Devachan. All will remain linked by their destiny to this planet, until
the moment when all--a few rare, unfortunate, negligent laggards
excepted--shall have passed through their last mortal probation, in the
seventh root-race. Then will the tide of humanity overflow to the planet
Mercury, and this earth, abandoned by conscious men, will for a million
years fall back into desolation, gradually deprived of all life, even of
all development. In that condition it will remain, sleeping, as it were,
for ages--"not dead, but sleeping"; for the germs of mineral, vegetable,
and animal life will await, quiescent, until the tide of human soul
shall have passed around the chain, and is again approaching our globe.
Then will earth awake from its sleep. In successive eons, the germs of
life, mineral, vegetable, and animal, in their due order, will awake;
the old miracle of creation will begin again, but on a higher plan than
before, until, at last, the first human being--something vastly higher
in body, mind, and spirituality than the former man--will make his
appearance on the new earth. From this explanation of the doctrine that
life moves not by a steady flow, but by what Sinnett calls gushes, it
follows, of course, that there must come a time when each race, and each
sub-race, must have finished its course, completed its destiny. There
are no more human souls in Devachan to pass through that stage of
progress. For a long time the number has been diminishing, and that race
has been losing ground. Now it has come to its end. So, within a hundred
years, has passed away the Tasmanian. So, to-day, are passing many
races. The disappearance of a lower race is therefore no calamity; it
is evidence of progress. It means that that long line of undeveloped
humanity must go up higher. "That which thou sowest, is not quickened
except it die." If there be "joy among the angels of God, over one
sinner that repenteth," why not when the whole human race, to the last
man, has passed successfully up into a higher class in the great school?