HIPPARCHUS OF NICEA 5 



processes taking place in them. It is quite clear that the 

 men necessary for this were missing; they were lost, they 

 were no longer born. Why was this ? We now regard it as 

 proved that the original habitation of races fitted for such 

 achievement is the north of Europe, where they had been 

 developed through many generations in the hard school of 

 the Glacial Period. It was from there that the ancient Greeks 

 had come who then, in the South, found leisure and ease for 

 a development which reached its height in Pythagoras, 

 Euclid, Archimedes and their contemporaries of equal 

 ability in art. But their posterity began to degenerate. As 

 far as all our present knowledge can tell us, their race did not 

 leave descendants, but was hopelessly ruined by the influx of 

 Asiatic and African elements.^ We have seen that Pytha- 

 goras was already forced to strive for the restoration of the 

 purity of past times. It was necessary that new men from the 

 North, the only home on earth of the seekers and bringers of 

 light, should again come southwards. Further, this race 

 was gradually able to develop in its original home, assisted 

 perhaps by an improvement in the Northern climate and 

 progress in the invention of means to combat its asperities. 



The thousand-year period of degeneration, as regards the 

 gradual rise of a new culture, was distinguished in science 

 and intellectual activity generally by its unproductive concen- 

 tration on two works received by it from antiquity: Aristotle 

 and the Bible. Both of these were given totally false values, 

 and misunderstood. 2 



* There can be no doubt that physical racial degeneration was pre- 

 ceded by moral infection, and also that an excessive number of wars 

 produced their effect; but these facts do not alter what has been said 

 above. 



2 As regards the Bible, this is true for the general public to-day. All 

 that has disappeared from the general mind is the contradiction of 

 natural fact arising from literal interpretation; historical errors and 

 contradictions of vital law still continue to produce their effect. For in 

 these writings, parts of the highest value are thrown together with 

 utterly valueless matter of different origin, and people are still afraid to 

 make this fact generally known. The resulting misdirection of intellectual 



