EVOLUTION ON THEEARTH 271
That part of human evolution which is to be
accomplished during the present sojourn of the life wave on
our Earth is divisible into seven great stages or Epochs; but
these cannot appropriately be called Races. Nothing to
which that name could be correctly applied appears until the
end of the Lemurian Epoch. From that time different Races
succeed one another through the Atlantean and Aryan
Epochs, and will extend slightly into the Sixth great Epoch.
The total number of Races—past, present and future—in
our scheme of evolution is sixteen; one at the end of the
Lemurian Epoch, seven during the Atlantean Epoch, seven
more in our present Aryan Epoch and one in the beginning
of t he Sixth Ep och. Aft er that time t her e will b e not hing t hat
can properly be called a Race.
Races did not exist in the Periods which have preceded
the Earth Period and they will not exist in those Periods
which follow it. It is only here, at the very nadir of material
existence, that the difference is so great between man and
man as to warrant the separation into Races.
The immediate Leaders of humanity (apart from the
creative Hierarchies) who helped man to take the first
tottering steps in Evolution, after Involution had furnished
him with vehicles, were Beings much further advanced than
man along the path of evolution. They came on this errand
of love from the two planets which are located between the
Earth and the Sun—Venus and Mercury.
The Beings who inhabit Venus and Mercury are not
quite so far advanced as those whose present field of
evolution is the Sun, but they are very much further
advanced than our humanity. Therefore they stayed
somewhat longer with the central mass than did the
inhabitants of the Earth, but at a certain point their evolution