise can live for 500 years, why not a human? What the simple life is capable of, we of this age have no knowledge from experience, but I see no reason why certain souls, fitted by spiritual selection for the performance of some great work or the up-holding of a holy tradition, should not incarnate under cosmical conditions which are also so select as to withstand the concatenation of natural forces which make for dissolution. At all events we have here a rather interesting problem for the Eugenists, who, basing their principles on purely physiological grounds, are confronted and disarmed on every side by these occult forces in Nature which they have failed to take into account. While they base all their calculations on physical heredity, the occultist points silently but impressively to the fact of psychic tradition, and in support of the occult position we are able to point to a hundred cases of insanity which can be specifically predicted from the moment of birth and years before the symptoms of mental disorder begin to manifest. A theory to have a working value must include all the facts, and so far as human genetics are concerned not the least among these facts is that of the cyclic rebirth of souls and the continual importation of new psychic forces into the line of physical heredity. The study of Eugenics should begin in the study of psychology. We know, for instance, that progeny generated during intoxication will probably turn out epileptic, but that does not answer the question as to why one soul rather than another should animate that body. Yet out of a dozen horoscopes an astrologer will unhesitatingly pick out any one that may happen to belong to a body thus afflicted. This fact should give us pause to re-examine the foundations of our system of genetics. The secret of health and longevity is not to be found on this side of the spiritual equator. CHAPTER IX A TYPICAL CASE The ancient secret records embody a tradition of the going down of Atlantis into the depths of the sea after the perversion of a race of humanity whose physical culture, civilization and scientific attainments eclipsed anything of which we have modern example.