Gleanings from The Theosophical Path ( 45 Volumes, July, 1911 - Oct., 1936 )

Volume 3

Contents

Archeology and Ethnology- Sculpture in Javanese Temples - Ryan- Who Built Fort Ancient? - Kinnaman- Malta, or Melita - Dick- Maya Chronology - Dick- Machu Picchu: Incan and Pre-Incan Architecture - Edge- Lemurian and Atlantean Relics in China- Etruscan Sarcophagi - Ryan

Greek Philosophy- Apollonius of Tyana and the Roman Empire - Malpas- Pythagoras and His Mathematics - Travers- The Tombs of Athens - Ryan

History- The Rosetta Stone - Malpas- Four Great Pharaohs - Ryan- A New View of Cagliostro - Ryan- History in the Light of Theosophy - Travers

Psychology- The Trinity of Human Nature - Coryn- The Conflict of Duty with Desire - Ross- The Angel and the Devils - Edge- The Man and the Mask - Travers- Medical Perspective - Ross- Psychology: True and False - Edge

Science- Was the Telescope Known in Ancient Times? - Ryan- Function of Intuition in Discovery - Henry- Invention - Munson- Materialism - Henry- Theosophy and the Ape from Man Theory - Fussell- Some Common Errors in Natural History - Leonard- Engineering Feats of the Ancients- The Wicked Formula - Travers- Giants- Man's Ancestry - Travers- Perpetual Motion- Almighty Protoplasm - Edge

- "Relativity" - Edge- Some Scientific Vagaries- Atoms of Sound- The Spinning Earth - Dick- Theosophy and Science - Ryan

General Theosophy- The Tidal Wave - Blavatsky- Advantages and Disadvantages in Life - Judge- The Antiquity of Man - Coryn- How Birds Reward Their Friends - Leonard- Blind Man's Buff - Ross- Theosophy and Capital Punishment - Judge- Compassion: True and False - Travers- Crime and the Criminal - Coryn- Death, According to Theosophic Teaching - Coryn- Faith and Knowledge - Coryn- The Fear of Death and the Hope of Life - Machell- Freedom and Compulsion - Henry- The Greater Self - Henry- Harmony and Antipathy- A Sure and Certain Hope - Leonard- The Saving Power of Humor - Dunn- The Inward Source of Power - Leonard- Justice - Machell- The Law of Cycles - Leonard- A Law Superior to Personal Desires - Henry- The Meaning of 'Meaning' - Coryn- Memory an Eternal Record - Henry- From Chieh-Shih Inn (verse) - Morris- The "Om" - A Study in the Upanishads- Punctuality - Machell- Recollections of H. P. Blavatsky - Edge- The Signs of This Cycle - Judge- After the Storm - Lanesdale- Some Thoughts on Death - Morris- Of the Three Roads- Tolerance - Franklin- The Treasure-Chambers of the Morning - Morris- Truth, Justice, Silence - Ross- The Importance of Two Percent - Ross

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Archeology and Ethnology

Sculpture in Javanese Temples - C. J. Ryan

The Island of Java contains several temples that may veritably be called some of the greatest surviving wonders of the ancient world. How they can have lasted in such good preservation is a marvel, when we learn that they are situated in the heart of the steaming tropics, in a region where active volcanos cluster more thickly than in any other place on earth and where earthquakes are almost perpetual, where the most luxuriant vegetation is irrigated by deluges of rain for half the year, and where most of them have served as quarries for centuries!

Boro-Boedoer and the Brahmanan temples are now well known to travelers as well as to archaeologists, though until the British Governor, Sir Stamford Raffles, during his five years of control after 1811, excavated and explored them, they were absolutely unknown, even to the native Javanese. And yet, as he said: "The interior of Java contains temples that, as works of labor and art, dwarf to nothing all our wonder and admiration at the pyramids of Egypt." Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace said: "The number and beauty of the architectural remains in Java.... far surpass those of Central America, and perhaps even those of India.... The amount of human labor and skill expended on the Great Pyramid of Egypt sinks into insignificance when compared with that required to complete this sculptured hill-temple (Boro-Boedoer) in the interior of Java." These estimates are rather exaggerated, at least in regard to the skill required, for probably nothing in Java or elsewhere approaches in extraordinary perfection of stone-cutting the shaping of the

gigantic blocks found in some of the more important chambers of the Great Pyramid. The Greeks, with all their skill, never handled such immense stones. Some of the cyclopean remains in Peru bear a closer comparison with the best Egyptian work than anything else. The Javan temples, however, are covered with the ricbest decoration, and in that respect they display an aesthetic wealth of interest not present in the Pyramids.

The temple of Boro-Boedoer is really a small hill or a large mound covered with masonry consisting chiefly of terraces and galleries whose walls are covered with sculptures in high relief, which, if placed in a line, would extend for three miles. The date of the erection of the temple is not exactly known; history is vague, and no inscriptions are visible, though there may be some concealed behind the broad platform which hides the lower walls of the structure. The temple was probably built in the seventh century A.D., for it is known that a great Buddhist Empire succeeded a Brahmanical one at that period, and mention is made in an inscription found in the neighboring island of Sumatra that a king of Java erected, about that time, a great seven-storied Vihara in honor of the Five Dhyani-Buddhas. The Mohammedan conquest in the fifteenth century overthrew the Brahmanical religion, which had again become popular upon the decline of Buddhism.

Our illustrations represent some of the sculpture from Boro-Boedoer. The subjects are largely taken from the life of Gautama-Buddha. The aim of the designer seems to have been to wean the mind of the devotee from earthly to heavenly things as the ascent is made to the dome to the summit. The lowest carvings represent landscapes, scenes of outdoor and domestic life, fishing, archery, and playing the bagpipes; but as you ascend, the religious motive increases, until the mysterious and concealed image of Buddha is reached, surrounded by more than five hundred minor Buddhas enshrined in niches and latticed dagobas. The highest one was left unfinished, hidden from view under a solid cupola, fifty feet in diameter. This figure, brooding alone in silence and darkness, high above the common things of earth, is a highly symbolic and poetical conception. Its incomplete state implies that no human chisel could fitly represent the majesty of a great soul that had reached the supreme state, Nirvana. The statue was found when English engineers broke a hole in the highest dome.

The gigantic figure with staring eyes is not intended to be an object of beauty; it is one of those protecting monsters usually found outside Buddhist temples, a 'Guardian of the Threshold,' and it has a symbolic meaning plainly evident to students of Theosophy. Notwithstanding its threatening appearance, its club and coiled snake, it holds a hand in the attitude of blessing.

One of the most astonishing things about the Brahmanical and Buddhistic temples of Java is their resemblance to those of Yucatan and Guatemala in America. M. de Charnay has summed up the resemblances between them as consisting in the same order of bold statues of deities; the pyramidal form of temple with staircases up the middle of the sides: the small chapels with subterranean vaults below; the same interior construction; the general effect of the details of ornamentation, terraces and esplanades, etc. And yet we do not suspect any connection between America and the East Indies at the date usually assigned to the Javanese buildings. There is some mystery here, and it is deepened by the existence of another group of temples near Solo (Soerakarta) in middle Java, which are the most puzzling and the least known of all such remains in that country. Mrs. Scidmore, in Java: the Garden of the East, says:

"They are of severe form and massive construction, without traces of any carved ornament, and the solid pylons, truncated pyramids, and great obelisks, standing on successive platforms or terraces, bear such surprising resemblances to the monuments of ancient Egypt and Central America that speculation is offered a wide range and free field. The images found there are ruder than any other island sculptures, and everything points to these strange temples having been the shrines of an earlier, simpler faith than any now

observed or of which there is any record. These Suku temples were discovered in 1814 by Major Johnson, the British officer residing at the native court of Solo. They were unknown to the natives; there were no inscriptions found, nothing in the native records or traditions to lead to any solution of their mysteries; and no further attempts have been made toward discovering the origin of these vast constructions since Sir Stamford Raffle's day."

It may be that the link between ancient America and the East Indies will be found in these mysterious buildings, and that their style inspired Boro-Boedoer and other comparatively recent Buddhist and Brahmanical temples. This seems more probable than that the latter were derived directly from America. De Charnay, who failed to see them, consoled himself with a report that the visible ruins at Solo were only restorations dating from the fourteenth century. However this may be, he was sufficiently impressed by what he had seen elsewhere and by what he heard about Solo to consider it incredible that the extraordinary resemblance between so many Javanese buildings and those of Yucatan and Guatemala should be merely a coincidence; if so, it would be absolutely unique in the history of art.

(Vol. 17, pp. 571-73)

(See the illustrated article, "Boro-Boedoer, the Great Pyramid of Java," in the November, 1917, issue of The Theosophical Path.)

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Who Built Fort Ancient? - J. O. Kinnaman, Ph.D Member of: Victoria Institute, London, Eng.; The Palestine Exploration Fund, London, Eng.

With Note by C. J. R.

[1919]

This question has for years occupied the thoughts of the writer. He has searched all extant archaeological literature for answer, but has found none that seems to him satisfactory.

True it is that answers have been offered, but they, one and all, seem almost childish. Archaeologists have completely succumbed to the propaganda that the historical American Indian was the original inhabitant of this continent, and the sole author of the existing archaeological relics. Let us examine the question as it stands today, in order that we may clear away the rubbish, and arrive at a probable answer, if possible.

Fort Ancient is located in the very center of Warren County, Ohio, on a high plateau overlooking the Little Miami River. It is guarded on some of its sides by very steep ravines, and thus from its location and construction, being the greatest prehistoric structure of the kind upon the continent, it may properly be called the 'Gibraltar of America.' The distance around the walls of the Fort is three and two-thirds miles; the area, 126 acres. The walls, built partially from stone, vary in thickness, according to position in re the ravines, from four to twelve feet. The average height of the original walls was probably twenty feet, and they were surmounted with palisades. Inside the wall was a moat from four to seven feet

deep. Part of the wall is built from surface loam and clay that now resembles a heavy railroad embankment. The stones are limestone varying in size from two by three feet to eighteen by twenty-five inches. Some large stones were used to keep the edges of the embankment from washing into the ravine. No mortar or cement was used in the construction.

For convenience of discussion, the structure has been divided into three parts, viz: the Old Fort, the Middle, and the New Fort, though it is really only one.

There has been much speculation as to the original purpose of the structure, though now it is acknowledged by all archaeologists that it had only one, namely, military.

The majority of American archaeologists accredit the fortification to the Indian; they consider it a proven fact that the Indian built all the earthworks in the Mississippi-Ohio valley. This theory has become such a fad that scientists seem unable to break away from it, though their better judgment protests against it. They base their theory upon the following facts:

1. Lodge circles found within the walls.2. Pottery fragments, etc.3. Burials and skeletal remains.4. The absence of copper tools and artifacts.

We do not purpose to deny that the Indian came to the American continent some time during its history, and that too in a very remote past, but we do purpose to deny strenuously that the American Indian or any of his forebears built Fort Ancient or any of the earthworks in central United States. There existed a prevalent tradition among all the Indians of this section that they found a white race, far advanced in civilization, in possession of the country when they arrived.

Whoever built these earthworks, were well versed in engineering and mathematics. They had reduced military fortifications to a science; and they knew how to wage defensive warfare.

What of the fact that lodge circles were found within the walls? It only proves that the Indians did occupy the site even within historic times, for the advocates of the theory say that the circles were plainly marked before the plow obliterated them. It would be the most natural thing in the world for the Indians to pitch their camp upon the site. It is a beautiful spot, and makes an ideal place for an encampment.

The second fact can easily be disposed of in the same manner. The pottery found there is unquestionably that of the Indian as we know him. There is nothing ancient or prehistoric about it.

The burials are, no doubt, intrusions of a far later date than the time of the construction of the Fort. Why is it necessary to hold that the original builders buried there at all? The structure is a fort, and it may be possible that the builders, for some reason, did not remain long upon the site. It may be that they never fought a battle there, being compelled to retreat without offering battle. Such has often been the case in so-called civilized warfare. The skeletal remains are those of the Indian, though two methods of burial are indicated, but both common to the indigenous inhabitants during the historical period.

The absence of copper tools and artifacts tells us nothing, except the fact that they are lacking. That would not be a thing to he wondered at. All such tools could have been removed just as well as abandoned, as was the case of the prehistoric miners on Royal Isle, where, up to a few years ago, the traveler could see the tools in the same place where the miners left them when quitting work.

The question, 'Who built Fort Ancient?' could never be answered by archaeology alone. In order tentatively to find our answer, we are compelled to turn to other sources,

i.e., history and descriptive geography.The books referred to are found in the Chinese and Hindu literatures. The writer, in

full accord with Mr. Alexander McAllan of New York City, is not going to contend that any Chinese or Hindu priest or traveler ever visited America in the dim past ages, and then returning home wrote an account of his journeys; but rather that a tribe, who afterwards became what we know as Mound Builders of the Mississippi valley, being driven from their homes in Mexico, found their way to Arizona, the Grand Canyon, the Gulf of California and vicinity, thence to the Mississippi-Ohio valleys; from there they found their way via the Arctic regions to the coast of Siberia and Tartary where a great destiny awaited them. This host was led first by a Toltec princess born in Mexico, then by her son who was born in Arizona. The knowledge and description of America was carried into Asia by this tribe and there embodied into its literature.

We will not pause to inquire into the extent of their detailed knowledge of our continent, but will say in passing that they knew the exact distance from Canton to America; the exact width of the continent; the location and extent of the Rocky Mountains; the position of the Great Plains, the Mississippi and Ohio valleys, the Great Lakes, Yellowstone Park, the Grand Canyon, the Gulf of California, the Arctic regions, and the Atlantic Ocean. They further knew the general shape of the continent - that of a huge mulberry tree - the trend of the mountains, the direction of flow of the rivers, and the chief distances on the continent. For further detailed information in regard to this particular, I refer the investigator to the Chinese books known as Shan-Hai-King.

The Chinese account describes the Grand Canyon with such degree of accuracy that a modern traveler, using the account as a guide book, could easily find his way about and identify the different spots of beauty and interest. Immediately following this account, mention is made of a place in the "southeast corner of a desert beyond the Eastern Sea." The "Eastern Sea" of the Chinese is the Pacific Ocean. The exact distance to this place "Pi-mo" is given. Following the directions, the traveler comes to the desert of California and Sonora; the southeast corner of that desert brings him to the modern "Pi-mo," itself a desert and dependent upon irrigation for its power to sustain human beings. This place teems with the ruins of a prehistoric culture whose origin is shrouded in mystery, and whose antiquity is very great. It is in the vicinity of the great cliff-dwellings, among them Cliff Palace.

When interrogated as to the origin of these cliff-dwellings, the Pimo answer is given something as follows: "It was built by the son of a very beautiful woman who once dwelt in yon mountain; she was fair, and all the handsome men came to court her, but in vain; when they came they paid tribute, and out of this small store she fed all the people in the time of famine and it did not diminish. At last she brought forth a boy, who was the builder of all these structures."

The Pimos of today still hold in grateful remembrance the Princess of a harassed race of builders who kindly succored them in time of famine.

The word Pimo is formed by combining Pi, which signifies 'skin' or 'case,' with mo, which means 'mother.' Then ti means 'place,' kiu refers to 'a level place on an eminence.' The Chinese records describe a place called "The Hill of the Maternal Case"; the Pimo, when asked the name of this eminence, raising his arm and pointing to the hill, exclaims, "The Hill of the Maternal Case."

In this Chinese record we find great stress placed upon a royal baby, Ju or Mu, connected with the Grand Canyon and Pimo. He often has the title Ti or Te. The part Mu is spelled in several different ways: Mu, Mo, Moc, Mok, Mon; such is the spelling of the first part of the name of the king of the Pimos who ruled during the 'Golden Age' of their history. Ti or Te-cuh signifies 'warrior,' or 'lordly warrior'; then follows still another part of the name, suma or zuma, which means 'sad,' 'angry' or 'severe.' But the spelling or the ideograph may be wrong, and the correct form may be soma, referring to 'water,'

'immortality' or 'divinity.' The Chinese records also give the ruler of Pimo the name of Mu-ti. The Pimo give exactly the same name; they also give him the full name, which his successors in Mexico always bore, 'Mon-te-zuma,' 'the divine, lordly ruler, Mu, the one who has Grace, Majesty, and Patience,' for Mu is either an adjective or an abstract noun.

The record further sets forth that the builder and ruler of the fortresses beyond the "Eastern Sea" was Mu, Mo, or Mok; that he ruled over the land stretching from the Grand Canyon to the Arctic Ocean in the Sun and Moon Shan, and that he finally ruled over the "Country of Great (giant) Men."

What and where was the "Country of Great (giant) Men"? It is necessary to call to our assistance Korean geographers. Without going into the details of the apparatus criticus, it is sufficient to state that the country referred to is exactly identical with Wisconsin and adjacent territory. This geographer mentions that in this country were great men 35 chih long, but they were unable "to go, run, travel, get away, depart from lizards, dragons, and serpents, because they were imitation, patterns." Thirty-five chih is equal to thirty-four English feet. The effigy of a man was found in Wisconsin thirty-four feet in length; Squire, Davis, and Dr. Peet found others that they readily called giants; there were also found in these same regions imitations or effigies of lizards, serpents, etc. The Chinese records proclaim that in the "Great Waste beyond the Eastern Sea" there is a place where the Sun and Moon rise in the "Great Men's Country." In another place this "Great Waste" is called Kwun-lun Shan or the 'Sun and Moon-lit Shan.' Shan means 'mountain' or heights; kwun or kwen signifies 'many'; lun means 'to unify'; so the term, Kwun-lun Shan really signifies 'countless rolling valleys and mountains.' Taking this with the measurements that are given, Kwun-lun Shan becomes identical with the upper Mississippi and Ohio valleys. The "Great Men's Country" is identical with Wisconsin and adjacent territory.

The royal infant Ju, the mature Mu, was ruler over the "Country of Great (giant) Men" in the Kwun-lun Shan beyond the "Eastern Sea." Who was the father of this infant Ju, the Prince Mu?

The legend among the Pimo makes his father a drop of water that fell upon the Princess' stomach while asleep. But this is merely evading the question. It is probable that the Princess was secretly wedded, but for political or other reasons she dared not reveal the fact, and when her son was born she invented the Heaven-given idea to allay all suspicion in a political way or otherwise. Her friends, and perhaps the priests, at once spread the story of the divine origin of the infant. These people were hard pressed by their enemies: why not grasp at the idea that Heaven had furnished them a leader who should guide the despairing people to new fields of national glory? Whence did he lead his people?

To say the least, it is a strange coincidence that Asiatic writers record that a Te-mu, Te-mu-dzin or Temugin arose in Tartary during the early part of the twelfth century, and therefore contemporary with the Mu born at Pimo about the year 1100 A.D. These writers say that this Tartar conqueror was called Timou or Timur-chi, and that his origin is shrouded in mystery. Anyway, this Mu came from a distant land; some writers say from Irkena-kon ('mountain valley') in the vicinity of the Caspian Sea, while other writers say that he came from the Arctic Ocean.

In his old age, or about the year 1150, a son was born to Te-mu upon whom the name Temugin was bestowed. When the boy was thirteen years old the father died, and the empire fell to pieces, apparently. This Prince's name has resounded throughout the world, for he became a great conqueror, none other than Jenghiz Khan - King of Kings - the grandfather of Kublai Khan, the forebear of Tamerlane, the Great Moguls, and the Moslem Sultans. The father of Temugin was the founder of the Yuen dynasty.

When the contest between the Cross and the Crescent was wavering in the balance, Jenghiz Khan burst forth from the wilds of Tartary, assaulted the strongholds of

the Moslem, gave their cities to sack and flame, put an end to the Caliphate in Bagdad, and threw his weight in favor of the cross. The grandson, Kublai Khan, completed the conquest of China, and formed the Empire that stretched from the Pacific Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea, from the Indian Ocean to the Arctic, or in other words, formed the greatest empire that the world has ever seen.

Who was the Princess that gave birth to Mu, and whence came she? It is almost generally conceded (except by those who would make all structures on the American continent the work of the ancestors of the present American Indian) that the Toltecs of Mexico were a white race. M. Charney states that we see carved upon the tottering walls of the temples of Yucatan, Greek, Celtic, and Semitic faces. Vining says these probably reached America by crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Though the types may be Greek, Celtic, and Semitic, why is it necessary for them to cross from Europe? Europe is not the only continent that produced white men. How account for the Ainu? Whence, when, and how could the Ainu have traveled into Japan?

Father Sahagun, a Franciscan monk, went to Mexico in 1529 and stayed there until his death in 1590. He left us a very extensive account of the Mexicans, their history and customs. He tells us that untold years ago the original settlers came in ships and landed at a port called Pauntla. This is supposed to be on the Panuco river. After they settled there a large part of them, including their leaders and priests, went south as far as Guatemala. The party left behind organized themselves into a body politic; they reconstructed the calendar from memory, became powerful, built the pyramid at Cholula and finally built the sanctuary at Teotihuacan. For some reason, not known, they abandoned their homes, and wandered across the plains and deserts in order to discover new lands. There is no date given, but Prof. Valentine thinks that the date is referred to on the calendar stone, that is, 231 A.D. Just twenty-four cycles elapsed between that date and the dedication of the calendar stone and the great temple at Mexico City in 1479. The Mexican cycle consisted of fifty-two years. The same tradition exists among the Maya tribes, who give the date "of the beginning of things" as 245 A.D., but further state that their ancestors and those of the Nahua tribes appeared on the gulf coast about 231 A.D. These dates are arrived at by knowing the year by the Mexican calendar of the Conquest, which was the year Three Calli. Tracing back the first thirteen Acatl we meet the year 1479. According to tradition, this was the year that the great temple was finished and dedicated. The top date on the Calendar Stone is Thirteen Acatl. On each side of this date are the signs for cycles, twenty-four in all, twelve on each side. Now if these cycles count for anything, and they must, they carry us back 1248 years from the date, Thirteen Acatl, or 231 A.D.

About the year 1000 A.D. there was formed a confederacy of tribes, of which Mayapan seems to have been the head. This federation seems to have been formed for war purposes; at any rate, war broke out about the beginning of the eleventh century, and the Aztecs, a name which signifies a confederacy of tribes rather than an ethnological distinction, drove someone from the country. That someone was the Toltecs whose 'last king' fled northward from Chapultepec.

In the Tonto Basin are pictographs depicting the driving out of a white people by red men, and the present Indians have legends that their land was formerly occupied by white men with long, white beards. Therefore the Toltecs were settled in Mexico several centuries before the eleventh, when the last remnant disappeared according to Aztec records and the writings of Father Marcas Niza. Aztecs and other red tribes almost annihilated the Whites at the Vale of Mexico; Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl, "the last king of the Toltecs," fled northward from Chapultepec - the historic Chapultepec.

Is it not a consistent conjecture that the beautiful Princess at Pimo belonged to this fleeing royal family? At least the curtain of history goes up for a moment, and we find the 'Queen of the Builders' on the hill at Pimo. The structures there, according to the

aboriginal testimony, were reared about the year 1100 - the time when the Toltecs disappeared from the Vale of Mexico.

M. Charney asserts that the Toltecs were expelled from Mexico in the eleventh century, and that they were scholars, artists, astronomers, and philosophers. The Shan-Hai-King states that in "the region beyond the Eastern Sea," there is a country of Refined Gentlemen, whose temples are built upon pyramids (k'iu), the dwellings upon mounds (ling). The temples of the Toltecs were built upon pyramids, and their dwellings upon mounds. They were gentle and would not fight.

