mankind is 'of one blood,' but not of the same essence. We are the hot-house, artificially quickened plants in nature, having in us a spark, which in them is latent" (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2, p 421). When discussing "sterility between two human races" as observed by Darwin, Blavatsky notes: "Of such semi-animal creatures, the sole remnants known to Ethnology were the Tasmanians, a portion of the Australians and a mountain tribe in China, the men and women of which are entirely covered with hair. They were the last descendants in a direct line of the semi-animal latter-day Lemurians referred to. There are, however, considerable numbers of the mixed Lemuro-Atlantean peoples produced by various crossings with such semi-human stocks – e.g., the wild men of Borneo, the Veddhas of Ceylon, classed by Prof. Flower among Aryans (!), most of the remaining Australians, Bushmen, Negritos, Andaman Islanders, etc" (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2, pp 195–6). Blavatsky also asserts that "the occult doctrine admits of no such divisions as the Aryan and the Semite, accepting even the Turanian with ample reservations. Semites, especially the Arabs, are later Aryans – degenerate in spirituality and perfected in materiality" (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2, p 200). She also connects physical race with spiritual attributes constantly throughout her works: "Esoteric history teaches that idols and their worship died out with the Fourth Race, until the survivors of the hybrid races of the latter (Chinamen, African negroes, &c.) gradually brought the worship back. The Vedas countenance no idols; all the modern Hindu writings do" (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2, p 723). According to Blavatsky, "The MONADS of the lowest specimens of humanity (the "narrow-brained" savage South-Sea Islander, the African, the Australian) had no Karma to work out when first born as men, as their more favoured brethren in intelligence had" (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2, p 168). She also prophesies of the destruction of the racial "failures of nature" as the "higher race" ascends: "Thus will mankind, race after race, perform its appointed cycle-pilgrimage. Climates will, and have already begun, to change, each tropical year after the other dropping one sub-race, but only to beget another higher race on the ascending cycle; while a series of other less favoured groups – the failures of nature – will, like some individual men, vanish from the human family without even leaving a trace behind" (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2,