For that matter, there is no saying but that we once possessed this revelation. It is highly possible that the religions of nations which have disappeared, such as the Lemurians, the Atlanteans and many others, were aware of it and that we have discovered its remains in the esoteric traditions that have come down to us. It must not indeed be forgotten that there exists, side by side with the outward, scientific history, a secret history of mankind which derives its substance of legends, myths, hieroglyphics, strange monuments and mysterious writings from the hidden meaning of the primitive books. One thing is certain, that, though the imagination of those who interpret this occult history is often venturesome, all that they declare is not to be despised and deserves to be examined more seriously one day than has hitherto been done. The essence of this esoteric revelation is very well summed up by M. Marc Saunier, a disciple of Fabre d’Olivet and Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, in his book, _La Légende des symboles_. “The Initiates,” he says, “have always regarded each continent as a being subject to the same laws as man. For them, the minerals constitute its skeleton, the flora its flesh, the fauna its nerve-cells and the human races the grey matter of its brain. This continent itself is but an organ of the earth, wherein each man is treated as a thinking cell and whereof the thought is represented by the sum of human thoughts. The earth itself is but an organ of the solar system, which in turn is considered as an individual; and our solar system thus becomes merely an organ of another being of the infinite, whose heart would appear in the star Alpha in Aries. And lastly, by a final synthesis, we come to the Cosmos, which expresses the general sum of all things, in a being whose body is the world and whose thought is the universal intelligence, exalted by the religions to the rank of a deity.” The basis of their doctrine is plainly evolutionistic. Each continent has merely transformed, in its own time and according to its own ideal, the seeds which came from the Hyperborean tracts; and man is but the result of an animal evolution. For the rest, they borrow it in part from the Hindus, thus anticipating by many thousands of years the latest hypotheses of our modern science. 3