So the discomfited Toltecs fled northward; their Queen stopped at Pimo, built the cliff-dwellings, gave birth to a son, Mu, who was to lead his people further into the wilderness. The Queen even left her name embalmed in the name of the State that finally incorporated part of her former small domain within its bounds, Arizona - Ari, 'Maiden,' and zona, 'valley.'

Driven out of their fastness homes either by strong enemies or famine, or by some other cause, the Toltecs or Builders migrated northward, built the earthworks of the Mississippi-Ohio valleys, then passed through the Arctic regions - for they describe the "land of ten suns" (Parhelion), the walrus, etc. - and carried with them the Mexican Zodiac consisting of the Mexican Tiger, Hare, Rabbit, Serpent, Monkey, Dog, and Eagle, which is thus much identical with the Tartar-Manchu zodiac. They passed through the Arctic regions and finally reached the coast of Siberia, though some may have remained in the Arctic regions, and this would account for the blond Eskimos. It is also probable that some of the Toltecs were taken prisoners by the Aztecs, and their descendants are the anomalies on the western coast of Mexico known as the 'blond Indians' with blue eyes and auburn hair. The records tell us that Mu was a great chief and that his forts (tai) held the "Great Men's Country." Only forts could 'hold' a country.

He held the country for a while, then passed on to Tartary to become the father of such a line of conquerors as the world never before had seen, to save the torch of civilization from utter extinction, and, in the far future, hand it on to America, the Kwun-lun Shan of Shan-Hai-King.

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Note by C.J.R.

The question of the age and origin of the Great Mounds of America has given rise to much speculation, and every new hypothesis based upon intelligent research is welcome, for it stimulates inquiry and draws attention to hitherto neglected points which require consideration. While there is obviously something in favor of the outline given in Dr. Kinnaman's contention that a fleeing remnant of the peaceful Toltecs escaped northward from Mexico about the twelfth century A.D. and wandered towards the Aleutian region, finally reaching Asia; and while there can be little doubt in the minds of well-informed students of Theosophy that the historic American Red Indian did not build the wonderful and mysterious Mounds - animal, serpent, human, and other mounds, 'forts,' square, circular and polygonal structures, etc. - found in Wisconsin, the Valley of the Ohio, etc., there are some points in Dr. Kinnaman's interesting article which call for comment in a Theosophical magazine.

According to the scheme of human history briefly outlined in The Secret Doctrine from the archaic records of the ancient Wisdom-Religion, the Mounds belong to an age far antedating historical records ordinarily accessible, an age within measurable distance of the palmy days of the civilization of the lost Atlantis, from which our historical races have arisen after cyclic descent into savagery for many thousand years. The Mounds have

close relatives in nearly every part of the world, and they vindicate the teaching of H.P. Blavatsky concerning the general unity of belief and its outward expression in so-called 'prehistoric' times. It would take up too much space to give even a partial list of the localities where such structures are found with even bare mention of their significance. One of the most striking resemblances among far-distant prehistoric mounds is that of the immense Wisconsin and Scottish snake-mounds. In these the serpent, a world-wide philosophic symbol, is represented as swallowing an egg. According to The Secret Doctrine the world in general, including America, received sacred knowledge from Atlantis, and some of its symbols, constructed in imperishable form, are still existing. Students who desire further details will find many curious particulars in The Secret Doctrine.

According, then, to Theosophical teachings, it does not seem likely that all the Mounds were built by a wandering tribe who 'happened,' so-to-speak, to have fallen upon the snake-pattern, etc., in a haphazard way; and if some had a different origin, why not all?

In regard to the theory that the supposed Toltec migration in the twelfth century A.D. may be the origin of the geographical descriptions which appear to refer to the North American continent in the Shan-Hai-King book of China, there are difficulties, for:

"According to the commentator Kwoh P'oh (A.D. 276-324) this work was compiled three thousand years before his time, or at seven dynasties distance. Yang Sun of the Ming dynasty (commencing A.D. 1368) states that it was compiled by Kung Chia and Chung Ku (?).... Chung Ku.... at the time of the last emperor of the Hia dynasty (B.C. 1818) fearing that the emperor might destroy the books treating of the ancient time, carried them in his flight to Yin." - Gould's Mythical Monsters, p. 27. See also Knight's Encyclopaedia of Biography. Chung Ku is said to have written the Shan-Hai-King from engravings on nine urns made by the emperor Yu (B.C. 2255).

It looks, therefore, as if the Asiatics were well acquainted with the general topography of North America at a very early date. And there are traditions in Hindi literature that support the statements in The Secret Doctrine that the descendants of the 'Nagas,' the human 'serpents of wisdom,' peopled America when it began to rise in Atlantean times. H.P. Blavatsky says:

"But as to the Nagals and Nargals; whence came the similarity of names between the Indian Nagas and the American Naguals?.... Such similarity cannot be attributed to coincidence. A new world is discovered, and we find that, for our forefathers of the Fourth Race, it was already an old one; that Arjuna, Krishna's companion and Chela, is said to have descended into Patala, the 'antipodes' and therein married Ulapi, a Naga, or Nagi rather, the daughter of the king of the Nagas, Kauravya. Ulapi (Ulupl) has an entirely Atlantean ring about it. Like Atlantis it is neither a Greek nor a Sanskrit name, but reminds one of Mexican names.... The late Pandit Dayanand Sarasvati, certainly the greatest Sanskrit and Puranic authority in India on such questions, personally corroborated that Ulupi was daughter of the king of the Nagas in Patala or America, 5000 years ago, and that the Nagas were Initiates." - The Secret Doctrine, Vol. II, Commentary on Stanza IX, Section 37

In these days of broadening scientific opinion, when Darwinian Evolution is becoming more and more discredited by eminent scientists in view of new researches, it is no longer considered preposterous to believe that mankind has existed for hundreds of thousands of years or even millions, and 5000 years seems a mere yesterday. In regard to ancient India and the American Mounds, Lord Avebury in his Prehistoric Times, says:

"They vary much in size; five or six of them, however, are exact squares, each side measuring one thousand and eighty feet - a coincidence which could not possibly be accidental, and which must possess some significance."

The four sides, then, measure 4320 feet, a significant number in the Brahmanical calculations of terrestrial and cosmical time-periods. It is held by some that the English foot, as a standard of measurement, was derived from Egypt, and there are strong reasons to believe that both Egypt and America derived their culture from Atlantis.

Another sidelight upon a possible connection in very ancient times between America and Asia is thrown upon the subject by the outward appearance of certain modern American tribes and of some ancient sculptures. In Puebla State, Mexico, there is a Toltec pyramid which has carved figures of men with Chinese features and dressed in the Chinese manner, and Mr. W.D. Parmelee, who took part in the recent Peabody Museum Expedition to Yucatan, says:

"Even today there are certain small tribes of Indians in Central America and especially in Honduras, whose appearance, both in face and body, is decidedly Oriental, and who, except for their language, are practically Japanese. From the ruins in Copan, Honduras, we have a date which refers to some event which took place around 1000 B.C."

And some carvings from an altar in Copan represent figures with strongly marked Japanese or Chinese features. The famous Chinese longevity symbol was recognized on one of the pyramids near Mexico City.

It seems, therefore, that even if we do accept the claim that the Shan-Hai-King book really contains a recognizable description of the main geographical features of North America, its enormous antiquity, and the existence of singularly East-Asiatic types of men and statuary found in America, have to be given due weight in considering the hypothesis that the knowledge and description of North America were carried into Asia by a nomadic Toltec tribe as recently as the twelfth century A.D.

The reference to the Land of Great (Gigantic) Men, presumably Wisconsin, is very interesting, but it suggests another reading. It may be a reference to certain prehistoric Atlantean races whose stature far exceeded that of ordinary men. Reports have frequently been made of the discovery of gigantic human footprints in Nevada, etc., and not long ago there was a very circumstantial report of the finding of a skeleton eleven feet high in Nevada.

In considering the East-Oriental characteristics mentioned, it will not do to jump at the conclusion that there were ever Chinese settlements in America. While it may be regarded as firmly established that many striking resemblances have been found between the Old and the New World, according to the Theosophical teachings, largely derived from careful analysis of the records handed down in the sacred literatures of the nations, these connections can be explained in the simplest and most scientific way by the hypothesis of a civilized continent in the Atlantic region from which colonists went forth to populate the lands which were gradually rising as Atlantis broke up. The Chinese, being a conservative race, may have preserved the characteristics of their own original Atlantean branch, part of which may have reached Central America, but not from China.

The existence of a great Atlantean continent is now admitted by leading geologists - there is no other reasonable explanation for innumerable geological, geographical, and biological problems - and in view of the breaking-up of the popular beliefs in the comparative shortness of human existence on earth, there is unlimited time for a great civilization on the lost continent and islands, a civilization which culminated and perished, leaving traces of itself in legends and a few material objects handed on to us from the so-called 'primitive' peoples familiar to us, and in other ways.

Attempts have been made to explain the singular resemblances between Egyptian customs and remains and those of America by means of supposed migrations from Egypt or from America.

Le Plongeon, and lately Dr. G. Elliot Smith, were both so highly impressed by these coincidences that they evolved migratory theories, which, however, do not agree. There are indeed astonishing similarities between American and Egyptian forms, such as the Winged Globe, the Tau, and the general appearance of some of the buildings and carvings, but there are also striking Hindu types found in Central America, such as figures in the 'yoga position,' elephants' heads, etc., and what are we to think when we find the exact pattern of the Minoan Labyrinth, a most complicated design found on a coin from Knossos in Crete (B.C. 200-67) as an ancient Indian game in the Pima region of Arizona (the pattern is called "The House of Tcuhu") and also scratched on the prehistoric walls of the Casa Grande? Did the Cretans reach America in historic times, or is it not more probable that this unique and very peculiar design was carried by colonists from Atlantis both to the East and the West?

If a migration from Mexico took place as recently as the twelfth century A.D., as suggested in Dr. Kinnaman's thought-provoking article, it would seem certain that artifacts and traditions, rich in Toltec characteristics, would be found throughout its whole course. Can these be traced?

[Many illustrations in original]

(Vol. 16, pp. 150-63)

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Malta, or Melita - F. J. Dick

Recent archaeological discoveries in Malta add new interest not only to its varied history, but likewise to the archaeology of the Mediterranean basin and Europe in general, touched upon in H.P. Blavatsky's great works, The Secret Doctrine and Isis Unveiled. We have only space to take up briefly a few points.

Gigantia, in Gozo, was excavated in 1827; Hagar Kim and Mnaidra in 1840. Hal Saflieni was accidentally discovered in 1902, and the work of excavation was begun in 1906. Tarxien was found in 1913. The two latter are among the most remarkable neolithic structures yet unearthed, as the illustrations accompanying an article in The National Geographic Magazine for May clearly show. Further discoveries may follow, for other subterranean chambers exist, judging by the hollow sound of some of the floors.

The age or ages of these temples may be a moot question, but one is tempted to inquire how it came to pass that the serpents' pit at Hal Saflieni resembles a similar structure in ancient Peru. As to the neolithic period, inferences regarding it - particularly in connection with the antiquity of man - have been mainly confined to its traces

"....in Europe, a few portions only of which were barely rising from the waters in the days of the highest Atlantean civilizations. There were rude savages and highly civilized people then, as there are now. If, 50,000 years hence, pygmy Bushmen are exhumed from some African cavern together with far earlier pygmy elephants, such as were found in the cave deposits of Malta by Milne-Edwards, will that be a reason to maintain that in our age all men and all elephants were pygmies?.... 'Seek for the remains of thy forefathers in the high places. The vales have grown into mountains and the mountains have crumbled to the bottom of the seas.'.... Fourth Race mankind, thinned after the last cataclysm by

two-thirds of its population, instead of settling on the new continents and islands that reappeared while their predecessors formed the floors of new Oceans - deserted that which is now Europe and parts of Asia and Africa for the summits of gigantic mountains, the seas that surrounded some of the latter having since 'retreated' and made room for the table-lands of Central Asia." - Cf. The Secret Doctrine, II, pp. 709-30

The name of Malta - Melita - is said to be from the Greek word for honey. But as these crypts were at one time, if not originally, devoted to a variant of the Persian-Chaldaeo-Mithraic Mysteries, primarily based upon the hypostatic Tetrad or Arba-il - Anu, Bel, Hoa, united in the Virgin-goddess Mylitta - the latter word may be the more probable original.

The carved outlines of horned bulls on the plate found in Hal Saflieni, and in the 'bull sanctuary' at Tarxien, belong to archaic symbolism.

"The bull Nandi, the vahana of and the most sacred emblem of this god, is reproduced in the Egyptian Apis, and in the bull created by Ormazd and killed by Ahriman. The religion of Zoroaster, entirely based upon the 'secret doctrine,' is found held by the people of Eritene (in Bactria); it was the religion of the Persians when they conquered the Assyrians. From thence it is easy to trace the introduction of this emblem of Life, represented by the Bull, in every religious system. The college of the Magians had accepted it with the change of dynasty; Daniel is described as a Rabbi, the chief of the Babylonian astrologers and Magi; therefore we see the Assyrian little bulls and the attributes of Siva reappearing under a hardly modified form in the cherubs of the Talmudistic Jews, as we have traced the bull Apis in the sphinxes or cherubs of the Mosaic Ark; and as we find it several thousand years later in the company of one of the Christian evangelists, Luke." - Isis Unveiled, II, pp. 235-6

But as always happens, pure symbolism became externalized in all ages by the unthinking populace; and whenever we find practices associated with cruelty, whether to animals or human beings, it may be inferred that religion - brotherhood - has been replaced by mere sacerdotalism. There nevertheless remains the possibility that some of these Maltese temples were at one time or another employed for the lofty purposes of the ancient Wisdom-Religion.

"The ever unknowable and incognizable Karana alone, the Causeless Cause of all causes, should have its shrine and altar on the holy and ever untrodden ground of our heart - invisible, intangible, unmentioned, save through 'the still small voice' of our spiritual consciousness. Those who worship before it, ought to do so in the silence and the sanctified solitude of their Souls; making their spirit the sole mediator between them and the Universal Spirit, their good actions the only priests, and their sinful intentions the only visible and objective sacrificial victims to the Presence." - The Secret Doctrine, I, p. 280

For instance, we read of the true and original Knights Templar that:

"For long centuries these had remained unknown and unsuspected. Holding their meetings once every thirteen years at Malta, and their Grand Master advising the European brothers of the place of rendezvous but a few hours in advance, these representatives of the once mightiest and most glorious body of Knights assembled on the fixed day, from various points of the earth.... Founded in 1118 by the Knights Hugh de Payens and Geoffrey de St.-Omer, nominally for the protection of the pilgrims, its real aim was the restoration of the primitive secret worship. The true version of the history of Jesus and of early Christianity was imparted toHfugh de Payens by the Grand-Pontiff of the

Order of the Temple (of the Nazarene or Johannite sect), one named Theocletes, after which it was learned by some Knights in Palestine from the higher and more intellectual members of the St. John sect, who were initiated into its mysteries. Freedom of intellectual thought and the restoration of one and universal religion was their secret object. Sworn to the vow of obedience, poverty and chastity, they were at first the true Knights of John the Baptist, crying in the wilderness and living on wild honey and locusts. Such is the tradition and the true kabalistic version. It is a mistake to state that the Order only later became anti-Catholic. It was so from the beginning, and the red cross on the white mantle.... had the same significance as with the initiates in every other country." - Isis Unveiled, II, pp. 385, 382

As to the circle and surrounding dots on a pillar at Tarxien, the explanation may be found in the following:

"In the pre-Christian Mithraic Mysteries the candidate who fearlessly overcame the 'twelve Tortures,' which preceded the final initiation, received a small round cake or wafer of unleavened bread, symbolizing, in one of its meanings, the solar disk and shown as the heavenly bread or 'manna,' and having figures traced on it.... The seven rules or mysteries were then delivered to the 'newly-born' - represented in the Revelation as the seven seals which are opened in order (see ch. v, vi). There can be no doubt that the Seer of Patmos referred to this ceremony." - Isis Unveiled, II, pp. 351-2

Many Masons probably know that in the Mithraic ceremonies a preliminary scene of death was simulated by the neophyte. But the following is not so well known:

"When Maximus, the Ephesian, initiated the Emperor Julian into the Mithraic Mysteries, he pronounced as the usual formula of the rite, the following: By this blood, I wash thee from thy sins. The Word of the Highest has entered unto thee, and His Spirit henceforth will rest upon the Newly-Born, the now-begotten of the Highest God.... Thou art the son of Mithra.'" - Isis Unveiled, II, p. 566

It may be noted here that the word 'blood' had an inner meaning, representing the basis of physical life, called in the East prana - the life-principle.

In the article referred to, allusion is made to a small hole in the wall connecting with an inner sanctuary at Hagar Kim, and a similar arrangement occurs at more than one place in Hal Saflieni, as well as a screen or curtain in front of an impressively designed recess at the latter place. These things recall a notable statement found in a Graeco-Demotic Ms. of the first century,

"....and most probably one of the few which miraculously escaped the Christian vandalism of the second and third centuries, when all such precious manuscripts were burned as magical, [wherein] we find.... one of the principal heroes of the manuscript, who is constantly referred to as 'the Judaean Illuminator' or Initiate, is made to communicate but with his Patar; the latter being written in Chaldaic characters. Once the latter word is coupled with the name Shimeon. Several times the 'Illuminator,' who rarely breaks his contemplative solitude, is shown inhabiting a Krupte (cave) and teaching the multitudes of eager scholars standing outside, not orally, but through this Patar. The latter receives the words of wisdom by applying his ear to a circular hole in a partition which conceals the teacher from the listeners, and then conveys them, with explanations and glosses, to the crowd. This with a slight change was the method used by Pythagoras, who, as we know, never allowed his neophytes to see him during the years of probation, but instructed them from behind a curtain in his cave." - Isis Unveiled, II, p. 93

This may throw a side-light on the purposes of the sound magnification and reflection which characterize one of the remarkable chambers in Hal Saflieni.

"The great hierophant of the ancient Mysteries never allowed the candidates to see or hear him personally. He was the deus ex machina, the presiding but invisible Deity, uttering his will and instructions through a second party; and 2000 years later we discover that the Dalai-Lamas of Tibet had been following for centuries the same traditional program during the most important religious mysteries of Lamaism. If Jesus knew the secret meaning of the title bestowed by him on Simon, then he must have been initiated, otherwise he could not have learned it; and if he was an initiate of either the Pythagorean Essenes, the Chaldaean Magi, or the Egyptian Priests, then the doctrine taught by him was but a portion of the 'Secret Doctrine' taught by the Pagan heirophant to the few select adepts admitted within the sacred adyta." - Ibid.

It has been stated in the encyclopaedias that tradition still points out in Malta the grottos of Calypso. Thanks to H.P. Blavatsky, Homer will be read understandingly before the twentieth century closes. Let us cite an item on this point:

"The myth of Atlas is an allegory easily understood. Atlas is the old continents of Lemuria and Atlantis, combined and personified in one symbol. The poets attribute to Atlas, as to Proteus, a superior wisdom and a universal knowledge, and especially a thorough acquaintance with the depths of the ocean: because both continents bore races instructed by divine masters, and because both were transferred to the bottom of the seas, where they now slumber until their next reappearance above the waters. Atlas is the son of an ocean nymph, and his daughter is Calypso - 'the watery deep': Atlantis has been submerged beneath the waters of the ocean, and its progeny is now sleeping its eternal sleep on the ocean floors. The Odyssey makes of him the guardian and the 'sustainer' of the huge pillars that separate the heavens from the earth. He is their 'supporter.' And as both Lemuria, destroyed by submarine fires, and Atlantis, submerged by the waves, perished in the ocean deeps, Atlas is said to have been compelled to leave the surface of the earth, and join his brother Iapetos in the depths of Tartaros.... Atlas is Atlantis which supports the new continents and their horizons on its 'shoulders.'" - The Secret Doctrine, II, pp. 762-3

Altogether the discoveries in Malta suggest many lines of investigation.

(Vol. 19, pp. 38-41)

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Maya Chronology - F. J. Dick, School of Antiquity

[1920]

.... Recently the writer was handed a Government reprint of a paper, 'The Great Dragon of Quirigua,'1 the perusal of which led him to examine other Government reprints, namely Bulletins 28 and 57,2 together with articles by S.G. Morley in the Journal of American Archaeology, XIV, XV, and also in the Proceedings of the Second Pan-American Congress, I, 1917.

Some of the results reached by American and German archaeologists in this line of research have been supremely startling, and are of incalculable value. It is proposed to discuss the following suggestions and propositions, which are the outcome of a careful though brief study of the various investigations, when taken in conjunction with some of the correlated points to be found in H.P. Blavatsky's writings:

(1) Maya is not a dead language.(2) The Maya or their archaic predecessors and instructors had the means of

continuing and perpetuating the accurate chronologic record (maintained, according to Eastern data, from Atlantean times) for upwards of five million years, i.e., from and during Fourth-Race times.

(3) Two Maya inscriptions give the accurate or closely approximate date of a catastrophe, the memory of which has been annually recalled in various countries all over the world.

(4) This, disaster, both in Maya and universal tradition, was connected with a special position of the Pleiades.

(5) Its date corresponds with particulars from Eastern sources.(6) Prior to the earliest Chichen Itza period the Maya method of registering the

passage of time through long ages was far superior to the modern.(7) Their 'year' commenced at the Winter Solstice, and was adjusted by a sliding-

scale application of a 'Year-significator' to the fixed and invariable Calendar Round of 52 365-day years.

(8) Their so-called tonalamatl of 260 days, continuously repeating itself, absolutely unconnected as it is with any of the more ordinary astronomical phenomena, is well known to have constituted the basis of their ceremonial observances. Hence it must have represented symbolically the important and basic interval of time - 26,000 years - which the Vernal Equinox takes to perform one circuit of the Zodiac.

(9) These and many other considerations point to the presence on American soil, in very ancient times, of a people high in culture and intelligence, to say the least, and who - like the instructed among the archaic Egyptians and among the pre-Vedic civilizations of Central Asia - must have possessed the zodiacal and other astronomical records of Asura-Maya, the great Atlantean astronomer. It is noteworthy that Asura-Maya means simply 'the godlike Maya.'3 H.P. Blavatsky writes:

"It is Asura-Maya who is said to have based all his astronomical works upon those records [of Narada], to have determined the duration of all the past geological and cosmical periods, and the length of all the cycles to come, till the end of this life-cycle, or the end of the seventh Race.... The Atlantean zodiacal records cannot err, as they were compiled under the guidance of those who first taught astronomy.... to mankind."4

To take up our propositions in order :(1) Maya is not a dead language. But "Nature has provided strange nooks and

hiding-places for her favorites." It was, as is well known, John Lloyd Stephens, the true pioneer of modern Central American archaeology, who first published the statement (in 1841) that a large city, whose inhabitants spoke the Maya language, could be discerned from the topmost ridge of the Cordillera. It remained for H.P. Blavatsky to corroborate this statement in Isis Unveiled, and it is fervently to be hoped that the effervescent disease which we dignify with the term 'civilization' will not infest that beautiful city, with its "turrets white and glistening in the sun." But we can here at least hazard the conjecture that Chichen Itza saw the last of the true Maya brotherhood in Yucatan.

Table of Principal Dates in Maya Chronology

1 kin = 1 day20 kins = 1 Uinal = 20 days18 Uinals = 1 Tun = 360 days20 Tuns = 1 Katun = 7,200 days20 Katuns = 1 Cycle = 144,000 days20 Cycles = 1 Major Cycle = 2,880,000 days20 Major Cycles = 1 Superior Cycle = 57,600,000 days20 Superior Cycles = 1 Grand Cycle = 1,152,000,000 days0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0: - 5 Ahau 8 Yaxkin - Atlantean starting date, 5,042,152 years B.C.

