| 64 | 64 |
- 9. Mother-water, the great sea wept. She arose, she disappeared in the Moon, which had lifted her, which had given her birth (a).
(a) Now what can this mean ? Is it not an evident reference to tidal action in the early stage of the history of our planet in its fourth Round ? Modern research has been busy of late in its speculations on the Palaeozoic high-tides. Mr. Darwin s theory was that not less than 52,000,000 years ago — and probably much more — the Moon originated from the Earth’s plastic mass. Starting from the point where research was left by Helmholtz, Ferrel, Sir William Thomson and others, he retraced the course of tidal retardation of the earth’s rotary motions far back into the very night of time, and placed the Moon during the infancy of our planet at only “ a fraction of its present distance.” In short, his theory was that it is the Moon which separated from the Earth. The tidal elevation concurring with the swing of the globular mass — centrifugal tendency being then nearly equal to gravity — the latter was overcome, and the tidally elevated mass could thus separate completely from the Earth. *
The Occult teaching is the reverse of this. The Moon is far older than the Earth ; and, as explained in Book I., it is the latter which owes its being to the former, however astronomy and geology may explain the fact. Hence, the tides and the attraction to the Moon, as shown by the liquid portion of the Globe ever striving to raise itself towards its parent. This is the meaning of the sentence that “ the Mother-Water arose and disappeared in the Moon, which had lifted her, which had given her birth.”
* But see the difficulties suggested later, in the works of various geologists, against this theory. Compare Sir R. S. Bull’s article in “ Nature ” (Dec. 1, 1881), and also what the American geologists say.