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.By degrees domestic crafts and arts began to flourish.The doers whichhad been obliged to depart from the earlier men took up their abode in those of thehuman bodies which were not unfit to hold them.Such doers came in groups, as thedifferent colonies were prepared enough to receive them.In the course of time anothergreat civilization was built up.Teachers again appeared among men and taught themarts and sciences.They led men through strife and war into ways of culture and taughtthem concerning the doer and the Triune Self and the laws by which the animals cameinto the world.There were again kings, but they were not divine rulers different fromhuman beings; they were human kings.Variations of the types of governmentfollowed each other as in the First Civilization.The high-water mark was under thekings.The different parts of the earth had again been filled with various races.Agriculture, trade, the arts and the sciences flourished.The people engaged inextended commerce, carried on through the air as well as by water and on the land.Amotive power was taken from the air, the force of flight.This force was adapted tocarriage through the air, through the water and on land and was applied directly to thevehicles in use, in all their parts.Men flew through the air without any appliances.They regulated their speed by their thought.There was no machinery.Some of the woods used were as hard and as tough asmetals.Some of them were of gorgeous coloring, which the people knew how toproduce by directing the sunlight and introducing certain plant food into the growingtree.Some among the people could make diminutive plants to grow as large as theywanted them.Metals were worked not by heat but by sound, and so developed anunbreakable temper.People could soften and melt stone and had solid buildings ofstone without mortar.They knew how to make stone and to give it different grainsand colors.They had statuary of exquisite shape and coloring.Their civilizationpassed its height and was crushed out, the last state of decadence being the rule of thehandworkers.Then came other rises and falls of various peoples in different parts ofthe earth.Continents were born and destroyed and others rose.The decline of thecivilization as a whole was steady, though there were many local revivals, eachfollowed by a relapse.With each decline of the people came a change in the animal forms, due to thethoughts that gave them their shapes.There were huge mammals that flew through theair, and large fish that could fly for long distances.At last earthquakes split the outercrust of the earth, flames and steam issued and the water sucked in the land with itspeople.The water was churned hot over a large part of the earth.That SecondCivilization was wiped out and only remnants of the people survived here and there.Then came a Third Civilization.Stray herds of hardly human creatures rangedover portions of the newly risen lands, skirted the deserts and inhabited the densegrowth of marshes and forests.They were the rude remnants of the gloriouscivilizations which had preceded, but they bore no trace of their past.There also came additions of peoples from inside the crust of the earth.Some weredescendants of people who had sought refuge there from the corruption under the rule of the handworkers, had escaped the cataclysm on the outer crust and had increased innumbers.Others were those who had fled from an inner earth toward the outer crust.They were the descendants of those who had failed, who had lost their perfect bodiesand had taken the path of death and re-existence.As these people increased in numberthey were segregated and were gathered in communities, and in time were driven byfires and floods to the outer crust.There they were barbarian tribes like those who hadsurvived.The senses of all these inhabitants were as keen as those of animals and theycould climb, burrow and swim as easily as the animals.They could defend themselvesand escape as well in the water as on the land.They knew of no houses, but lived incaves, in burrows, under rocks and in hollow trees of enormous size.Their prodigiousstrength and cunning made them the equals of animals in fight.Some tribes developedclaws; some used as protection a tree bark which was simple, strong and impenetrableto tooth and claw.In the course of time their cunning increased, but they were unableto make fire or implements.They used stones or clubs or strong bones as weapons.They had no orderly language, but articulated sounds, which they had no difficulty inunderstanding.However, some of the better kind of doers had been led to safety chambers in theinterior of the earth crust, where they propagated and continued to live through thoseages.They came out, subdued the savages and taught them husbandry, the working ofwoods, metals and stones and weaving of grasses.At first there was very little land.As the population increased, they had floating cities on inland lakes.Their chief foodswere liquids, which contained elements to produce the bodies desired.They couldincrease the size of their bodies or retard their growth and grow them in the formsdesired.They were able to do this from their knowledge of the human type and of thefoods needed for the growth of the body.They developed an extraordinary fineness oftaste, and could prepare drinks that would put them into ecstatic states without injuryto their bodies.During these ecstatic conditions they were still fully conscious andcould communicate with others in similar ecstasies.This was a social pleasure.Theycould mix dreadful poisons and brew antidotes.They traveled a great deal on andunder water in boats which they propelled by motive power obtained through thewater.They knew how to harden water without freezing, and used the transparentmass to fill apertures and to admit light.They extracted while under water all the airthey needed for breathing.They had access to subterranean waterways and to the vastoceans within the earth crust.Portions of the earth came up in continents and largeislands, which were gradually populated, and in time their civilization reached itshighest mark.Their houses and buildings were made of stone but did not look like anyarchitecture known today.Most of their buildings showed undulating curvesthroughout.In building they could soften any material with water, use it inconstruction and then harden the moisture in it, so that it would remain solid.Manybuildings were made of a sort of grass or pulp.The buildings were not tall; fewexceeded four stories in height, but they were spacious.On the roofs and from thesides, out of the grass and pulp, grew lovely flowers and vines.The people had a skillfor growing their plants and flowers in strange shapes.They domesticated aquaticbirds and fish, which would respond to call.None of these were ferocious.There were neither rains nor storms, but they caused a vapor to rise from thewater or to condense from the air, and settle to moisten the land.They made cloudswhich, however, did not come from the water, to shield them against the sun.Theyhad extensive commerce and developed home industry and arts to a high degree.Thepeople lived near each other, not separated by great distances.There were no largecities
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