1.4.0.17.10.18.5.19: - 9 Cauac 12 Muan - Reversed series, Temple of Inscriptions, Palenque, referring to date 1,250,430 B.C.

1.11.4.2.0.10.0.0: - 2 Ahau 13 Mac - Reversed series, Stela N, Copan, which would refer to date 121,108 B.C.

1.11.18.7.0.0.0.0: - 4 Ahau 8 Zotz - Summer Solstice, 8755 B.C., with the Sun in opposition to the Pleiades. At that period the Vernal Equinox was at Regulus. Submersion of Poseidonis 10,675 years ago. (Stela C, Quirigua; Temple of Cross, Palenque)

1.11.18.7.0.14.0.1: - 1 Imix 4 Uayeb - End of current Calendar Round at that period. (C.R. 1)

1.11.19.0.0.0.0: - 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu - Date from which most of the Maya inscriptions are counted, forward or backward. Year 3632 B.C. (Julian day 395,182.)

1.11.19.8.6.2.14.7: - 8 Caban 0 Kankin - Tuxtla statuette. Year 357 B.C. (Julian day 1,591,389.)

1.11.19.8.14.3.1.12: - 1 Eb 0 Yaxkin - Leyden plate. Year 199 B.C. (Jul. day 1,649,094.)

1.11.19.9.0.0.0.0: - 8 Ahau 13 Ceh - End of 'Cycle 9,' 83 B.C. (Jul. day 1,691,182.)

1.11.19.9.3.6.2.0: - 5 Ahau 8 Pax - Stela 10, Tikal. Year 17 B.C. (Jul. day 1,715,305.)

1.11.19.9.4.4.0.3 - Jan. 1, 1 A.D. (Jul. day 1,721,425.)

1.11.19.9.15.9.9.4: - 9 Kan 12 Kayab - Date from which the Serpent-Numbers in the Dresden Codex are counted. April 7 (O.S.), 223 A.D.

1.11.19.10.2.9.1.9: - 9 Muluc 7 Zac - Chichen Itza lintel inscription. Year 360 A.D. 1.11.19.13.0.0.5.1: - 1 Imix 4 Uayeb - End of C.R. 198, after '4 Ahau 8 Zotz.'

11.19.13.1.0.0.0: - 2 Ahau 3 Chen - End of Katun 2 Ahau.' Dec. 1 (O.S.), 1514 A.D.

1.11.19.13.1.14.0.0: - 11 Ahau 13 Tzec - In 34th year of C.R. 199 (6 Tuns before end of 'Katun 13 Ahau').

1.11.19.13.1.14.4.3: - 3 Akbal 16 Chen - Winter Solstice. Year 3 Akbal 0 Pop. Dec. 10 (O.S.), 1528 A.D.

1.11.19.13.1.14.7.1: - 9 Imix 14 Ceh - Year 3 Akbal, 18 Zip. Feb. 6 (O.S.), 1529 A.D. Death of Napot Xiu.

1.11.19.13.2.0.0.0: - 13 Ahau 3 Zotz - Aug. 18 (O.S.), 1534. End of 'Katun 13 Ahau.' 'Katun 11 Ahau' begins midnight.

1.11.19.13.2.6.16.9 - June 11 (O.S.), 1541 A.D. Merida falls.

1.11.19.13.2.7.0.0: - 11 Ahau 8 Uo - July 12 (O.S.), 1541 A.D. End of 7th division of 'Katun 11 Ahau.'

1 11 19.13.5.0.0.0: - 7 Ahau 8 Yaxkin - Oct. 7 (O.S.), 1593 A.D. Ending midnight begins 'Katun 5 Ahau.'

1.11.19.14.1.11.7.16 - Summer Solstice, June 22, 1920 A.D.

----------(2) The antiquity of the Maya record. This has been demonstrated by S.G. Morley,5

with reference to Stela 10, Tikal. On the preceding page is a list of Maya chronologic units. Now the inscription on Stela 10, Tikal, reads 1.11.19.9.3.6.2.0, meaning 1 Grand Cycle, 11 Superior Cycles, 19 Major Cycles, 9 Cycles, 3 Katuns, 6 Tuns, 2 Uinals, 0 kins, or 1,841,639,800 days. In order to appreciate the relation of this and other inscriptions to modern chronology, and to other matters germane to this discussion, the foregoing Table of principal dates is introduced.

The second item in this Table is about 180,000 years before the rise of our present Fifth Root-Race,6 at a time when the island-continents Ruta and Daitya were still above the waves - the main continental systems of the Fourth Root-Race epoch having gone down several million years previously. Those island-continents themselves finally perished about 869,000 years ago, and it would not be strange if another Maya inscription should be discovered, pointing to a date some 380,000 years or so more recent than that denoted by this particular Palenque inscription. The figures of the second and third items are deduced by the writer from certain reversed series at Palenque and Copan, on the principle that a considerable number of other series are demonstrated by S.G. Morley to obey accurately the rule that the count proceeds, whether forward or backward, from the '4 Ahau 8 Cumhu' datum time-point, unless otherwise expressly indicated, i.e., from the date shown in item 6, namely, 3632 B.C.

"Surprising" as some of the figures may appear, archaeologists ought surely to be aware that the ordinary Bengali ephemeris, for say 1900 A.D., had printed on its cover, "Year 1,929,481,781," meaning 'year of the current Kalpa.' However, the Maya left sufficient material in their temples, stelae, and codices for the future invaders of their territory to puzzle over, even though such data relate only to comparatively recent Earth-history. Those unfamiliar with Eastern (derived from Atlantean) chronology will find a succinct general sketch thereof in Isis Unveiled, I, p. 32; while a somewhat fuller statement appears in The Secret Doctrine, II, pp. 68-70. But of course the figures therein given go far beyond the history of our present physical Earth.

(3) Date of catastrophe. Poseidonis may be said in a special sense, particularly in regard to its population, to have been the last surviving remnant of the Fourth Root-Race continental system. Of course other portions of that system are still above the sea, even if re-elevated after a long submergence, like Easter Island. But here we cannot do better than quote portions of an article published by H.P. Blavatsky in 1883: 7

"As the chief element in the language of the Fifth [Root-] Race is the Aryan Sanskrit of the 'brown-white' geological stock or race, so the predominating element in Atlantis was a language which has now survived but in the dialects of some American Red-Indian tribes, and in the Chinese speech of the inland Chinamen, the mountainous tribes of Kwang-ze - a language which was an admixture of the agglutinate and the monosyllabic, as it would be called by modern philologists. It was, in short, the language of the 'red-yellow' second or middle geological stock (we maintain the term 'geological'). A strong percentage of the Mongoloid or Fourth Root-Race was, of course, to be found in the Aryans of the Fifth. But this did not prevent in the least the presence at the same time of unalloyed, pure Aryan races in it. A number of small islands scattered around Poseidonis had been vacated, in consequence of earthquakes, long before the final catastrophe, which has alone remained in the memory of men - thanks to some written records. Tradition says that one of the small tribes (the Aeolians) who had become islanders after emigrating from far northern countries, had to leave their home again for fear of a deluge. If.... we say that this Aryan race that came from Central Asia, the cradle of the Fifth-race Humanity, belonged to the 'Akkadian' tribes, there will be a new historico-ethnological difficulty created. Yet it is maintained that these Akkads 'were no more a Turanian' race than any of the modern British people are the mythical ten tribes of Israel, so conspicuously present in the Bible, and absent from history. With such remarkable pacta conventa between modern exact (?) and ancient occult sciences, we may proceed with the fable.

"Belonging virtually, through their original connection with the Aryan, Central Asian Stock, to the Fifth [Root-] Race, the old Aeolians yet were Atlanteans, not only in virtue of their long residence in the now submerged continent, covering some thousands of years, but by the free intermingling of blood, by intermarriage with them. Perhaps in this connection Mr. Huxley's disposition to account for his Melanochroi (the Greeks being included under this classification or type) - as themselves 'the result of crossing between the Xanthochroi and the Australoids,' among whom he places the Southern India lower classes, and the Egyptians to some extent - is not far off from fact. Anyhow the Aeolians of Atlantis were Aryans on the whole, as much as the Basques - Dr. Pritchard's Allophylians - are now southern Europeans, although originally belonging to the South Indian Dravidian stock [their progenitors having never been the aborigines of Europe prior to the first Aryan emigration, as supposed].

"Frightened by the frequent earthquakes and the visible approach of the cataclysm, this tribe is said to have filled a flotilla of arks, to have sailed from beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and, sailing along the coasts, after several years of travel to have landed on the shores of the Aegean Sea in the land of Pyrrha (now Thessaly), to which they gave the name of Aeolia. Thence they proceeded on business with the gods to Mount Olympus. It may be stated here, at the risk of creating a 'geographical difficulty,' that in that mythical age Greece, Crete, Sicily, Sardinia, and many other islands of the Mediterranean, were simply the far-away possessions, or colonies, of Atlantis. Hence, the 'fable' proceeds to state that all along the coasts of Spain, France, and Italy the Aeolians often halted, and the memory of their 'magical feats' still survives among the descendants of the old Massilians, of the tribes of the later Carthage-Nova, and the seaports of Etruria and Syracuse.

"And here again it would not be a bad idea, perchance, even at this late hour, for the archaeologists to trace, with the permission of the anthropological societies, the origin of the various autochthones through their folk-lore and fables, as they may prove both more suggestive and reliable than their 'undecipherable' monuments. History catches a misty glimpse of these particular autochthones thousands of years only after they had been settled in old Greece - namely, at the moment when the Epireans cross the Pindus bent on expelling the black magicians from their home to Boeotia. But history never listened to the popular legends which speak of the 'accursed sorcerers' who departed,

leaving as an inheritance behind them more than one secret of their infernal arts, the fame of which crossing the ages has now passed into history - or, classical Greek and Roman fable, if so preferred. To this day a popular tradition narrates how the ancient forefathers of the Thessalians, so renowned for their magicians, had come from behind the Pillars, asking for help and refuge from the great Zeus, and imploring the father of the gods to save them from the deluge. But the 'Father' expelled them from the Olympus, allowing their tribe to settle only at the foot of the mountain, in the valleys, and by the shores of the Aegean Sea.

"Such is the oldest fable of the Thessalians. And now, what was the language spoken by the Atlantean Aeolians? History cannot answer us. Nevertheless, the reader has only to be reminded of some of the accepted and a few of the as yet unknown facts, to cause the light to enter any intuitional brain. It is now proved that man was universally conceived in antiquity as born of the earth. Such is now the profane explanation of the term autochthones. In nearly every vulgarized popular fable, from the Sanskrit Arya, 'born of the earth,' or Lord of the Soil in one sense; the Erechtheus of the archaic Greeks, worshiped in the earliest days of the Acropolis and shown by Homer as 'he whom the earth bore' (Il., II, 548); down to Adam fashioned of 'red earth,' the genetical story has a deep occult meaning, and an indirect connection with the origin of man and of the subsequent races. Thus, the fables of Helen, the son of Pyrrha the red - the oldest name of Thessaly; and of Mannus, the reputed ancestor of the Germans, himself the son of Tuisto, 'the red son of the earth,' have not only a direct bearing upon our Atlantis fable, but they explain moreover the division of mankind into geological groups as made by the occultists. It is only this, their division, that is able to explain to Western teachers the apparently strange, if not absurd, coincidence of the Semitic Adam - a divinely revealed personage - being connected with red earth, in company with the Aryan Pyrrha, Tuisto, etc. - the mythical heroes of 'foolish' fables.

"Nor will that division made by the Eastern occultists, who call the Fifth-Race people 'the brown-white,' and the Fourth Race 'the red-yellow' Root-Races - connecting them with geological strata - appear at all fantastic to those who understood verse iii 34-9 of the Veda and its occult meaning, and another verse in which the Dasyus are called 'yellow.' Hatvi Dasyun pra aryam varnam avat is said of Indra who, by killing the Dasyus, protected the color of the Aryans; and again, Indra 'unveiled the light for the Aryas and the Dasyu was left on the left hand' (ii, 11, 18). Let the student bear in mind that the Greek Noah, Deukalion, the husband of Pyrrha, was the reputed son of Prometheus who robbed Heaven of its fire (i.e., of secret Wisdom 'of the right hand,' or occult knowledge); that Prometheus is the brother of Atlas; that he is also the son of Asia and of the Titan Iapetus - the antetype from which the Jews borrowed their Japhet for the exigencies of their own popular legend to mask its Kabalistic, Chaldaean meaning; and that he is also the antetype of Deukalion. Prometheus is the creator of man out of earth and water (behold Moses saying that it requires earth and water to make a living man), who after stealing fire from Olympus - a mountain in Greece - is chained on a mount in the far-off Caucasus. From Olympus to Mount Kazbek there is a considerable distance.

"While the Fourth Race was generated and developed on the Atlantean continent - our antipodes in a certain sense - the Fifth was generated and developed in Asia. [The ancient Greek geographer Strabo, for one, calls by the name of Ariana, the land of the Aryas, the whole country between the Indian Ocean in the south, the Hindu Kush and Paropamisus in the north, the Indus on the east, and the Caspian Gates, Karamania, and the mouth of the Persian Gulf, on the west.] The fable of Prometheus relates to the extinction of the civilized portions of the Fourth Race whom Zeus, in order to create a new race, would destroy entirely, and Prometheus (who had the sacred fire of knowledge) saved partially 'for future seed.'

"But the origin of the fable antecedes the destruction of Poseidonis by more than

seventy thousand years, however incredible it may seem. The seven great continents of the world, spoken of in the Vishnu-Purana (II, ch. ii) include Atlantis, though, of course, under another name. Ila and Ira are synonymous Sanskrit terms (see Amara-kosa, or vocabulary), and both mean earth or native soil; and Ilavrita is a portion of the central point of India (Jambu-dvipa), the latter itself being the center of the seven great continents before the submersion of the great continent of Atlantis, of which Poseidonis was but an insignificant remnant.... 8

"Atlantis was not merely the name of one island but that of a whole continent, of whose isles and islets many have to this day survived. The remotest ancestors of some of the inhabitants of the now miserable fisherman's hovel 'Acl' (once Atlan), near the gulf of Uraha, were allied at one time as closely with the old Greeks and Romans as they were with the 'true inland Chinaman.'.... There was a time when the Indian peninsula was at one end of the line, and South America at the other, connected by a belt of islands and continents.... Even in the days of history, and within its memory, there was an upper, a lower, and a western India; and still earlier it was doubly connected with the two Americas. The lands of the ancestors of those whom Ammianus Marcellinus calls the 'Brachmans of Upper India' stretched from Kashmir far into the (now) deserts of Shamo. A pedestrian from the north might then have reached - hardly wetting his feet - the Alaskan Peninsula, through Manchuria, across the future Gulf of Tatary, the Kurile and Aleutian Islands; while another traveler, furnished with a canoe and starting from the south, could have walked over from Siam, crossed the Polynesian Islands and trudged into any part of the continent of South America. In Isis Unveiled, I, p. 593, the Thevetatas - the evil, mischievous gods that have survived in the Etruscan Pantheon - are mentioned, along with the 'sons of God' or Brahmanic Pitris. The Involute, the hidden or shrouded gods, the Consentes, Complices, and Novensiles, are all disguised relics of the Atlanteans; while the Etruscan arts of soothsaying, their Disciplina revealed by Tages, comes direct and in undisguised form from the Atlantean king Thevetat, the 'invisible' Dragon, whose name survives to this day among the Siamese and Burmese, as also in the Jataka stories of the Buddhists as the opposing power under the name of Devadat. And Tages was the son of Thevetat, before he became the grandson of the Etruscan Jupiter-Tinia.

"Have the Western Orientalists tried to find the connection between all these Dragons and Serpents;9 between the 'powers of Evil' in the cycles of epic legends, the Persian and the Indian, the Greek and the Jewish; between the contests of Indra and the giant; the Aryan Nagas and the Iranian Azhi Dahaka; the Guatemalian Dragon and the Serpent of Genesis, etc., etc.? Professor Max Muller discredits the connection. So be it. But the fourth race of men, 'men' whose sight was unlimited and who knew all things at once, the hidden as the unrevealed, is mentioned in the Popol-Vuh, the sacred books of the Guatemalians; and the Babylonian Xisuthrus, the far later Jewish Noah, the Hindu Vaivasvata, and the Greek Deukalion, are all identical with the great Father of the Thlinkithians of Popol-Vuh who, like the rest of these allegorical (not mythical) Patriarchs, escaped in his turn and in his days, in a large boat at the time of the last great Deluge - the submersion of Atlantis....

"Now the last of the Atlantean islands perished some eleven thousand years ago...."--------

The foregoing citation will serve to afford a concise general view of the human, historical, geological, and other problems intimately connected with the interpretation, and appreciation of the importance, of Maya archaeology. Many are the questions which naturally present themselves in reading it, but the painstaking student will find them answered in H.P. Blavatsky's two great works, and we have no space to go into them here, but must return to our Maya chronology.

(4) We said that the memory of the destruction of Poseidonis is annually preserved

in various countries. In Japan, when the Pleiades culminate at midnight, they commemorate some great calamity which befell the world. The Talmud connects the Pleiades with a great destructive flood. They culminate at midnight in these days about the 17th of November, a date observed, with the same significance, alike by the Aztecs, Hindus, Japanese, Egyptians, Ceylonese, Persians, and Peruvians. On the 17th of November, no petition was presented in vain to the kings of Persia. Prescott, in his Conquest of Mexico, speaks of a great festival held by the Mexicans in November, at the time of the midnight culmination of the Pleiades, and the Spanish conquerors found in Mexico a tradition that the world (?) was once destroyed when these stars culminated at midnight. At the end of every fifty-two years (a Calendar Round), and at that identical midnight moment of the year, the Aztecs still seemed to imagine the world might end, the entire population passing the remainder of the night on their knees, awaiting their doom - perhaps the most remarkable instance of race-memory on record. Equally extraordinary, however, is the fact that the Australian aborigines, at that same culmination, hold a ceremony connected with the dead. Some Masonic bodies at the present day hold memorial services for the dead in the middle of November. The Druids had a similar celebration in November, which seems to have included the three consecutive days now called All Hallow Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls, clearly indicating a festival for the dead, and doubtless originally regulated, like all the others, by the Pleiades. Ethnologically the fact that this celebration occurs at the same time and for the same reason in the Tonga Islands of the Fiji group, has especial significance, for the Tongas, as well as the Samoans and Tahitians, belong to the earliest of the surviving Atlantean sub-races, and are of a higher stature than the rest of mankind.

Bearing in mind the very thorough knowledge of astronomy and of astronomical cycles possessed by the Maya, it was the foregoing remarkable facts which led the writer to what he believes to be the correct solution of three hitherto unsolved problems in Maya chronology, at the same time accurately connecting the day-count from the remotest times to the present moment, as indicated in the Table.

(5) The date of the Poseidonis catastrophe is stated as "about 11,000 years ago," both in the foregoing citation and in The Secret Doctrine, in the sense that when using round numbers it was nearer eleven than ten thousand years ago.

(6) The superiority of the Maya system of recording times and cycles, is seen not only in the very few signs needed to cover with minute precision immense periods of time, and in its essential combination of the duodecimal with the vigesimal method of enumeration, but also in the fact that dates are accompanied by their own check. Compare this with our modern 'civilized' record. A dozen or so different systems in use; the 'year of confusion'; Whitaker's almanac for 1920 obliged to publish a new patent key for dates since 1 A.D.; and dates of eclipses, etc., more than 2000 years ago practically unknown.

(7) Maya year commenced at the Winter Solstice. We come now to the details of the business. On account of the rather technical character of them, an endeavor will be made to be as brief as possible. Those who wish to follow up the matter more clearly are referred to the investigations of Forstemann, Bowditch, Seler, and Morley, in the publications previously indicated, wherein many collateral questions are examined.

The Maya 'books of Chilam Balam' belong to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and were copied by Dr. H. Behrendt. They constitute our only means of connecting the temple and stelae records with modern chronology. But they contain many incongruities. Their chronology depended solely upon the series of Katuns, but this series, though approximately continuous when followed from one of the books to another, has evident gaps, as when for instance Katun 8 Ahau and Katun 11 Ahau are given side by side. Then there had been confusion about the beginning and ending of a given Katun, and about the beginning day of the Calendar Round, - Landa, for instance, writing that it

began with the day '1 Imix,' whereas it begins with the following day, '2 Ik.' Thus in these later and admittedly imperfect records, there was, as Morley says, a displacement of a day, and also a series of 13 Katuns (about 256 years) dropped out of sight, as he almost admits.10 'This could very easily happen, because the only means, in the Chilan Balam books, of identifying a particular Katun is its numerical coefficient. These occur in the order 13,11,9,7,5,3,1,12,10,8,6,4,2, and then repeat. And in passing we may here note, with regard to the foregoing long citation on ancient language, etc., that the 20 Maya Day-Names are, starting from the beginning of a Calendar Round: Ik, Akbal, Kan, Chicchan, Cimi, Manik, Lamat, Muluc, Oc, Chuen, Eb, Ben, Ix, Men, Cib, Caban, Eznab, Cauac, Ahau, Imix. These are preceded in continuously recurring order by the numbers 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,1. It follows that no day can have the same coefficient again until 260 days have elapsed, which is called the tonalamatl period. Again, the nineteen divisions of one 365-day year are named: Pop, Uo, Zip, Zotz, Tzec, Xul, Yaxkin, Mol, Chen, Yax, Zac, Ceh, Mac, Kankin, Muan, Pax, Kayab, Cumhu, Uayeb. The first eighteen have each 20 days, and the last 5. The division dates are numbered 0 to 19, and 0 to 4. Thus the date of the first day of a Calendar year is 0 Pop, and in the first year of the invariable Calendar Round its complete description is 2 Ik 0 Pop.

Now as the Katuns of the Chilan Balam books end with Ahau days, this connects them indisputably with the fixed Calendar Round of the old inscriptions, which is one point gained. In the next place there is one very important Maya date given with full detail alike by the Chilan Balam of Mani, that of Tizimin, and that of Chumayel, which, after allowing for the displacement of one day, fixes the 'year-significator' accurately in the Calendar Round, at that period. That is, instead of reading the 'significator' 4 Kan, it must be corrected to the preceding day, 3 Akbal. This date, for the death of Napot Xiu, is: "six Tuns before the end of Katun 13 Ahau, in the year 4 Kan (read 3 Akbal) 9 Imix 18 Zip." Turning to the 34th year of the fixed Calendar Round we find this 3 Akbal at 16 Chen, and the 9 Imix at 14 Ceh. 3 Akbal being the 'significator' it now represents 0 Pop, and the 14 Ceh represents 18 Zip. In the Table, and here, dates connected with a 'significator' are italicized.

We have a statement that the seventh Tun of 'Katun 11 Ahau' ended July 18 (O.S.) - which should be July 12 - 1541; and another statement that 'Katun 5 Ahau,' or rather the end of 'Katun 7 Ahau,' occurred on Oct. 16 (O.S.), 1593 A.D., which is nearly right. These particulars, together with those of the 'significator,' are sufficient to fix the date of the death of Napot Xiu, namely, Feb. 6 (O.S.), 1529 A.D. For we know that on Dec. 10 (O.S.), i.e., Dec. 21 (N.S.), 1528 - the Winter Solstice - the 'significator' stood at the position 16 Chen, in the current Calendar Round. We know also that the 198th Calendar Round, counting from the '4 Ahau 8 Zotz' date, ended on 1.11.19.13. 0.0.5.1. Therefore one perceives immediately that they kept the 'year significator,' as we are calling it, adjusted so that about the middle of each Calendar Round it would be at the Winter Solstice.

As the Winter Solstice 'significator'-position was necessarily at 7 Mac in 'C.R. 1,' and at 16 Chen in 'C.R. 199,' it follows that the tropical year, expressed in mean solar days, 10,675 years ago was then about 365.240 384. If t denote number of tropical years prior to 1920, and d the days in one tropical year, then Newcomb's formula would have to be altered, for this particular long period, to:

d = 365.242 198 79 -- 0.000 000 17 t

which nevertheless would not be applicable to periods of still greater length, because orbital and terrestrial elements are subject to periodic changes, as is indeed suggested by the figures, which show a progressive increase from past to present, while Newcomb's formula shows a progressive decrease from present to future. (Cf. Theosophical Path, XIX, p. 228.)

When we say that July 18 should be July 12, it merely means that if the words "the seventh Tun ended" were taken literally, such would be the correction. The words "six Tuns before the end of Katun 13 Ahau" are merely approximate. The expression should rather have been "in the sixth Tun before." Again, as to the penultimate item in the Table for the beginning of a Katun 5 Ahau, the Chilan Balam of Mani is said to have had the words "year 13 Kan 17 Zac." But by that time they had certainly lost the old method,11 so this particular statement is worthless. An important link with modern chronology is the statement that the first appearance (1511) of the Spaniards happened during a 'Katun 2 Ahau,' which, as will be seen in the Table, ended on Dec. 1 (O.S.), 1514 A.D.

It happens that Don Carlos Siguenza y Gongora (17th century) "had important documents which belonged to a descendant of the royal Tetzoccan family, and he was a trained astronomer." The 'theory' that 13 days were interpolated at the end of each Calendar Round is ascribed to him. But the suggestion has been rejected, because misunderstood. The Maya certainly never 'interpolated' any days, for the simple reasons that it was unnecessary, and that such a thing would have struck at the very root and foundation of their chronological system. What they did, as is indeed proved without going farther by the Chilan Balam books, was to fix the 'year-significator' position for each particular Calendar Round, and then advance it by 13 days. But as the ancient Maya, at least, were highly skilled astronomers, perhaps to a degree hardly suspected even by students of the Dresden Codex, they must also have varied this practice by advancing its position only 11 days at the end of every fifth Calendar Round, reserving the further correction of a day at longer intervals, just as we do in another way - or propose to do. (Compare their method of arriving at the mean value of the Moon's revolution-period, not less accurate in result than that so far reached by modern astronomy.) Thus, ordinarily, if the 'significator'-position stood at 16 Chen, it would be at 9 Yax for the whole of the next Calendar Round, or at 3 Chen for the preceding one.

It is just here that universal, as well as Maya tradition - which by the way is referred to by Seler - comes to our aid. For we find that the '4 Ahau 8 Zotz' date not only occurred at an important and significant astronomical position - with the Pleiades culminating at midnight on the Summer Solstice, the Vernal Equinox at Regulus, and the 'significator' at or near the Winter Solstice - but that it also coincides with what must have been a fateful time for the ancestors of the Maya, the final disappearance of Poseidonis, along with other ocean-bed disturbances elsewhere.12

(8) The tonalamatl. Whether by accident or design, Morley's diagram of the tonalamatl contains the key to its true meaning. For while the circle of the 260 day-names and coefficients runs round clockwise, a central arrow indicates a revolution counter-clockwise. In other words, the tonalamatl typified one cycle of precession round the Zodiac, occupying 26,000 years, wherein the Vernal Equinox passes through the signs in the reversed order, Aries, Pisces, Aquarius, etc. That this is the true origin and meaning of the tonalamatl should be self-evident to those who have learned that the foundation of all ancient astronomy, American as Eastern and Egyptian, rests primarily, and of necessity, upon the Zodiacal cycles. The Books of the Bramanical Zodiacs, for instance, are frequently referred to by H.P. Blavatsky. This subject, and the other matters treated of in the Dresden Codex - synodical periods of the planets, etc. - is an extensive one, but it is only indirectly connected with our immediate topic of Maya chronology, and it would require a treatise, even if we had all the meanings of the relative passages in that Codex before us. But it may at least be suggested that the substitution of 100 years for one 'ceremonial' day may possibly facilitate further study of the already copious tonalamatl literature. The division of the tonalamatl into four distinct parts, associated with the four points of the compass, is extremely suggestive, in view of the multitude of data bearing on this especial subject in The Secret Doctrine.

(9) Maya culture and intelligence. The facts above disclosed ought to be sufficient

to prove the heights attained by the Maya and their predecessors in this land of America. Our fathers or grandfathers in Europe and America were solemnly taught, with all the sanction of 'revealed religion,' that the universe was created 4004 B.C. And now we have the silent witness of temples and stelae, on this continent, to a record extending back more than five million years! On which side of the scale, may we not ask, stands the culture and intelligence? Which of the European nations, Greek or more modern, possessed a keener sense of architectural beauty combined with beauty of environment? The landscape setting of the classic Temple of Palenque has no rival, whether in Greece or any other land. Where are our artists?

Maya sculpture? Give the best sculptor living a block, some thirty tons in weight (before carved out), of breccia composed of feldspar, mica, and quartz, and a "stone tool," and ask him, not to design, but merely to copy the 'Great Dragon of Quirigua.' What kind of object would he produce? The very gods would roar with laughter at the result, it is to be feared.

The writer had the honor to be a government official in a distant land for many years, involving the preparation of many reports. Now government publications are proverbially dry, and innocent of adjectives and jokes. Nevertheless it is occasionally possible to discern a joke beneath the turn of a phrase. But never, surely, was a better one perpetrated than when one of our best archaeologists penned this:

"The Maya emerged from barbarism [altered to savagery in another place] about the first or second century of the Christian era."

(Vol. 19, pp. 436-51)

Notes1. Smithsonian Report for 19162. Smithsonian Institution: Mexican and Central American Antiquities, Calendar

Systems, and History, 1904; and An Introduction to the Study of the Maya Hieroglyphs, by S.G. Morley, 1915.

3. The Secret Doctrine, II, p. 92.4. Ibid., p. 49. See also II, p. 436.5. Introd. Study Maya Hier., pp. 116-246. Theosophical Path, XVI, p. 376.7. The Theosophist, IV.8. Cf. Isis Unveiled, I, pp. 589-96.9. Cf. The Secret Doctrine, II, 'Edens, Serpents and Dragons,' and also Part II,

'Archaic Symbolism.'10. Journ. Amer. Archaeol., XV, p. 198.11. Cf. Diego de Landa: Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan, p. 317, Paris, 1864.12. Cf. Isis Unveiled, I, p. 31: edition 1919, Point Loma.

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Machu Picchu: Incan and Pre-Incan Architecture - H. T. Edge

The ancient colossal stone ruins of the Americas, located most abundantly in Peru and Central America, are a great puzzle to archaeologists, but they confirm the views outlined by H.P. Blavatsky in her works. Too little attention has hitherto been paid to these silent but irrefutable witnesses to the truth of the Theosophical teachings as to the great

antiquity of civilization; but this neglect bids fair to be remedied. In both the neglect and its coming repair we see the manifestation of two opposite tendencies in our character. We adhere jealously to our dogmas and prepossessions, and allow them to color not only the inferences which we make from discovered facts, but even to distort and suppress unwelcome facts. On the other hand, we are imbued with an unquenchable thirst for discovery and a laudable devotion to exactitude in unearthing the truth. This being so, truth must gradually win its triumph over prejudice and preconception, and the many and changing speculations of theorists will give way to the only belief which can solve the mystery.

There are innumerable theories in ethnology, anthropology, history, etc., which gain their only plausibility by a judicious narrowing of the range of vision. Their authors have either never heard of many important facts which bear upon their theories, or else they have forgotten these facts or put them out of their mind. The theorist who proposes to bear in mind all the facts which in any way bear upon his theory, needs to have a comprehensive mind and to have studied much; yet, without these requisites, his theory must necessarily be faulty. And more - instead of one theory, there will be many; as indeed we see to be the case when we find separate archaeologists making theories to suit their several requirements, regardless of any mutual inconsistency between the speculations. How many theories of anthropology are upset by the testimony of the colossal architecture of ancient America? As long ago as the seventies of last century, H.P. Blavatsky wrote a series of articles on these ruins, under the title of 'A Land of Mystery,' and brought together the facts gleaned by explorers, their opinions thereon, and her own commentary from the point of view of the ancient teachings she was promulgating. These articles were reprinted in The Century Path (Point Loma) for September and October, 1907, and reference will here be made to them. The immediate occasion of the present writing is a number of The National Geographic Mazagine of some few years ago, which has 188 pages, all of them devoted to Dr. Hiram Bingham's discovery of Machu Picchu, and illustrated with no less than 244 photographs taken by the explorer. These buildings do not seem to belong to the more ancient type of which there are so many instances; they are not carven with those mystic Egyptian-like symbols, hieroglyphs, and human figures. The writer puts them at about 2000 years ago. Even if they are so comparatively recent as that, we still have in them the evidence of a skilful race of builders at that epoch. The frontispiece, giving a panoramic view of the site, has the following legend, which may be quoted as summing up the situation:

"This wonderful city, which was built by the Incas probably 2000 years ago, was discovered in 1911 by Professor Hiram Bingham of Yale University, and uncovered and excavated under his direction in 1912, under the auspices of the National Geographic Society and Yale University, and may prove to be the most important group of ruins discovered in South America since the conquest of Peru. The city is situated on a narrow precipitous ridge two thousand feet above the river and seven thousand feet above the sea, in the grand canyon of the Urubamba, one of the most inaccessible parts of the Andes, sixty miles north of Cuzco, Peru. It contains about two hundred edifices built of white granite, and including palaces, temples, shrines, baths, fountains, and many stairways. The city does not appear to have been known to the Spaniards."

The first part of the article is devoted to a description of the discovery of the site and the incidents of travel and excavation. The explorer was told of some ruins by an old Indian, and the city was revealed when the forest growth had been cleared away. He thinks this is a certain city called Tampu Tocco, mentioned in the following tradition:

"A story told to some of the early Spanish chroniclers.... runs somewhat as follows:

Thousands of years ago there lived in the highlands of Peru a megalithic folk who developed a remarkable civilization, and who left, as architectural records, such cyclopean structures as the fortresses of Sacsahuaman and Ollantaytambo. These people were attacked by barbarian hordes coming from the south - possibly from the Argentine pampas. They were defeated and fled into one of the most inaccessible Andine canyons. Here in a region strongly defended by nature they established themselves; here their descendants lived for several centuries. The chief place was called Tampu Tocco. Eventually regaining their military strength and becoming crowded in this mountainous valley, they left Tampu Tocco, and, under the leadership of three brothers, went out of three windows (or caves) and started for Cuzco. The migration was slow and deliberate. They eventually reached Cuzco and there established the Inca kingdom."

Though Machu Picchu is not quite in the place indicated by the Indians, the explorer thinks it is Tampu Tocco, and that the Indians purposely misdirected the Spaniards. There are no ruins to speak of at the site indicated, and this ruin is marked by a house with three windows; now the name Tampu Tocco means the hotel with windows.

Now for some particulars as to this place. It is situated close to the Urubamba River near latitude 13 ̊ S., and about 43 miles NW. of Cuzco. The site is one of the most difficult of access and best naturally defended in the country; it is an ideal place of refuge, surrounded by stupendous precipices and gorges. The city is built of white granite, and the stonework, as is usual in these ancient American ruins, is distinguished for the qualities of massiveness, skill, and ingenuity in construction, and excellence of detail and finish. Blocks of stone 14 feet long and 5 feet high, and 13 1/2 feet long and 8 feet high, are mentioned among other particulars. There are walls made of beautifully fitted blocks, squared, polygonal, or keyed in a sort of dovetailing and without cement. On the very brink of one precipitous hill is an artificial stone platform which the explorer thinks was a signal-station used by the inhabitants to signal the approach of an enemy; the masons employed in building it would have fallen 1000 feet before striking any part of the cliff, had they slipped. There are over a hundred stairways in the city, and in some cases the whole stairway was made of a monolith; in one case the balustrade too is included in the block. The floors of the "bathrooms" (undoubtedly reservoirs) are also often monolithic. There are gateways with ingenious devices cut in the stone for receiving the fastenings of the vanished wooden doors. That these people were good engineers is shown by the able construction of the drainage. In some of the houses the stonework is so exquisitely finished that no plaster or other dressing would have been needed.

There are photographs showing crevices in the natural rock which have been filled up by cutting the stones so as to fit exactly the curvature; and other pictures showing walls built on very irregular rock-surfaces but with the foundation blocks cut to fit exactly. One wonders what a modern mason would have done - or, rather, one does not wonder, for one knows that he would have used concrete or cement or have planed down the bedrock. These are some of the most important facts, and others will be mentioned incidentally in what follows.

Perhaps the most noticeable feature in the explorer's reflections is the way in which (as it seems to us) he is hampered throughout by certain prepossessions for which there appears no adequate ground, and which often prevent him from making deductions that would seem natural and obvious. For example, on page 453 he tells us that:

"Since they had no iron or steel tools - only stone hammers - its construction must have cost many generations, if not centuries, of effort."

And on page 456 he says that the only tools they had were cobble-stones brought up from a depth of 2000 feet. On page 455 we are informed that the holes bored in the

blocks were probably done with bamboo, sand, water, time, and patience. We naturally ask for the source of his information on this point, as the natural inference is that the masons did have metal tools, either of steel or of some other metal equally hard or harder. We know they had bronze, for it was among the things found; and it is thought by some that a very hard bronze might have been made in those days and used for tools.

However this may be, the fact stands unconfuted that these builders were an able people in every line of their profession, and that the work they have produced has never been approached in its combination of magnitude, perfection, ingenuity, and skill. These people, whoever they were, were certainly the greatest architects, builders, and engineers of whom we have any record. In saying this, we of course bear in mind the other ruins in South America, some of which the writer mentions; we consider the thing as a whole.

Here as elsewhere we find evidence carven on the rocks that the Serpent and the Sun were symbols of this people's cult. The writer comments on the fact that prehistoric peoples all over the globe have represented the Serpent. This is one item in the story of universal symbolism which so puzzles archaeologists who try to account for it on any other theory than the right one. It is one of the proofs that at one time in the far past the whole of mankind on this globe had a single and uniform culture, as we today are tending to have; after which the great dispersal took place, resulting in the present distribution of their remote descendants, who have brought down by tradition these identical symbols and beliefs.

Another point that is seldom sufficiently emphasized is that these buildings must have been as carefully and elaborately constructed in their interior furnishings and external decorations as they were in their solid fabric. Who that has visited an ancient ruin like Kenilworth Castle could form the faintest idea, from that alone, of what it must have looked like (what it actually did look like, as we know from history) when it was the home of stately owners? That moss-grown, dungeon-like, floor-less, ceilingless desolation in no way suggests the glory and comfort of the original abode. If we may apply the rule of three in such matters, let us take for example the Egyptian ruins, and infer that in their original state they were as much grander than one of our castles, as their ruins are grander than our ruins. The engineers and artists who built the skeleton of Machu Picchu would never suffer their skill and patience to fail them in adding those finishing touches which the hand of Time does not spare to our vision.

The failure to use cement does not seem to us to indicate a want of knowledge or ability to do so, but rather the kind of feeling that makes a good planer scorn the resort to sand-paper. These masons may have thought that mortar was the last refuge. Besides, some of the houses still bear traces of an interior finish of some kind of stucco or cement. There is as little doubt that they could have made mortar if they had needed it as there is that they did not need it.

Among the many problems that suggest themselves is how a people so strong and able as these builders should yet have found it necessary to flee before barbarian hordes; and perhaps the mystery is best solved by means of a provisional hypothesis to the effect that they did not so flee. And after all, was all this labor undertaken for the purpose of defence? If so, how great must have been the terror inspired by the enemy, to make a people as able as these builders flee to the uttermost parts of the earth; and not only flee thither but fortify these inaccessible precipices as no place has ever been fortified before or since. The builders may have been great,- but the 'enemy' must have been 'holy terrors.'

Altogether it would seem that we need to study a little more before we can expect to find a satisfactory explanation of the motives that inspired this building; and we must do the writer the justice to say that he for the most part "leaves this to others." As the writer includes in his article a mention of several of the older ruins in South America, we are provided with an occasion for referring to the article by H.P. Blavatsky mentioned above.

In one part she says:

"All along the coast of Peru, all over the Isthmus and North America, in the canyons of the Cordilleras, in the impassable gorges of the Andes, and especially beyond the valley of Mexico, lie, ruined and desolate, hundreds of once mighty cities, lost to the memory of men, and having themselves lost even a name. Buried in dense forests, entombed in inaccessible valleys, sometimes sixty feet underground, from the day of their discovery until now they have ever remained a riddle to science, baffling all inquiry, and they have been muter than the Egyptian Sphinx herself....

"What we want to learn is, how came these nations, so antipodal to each other as India, Egypt, and America, to offer such extraordinary points of resemblance, not only in their general religious, political, and social views, but sometimes in the minutest details. The much-needed task is to find out which one of them preceded the other; to explain how these people came to plant at the four corners of the earth nearly identical architecture and arts, unless there was a time when, as affirmed by Plato and believed in by more than one modern archaeologist, no ships were needed for such a transit, as the two worlds formed but one continent."

She says it is a capital mistake to confound the buildings of the epoch of the Incas in Peru, and of Montezuma in Mexico, with the aboriginal monuments. Cholula, Quiche, Pachacamac, and Chichen were all perfectly preserved at the time of the Spanish invasion; but there are ruined cities which were in the same state of ruin even then, and whose origin was as unknown to the conquered Incas and Aztecs as it is to us. The strange shape of the heads and profiles on the monoliths of Copan indicate a long extinct race. Archaeologists have resorted to the hypothesis that the people indulged in artificial cranial distortion, as is done by some tribes; but Dr. E.R. Heath of Kansas points out that the finding in "a mummy of a fetus of seven or eight months having the same conformation of skull, has placed a doubt as to the certainty of this fact."

The same writer, in a paper on Peruvian antiquities in the Kansas City Review of Science and Industry, Nov. 1878, says:

"Buried sixty-two feet under the ground, on the Chinca Islands, stone idols and water-pots were found, while thirty-five and thirty-three feet below the surface were wooden idols. Beneath the guano on the Guanapi Islands.... mummies, birds, and birds' eggs, gold and silver ornaments were taken.... He who can determine the centuries necessary to deposit thirty and sixty feet of guano on these islands, remembering that since the Conquest, three hundred years ago, no appreciable increase in depth has been noted, can give you an idea of the antiquity of these relics."

H.P. Blavatsky then calculates that, allowing one-twelfth of an inch to a century, we are forced to the conclusion that the people lived 864,000 years ago; and that, even allowing twelve times this rate, or one inch a century, we still have 72,000 years back a civilization that equaled, and in some things surpassed, our own.

Those familiar with Theosophical writings (by which, of course, is meant Theosophy as first stated by H.P. Blavatsky, and not any of the guesses to which the name of Theosophy is sometimes unfortunately applied) are aware that the scale of human history is made more commensurate with the scale of geological and zoological time than is the case with orthodox anthropology. Prevailing opinion among the authorities is still far too timid in this respect, and may be said to be still pecking at the eggshell wherein the mind of our new little race has been confined during its embryonic stages. Perhaps we do not now believe the world was created during seven of the days belonging to the year 4004

B.C.; nor divide the human race into Christians on the one hand and "Jews, Turks, and Infidels" on the other. But still we exhibit a fear in the matter of allowing any antiquity to civilization, which fear is not in consonance with our liberality in according time to such things as deposition and denudation. Why there may not have been civilizations on earth millions of years ago is hard to say. Theosophy says there were, and relies on analogy and the evidence for proof. The builders of the older ruins were not Incas but a race far older, and the blocks may have stood on their sites for hundreds of millenniums.

As to the "defense against enemies" theory, is it not a little overdone? We know, from a study of modern American Indians, that many of their customs, which would seem to be connected with defense, are connected with religion. Some of them have made the entrances to their houses small because they could not find anything large enough to cover a large opening with. Pits in the ground are usually for the purpose of celebrating rites connected with terrene potencies. May there not have been some such reason for building a city on a hill, using stone amid a dense forest of hardwood, and rendering the access difficult?

To continue with H.P. Blavatsky's article - we are first of all impressed, she says, with the magnitude of these relics of races and ages unknown, and then with the extraordinary similarity they present to the mounds and ancient structures of old India, Egypt, and even some parts of Europe. And she speaks of the American pyramids and serpent mounds. The Serpent and the Egg is a familiar cosmic symbol, denoting Time's endless cycles of birth and rebirth. Truly the story of civilization has been repeated times without number on this earth.

The following quotation, cited by H.P. Blavatsky from Mr. Heath as mentioned above, gives some idea of the vast extent of the architecture:

"The coast of Peru extends from Tumbez to the River Loa, a distance of 1233 miles. Scattered over this whole extent, there are thousands of ruins besides those just mentioned.... while nearly every hill and spire of the mountains have upon them or about them some relic of the past; and in every ravine, from the coast to the central plateau, there are ruins of walls, cities, fortresses, burial vaults, and miles and miles of terraces and water-courses. Across the plateau and down the eastern slopes of the Andes to the home of the wild Indian, and into the unknown impenetrable forest, still you find them. In the mountains, however, where showers of rain and snow with the terrific thunder and lightning are nearly constant a number of months each year, the ruins are different. Of granite, porphyritic lime and silicated sandstone, these massive, colossal, cyclopean structures have resisted the disintegration of time, geological transformations, earthquakes, and the sacrilegious destructive hand of the warrior and treasure-seeker. The masonry composing these walls, temples, houses, towers, fortresses, or sepulchres, is uncemented, held in place by the incline of the walls from the perpendicular, and the adaptation of each stone to the place designed for it, the stones having from six to many sides, each dressed and smoothed to fit another or others with such exactness that the blade of a small penknife cannot be inserted in any of the seams thus formed, whether in the central parts entirely hidden or on the internal or external surfaces. These stones, selected with no reference to uniformity in shape or size, vary from one-half cubic foot to 1500 cubic feet solid contents...."

We can spare space for no more, but must quote the following:

"Estimating five hundred ravines in the 1200 miles of Peru, and ten miles of terraces of fifty tiers to each ravine.... we have 250,000 miles of stone wall, averaging three to four feet high - enough to encircle this globe ten times."

Facts like these consign favorite anthropological theories to the wastepaper basket where they belong. No race of historical times has ever evinced the properties of the race that built these walls; that civilization belonged to altogether another type. According to the scale of races and ages presented by H.P. Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine, which is all based on the best of evidence, both internal and external, the whole of humanity at present on the globe represents but a minor subdivision. The scale is like that familiar to geologists in the strata. Historical times are represented by a few unconsolidated surface strata called "recent," and the whole series of sedimentary rocks is many miles thick. We shall soon have to abandon our inadequate theories of human history in favor of views which conform with the other facts of life.

(Vol. 19, pp. 452-58)

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Lemurian and Atlantean Relics in China - Student

[1919]

If the outline of human history given in The Secret Doctrine is true, it will be confirmed by future discoveries. We believe that it is true, and are not surprised when these vindications come. We take pleasure in recording such evidence of this kind as comes under our notice, and hereby present the following item as to the ancient races in western China.

Dr. Joseph Beech, President of the West China Union University, has traveled into certain little-known regions of western China, and the account of his adventures is quoted in part by the New York Sun. Availing ourselves of a summary in The Literary Digest, we quote as follows from the latter publication:

"Forty tribes, including men that represent almost every known race, are hidden away in Western China, where they have preserved their tribal characteristics through unnumbered ages. 'The oldest human melting-pot' this crescent of land has been called, for here, it seems, men of all colors and statures and tongues were mixed at some prehistoric time, and then sent forth again to populate the world; but each tribe, it appears, left a remnant that has lingered, distinct and individual, to the present day. Because of their isolation and the unwarlike character of the neighboring Chinese, they are actually independent.... The Chinese, after generations of contact,.... have decided to let them alone. Not only are there representatives of the white, brown, and yellow races among them.... but representatives of the race the North American Indians sprang from. He even traces the origin of the totem-poles of Alaska to the tree-ladders still used by a tribe in this ancient community."

Quoting from the Sun:

"I have seen people - men, women, and children - in West China whom it would be absolutely impossible to distinguish from the Indians of the Western States if they were dressed alike.... In the cliff-houses of West China the stone dwellings are built tier on tier up the hillside like a flight of great steps. The second floor cannot be entered except through an opening in the ceiling of the first floor, and so on up to the top.... When they started on their great migration, as I believe they did; going north through China and

Siberia to Bering Strait...."History handed down by word of mouth by the Chinese of the southern provinces

has it that the races now living in the mountainous regions, or one of these races, was once spread all over southern China. So too says the tradition of the Tibetans on the other side. The tribesmen too have this tradition and relate that they were driven back and back and finally into the mountains.

"Perhaps the most interesting and most highly developed of the tribes are the Sung-Panese, living in the northern section of the region on the most fertile land. These undoubtedly are of the Aryan stock.... 'They are as white as you, and look like you,' the guide told Dr. Beech.... They are well above the European race in average stature, most of them being six feet or more....

"'Undoubtedly the Chinese of the southern provinces are not the original inhabitants of the country,' Dr. Beech said.... 'There are caves along the rivers which were inhabited by some primitive people before the Chinese and possibly before the tribesmen lived there. Traditions of these people may still be found among some of the Chinese.'"

One tribe is described as resembling the Czecho-Slovaks of Bohemia. Most of the tribes are described as exceedingly fierce, despising the Chinese and all foreigners. The black Lobos are worshipers of the black arts. There is a tribe of Jews who settled centuries ago and now look like Chinese.

This of course illustrates the fact that theories of the origin of the human race, or the 'cradle' of the human race, have to be altered from time to time in the light of fresh discoveries which do not fit them. We have to keep pushing the alleged origin or cradle farther back in time, and to keep changing the place. Such a process is inevitable, and each step brings the current hypotheses nearer to the teachings outlined by H.P. Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine.

A well-known part of these teachings is that of the seven Root-Races in every Round. A Round is one of the greater cycles of evolution, and for present purposes we must limit ourselves to the present Round and consider only the Root-Races pertaining to that one Round. The present Root-Race is the Fifth, and has been in existence as a separate race about one million years. (The Secret Doctrine, II, 435) Preceding it were the First, Second, Third, and Fourth. Each Root-Race is subdivided into sub-races, these again into family races, and these again into still smaller divisions. The duration of a sub-race is given as approximately 210,000 years; that of a family race as 30,000 (loc. cit.) The existence of these Root-Races is connected with those cycles of time traced by geologists in the record of sedimentation, with its alternations of uniformity and cataclysm. The existence of the former continental areas whereon the Fourth and Third Races respectively flourished - Atlantis and Lemuria - is every day becoming more freely acknowledged by scientific authorities.

Now as to the Chinese, it is stated that they are one of the oldest nations of our Fifth Race (S.D., II, 364); but also that there are some Chinamen who belong to the highest and last branch of the Fourth Race (p. 280) and some again who are a mixture of the two races. (Ibid.) To quote from The Secret Doctrine:

"'What would you say to our affirmation that the Chinese - I speak of the inland, the true Chinamen, not of the hybrid mixture between the Fourth and Fifth Races now occupying the throne, the aborigines who belong in their unalloyed nationality wholly to the highest and last branch of the Fourth Race - reached their highest civilization when the Fifth had hardly appeared in Asia.' And this handful of the inland Chinese are all of a very high stature." (Vol. II, p. 280)

On the same page the Shu-King is quoted as referring to the Mao-Tse,

"'that antediluvian and perverted race.... which had retired in the Days of old to the rocky caves, and the descendants of whom are said to be still found in the neighborhood of Canton.'"

In reference to the more degraded types, of which Dr. Beech mentions examples among his forty tribes, we find the following, where the author speaks of a certain semi-animal hairy race, a mountain tribe in China, as being, in common with some other races mentioned, "the last descendants in a direct line of the semi-animal latter-day Lemurians." (II, 195)

The reference to the high stature agrees with the account of Dr. Beech. As the race from which these are descended was previous to our present Fifth Root-Race, it had already passed through its seven sub-races, and had therefore attained a higher point in its own cycle than our Race has yet attained in its; for we are at present only at our fifth sub-race. This is an important feature of the teachings given in The Secret Doctrine: the law of cyclic development provides that races shall follow one another as do men and generations of men, passing through youth, maturity and decline, so that we may expect to find in the records of the past the traces of civilizations that were greater than any we have witnessed. Yet this does not contradict the general law of progress; it only implies that progress is not uniformly continuous, but is cyclic; periodic - as is indeed the observed case in Nature's workings in general. We also note the allusion, in the quotation from The Secret Doctrine, to degraded remnants, which also agrees with the traveler's narrative. It is an essential part of the ancient teachings that, after the sinking of continental areas and the termination of the cycle of a Root-Race, the remnants that survive the cataclysm become scattered on various portions of the land that is not submerged, and thus form isolated tribes, which continue for long ages, not progressing, and preserving many of the characteristics and memories of their remote ancestry. Thus -

"The yellow-faced giants of the post-Atlantean day, had ample time, throughout this forced confinement to one part of the world, and with the same racial blood and without any fresh infusion or admixture in it, to branch off during a period of nearly 700,000 years into the most heterogeneous and diversified types. The same is shown in Africa; nowhere does a more extraordinary variability of types exist, from black to almost white, from gigantic men to dwarfish races; and this only because of their forced isolation." (II, 425)

The following quotations also are apposite. Speaking of Lemuria:

"It is certain that, whether 'chimera' or reality, the priests of the whole world had it from one and the same source: the universal tradition about the third great continent which perished some 850,000 years ago. A continent inhabited by two distinct races; distinct physically and especially morally; both deeply versed in primeval wisdom and the secrets of nature; mutually antagonistic in their struggle, during the course and progress of their double evolution. Whence even the Chinese teachings upon the subject, if it is but a fiction? Have they not recorded the existence once upon a time of a holy island beyond the sun (Tcheou), and beyond which were situated the lands of the immortal men? Do they not still believe that the remnants of those immortal men - who survived when the holy island had become black with sin and perished - have found refuge in the great desert of Gobi, where they still reside invisible to all, and defended from approach by hosts of Spirits?" (II, 371-372)

"H.A. Taine.... shows that the civilizations of such archaic nations as the Egyptians, Aryans of India, Chaldaeans, Chinese, and Assyrians are the result of preceding civilizations during 'myriads of centuries.' (History of English Literature, p. 23)" - II, 334

"China has also her tradition and the story of an island or continent, which it calls Ma-li-ga-si-ma.... Kaempfer, in his Japan (Appendix p. 13), gives the tradition: The island, owing to the iniquity of its giants, sinks to the bottom of the ocean, and Peiru-un, the king, the Chinese Noah, escapes alone with his family owing to a warning of the gods through two idols. It is that pious prince and his descendants who have peopled China. The Chinese traditions speak of the divine dynasties of Kings as much as those of any other nations." (II, 365)

It is therefore to be expected that we should find in various shut-off parts of the world the descendants of Lemurians and Atlanteans, and that these would be very multiform in their characteristics. For we have to bear in mind that the Atlanteans were not a mere race, as we understand the term race, but rather an entire humanity; the term Atlantean is even more comprehensive than such a term as Asiatic or European. Hence the descendants are of various types. China is mentioned specially in the above extracts as one of the places where such survivals are to be sought.

No theory of migrations will ever suffice to serve more than a temporary purpose or a particular case; and such theories, devised by various scientists to explain various cases, will conflict with each other, and will have to give way to any subsequent facts that may be discovered and that confute them. Our brief references to the scheme given in The Secret Doctrine may invite to further study thereof, when it will be found that this scheme is one self-consistent whole that explains the facts of archaeology, ethnology, and history as we find them.

The immense antiquity of the human race, the civilized human race, as given in The Secret Doctrine, may scare some people; but this is only because of the unfamiliarity of the idea to modern western minds. For there is no inherent improbability in it. The geological record gives undeniable proof of the vast age of the earth, even during the period of sedimentation; and equally undeniable proof of the antiquity of animal and vegetable life. This came as a shock at first, but we have accustomed ourselves to it. So also we have accustomed ourselves to deal with immense figures, both of space and time, in astronomical matters. But prejudice fights hard yet in the case of human civilization; and, as to the question of evidence, let it be said that, when scientists leave off trying in every possible way to minimize the evidence in favor of this antiquity, they will find themselves on easier ground. But in view of the rate at which such evidence is accumulating, it will not be possible much longer to ignore it. The idea of Atlantis and Lemuria is supported by geology, and many eminent minds are now coming round to an acceptance of the existence of these continents, not merely as areas of dry land, but even as scenes of civilized races. The important inference to be drawn is that we are the heirs of a great knowledge from the remote past, and that we cannot by any means regard the meager pages of ordinary history as representing the highest achievements of our ancestors.

(Vol. 16, pp. 467-71)

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Etruscan Sarcophagi - C. J. Ryan

[1918]

Even now very little is known of the great civilization which once existed in Etruria,

Italy. We know from the scanty relics which have escaped destruction that the Etruscans were skilled in most of the arts and practical sciences of an advanced culture. They had a large literature, which included history, poetry, drama, and scientific and religious writings, but not a scrap has come down to us. We have possibly lost many valuable treasures of thought by the utter destruction of the Etruscan civilization and the triumph of the more materialistic Roman empire. But we may find them.

In many things the Etruscans show affinities with the Greeks and the Egyptians, and, of course, in later times they blended with the Romans, but the origin and the age of their mysterious civilization is still an unsolved problem. The Roman historians tell very little, which is not surprising when we recollect that it was not to their interest to encourage the admiration of a rival state.

The Etruscan language, so far as it is known, offers peculiar difficulties when called upon to solve the problem of the origin of the Etruscans. Certain characteristics of its construction would lead us to Japan, early China, or even America!

In their methods of building there is evidence that the earlier and quite prehistoric masonry was far more carefully hewn than the more recent, and that the extraordinary pains taken to fit massive stones together so exquisitely that the joints could hardly be detected were abandoned in later times in favor of much less skillful stone-cutting. For instance at Saturnia and Cosa the cyclopean stones are so closely dressed and fitted that a knife cannot be inserted between the joints. These enormous stones are extremely irregular in shape, polygonal, and yet each one fits its neighbor perfectly. The usual explanation of this kind of masonry - which we also find in Peru - is that the walls were built of rocks which naturally split into irregular forms by people not capable of cutting and trimming regular horizontal courses of stone. That this was not the case among the early, prehistoric Etruscans is proved, not only by the excellence of the stone-cutting but by the fact that the travertine rock of which the earlier cyclopean walls are made splits longitudinally so that the builders of these time-defying walls did not hew their stones in polygonal forms because that was the most convenient method, but for some other reason. Later generations, having apparently lost the skill of their predecessors, added plain horizontal courses of travertine above the cyclopean construction.

The religion of the Etruscans is not definitely known but it appears to have resembled the Roman in many respects, which is not strange in view of the probability that the Romans derived many of their deities from Etruria. They had definite and hopeful ideas about the future life, and believed in the survival of the soul with quite as much or more confidence as their Christian successors in Tuscany. The pictures in the rock-cut tombs depict either the joys of the heaven-world or else ideal future incarnations on earth. It is an unsolved question which is the true explanation.

Owing to the custom of wealthy Etruscans of placing large portrait-statues of husband and wife, singly or in groups, upon the lids of their sarcophagi, we have a very clear idea how they looked 'in their habit as they lived.' The earlier statues and groups are especially interesting. They are bold and well posed and are, in spite of a few conventionalities, evidently excellent portraits. The later semi-Roman ones are not so striking, but appear to be clumsy efforts to imitate the commoner kind of Roman sculpture.

The sarcophagi shown in the accompanying plates are from Volterra and are not of the ancient type. The subjects of the reliefs on the sides are from Greek literature. One is 'The Sacrifice of Iphigenia,' from the popular legend of the Trojan War. Agamemnon, the leader of the expedition against Troy, offended the goddess Artemis by killing a hind sacred to the goddess, and the departure of the expedition was delayed by continuous calms, until, at length, at the command of the priest Calchas, Agamemnon determined to appease the wrath of Artemis by sacrificing his daughter, Iphigenia, on her altar. At the fatal moment the goddess rescued the maiden, and, after substituting a hind in her stead, carried Iphigenia to Tauris in Scythia, where she became a priestess in the temple of the

goddess. Eventually she is said to have returned to Greece, bringing the statue of Artemis with her.

The second sarcophagus displays a relief of 'Priam receiving the Amazons.' After the death of Hector, the bulwark of Troy, at the hands of Achilles, Penthesilea, the queen of the Amazons came to the assistance of the Trojans, and fought so valiantly at the head of her army of women that the Greeks were hard pressed, but Achilles finally overcame the heroic queen.

Sarcophagi in Etruria are usually found in wonderfully interesting tomb-chambers, hewn out of the solid rock, and closely resembling Etruscan houses with atrium and various chambers. On the walls are painted festive or heroic scenes, and within were placed the implements of daily life in profusion, vases, candelabra, ornaments and useful articles of every kind. To the Etruscan death was not a break in life - only a doorway to another room.

Some writers have called the Etruscan religion Oriental, gloomy, mystical, a dominant religion and not a natural outcome of national character, "like the free creed of the Greeks." Yet the same writers acknowledge that it was "an all-pervading principle of life" and that it bound the confederated cities of ancient Etruria in harmony and made civil strife unknown. This cannot be said of their medieval successors, as exemplified by the continual rivalry between Florence and Pisa and the rest. But the fact remains that we have only a vague idea of the religion of the Etruscans and it is not wise to criticize learnedly in the absence of real knowledge, or in forgetfulness of our own shortcomings.

(Vol. 15, pp. 456-58)

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Greek Philosophy

Apollonius of Tyana and the Roman Empire - P. A. Malpas

Whatever legendary, semi-legendary, or symbolical characters lived in the first century of our era, Apollonius is historical enough. He was born at Tyana in Cappadocia, not far from Tarsus, and he always preferred to be called 'the Tyanean'; the Greeks ever loved a play on words, especially in names. His family were of the 'first families of Cappadocia,' wealthy Greeks who had emigrated there in the early days.

His birth occurred about the year 1 'B.C.' and he was before the public for some ninety-seven years - at the latter age showing immense vigor and conducting his school of philosophy at Ephesus as actively as any younger man. He was a Pythagorean all his life and lived his own simple way in his own simple fashion of dress - for both of which things he was not only considered 'peculiar' but actually accused as a wicked criminal. Early in life he visited the Indian school of philosophers, living on a hill or mount somewhere in the neighborhood of the 'Ganges' and 'Indus.' These were the teachers of Pythagoras, and they became the teachers of Apollonius; it is safe to say that the details given of their residence are not intended to make their Hill a tourist resort, and that they are only given in a general sort of way on purpose. H.P. Blavatsky seems to suggest that this "Hill of the Sages" is in Cashmere.

After the Indian visit Apollonius traveled over most of the known world, from the Hindu Khush to Gibraltar and Cadiz, from the Upper Nile to Greece and Rome, and almost everywhere except perhaps to Jerusalem, which was then giving a certain amount of trouble to the Empire, and was taken by Titus in the year 70.

Apollonius moved among the highest in every land he visited, and was noted for his rarely visiting other persons, however high their rank; for the pithiness and laconic brevity of his letters; and for the universal acceptance of him in all the temples as a god who was conferring a favor on the temples by directing their worship. His 'miracles' or deeds showing acquaintance with the deeper laws of nature, and especially of medicine (he commenced his career in the temple of Aesculapius, the god of medicine), are world-famed, and have come down, in many a story attributed to other philosophers, to our own day. In the Greek world Apollonius was without a doubt the greatest character of the first century, and acted as the spiritual messenger of the age. He is a solid historical fact, but, like so many of his sort, he took no great care to leave many personal details for publication, though he wrote several textbooks for temple use. Most of his history comes from the diary of his disciple Damis, the Assyrian, edited by Philostratus the Elder at the behest of the great Roman Empress Julia Domna, about a hundred years after his departure.

About the year 70 'A.D.,' Apollonius was at Alexandria in Egypt, preparing for his journey to the ascetics of the Upper Nile. The Alexandrians received him with joy. "When he went up into the temple a beauty shone from his face and the words he uttered on all subjects were divine, being framed in wisdom." On these occasions he was said to bear a strange resemblance to his Indian teacher, Iarchas, the chief of the philosophers. He so identified himself with that great soul that his words, his manner, and his very looks seemed to become like those of the one whom he reverenced more than anyone in the world.

This temple is said to have been the Serapeum, where Hypatia also uttered the words of divine wisdom some 348 years later, before the Cyrillian rabble of monks tore the flesh from her body and scraped the bones with oyster-shells, lest by some miracle she should escape their pious hands.

When the great Vespasian was besieging Jerusalem, he conceived the idea of becoming Emperor of Rome, as it was said. He sent to ask the advice of Apollonius, who declined to go into a country which its inhabitants had defiled both by what they did and what they suffered. Vespasian had now decided upon his action, and assuming the Imperial power in the countries bordering upon the Province of Egypt, he entered that country as Emperor; his real purpose was to see the Tyanean and obtain his approval and advice.

The sacred order of the priesthood in Alexandria, the civil magistrates, the deputies from the prefectures, the philosophers and sages, all went out in grand procession to welcome Vespasian and do him honor. Apollonius was pleased at his coming but made no sign, and refrained from any kind of demonstration or even from going to meet him. Vespasian heard all they had to say, and then made as short a speech as he could in decency, before blurting out what he really had in mind.

"If the Tyanean is here, tell me where I may find him.""He is here," they said, "doing all he can to make people better." Damis, on being

asked, said he was in the temple."Let us go there." said Vespasian, "first that I may offer prayers to the gods, and

next that I may converse with that excellent man.'' And to the temple accordingly he went, hot foot.

As soon as the sacrifices were performed, Vespasian ignored the priests and the prefects and the deputies and the magistrates and the sages and the philosophers and the whole host of them in his intensity of purpose. Turning to Apollonius he said, in the voice and manner of a suppliant, "Make Me Emperor!"

Apollonius answered: "It is done already; for in the prayers I have just offered to heaven to send us a prince upright, generous, wise, venerable in years, and a true father, you are the man I asked from the gods." Would any other than Apollonius have answered

so modestly and philosophically?Among the bystanders there were two philosophers, Euphrates and Dion, who

certainly would not. They were big men in their way, Euphrates ambitious and itching for money, and Dion the good-natured, large-hearted man ready to be taken in by any ambitious comrade. These Apollonius recommended to Vespasian then as advisers, but they both broke down very soon under the burden of greatness; the former to become Apollonius' evil angel for the rest of his life.

Asked his opinion of Nero, Apollonius agreed that he knew how to tune a harp but was given to extremes in other matters. Since Apollonius was the one man in the Empire who defied Nero, he may be credited with knowing something of that young man.

Vespasian was then a man of about sixty years of age. He left the temple hand in hand with Apollonius, discussing the affairs of the Empire. Nero had been bad, but the imperial affairs appeared likely to become worse under the luxurious Vitellius, who used more perfume in his bath than Vespasian did water, and who if wounded would have exuded more Eau de Cologne, or its Roman equivalent, than blood.

"On you, Apollonius," said Vespasian, "I chiefly found my hopes of success, as I know you are well acquainted with whatever regards the gods; and for that reason I make you my friend and counselor in all those concerns on which depend the affairs of sea and land. For if omens, favorable to my wishes, are given from the gods, I will go on; if they are not propitious to me and the Roman people, I will stop where I am and engage no farther in any enterprise unsanctioned by heaven."

Apollonius, as though inspired, said: "O Jupiter Capitolinus, who art supreme Judge in the present crisis of affairs, act mutually for each other, you and Vespasian; keep yourself for him and him for yourself. The temple which was burnt yesterday by impious hands is decreed by the fates to be rebuilt by you."

Here was a statement given to a man who had faith. He asked no sign, and one was given him without hesitation. Vespasian was amazed.

"These things will be explained hereafter. Fear nought from me. Go on with what you have so wisely begun," added Apollonius. The sentences sounded almost Oriental, almost in the manner of Iarchas, with which Damis says he was sometimes inspired. Suddenly breaking off in the middle of the conversation, Apollonius left the Emperor, saying: "The laws and customs of the Indians permit me to do only that which is by them prescribed." But Vespasian had heard enough to fix him in his purpose and career.

News filtered through after a time that Domitian, the son of Vespasian, who was in arms at Rome against Vitellius, in defense of his father's authority, was besieged in the Capitol. In making his escape from the besiegers the temple was burned, and Apollonius knew this before any one in Egypt had heard of it, in fact, as he had shown the next day.

At dawn Apollonius entered the palace and asked what the Emperor was doing. He was told by the officers that he had been for some time employed in writing letters. Apollonius left, saying to Damis: "This man will certainly be Emperor."

Returning later in the day, at sunrise, Apollonius found Dion and Euphrates waiting to hear the result of the previous day's conference. Being admitted to the Emperor's room, he said: "Dion and Euphrates, your old friends, are at the door; they are attached to your interests, and are not unmindful of the present position of affairs. Call them in, I pray you, for they are both wise."

"To wise men," said Vespasian, "my doors are always open. But to you, Apollonius, my heart likewise."

Vespasian, as Apollonius said, had learned from his predecessors how not to govern, just as a celebrated musician used to send his pupils to hear the most wretched performers, that they might learn not to play likewise!

Already, in a few hours, the demon of jealousy began to creep into, the mind of Euphrates. He could not stand the intoxication of the power given to him by Apollonius,

and envied the Emperor's devotion to that master of philosophy. Is it necessary to go into the form of reasoning which such jealousy was bound to take? The parallel is so common in history. Euphrates was ever for arguing and taking counsel, for deliberation and consultation and formalities and hesitations and all the rest. Yet here was this Apollonius, who certainly recommended him and Dion, but only at the stage of "Do this"; or "how is this to be done?" instead of asking advice as to what should be done. In a cloud of words he shows his piqued ambition.

Even Dion, invited to speak by Apollonius, approved this and disapproved that and harangued the Emperor with a mass of words and opinions.

Then Apollonius, who was a thousand times their master, whether they knew it or not, calmly set them right, and the Emperor Vespasian too. In a careful and statesmanlike analysis of the situation, Apollonius declared that Vespasian, having all the necessary conditions, should go on with his enterprise unhesitatingly and without wavering, leaving aside all sophisms.

"As to myself, it is of little consequence what form of government is established, as I live under that of the gods. Yet I should be sorry to see mankind perish, like a flock of sheep, for want of a wise and faithful shepherd. For as one man, who excels in virtue, modifies the popular state of a republic, so as to make it appear as if governed by a single individual, in the same manner a state under the government of such a man wherein all things are directed to the common good, is what is properly called popular, or that of the people."

These words of Apollonius gave immense relief to Vespasian, who declared that he had expressed his own feelings exactly. "I will follow your advice, as I think every word you have uttered is divine," he said. "Tell me then, what I ought to do?"

The discourse of Apollonius is so characteristic that it stands alone. It is addressed to Vespasian, but his two sons Titus and Domitian were each at the head of a great army, and by this sanction of Apollonius became Emperors in their turn. It is true that Domitian afterwards allowed his actions to pass beyond the limits of all reason, but even then Apollonius was the only man to face him and to come off victorious. Since history repeats itself at all times, it was of course Euphrates who was the accuser and virulent enemy of Apollonius at that time of later history. There was no real need for Apollonius to have undergone that fearful trial and journey to Rome at the age of ninety-five, but he did it to save his friend Nerva, who thus became Emperor after Domitian by the direct action of Apollonius.

History therefore owes not less than four Roman Emperors to this great philosopher, at a time when it looked as if anarchy might prevail at the end of a line of rulers each worse than his predecessor.

This is his advice as to government.

Advice to an Emperor"Tell me, I entreat you, what a good Prince ought to do?" Vespasian had pleaded.To which Apollonius replied:

"What you ask, I cannot teach. For the art of government, of all human acquisitions, is the most important, but cannot be taught. However, I will tell you what, if you do, you will in my opinion do wisely.

"Look not on that as wealth which is piled up in heaps, for what is it better than a heap of sand? Nor on that which arises from taxes, which men pay with tears, for the gold so paid lacks lustre, and is black. You will make a better use of your riches than ever

sovereign did, if you employ them in supplying the necessities of the poor, and securing the property of the rich.

"Fear the power of doing everything you wish, for under this apprehension you will use it with more moderation.

"Do not lop away such ears of corn as are tall and most conspicuous, for herein the maxim of Aristotle is unjust. But harshness and cruelty of disposition weed out of your mind as you would tares and darnel out of your corn....

"Acknowledge the law to be the supreme rule of your conduct. For you will be more mild in the making of laws, when you know you are to be subject to them yourself.

"Reverence the gods more than ever, for you have received great things at their hands, and have still much to ask.

"In what concerns the public, act like a prince; and in what relates to yourself, like a private man.

"In what light you ought to consider the love of gambling, of wine and women, I need not speak to you, who from your youth never liked them.

"You have two sons (Titus and Domitian), both according to report of good dispositions; keep them, I pray you, under strict discipline, for their faults will be charged to your account. Use authority and even threats, if necessary, and let them know that the empire is to be considered not as a matter of common right, but as the reward of virtue, and that it is to be their inheritance only by a perseverance in well-doing.

"Pleasures having become, as it were, denizens of Rome, are many in number, and should be restrained with great discretion. For it is a hard matter to bring over at once an entire people to a regular mode of living. It is only by degrees that a spirit of moderation can be instilled into the mind, and it is to be done sometimes by a public correction, and sometimes by one so private as to conceal the hand which does it.

"Suppress the pride and luxury of the freed men and slaves under your subjection, and let them understand that their modesty should keep pace with their master's greatness.

"I have but one more observation to make, and that relates to the governors sent out to rule the several provinces of the empire. I do not mean such governors as you will send out yourself, for you will only employ the deserving, but I mean those who are chosen by lot. The men sent out so ought to be suited, as far as can be made consistent with that mode of election, to the several countries over which they are appointed to preside. They who understand Greek should be sent to Greece, and they who understand Latin, to such countries as use that language. I will now tell you why I say this. Whilst I was in Peloponnesus the Governor of that province knew nothing of Greek, nor did the people know anything of him. Hence arose innumerable mistakes. For the people in whom he confided suffered him to be corrupted in the distribution of justice, and to be treated more like a slave than a governor.

"I have said now what has occurred to me today. If anything else occurs, we shall resume the conversation at another time. At present discharge your duty to the state to the end that you may not appear more indulgent to those under your authority than what is consistent with that duty."

Vespasian loved Apollonius and took great delight in hearing him talk of what antiquities he saw in his travels, of the Indian King Phraotes, of the rivers and wild beasts found in India, and above all, when he spoke of what was to be the future state of the Roman world, as communicated to him by the gods.

As soon as the affairs of Egypt were settled he decided to take his departure, but before doing so expressed a wish that Apollonius should go with him. The Tyanean philosopher declined; he said he had not seen Egypt as he ought, nor had he conversed with the gymnosophists, the Egyptian ascetics. He added, that he was desirous to

compare the learning of the Egyptians with that of the Indians, and to drink of the source of the Nile.

"Will you not remember me?" asked the Emperor when he understood that Apollonius was determined to make the journey into Ethiopia.

"I will," said Apollonius, "if you continue to be a good Prince, and to be mindful of us."

TitusAfter Titus, the son of Vespasian, had taken Jerusalem, and "filled all places with

the dead," the nations round about offered him crowns of which he did not think himself deserving. He said that it was not he that performed such mighty deeds, but that he lent his arm to God in the just exercise of His vengeance.

This answer was approved by Apollonius as being a proof of the wisdom of Titus and of his knowledge in divine and human things, as also of his great moderation in declining to be crowned for having shed blood. He then wrote Titus a letter, to be taken by Damis:

"Apollonius to Titus, Emperor of the Romans, health."To you who refuse to be crowned on account of your success in war, I give the

crown of moderation, seeing you are so well acquainted with the reasons entitling you to that honor. Farewell."

Titus was well pleased with this letter."In my own name and that of my father, I hold myself your debtor, and will be

mindful of you," he declared. "I have taken Jerusalem, but you have taken me."When Titus was invested with the imperial dignity he set out for Rome to take his

place as colleague with his father Vespasian. But first thinking of what consequence it might be to him to have even a short conference with Apollonius, he requested him to come to Argos for that purpose. Titus embraced him and said the Emperor, his father, had written to him of all he wished to know.

"At present I have a letter, wherein he says he considers you as his benefactor, and one to whom we are indebted for what we are. I am only thirty years of age, and have arrived at the same honors as my father did at sixty. I am called on to govern, perhaps before I have learnt to obey, and I fear to engage to do what I am not equal to perform."

Apollonius, stroking Titus' neck, which was like that of an athlete, said: "Who could subject a bull with so fine a neck to the yoke?"

Titus replied, "He who reared me from a calf!" referring to his father.Apollonius was pleased with the ready answer and declared that "when a kingdom

is directed by the vigor of youth and wisdom of age, what lyre, or flute can produce such sweet and harmonious music. The virtues of old age and youth will be united, and the consequence will be that the former will acquire vigor and the latter decorum and order by the union."

"But, O Tyanean, what advice have you to give concerning the best mode of governing an empire?" asked Titus.

"None to you," answered Apollonius. "You are self-instructed, and by the manner in which you show obedience to your father, no doubt can be entertained of your becoming like him. But I will give you my friend Demetrius to attend you whenever you wish and to advise you on what is good to be done. His wisdom consists in liberty of speech, in speaking truth, and an intrepidity arising from a cynical [in Greek, dog-like] spirit."

Titus was troubled at the idea of a cynic as an adviser, but Apollonius told him that all he meant was that Demetrius should be his dog to bark for him against others and against himself if he offended in anything. He would always do this with wisdom, and

never without reason."Give me this dog companion, then," said Titus. "He shall have full permission to

bite me whenever he finds me acting as I ought not.""I have a letter of introduction, ready to send to him at Rome where he is now

philosophizing," said Apollonius."I am glad of it," replied Titus, the new co-emperor. "I wish someone would write to

you in my favor and recommend you to accompany me on my journey.""You may depend upon seeing me, whenever it shall be to the advantage of both,"

said Apollonius.When they were alone, Titus declared that he wished to ask one or two very

intimate personal questions. Receiving permission, he asked whom he should guard against in regard to his life, as he already was under some apprehension, though he would not wish to show fear where none existed.

"Herein you will be but prudent and circumspect," said Apollonius, "and of all men I think it is your duty to be on your guard." Then looking up, he swore by the sun he would have spoken about this even if no question had been asked. For the gods commanded him to declare to Titus that during his father's life, he should guard against his greatest enemies, and after his death against his most intimate friends.

"What kind of death shall I die?" asked Titus."The same as Ulysses," said Apollonius, "for he is said to have received his death

from the sea."Damis interpreted this to mean that Titus should beware of the sting of the fish

trygon, with which it was affirmed Ulysses was wounded.It is historical that Titus died from eating a "sea-hare," a fish from which they say the

most deadly poison of sea or land exudes. Nero was in the habit of mixing this liquid in the food of his greatest enemies, and Domitian gave it to his brother Titus, not because he thought there would be any difficulty with him as a colleague on the throne, but because he thought he would prefer not to have so mild and benevolent a partner in joint rule with him over the Roman empire.

As they parted in public, they embraced, and Apollonius said aloud: "Vanquish your enemies in arms and surpass your father in virtues." Here is the letter.

"Apollonius the philosopher to the dog Demetrius, health."I give you to the Emperor Titus that you may instruct him in all royal virtues. Justify

what I have said of you; be everything to him, but everything without anger. Farewell."

Thus Apollonius, the greatest philosopher of the West in the first century, gave the Roman Empire two of its best Emperors, as they themselves acknowledged.

The people of Tarsus of old bore no kindness to Apollonius on account of his outspoken reproaches against their soft and effeminate manners. However, at this time they loved him as if he had been their founder and greatest support.

Once, when Titus was sacrificing in public, the whole people thronged round him with a petition on matters of the greatest importance. He said he would forward it to his father Vespasian and would intercede in their interests.

Then Apollonius came forward and asked what would Titus do if he could prove that some of those present were enemies who had stirred up revolt in Jerusalem and assisted the Jews against him. "If I could prove all this what do you think they would deserve?"

"Instant death!" said Titus, without a moment's hesitation."Then are you not ashamed to show more promptitude in punishing delinquents

than in rewarding those who never offended, and assuming to yourself authority to punish whilst you defer that of recompensing until you have seen your father?"

Titus was not displeased with this direct reasoning.

"I grant their petition, as I know my father will not be angry with me for having submitted to truth and to you," he said.

Tarsus was not very far from Tyana the birthplace of Apollonius, and this incident was doubtless long remembered of the fearless philosopher, 'the Tyanean.'

The Emperor Vespasian often wrote to Apollonius and invited him to visit and confer with him but without success. Nero had given liberty to Greece, to the surprise of all, and the result was a revival of some of its glory and a harmony such as the country had not known in its best days. Vespasian with undue severity punished some disturbance with a loss of this liberty. These are the letters that Apollonius wrote on the subject:

"Apollonius to the Emperor Vespasian, health."You have enslaved Greece, as report says, by which you imagine you have done

more than Xerxes, without calling to mind that you have sunk below Nero, who freely renounced that which he had. Vale."

To the same.

"You who have, in anger against the Greeks, reduced a free people to slavery - what need have you of my conversation? Farewell."

To the same.

"Nero in sport gave liberty to Greece, of which you in seriousness have deprived them, and reduced them to slavery. Farewell."

In spite of this refusal to meet Vespasian again, Apollonius did not conceal his joy when he heard that in all other respects Vespasian governed his people well, as he considered much was gained by his accession to the empire.

Of the story of Apollonius and Domitian what might be told would fill a volume. It is one of the most extraordinary trials in history - perhaps the most extraordinary part of it and the least noticed being that Apollonius was then no less than ninety-five years of age! And his intellect was the clearest by far of all those at the imperial court. The wisdom which Iarchas had taught him soared far above the petty sophistries of his 'philosophic' persecutors. They were so certain of their case that it never occurred to them to guarantee his conviction and death beforehand, and the trial was held publicly with an ostentation of justice which had to be honored when it proved triumphant. The accuser-in-chief was, need it be said, Euphrates.

Certainly, the wisdom of Jeanne d 'Arc, thirteen centuries later, the farmer girl of Lorraine, against the whole host of ecclesiastical learning of the day was as unassailable, but her case had been decided beforehand, and if she had been an archangel they would have condemned her just the same. Apollonius could have avoided trial, but he voluntarily submitted to it, to save another, and that other was Nerva, the Emperor to succeed Domitian. Otherwise there are certain parallels of historic interest.

The great unknown Iarchas, through his pupil Apollonius, indeed made a huge mark on the history of the Roman Empire, and yet his name was probably as unknown to most Romans as it is to the authorities of our day, who say that since they have never heard of such a name, therefore he could not have existed, and is a 'myth.'

(Vol. 19, 335-46)

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Pythagoras and His Mathematics - H. Travers

Pythagorean geometry was the subject of a book by Dr. H.A. Naber, of Hoorn, Holland, which we had occasion to review in this magazine, VI, 4; April, 1914. The author describes how, at a lecture, he saw the well-known diagram of the 47th proposition of Euclid flashed on the screen in brilliant colors; and how he suddenly received therefrom a flash of intuition, which was for him the starting-point of an entire intellectual reawakening as to the meaning of the geometrical symbols of the Pythagoreans. The proposition, as usually understood, enunciates that, if a square be drawn on each of the sides of a right triangle, the square on the hypotenuse will be found equal in area to the sum of the other two squares: a proposition that is not obvious and that requires a somewhat elaborate proof. Further, this proposition is usually regarded merely as the statement of a dry fact in abstract geometry, having no relation to any other kind of interest; or else as a principle to be applied in mensuration and practical physics.

But our author both simplified the proposition itself and extended its application.* By slightly modifying the form of the enunciation, he renders its truth obvious, and in no need of proof. We have Euclid's own authority, further on in his work, for replacing the word 'square' by the words 'similar rectilineal figure'; and thus we can divide our right triangle into two, by dropping a perpendicular from the right angle; when it becomes obvious that each side of the original triangle now bears a similar triangle, and that the area of the largest is the sum of the areas of the other two. Thus Pythagoras, instead of enunciating an obscure proposition, to be laboriously proved, was merely stating an obvious fact. Next, the writer shows that this fact was the starting-point of a series of principles which define a vast system of evolution, whose application is seen in the architecture and design of antiquity, and also in the shapes of many natural objects, such as leaves, shells, and horns.

------------* Proclus says the theorem was not originally proved as it is by Euclid.

------------

The author reached the conviction that the Pythagoreans were much more enlightened and profound than they are usually credited with being; and that subsequent geometricians have missed the point and degraded the science either to a mere abstract pedantry or to an exclusive application to the physical sciences. Thus the theorem of Pythagoras was seen to involve principles underlying the structure of the universe and the evolution of organic forms. Says the author:

"If I interpret rightly the scanty remains of Pythagorism, there was, according to him, originally only one point, of atomic smallness. It had the form of a triply isosceles triangle [an isosceles triangle with a vertex angle of 36, divisible into two isosceles triangles, the areas and sides being in the ratio of the golden mean.] It was an ensouled point. It drew Space magnetically to itself, and a surface was built, like an ice-sheet on tranquil water. On the analogy of the formation of the icosahedron from the pentagonal figures, this surface absorbed into itself matter: took on, like a kind of bubble, a third dimension."

He therefore received the idea that Pythagoras, by his geometry, was simply teaching his disciples the mysteries of the universe; and that we, his successors, have applied his symbols to the elaboration of an abstract science, or to merely physical uses, and absolutely ignored the profound truths which those symbols stood for. On the

principle of

"I'm the master of this college,And what I don't know isn't knowledge,"

we have denied knowledge to Pythagoras because we do not possess it ourselves; and have accused him of mixing a regrettable superstition with genuine science. We are like a man who should take a map and hang it up on the wall as a pretty picture, or cut it up into a jig-saw puzzle, while scoffing at the notion that it had any useful meaning whatever; we have been little children, using our alphabet blocks to build houses with, or to suck the paint off, totally ignorant of the fact that they embodied principles leading direct to a mastery of the whole field of universal literature.

A writer on the ancient geometers comments on the extraordinary reverence with which they regarded the regular polyhedra, which he says were "discoveries" that had to be kept secret. The veneration of Pythagoras for certain numbers is often sagely dilated on. The naivete of such remarks strikes us forcibly when we consider that the reason why the ancient teachers so venerated these things was because they were aware of what the things represented. What is sawdust to us was dynamite to them. Our attitude in this matter is that of the early missionaries and the idols over again; but we do not nowadays accuse the whole of cultured 'heathendom' of worshiping unsightly stone images, because we know something of the profound philosophies of which those images were but symbols. In the same way, we ought not, out of respect to our own understanding, to accuse ancient teachers of going wild over geometrical figures traced in the dust, or of setting up secret temples for the worship of an interminable decimal. These were their symbols, their keys; for us perhaps the keys do not unlock anything, and so we use them as playthings or tools.

Let us take an illustration. It is possible to study theoretically the principles of musical harmony as expressed in the harmonic chord, a series of tones whose vibration-rates are in the ratios 1:2:3:4:5:6. Now we may spend any amount of time in gloating over the beauty of this as a theory, and no doubt the exercise will afford us intellectual indulgence. But now let us go to a piano and strike the chord. At once we have an initiation. A power of the human soul has been evoked by the application of the mathematical principle. Who, without the piano, could ever have achieved the faintest notion of the effect produced by the sounding of that chord? As well expect a blind cave-fish to achieve a notion of the glories of a sunset. This surely illustrates the immeasurable difference that is made when a theoretical science is applied to the evocation of a power of the soul. For the power is certainly in the soul; the presence of a human soul is requisite for its evocation; the same effect could not be produced on a cow; and even on a dull man the effect would be vastly inferior. How then does the case stand with regard to those other mathematical principles which we are considering?

The flashing out of a diagram on a screen was able to evoke in the soul of one of the spectators an entirely new world of thought and feeling; but the same vision fell fruitless on the eyes of the other witnesses. What does this mean?

It means that knowledge is from within, and cannot be given to a man from outside. All that can be done from outside is to supply him with such materials and help as he may be capable of using; to attempt to give him more is to hammer on a granite door. And now what is the great difference between a disciple of Pythagoras and ourselves? It is that Pythagoras made his disciples undergo a long and arduous training before he began to teach them anything at all. They had to observe absolute silence for several years. This means that they had first to learn to control their mind. The teacher knew that his symbols would fall unheeded on blind eyes, unless he first prepared his pupils by this long course of discipline.

What actually happens to us when we receive a flash of intuition? We make it the

starting-point of a train of ratiocinative thought; and the further we pursue that train, the further we depart from the source of light; until before long our intuition is a remote and unreal memory, and we are left with an insoluble problem and a headache. This means that the mind, unless specially trained, will make a sorry hash of anything that it can lay hold of. And it illustrates another most important point.

Discipline must precede knowledge. This is not an arbitrary rule; it is a dry fact. For, unless discipline does precede the attempt to know, the result is a hopeless failure. Even so profound and luminous a system of teachings as those of Theosophy cannot carry us very far, unless we begin to apply some of them in our conduct. This fact has been abundantly illustrated by the case of those who have thought they could profit by the mere intellectual study of Theosophy without making any change in their habits or principles of conduct or personal aims. No man can learn to play a musical instrument without going through much painful drudgery. He may buy a trumpet and hang it up in his room as an ornament, but he will never make any music until he learns to play it. It is exactly the same with Theosophy; practice is indispensable. And what is said of Theosophy is said of knowledge in general. Pythagoras would not undertake to teach anybody anything unless he would take the trouble to learn.

Often we hear people say of Theosophy that some truth, which they had known of intellectually for years, suddenly flashed upon them as a ray of intuitive knowledge, so that they now realized for the first time what it really meant. This was because they had reached the point in their own development when such an intuition was for the first time possible. They could not receive it before; they were not ready.

The vast importance attributed by ancient philosophers to mathematics and geometry has forced upon some minds the conviction that these sciences meant more for those philosophers than they do for us. But attempts to explore the mysteries, to find the lost secrets, have not been very successful; and we believe that the reason we have indicated is the right one. The necessary discipline and preparation was lacking. For the want of this we find that individuals who have discovered some clue, chanced upon some hint, have not been able to profit by it; but, instead, have involved themselves in intellectual complexities that have led them into outer darkness rather than towards the center of light. These people constitute the genus of 'paradoxists,' graded from brilliant but solitary geniuses down to tiresome cranks; unable to interpret their own findings to themselves - much less to interest anybody else in them.

And what is the moral for us students of today? That development must be equal and even. Setting aside the fact that it evinces no little presumption for me, with my all too obvious defects of character and constitution, to aspire to profound illumination, - setting aside the presumption of this ambition, the impossibility of my doing so confronts me. I cannot produce my fruits till I have developed some leaves. If I try to grow a gigantic head on an immature body, I shall be but a deformed dwarf. If we were to attempt to wrest the secrets out of the ancient science, without having in our hands the keys, we should meet and deserve the fate of burglars; we should find ourselves involved in a pursuit that would merely waste our time and energy. We must draw up one foot to the level of the other before we can advance further. But on the other hand, if I have sufficient respect for the truth to be willing to make it a rule of practice, then I am certainly headed for the light.

All who are anxious to arrive at truth and information, rather than to buttress fixed opinion, will be disposed to weigh the testimony about Pythagoras in a juster balance than is used by most of the accessible modern authorities. These latter seem ready, on the slightest evidence, to accept a ridiculous or disparaging tale, so long as it is conducive to the opinion they wish to form about Pythagoras; while they reject at once the far more dignified, reasonable, and probable stories, which happen to conflict with those opinions. Why, we may ask, are we to believe the absurd anecdotes bandied about by ignorant or scurrilous outsiders, and often based on a stupid literalization of figurative language; and

yet reject the statements about Pythagoras' powers and his journeys for instruction to Egypt and the Druids? The story of his life, as given by the ancient writers, is consistent - all of a piece. Here was a man of such profound knowledge that he impressed the whole of antiquity. He is said to have gone to Egypt and also to have studied under the Phoenicians, Chaldaeans, Druids, Brahmans, and Persian Magi. His mode of life was pure and abstinent, as was that he required from his pupils. The powers attributed to him are only such as would ensue from great knowledge won by self-mastery. Any other interpretation of his life leaves him an insoluble mystery, but this is simple and natural.*

-------------* After writing the above, we chanced upon the following, in Science, August 23.

[1918] The writer is protesting against certain historical statements made in mathematical textbooks. He says: "Many of our elementary geometries state that according to tradition Pythagoras was so jubilant over his discovery of the Pythagorean theorem that he sacrificed 100 oxen to the gods.... It is probably not true that such a sacrifice was made, and if it were true, it could only lessen our respect for him. Just imagine now a man in the act of sacrificing 100 oxen because he had made a mathematical discovery. Would you not conclude that he ought to be in an asylum for the insane?" But is not the point rather missed? A man who sacrificed 100 oxen to the gods today, on any occasion, would be considered insane. We also have ways of jubilating over discoveries, but we do not jubilate in the same way as the ancients. As to the truth of the story, Plutarch, after Apollodorus, says that Pythagoras sacrificed an ox after discovering this diagram, or else a diagram relating to another proposition; Lempriere gives it as a hecatomb, but thinks the oxen were little waxen images. But, however this may be, we suspect that the cause of the master's thank-offering was weightier than the 'discovery ' of a simple fact in pure geometry. Those who can see a figurative meaning in that other story - that he once persuaded an ox not to eat beans - may surmise that there is a meaning other than literal in the story of the hecatomb.-------------

With regard to his mathematics, shall we apply the same rule of interpretation throughout, or devise different interpretations for different occasions to suit our temporary convenience? Take his teaching about the Tetraktys, a diagram consisting of ten points arranged in a triangle of 1, 2, 3, and 4: did he discover this? Did he go wild with hilarity over the discovery? Did he discover the dodecahedron by piecing together pieces of cardboard cut into pentagons, and finding out accidentally that they made the dodecahedron? Or did he simply use the figures as mathematical keys to his esoteric teachings about the laws of evolution?

"Pythagoras appears, in all accounts, more as a moral reformer than a speculative thinker or scientific teacher," admits one modern authority; adding that the aim of his brotherhood was the moral elevation of the community. As to his doctrine of numbers, it is clear in that case at any rate that he used the numbers as symbols; he gives the meanings of them. Why not then with his geometrical figures also?

We cannot go here at length into the numerous details of his teaching that have come down to us, but must leave that to the individual student and emphasize our main points. Nothing can be surer than that the Pythagorean mathematics were studied, not alone for themselves, nor solely for application in physical science, but as keys interpretative of the mysteries of the universe. What Pythagoras established was a School of the Mysteries, whose paramount object was to elevate society. He assimilated the teachings of all the sages accessible, and wove them into a system adapted to the Greeks.

The curiously uneven view taken of Pythagoras by the usual modern authorities

strikes one forcibly. On the one hand it is admitted, as perforce it must be, that his numerals were symbols of cosmic principles. His Monad and Duad were not mere numbers or digits, but stood for the primary creative principles, the One Self and abstract Space; and by these symbols he taught the principles of cosmogony which he had brought from India. It is admitted that his one great object was the moral betterment of society. And yet, when we come to the Pythagorean geometry, we hear such absurd remarks as those alluded to above. Pythagoras is now no longer a great sage, teaching the Mysteries in symbolic language, but a fresh young tyro, discovering interesting theorems in pure geometry and jubilating in an undignified manner over them.

"This transcendental application of geometry to Cosmic and divine theogony.... became dwarfed after Pythagoras by Aristotle." - The Secret Doctrine, I, 615

Porphyry in his life of Pythagoras states that the numerals were hieroglyphic symbols to explain ideas concerning the nature of things.

Undoubtedly a study of the work of people calling themselves Pythagoreans, or so called by other people, shows that they were much preoccupied with the study of mere geometry as an intellectual pursuit. Much information and opinion has come down to us from the later classical writers whose remarks are extant. But it is pertinent to ask to what extent all this mass of speculation represents the original teachings and purposes of the originator whose name it bears. It is inevitable that a great originator is followed by a horde of mere imitators, who seize upon the husks of his teachings, and, neglecting the all-important disciplinary part, turn the material into mere intellectualisms or sophisms. We have to distinguish therefore between Pythagoras himself and his original teachings on the one hand, and all the motley array of so-called Pythagorean geometers who followed him (chronologically). Probably it is the neglect to observe this distinction that is the cause of the inconsistencies in the general view taken of Pythagoras. We are not concerned at present with the geometrical studies of these later Pythagoreans, recognizing that with them the original spirit had departed; it is the Master himself and his lofty moral teachings that concern us.

Knowledge is One in its essence; as soon as we attempt to pursue a branch of it to any length, in disregard of the whole, we begin to wander from truth and profit. And in seeking to achieve a synthesis of science, we must not make the fatal mistake of confining ourselves to the intellectual; for practice, experience, and realization are all-important. Our illustration, used above, of the vast difference between a purely mathematical conception of harmony and a realization of harmony by the effects it produces in our soul, is very much to the point here. It must surely apply to the pursuit of knowledge generally. What is the theoretical statement of brotherhood in comparison with the actual sentiment aroused in the heart? One realizes that there is no progress in real knowledge except in so far as the student assimilates his knowledge by the test of experience. Consequently one would expect that an advance in intellectual knowledge would conduct the earnest disciple to a point in his daily life where such a test would confront him, and that he would either succeed or fail at this test; thus determining his subsequent progress or retardation. He would be called on to 'make good.'

All this makes the policy of the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society as clear as day. If any unwary critic should presume to say that the intellectual side of Theosophy is insufficiently emphasized, he can be most effectually countered by the statement that, in the writings of H.P. Blavatsky alone, there is enough of such teaching to overwhelm the most capacious and ravenous intellect; only the trouble is that the ground is not prepared for the harvest. But this trouble is also provided for; for besides her intellectual teachings, H.P. Blavatsky has left those manuals of instruction in conduct and duty which point out the only method - and that a sure one - by which we can till the soil for

the harvest. If mankind is to be taught, the intuition must be aroused; and that is sleeping under a mass of coverings. Life itself has to be reformed. But if we really are zealous in our desire for knowledge, the strength of our faith and devotion thereto ought to carry us through all the obstacles and cause us to accept with thankfulness all the reverses we may encounter, knowing that these reverses serve to rescue us from error and set our feet sure on the path which we have chosen to follow.

(Vol. 15, pp. 436-42)

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The Tombs of Athens - C. J. Ryan

The Greeks, like so many of the nations of antiquity, attached the greatest importance to the proper burial or cremation of the dead. It was considered a serious misfortune for a body to lie exposed to the elements or neglected after death. The Greeks did not compete with the Egyptians in their care of the remains; they never mummified, arid their funeral ceremonies were less elaborate, but from what has been ascertained in various ways it is clear to the student of Theosophy that their funerary practices were derived from the same source of once-universal Wisdom as those of the Egyptians, though they were perhaps farther removed.

Owing to the apparently contradictory statements of Greek writers, scholars have been bewildered as to the actual beliefs of the Greeks concerning the future state of the soul. This is due partly to the modern point of view which, when it is allowed to believe in the existence of the surviving soul at all as separate from the bodily organism, regards it as nothing but the ordinary personality Mr. Smith or Mrs. Jones of everyday life - minus the corporeal vehicle it has used; and partly to the care with which the poets avoided committing the real secrets they may have learned through initiation in the Mysteries to writings which anyone might read. Yet it is not so difficult to read between the lines when the key is known, and it will be found that enough was given in plain language to satisfy thoughtful minds.

Homer and other poets tell us that Hades is filled with hosts of shadowy ghosts, eidolons, leading a dreary existence. They are powerless, almost senseless, phantasms of former men of strong intellect and physical vigor, their strength and passions only renewed temporarily by the vapor of the sacrificial blood-offerings. Homer describes the shades of Agamemnon and other heroes of the Trojan War living in Hades in the memory of the past, looking forward to no future. The Shade was not supposed to return from Hades once the funeral rites had been properly performed, yet food and drink were offered at the tombs of the departed as a matter of course, as if the spirit lingered there in some form! This has puzzled the investigators. Furthermore, how are we to reconcile the dreary Hades with the equally well-established belief that the heroes and the virtuous, who were supported by what they had learned in the Mysteries, went to the Isle of the Blessed, the Elysian Fields, where all was joy and peace; and that there were even happy regions in Hades? In the Heaven-world,

"There life flows on in easy course, There never snow nor rainNor winter tempests vex the land; But Ocean sends amainFresh Zephyr breezes breathing shrill

To cool th' untroubled life...." - Odyssey

In marked contrast to the gloomy idea of Hades we frequently find representations of the deceased supping with the Gods on ambrosia and nectar.

A learned writer, in commenting upon Homer's Hades as described in the Odyssey, declares that the Greeks were scandalized by the notion that Hercules could be languishing in Hades, and asserts that an interpolator added the famous passage which describes the hero enjoying the delights of the Upper World among the Gods. This suggestion is unlikely, and if the Theosophical teachings were better known it would be seen to be unnecessary. The reader who wishes to learn how Theosophy clears up the obscurities of the fragments of Greek thought about the soul that have come down to us, will find what he needs in The Key to Theosophy, (pp. 96-97) by H.P. Blavatsky, from which the few quotations that follow are taken:

"....your translators, their great learning notwithstanding, have made of the philosophers - the Greeks especially - misty instead of mystic writers.... Plutarch divides the complex nature of man into three groups, and makes of the body a compound of physical frame, astral shadow, and breath, or the triple lower part, which 'from earth was taken and to earth returns'; of the middle principle and the instinctual soul, the second part, derived from.... and ever influenced by, the moon; and only of the higher part or the Spiritual Soul (Buddhi), with the Atmic and manasic elements in it, does he make a direct emanation of the Sun, who stands here for To Agathon, the Supreme Deity. This is proven by what he says further as follows:

"'Now of the deaths we die, the one makes two of three, and the other one of [out of] two. The former is in the region and jurisdiction of Demeter; whence the name given to the Mysteries, telein, resembled that given to death, teleutan. The Athenians also heretofore called the deceased sacred to Demeter. As for the other death, it is in the moon or region of Persephone.'

"Here you have our doctrine, which shows man a septenary during life; a quintile just after death, in kamaloka; and a threefold Ego, Spirit-Soul and consciousness, in Devachan. This separation, first in 'the Meadows of Hades,' as Plutarch calls the Kamaloka, then in Devachan, was part and parcel of the performances during the sacred Mysteries, when the candidates for initiation enacted the whole drama of death and resurrection as a glorified spirit, by which name we mean Consciousness."

Of late it has been more than suspected that the Orphic Mysteries contain a truer version of the real beliefs of the Greeks than the popular mythology of the anthropomorphic Olympians. The myth of Orpheus is designedly allegorical, as we know from many ancient writers. For instance, Proclus says:

"The Orphic method aimed at revealing divine things by means of symbols, a method characteristic of all writers on divine wisdom."

About forty years ago eight golden tablets were found in Italy and Crete, dating from the third or fourth century B.C., and containing Orphic Instructions for the soul in its journey through the Underworld and a Confession of Faith. In general tone they strongly resemble the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which is a "guide-book" for the journey through the perils of the Egyptian Hades to the abode of the gods. Professor Maspero, in New Light on Ancient Egypt, says:

"The ancient Greeks admitted that they owed some of the elements of their

civilization to the great nations of the East, to the Egyptians in particular.... Foucart shows that the resemblance of the two goddesses (the Eleusinian Demeter and Isis) is not accidental, but must be sought in the depths of their nature.... The double benefit she has conferred.... the invention of agriculture, and the initiation into mysteries that assured them happiness in the other world. The revelations made to the neophytes consisted of three elements - a drama performed during the vigils of initiation, objects shown to them, and formulas taught to them. The words of the hierophants have not been preserved, but the Orphic documents furnish an equivalent. The Orphics deposited engraved plates with the secret instructions for the descent into Hades. For instance: ' - You will find a spring on the left in the domains of Hades, and near it a white cypress; you will not approach that spring. You will find another which has its source in the lake of memory, and guardians stand in front of it. Then say: 'I am the Child of the Earth and of the Starry Sky, but know that my origin is divine. I am devoured by and perish with thirst; give me, without delay, the fresh water that flows from the lake of memory.' Also he has to say: 'Pure, and issued from what is pure, I come towards thee, Queen of Hades, and towards you, Eukles, Euboleus, and towards you all, immortal gods, for I boast of belonging to your race....'"

"The resemblance to the Egyptian chapters which gave entrance to the gods' domain is striking. Like him who was initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Egyptian dead personage encountered dangerous or salutary springs on his way, as well as monsters whom he pacified by his sinking; he went through opaque darkness, and at last reached fertile islands, brilliant with light, the meadows of sweet cypress, where his master, Osiris, offered him a peaceful asylum on condition of repeating the password."

Of course, in both Egyptian mid Greek belief, after a long stay in the Heavenly World the soul returns to earth, resuming its personal embodied condition and forgetting its divinity in most cases. This alternation of rest and activity continues until the individual, by his own exertions, has transcended mortality and has attained perfection. It is a remarkable fact, proving how difficult it is for a certain order of minds - leaders of thought and scholarship - to attach importance to unwelcome ideas, that in one of the most excellent works on the Sculptured Tombs of Hellas, which includes an elaborate inquiry into the Greek beliefs relating to the fate of the soul after death, there is not any mention of the central, pivotal idea - reincarnation! Yet without the principle of rebirth the entire scheme is chaos. With it, the story of Hades with its shades, the cast-off 'shells' of the diviner part which, purified, has entered the Isle of the Blessed, the meaning of the Waters of Lethe in which the returning Ego plunges to lose the memory of the past as it re-enters earth-life, and the rest, become intelligible and harmonious with the Theosophical teachings of other races.

In Athens, near the Dipylon Gate, there is a magnificent group of funerary monuments in remarkable preservation. The majority of the finest belong to the period 480-300 B.C., and it is known that Praxiteles and other illustrious sculptors of the second period of Athenian sculpture executed some of them. The usual form of stele or tombstone is a tall, tapering slab, surmounted by an acanthus ornament and an inscription or a single figure in high relief. More elaborate ones were wider and contained two or more figures, usually family groups. Strong color was extensively used, deep blue backgrounds being frequent. We are accustomed to associate classical statuary with pure white marble, the color having faded or washed off in the course of time, and it is rather a shock to find that the Greeks colored their statues with vivid tints, the grave-figures as well as those that enriched the temples. From our knowledge of their exquisite taste, it is perfectly obvious that the colored statues must have been admirable in appearance, impossible though it may be for us to produce anything in that line better than waxworks.

Many of the Athenian sepulchral monuments take the form of a small temple inclosing the figures. The family groups are specially designed to touch the heart of the

spectator. Their pathos is simple and unaffected; never overdone. They are dignified and appropriate in design, and the execution is of a high order. Nothing else in Greek art, except perhaps the Tanagra statuettes in terracotta, make us realize so fully that the Greeks were a warm-blooded people like ourselves, with a strong sense of family affection, and not cold abstractions stalking with formal stride through ghostly white ruins.

Two conceptions are prominent in the groups: that of leave-taking, and, among the women, of adornment preparatory to a journey. There are many scenes of parting where the relatives or friends of the loved one are giving a farewell hand-clasp in the most modern way, but there are no harrowing scenes; everything is done with grace and decorum. Dr. Percy Gardner says it was a radical feeling in the Greek mind that he who died put away the accidents of his personal individuality and became in some degree a phase of the deity of the lower world. The portraits of the deceased were rather typical of a class than those of particular men or women. In later periods they became more individualized and life-like; particular idiosyncracies triumphed at the expense of the larger feeling.

There has been a question among scholars whether the leave-takings may not be really greetings in the next world by former deceased relatives, but the suggestion has not been generally accepted. Another possibility is not out of the question; may they not carry an impression of rebirth, of meeting on earth in some future incarnation those whose strong affection will irresistibly draw them together when the law of Karma permits?

(Vol. 16, pp. 436-40)

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History

The Rosetta Stone A Chapter of Egyptian History - P. A. Malpas

The scene is in Egypt in the fall of 332 'B.C.' After a national 'day' of glory, so long and so great that modern history is still afraid to look at it with unveiled eyes, the age-old Kingdom of the Nile was speeding towards the twilight of its days. The Persian domination was cordially hated from the Delta to the Pyramids and their taxes were a burden hard to be borne, rich though the country was from the bounty of the Nile and the precious trade with India. Either at this time or at some approximate historical period, the wise Indian rulers had decreed that Egypt should send only one merchant ship yearly to their ports. The Egyptians met the law by building a ship of such remarkable size and capacity that its cargo of precious Indian gems and spices and other wares was worth the burden of a fleet of argosies. There was a ship, which perhaps never left the Nile, with a complement of 4000 rowers and 4000 crew; double-prowed and double-sterned, the oars rose in twenty banks above the broad decks that spanned the two keels. She was built at a later date, but now the Persian yoke proved such an incubus that the splendid enterprise of a race that could do these things was stifled, and sentiment more than interest made the Persians odious, and those bearing gifts from the Queen of the Nile to the Empire of the East.

The Persians exploited but did not properly protect Egypt. Military incursions had done the country much damage and made the people apprehensive of Persian inability to prevent future attacks. Piratical enterprises had also alarmed them and caused much loss.

When, therefore, the young Macedonian conqueror, Alexander the Great, entered

the harbor of Pelusium, he was welcomed as a deliverer rather than as a new oppressor, though he could, and did, levy the same taxes as the Persians. The intruder not only met no opposition, but his progress up the Nile to Memphis was a triumphal advance.

Alexander acted with sense. Making no attempt to wound the religious susceptibilities of the Egyptians or to attack their particular form of the religion of humanity, he accepted recognition at the hands of the priesthood as a son of Ammon and therefore a legitimate King of Egypt. Sonchis of Sais declared to Solon that, before the memory of Greek history began, the Greeks were a mighty nation allied to the Egyptians by peculiarly close religious ties. All they now did was to recognize within the Macedonian form the kindred Egyptian soul and to treat Alexander as an exiled prince coming into his own kingdom. His divinity was acknowledged, and he respected and honored the religion of his new country, receiving certain degrees of initiation in their temples, such as suited his standing.

The new conqueror founded a new capital on the Mediterranean, and called it after himself, Alexandria, destined later to be famous for its glorious Theosophical School and infamous for the persecutions of the martyrs of that school, culminating in the savage attack on Hypatia, when Cyril's Christians scraped the flesh from her bones with oyster shells in church at Easter-time. He had stolen the church plate, and now he was responsible for robbing the Neo-Platonic School of Philosophy of its brightest gem. But all that was in the later karma of the city of Alexander.

Alexander died in 323 B.C., some nine years later. There was no question as to who would succeed to the throne of Egypt. Ptolemy had fought his way to the front from being an obscure military officer, and had attained the highest and most trusted position in the army, besides being a favored and familiar friend of the mighty Alexander. He demanded and obtained Egypt as his share in the Empire, thus founding the dynasty of the Ptolemies.--------

The next scene is a hundred and twenty years later. The ancient glory of the spiritual kings was fast fading in a dull red light and the court was about as corrupt as it could well be. Ptolemy IV had not much character to recommend him, and the character of his associates, especially the favorite minister Agathocles, was abominable. One star shone unsullied over the court, Queen Arsinoe III. Her childhood had been so beset with thorns and suffering that there was something noble about her, which was more than could be said for any others at the court. The people looked to her for a possible restoration some day of a semblance of morality and justice in high places, when maids, wives, and widows might once again feel safe from the attentions of the dissolute satellites of Agathocles and the circle of which he was the mainspring. There was another, the great soldier Tlepolemus, whom they counted upon for relief, but he was not at the time in Alexandria.

Then the Fourth Ptolemy died - which was hardly surprising, considering the way he lived.

Agathocles immediately consulted with his equally infamous sister Agathocleia, and they concealed the royal death until their plans should be ready. She had been the evil genius of Ptolemy IV, and now she became her brother's tool and instigator. The excellent Arsinoe was murdered as a matter of course, and the murderer was given a colonial governorship to get him out of the way. Then having the young Ptolemy V, her son and the new king, in their power, together with the royal treasury, Agathocles and his vile sister laid their cards on the table. They announced that the King Ptolemy IV was dead and that they had become the guardians of the little five-year-old son, whose baby brow was too tender to bear the heavy weight of the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. So far the matter seemed sufficiently straightforward, but when it was announced that Arsinoe also was

dead, the wrath of the people knew no bounds. It had been calculated that with Tlepolemus out of the city, there would be no leader to carry the Alexandrian mob to extremes and that their possible resentment could be propitiated. As for the Macedonian guards, it was easy to pay them for their loyalty.

Both calculations went wrong. The mob was so exasperated that they spontaneously broke out into a violent sedition, and on an appeal being made to the Macedonians, the latter proved hostile. Was it not obvious that if a Macedonian king or queen could be murdered, the lives of all Macedonians were unsafe under the self-appointed regent? The soldiers resisted all bribes and handed Agathocles and his sister and all his relatives over to the mob, who tore them to pieces.

The third century B.C. was drawing to its close when the boy-king began his reign. Sosibius was the next to obtain possession of the child's person, but as soon as Tlepolemus returned to the city he naturally and as of right assumed the administration of affairs. He was a first-class soldier and very popular, and was pre-eminently the man for the position, with the exception that he was not a statesman in any sense of the word. He was just a soldier to whom a good javelin-throw or a shrewd sword-thrust were of greater importance than all the wearisome routine of government. He would as likely as not have preferred to settle all differences by letting the rival disputants fight it out on the drill-ground while he acted as umpire. Devoted to athletics and the arts of war by day, he spent his evenings in convivial banquets. As a result the affairs of the kingdom naturally fell quickly into the utmost disorder and chaos.

What rulers had been more friendly towards Egypt than Philip of Macedon and Antiochus III of Syria while Ptolemy IV was on the throne? What more natural than that now they had to deal with a little boy in his place, his baby son, they should conspire together to dispossess him and divide his kingdom between them? Political friendships are unstable things, and selfish opportunities are a severe test of sincerity. Antiochus invaded Coele-Syria and Philip reduced the Cyclades and the Egyptian cities in Thrace without so much as a by-your-leave or a thank-you.

Fortunately there were wise men in Egypt and one of the wisest, Aristomenes, became the adviser of the young King. The Egyptian generals were doing their best, but the aspect of affairs was somewhat critical. Skopas, the Aetolian general sent out by the Egyptians, dislodged Antiochus from Coele-Syria at the great battle of Panion in 198 B.C. when Ptolemy was about twelve or thirteen years of age and had reigned six or seven years.

Philip was countered by the Rhodians and Attalus of Pergamon, who gave his fleet such a rough handling that further attempts against Egypt were paralyzed.

The ministers had appealed to Rome. They sent an embassy offering to place Egypt under Roman protection. The senate accepted the proposition and sent an embassy to Egypt consisting of C. Claudius Nero, M. Aemilius Lepidus, and Publius Sempronius Tuditanus, to take charge of affairs. Lepidus seems to have assumed the title of Guardian of Ptolemy.

The Romans crushed the power of Philip at Cynoscephalae in 197 B.C., and they stopped Antiochus from making further advances against Egypt.

Antiochus was wily enough to save appearances by declaring that the war against Egypt was finished, and assured the Romans that not only had he no designs on the country but had arranged to betroth his daughter Cleopatra to the young King Ptolemy, with a promised dowry of half the revenue of Coele-Syria. The marriage actually took place in 193 B.C., some six years later.

Those seven years at the close of the third century and the opening of the second 'B.C.' had been full of bitter trouble and anxiety for Egypt. But the wise minister Aristomenes had, by the Roman intervention, brought his young sovereign out of all other foreign difficulties. In the natural course the King would have come of age, legally, at

fourteen, but it appears that he was at least provisionally crowned before that, and his majority was perhaps anticipated in a similar manner to that which obtains in some countries at the present day.

When the great Aristomenes died, there died with him the good genius of the King. Ptolemy V went downhill, and when his wise minister was no longer with him his life produced nothing of interest or importance. He became harsh and unjust, and when he died in the twenty-ninth year of his age and the twenty-fourth of his reign, the old fire of the closing years of the previous century and the beginning of the new seems to have been almost forgotten. He died unregretted.

But that was later. And the great decree of the priests of Egypt, which they had promulgated in celebration of the happy issue out of all their country's afflictions in the spring of 196 B.C., still bore witness in the temples to the deeds that had been done in his name, while standing as a monument of the first commemoration of the coronation of the young Ptolemy. Perhaps its most fitting description would be that it was so promulgated as marking the age when he would in the ordinary course of law attain his majority.--------

The story next concerns Napoleon and his conquest of Egypt at the very end of the eighteenth century 'A.D.' As in the case of Alexander, the circumstances were not auspicious. The glory had departed from the public eye to the hidden recesses of the rocks and subterranean crypts. Egypt seemed a dead country and a dying nation, superficially, at any rate.

The English were attacking the French, who in the course of their defense found it necessary to repair the earthwork known under the name of the Bastion de St.-Julien. The superintendent of the work was an artillery officer named Bussard who either possessed some imagination, or by one of those curious 'accidents' that occasionally happen, made a discovery whose results have been far-reaching. In the progress of the work there came to hand a block of black syenitic basalt with some sort of inscription upon its surface. The point that thrust itself upon the officer's attention was that the inscription was in three sections, one hieroglyphic, that strange unknown language (if it was a language), another unrecognized script, and the third Greek.

The flash of intuition suggested that if all three inscriptions should prove to be the same in different languages, of which the Greek was known, there might be a key to the profound mystery of the hieroglyphics and the soul of old Egypt. It was the possible gate to a new world. The block of stone was carefully packed, in preparation for its removal to Paris. But before this could take place the French signed the Capitulation of Alexandria. By this instrument it was specified in the sixteenth article that all curiosities were to be given up to the captors, the English. The stone had been found at Rashid or Rosetta, and the French claimed that this Rosetta Stone, as it is still called, was not public property and a curiosity to which the clause in the capitulation could be applied. It was private property in the possession of a French General, possessing the curiously archaic Egyptian name of Menou. The ways of soldiers are not the ways of delicate negotiation, and Lord Hutchinson clinched his arguments by sending General Turner with a devil-cart and a detachment of artillerymen to the residence of General Menou with orders to bring the stone to the British headquarters without further discussion. This was done.

The dispute had not lessened the interest in the stone, and General Turner, being "determined to share its fate," embarked with it in the frigate Egyptienne. After a prosperous voyage, the ship arrived at Portsmouth in February, 1802, just two years short of a couple of millenniums since the lettering on it was carved, as subsequent research showed. In March of the same year the stone was placed in the Antiquarian Society's Rooms, where it remained some time before being deposited in the British Museum.

In April, 1802, a month later, the Rev. Stephen Weston presented a translation of

the Greek to the Antiquarian Society, and in July the Society ordered four plaster casts to be made and sent to the British Universities, while engravings of the Greek were distributed. A French translation appeared shortly afterwards from the pen of 'citizen du Theil' of the Institut National of Paris. When Napoleon was in Egypt he took a body of learned men with him for the study of such historical monuments as were available. They took the greatest interest in the stone, as did Bonaparte himself, and two Frenchmen, Marcel and Galland, were brought from France to make copies of the inscription, which these lithographers did by rolling it up with printing ink and so taking impressions on paper. Two of these impressions were taken by General Dagua to Paris, and he gave them into the care of du Theil. The latter announced that the stone was a "monument of the gratitude of some priests of Alexandria, or some neighboring place, towards Ptolemy Epiphanes."

So far, progress was satisfactory. But there remained the other two inscriptions, or versions of the same inscription, as deeply wrapped in mystery as ever. It was known that one was the hieroglyphic writing of the temples and the other was the cursive hand derived from the hieroglyphic and much used at the time of the Ptolemies, called the Demotic, or popular character. It is also called the enchorial.

Students were quite alive to the fact that here was a probable key to the vast mass of Egyptian literature which was as little understood as is the Mexican today. If a relation could be established between the Greek and the other two, what a world might not be opened to the longing eyes of the world of scholarship! What a burning of the midnight oil was there among those ambitious of the honor of being the first to decipher the footprints of a dead world recorded on the Rosetta Stone!--------

Silvestre de Sacy and Akerblad were the first to publish studies of the Demotic text, basing their conclusions upon the theory that the cartouche or oval in the Hieroglyphic and its equivalent in the Demotic contained royal names. They made out several names and even a few other words, but the first investigators were terribly handicapped by the groundless assertion on the part of some scholars that the hieroglyphics were not phonetic. Being in the form of pictures it was supposed the meaning would be related to the picture rather than to any possible sound assigned to the picture. Yet it is the fact that the English alphabet is a series of conventionalized pictures representing sounds, a circumstance probably unknown to them. And indeed, in their origin in the dim Atlantean (?) past, many of the Egyptian hieroglyphics were taken to represent the sound of the initial letter of the name of the object they pictured.

So we have these European savants poring with toweled heads over the meaning of the keystone to the arch through which entrance was to be sought to the realm of ancient Egyptian literature. It was Dr. Thomas Young who was the first to grasp the fact that the figures represented sounds, and to utilize it in his decipherings. In 1818 he prepared an article for the Encyclopedia Britannica which gave several correct interpretations of signs. He proved that the theory of the oval or cartouche containing royal names was correct, and on the Rosetta Stone deciphered the name of Ptolemy, and on another monument that of Berenice. About the same time Bankes deciphered the name of Cleopatra on an obelisk he had discovered at Philae. Small results for twenty years' work perhaps, but for twenty centuries there had been no results at all, and these three drops of rain were the precursors of the hurricane that has since deluged us with the life of Egypt and proved that our civilization is not necessarily advanced in the things that the wise men of old regarded as essentials, while they despised the things we think most valuable.

The giant intellect of Egyptology now appeared on the scene in the person of the great Champollion. In his youth something had stirred him to study Coptic, which is in

reality the modern form of the old Egyptian. There is a vast literature in Coptic, chiefly religious, since the Copts who survived were in great part descendants of early Egyptian converts to Christianity. This Champollion had studied until he had become an expert, and his knowledge of the language was invaluable in the restoration of the Egyptian. In parenthesis, it is remarkable that in the same decade containing the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, the famous Count Cagliostro was persecuted to the point of death, and one of the greatest complaints that could be made against him was that he called himself the "Great Copt," or to spell it as Goethe did in the play he wrote about him, "Kophta." This only meant that that much-maligned philosopher and freemason was a representative of the Egyptian school of philosophy. Ignorance made the title a fantastic claim of an adventurer, while in reality it was a very sober description of what he was. This then is the language, the Coptic, which Champollion used to such effect that he founded the science of Egyptian grammar and decipherment, besides giving the phonetic values of syllabic signs, and to all intents and purposes restoring the lost language of Egypt in such form that later scholars had but to exercise patience to decipher and translate the silent voice of the Ancient Land of the Nile.

The study of the method by which the name of Ptolemy on the Rosetta Stone was deciphered letter by letter is fascinating to those who are interested in such details, and the monumental works of Sir Ernest Budge, the Egyptologist of the British Museum, bring the story within the compass of the least learned minds. Five times the name is repeated, and as the name is that of a king of the Greek dynasty it follows that the Egyptian form of the name could hardly be much different in sound. Following the clue yet further, it was found that the figures in the hieroglyphic cartouches supposed to correspond to the letters of the name Ptolemaios, when applied to other cartouches gave portions of such names as Cleopatra and Alexander; the odd letters being supplied gave yet other names in other cartouches, and gradually the whole alphabet became clear. When Champollion added his knowledge to this lettering, the whole of the Egyptian language became easy to translate for those who had the patience to do it.

This is the Decree (on the Rosetta Stone) of the priests, in honor of Ptolemy V, made in 196 B.C. and deciphered in 1802 A.D., while the next hundred years were devoted to the rebuilding of the whole vast structure of the Egyptian literature out of the information supplied by the hieroglyphic and demotic portions:

"In the reign of the youthful king, who received the kingdom from his father, Lord of Diadems, greatly glorious, who has established Egypt and, pious towards the gods, is superior to his enemies; who has set right the life of men; Lord of the feasts of thirty years, like Hephaestos the great, king, like the sun, the great King, both of the Upper and Lower countries, offspring of the gods Philopatores whom Hephaestos (Ptah) approved, to whom the Sun (Ra) has given victory, the living image of Zeus (Ammon); son of the Sun, Ptolemy, ever-living beloved of Ptah; in the ninth year when Aetus, son of Aetus, was priest of Alexander and of the Gods Soters, of the Gods Adelphi, of the Gods Evergetae, of the Gods Philopators and of the God Epiphanes Eucharistus; the Athlophorus of Berenice Evergetes being Pyrrha, daughter of Philinus; the priestess of Arsinoe Philadelphus being Areia daughter of Diogenes; the priestess of Arsinoe Philopator, being Irene daughter of Ptolemy; of the month Xandicus the fourth, but according to the Egyptians, the 18th of Mechir: Decree:" -

It is interesting to note the correspondence of the Greek and Egyptian Gods, as indicated by Plato when he quotes the conversation of Solon with the priests of Sais. The Egyptians and Athenians in archaic times were so closely related that their gods were really the same, the names being translated from one to the other without losing much of their character. Corrupt as was the everyday Egypt of the Ptolemies, there is a

reminiscence of the times of old in the recognition of the God within the Sovereign. First, we are told, there were Gods that reigned over the nation as Gods, known and loved. Then they reigned in human form, assuming human bodies for convenience, but losing nothing of their unclouded divinity. Then as darker ages came they retreated, and it is to be presumed that only the purified and qualified priests were capable of recognizing them and talking with them face to face. Later still, it is probable that priests merely claimed the power to recognize the Gods and used their prestige for political ends. It may have been at this stage that the Ptolemies were recognized as Gods and given god-names as above, ending in the Philopators, parents of Ptolemy V, and in himself as the god Epiphanes Eucharistus; or, on the other hand, these names may possibly represent that power which endeavored through these kings to govern Egypt as well as the degenerated condition of life would allow.

The Decree continues:

"The chief priests, prophets, and those who enter the temples for the arraying of the gods, and the feather-bearers and sacred scribes, and all the other priests who have come from the temples throughout the land to Memphis into the presence of the King for the ceremony of the reception, by Ptolemy, the everliving, beloved of Ptah, god Epiphanes Eucharistus, of the crown which he received from his father, being gathered together in the temple at Memphis on the day aforesaid, decreed:

"Since that King Ptolemy (etc.) has in many things benefitted the temples and those connected with them, and all those living under his sway, that, being a god, born of a god and a goddess, like Horus the son of Isis and Osiris, who avenged his father Osiris, of a liberal disposition towards the gods, he has offered to the temples revenues both of money and provisions and has undergone great expenses in order to bring back Egypt to peace and establish the temple observances and has been generous with all his own means; of the taxes and imposts existing in Egypt, some he has entirely remitted, others he has lightened, that the people and all others might be in prosperity under his rule; he has remitted to all the crown debts which those in Egypt and the rest of his kingdom owed, being very considerable; he has released from the claims against them those shut up in prison for such debt, and those lying under accusation for a long time; also he commanded that the revenues of the temples and the contributions of provisions and money made them yearly, likewise the just portions of the gods from the vineyards and gardens and what else belonged to the gods in the time of his father, should remain upon the same basis.

"He commanded also concerning the priests that they should give nothing more for the consecration fee than was imposed in the first year of his father's reign: he released also those sacred tribes from the yearly voyage down into Alexandria; also he ordered the recruiting of naval supplies to cease; of the contribution of fine linen cloth (byssus) made in the temples for the royal palace he remitted two-thirds; what had been neglected in former times he restored to proper order, taking care that the accustomed duties should be duly paid to the gods.

"Likewise also he apportioned justice for all, as Hermes the twice great; he ordered also that those who returned down the river from Upper Egypt, both soldiers and others who went astray from their allegiance in the days of public disturbance, should he kept in possession of their property on their return; he took care also that there should go out forces of horse and foot and ships against those invading Egypt both by sea and land, undergoing great expense both of money and corn that the temples and all that are in Egypt might be in safety. He was present also at Lycopolis in the nome of Busiris which had been taken and fortified against a siege by a very abundant supply of all kinds of munitions, seeing that for a long time rebellion had existed among those impious ones gathered there, who had done the temples and the inhabitants of Egypt much evil; and

laying siege to it, he surrounded it with embankments and trenches and remarkable fortifications; the great rise which the Nile made in the eighth year, when it was accustomed to flood the plains, he restrained at many places, securing the mouths of the canals, and spending on them no small amount of money, stationing horse and foot soldiers to guard them. In a little while he took the city by storm, and all the impious ones in it he destroyed, like as Hermes and Horus the son of Isis and Osiris overpowered those who in the same parts had revolted in former times. The ringleaders also of the revolts in his father's time who had troubled the country and outraged the temples, being at Memphis, the avenger of his father and of his own royalty, all these he punished as they deserved, at the time when he went there for his performance of the rites proper for the reception of the crown; he remitted also the crown debts owed by the temples up to his eighth year, amounting to no small quantity of provisions (corn) and money, likewise the fines for the value of the byssus cloth not delivered, and of that cloth which had been delivered for the same period, the cost of replacing such as differed from the standard pattern.

"He released the temples also of the tax of the artaba for every aroura of the sacred land, and in like manner as to the jar of wine (the ceramium) for each aroura of the vineland. To Apis and Mnevis he made many gifts, as also to the other sacred animals of Egypt, having much more care for them than the kings before him, and considering in all respects what belonged to those gods; he gave bountifully and nobly what was proper for their funerals, with the dues for the support of their respective worships and shrines, with sacrifices and festivals and the other usual rites. The honors of the temples and of Egypt he has carefully kept upon the same basis, agreeably to the laws. He has adorned the temple of Apis with costly works, expending upon it gold and silver and precious stones no small amount, and has founded temples and shrines and altars. What had need of repair he restored, having the disposition of a beneficent god in matters of religion. By making special inquiry he discovered the state and position of the most honorable temples, and in return the gods have given him health, victory, power, and all other good things, the kingdom being assured to him and his children to all time. With Good Fortune:" -

The list of virtuous and wise deeds enumerated is wonderful for a boy of fourteen years, yet it seems fair enough if the good Aristomenes and other real patriots who had the guardianship of the King acted in his name for the welfare of the land, accepting him as the divine focus of their united efforts. Even if that divine kingship had degenerated into a mere formality from the personal point of view, the system of government echoed the ancient reality of the reign of the divine kings and was an ideal form, however imperfect the details. No other known system has, so far as history knows, produced a country that lasted intact and glorious for over seventy-five thousand years!

Unfortunately, Ptolemy V advanced no more in wisdom or righteousness after the death of Aristomenes, and many of the excellent measures adopted in regard to taxation and government were canceled or forgotten before he died. But the priests were honoring the King as he was before the change came for the worse, and the honors they decreed stand to the credit of the young king as he was, and not as he became. This was the.purport of the final portion of the Rosetta Decree:

"It has seemed good to the priests of all the temples of the land to decree to augment greatly the honors now paid to the everliving king Ptolemy, beloved of Ptah, god Epiphanes Eucharistus, and likewise those of his ancestors, the gods Philopators and of his ancestors the gods Evergetae and of the gods Adelphi, and those of the gods Soters [Note: The latter four were the first four Ptolemies]; to erect of the ever-living king Ptolemy, god Epiphanes Eucharistus, an image in each temple in the most conspicuous place, which shall be entitled, 'Ptolemy, the defender of Egypt.' near which shall stand the god to

whom the temple belongs, presenting to him the emblem of victory, which arrangements will be made in the manner of the Egyptians, also for the priests to perform a service before the images three times a day, and put on the sacred dress and perform the other accustomed rites, as to the other gods in the festivals of Egypt; to establish for King Ptolemy, god Epiphanes Eucharistus, offspring of King Ptolemy and Queen Arsine, gods Philopators, a statue and a shrine, both gilded, in each of the temples, and to place this in the inner chamber with the other shrines, and in the great festivals in which processions of the shrines take place, for the shrine of the god Epiphanes Eucharistus, to go out with them. And that it may be distinguished both now and for future time, there shall be set upon the shrine the ten golden ornaments of the King, to which shall be affixed an asp similar to the adorning of the asp-like crowns which are upon the other shrines, but in the midst of them shall be the crown called 'schent,' which he wore when he entered the temple at Memphis, for the performance in it of the rites proper to the assumption of the crown; to place upon the platform (or square surface round the crowns) besides the aforesaid crown, ten golden phylacteries upon which shall be written: 'This is the shrine of the King who makes manifest (Epiphanes) both the Upper country and the Lower'; and since the 30th of the month Mesore on which the birthday festivities of the King are celebrated and in like manner the 17th of the month Paophi in which he received the kingdom from his father, have been named after him in the temples; since these were occasions of great blessings, a feast shall be celebrated in the temples on these days in every month, on which there shall be sacrifices and libations and the other customary festivals.... there shall be celebrated a feast and a panegyry to the ever-living beloved of Ptah, King Ptolemy, god Epiphanes Eucharistus, each year in the temples throughout the land from the first of the month of Thoth for five days, in which also they shall wear garlands, performing sacrifices and libations and the other usual honors. The priests also of the temples of the country shall be called priests of the God Epiphanes Eucharistus in addition to the names of the other gods whom they serve; that priesthood to him shall be inscribed on all their documents and on the seal-rings on their hands. It shall be lawful for private persons to celebrate the feast and set up the aforementioned shrine, having it in their houses and performing the customary rites in the feasts both monthly and yearly in order that it may be published abroad that the people of Egypt magnify and honor the god Epiphanes Eucharistus, the King, according to the law. This decree to be set up on a stele of hard stone, in sacred and enchorial writing and in Greek, and to be erected in each of the temples of the first, the second, and the third order, by the image of the everliving King."

Much of the defective portions of the lines on the stone has been supplied with almost certain accuracy from a stele discovered in 1898 at Damanhur in the Delta, and now in the Cairo Museum, and also from the copy of a text of the Decree found on the walls of a temple at Philae. The language is a little difficult to translate into current English owing to the Egyptian method of expression, but this formal 'sermon in stone' has carried its message down through the centuries, and we are as a direct consequence learning the first chapter of the lesson that our civilization is but a repetition of things well known in past ages; much not only being regarded in some of its most vaunted details as too dangerous to make public where the purest morality is not the guiding principle in life, but actually despised as crude in comparison with other and better methods of attaining the same results.

When we have duly studied the secrets of ancient civilizations which flourished long before our age of darkness - so dark that it even wants to deny the very existence of the light - we shall find, are finding, that the horrors of vivisection are not only methods of savagery, but that those ancients possessed immensely superior methods. They knew of explosives, and rigidly kept the thing secret. What are all the so-called benefits of the use

of explosives in the balance against the life of a single man sacrificed by their use? The greatest scholar Oxford ever knew, old Roger Bacon, hid his knowledge of gunpowder in a cryptogram, and it would have been better perhaps if he had concealed it altogether. There are many other things we shall find out in time that the Egyptians knew and concealed from irresponsible scholars for the sake of humanity. The Rosetta Stone and the efforts of those who have built up from it the ancient structure of the language are therefore not to be despised, though they may seem to be little more than a scholar's pastime at first sight, though they come as dim gleams of the twilight and the dark of Egypt's glory.--------

There is another chapter, not yet written: H.P. Blavatsky, whose writings are a storehouse of knowledge, or rather the keys to knowledge, since she could but touch upon many important subjects, suggests that many of the old writings of the temples of Egypt are as much cryptograms or codes as, say, the genealogies of Genesis. Applying the key of a geometrical figure to the hieroglyphics, certain words are revealed as being connected with one another in a secret combination. As likely as not, the modern materialist would hardly understand most such passages, even if he could read them, any more than the birds could have appreciated a sermon from St. Francis on finance or mathematics, had he chosen such a subject for his discourse to the sparrows and finches. But that does not mean that these hidden interpretations are useless - very much the reverse. There is no suggestion that any such interior message has been handed down the ages in the Rosetta Stone - it might be or might not. But the message of the stone may in time lead to useful discoveries, when it dawns upon a larger proportion of the leaders of thought and endeavor that not all discovery should be applied to the art of killing one's fellow man, and in the intervals of peace to the science of getting more money than the man next door, - and out of him, if possible.

(Vol. 19, pp. 47-59)

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Four Great Pharoahs - C. J. Ryan

In the long roll of Egyptian kings of whom we have definite information, among the most remarkable are Amenemhat III, Tehutimes (Thothmes) III, Amenhetep III, and Amenhetep IV (Khuenaten). The most cursory glance at their portraits is enough to gain a distinct impression from each of a well-marked and highly-individualized personality.

Amenemhat III, of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egyptian kings, lived, according to some archaeologists, forty-three centuries before our days, or about 2300 B.C. His fame has been preserved by his great works of peace, the Labyrinth and the wonderful Lake Moeris. In his time the average height of the Nile was about twelve feet higher than in modern times; the highest rise being twenty-seven feet higher, and much damage was done by excess of water at the highest periods. In all ages great care was taken to divert the flow of the Nile during the inundation by dams, sluices, and reservoirs, but Amenemhat III conceived a colossal plan to protect the country. This was nothing less than the creation of a vast artificial lake in the Fayum, a little above Memphis, for the reception and storage of the superfluous water. This magnificent engineering work was protected by dams, and connected with the river by a canal with locks to regulate the flow. Little remains of it today except a depression in the ground and the ruins of some dikes. The great dam at Assuan,

built by the British a few years ago, now regulates the inundation in a still more effective way, but great credit must be given to King Amenemhat for his noble work which was of immense benefit to Egypt.

The Labyrinth, erected near Lake Moeris, was a most extraordinary building. Unfortunately, it has been entirely destroyed. Only, a few blocks of stone with half-obliterated inscriptions containing the name of Amenemhat remain to indicate the site of this great Wonder of the World, which, according to Herodotus, consisted of three thousand chambers and halls, half above ground and half below. The Labyrinth was larger than the pyramids, and, according to Herodotus and Strabo, far more wonderful. H.P. Blavatsky says:

"Egypt had the 'celestial labyrinth' whereinto the souls of the departed plunged, and also its type on earth, the famous Labyrinth, a subterranean series of halls and passages with the most extraordinary windings.... Even in Herodotus' day strangers were not allowed into the subterranean portions of it as they contained the sepulchers of the kings who built it and other mysteries. The 'Father of History' found the Labyrinth already almost in ruins, yet regarded it even in its state of dilapidation as far more marvelous than the pyramids."

There is something mysterious about the Labyrinth. Its former existence is certain, for both Strabo and Herodotus refer to it in considerable detail, and traces remain, but it is not mentioned in the Egyptian records on the monuments. A reason given by Dr. Brugsch is that the Fayum was detested by the rest of Egypt as being hostile to Osiris; it was sacred to Set-Typhon, the opponent of Osiris or Horus. For this cause the Fayum, though a rich and fertile province (as it is today), was left out of the official lists of Nomes or provinces of Egypt. Yet it was there that Amenemhat placed this extraordinary building, whose use is unknown; and not far off is his tomb-pyramid.

Tehutimes (Thothmes) III, was one of the great warrior kings. He has been called the 'Alexander the Great' of Egyptian history, for he triumphantly faced in battle the most powerful empires and marched to the frontiers of the world as it was known to the Egyptians of that age (1600 B.C.), bringing back the richest spoils of conquered and tributary nations. "Egypt itself then formed the central point of the world's intercourse," says Brugsch. For nearly twenty years Tehutimes fought more than thirteen campaigns, chiefly or perhaps entirely in Syria and the north, but possibly in Nubia and Ethiopia. During the latter period of the reign of Hatshepsu, the famous 'Amazon' Queen, the regular tributes had gradually ceased to be paid by conquered nations, and their rulers at last defied the Egyptian power. Tehutimes soon brought them to reason, but he was evidently a considerate and generous conqueror for, unless hostile towns were repeatedly and obstinately rebellious, he treated them with mildness and friendliness, only demanding a moderate tribute. He also possessed scientific tastes and had a strong liking for natural history. He was delighted to discover hitherto unknown birds, and he caused to be represented on the temple of Amen at Thebes new discoveries made during his campaigns. One inscription reads:

"Here are all sorts of plants and all sorts of flowers from the land of Ta-neter which the king discovered when he went to the land of Ruthen (Canaan) to conquer that land as his father Amen had commanded him."

The king had taken so many captives and such a quantity of treasure that he was well able to dedicate his energies to the building of splendid temples, ruins of which are to be found throughout the length of Egypt and Nubia. Especially fine were those at Thebes, and at Elephantine. The latter was unfortunately destroyed by the Turkish governor of Assuan in 1822, but careful drawings made by the savants of Napoleon's expedition are

still available.After a reign of nearly fifty-four years (part of which was shared with Queen

Hatshepsu, his sister) the great Tehutimes, conqueror, naturalist, successful governor of almost all the known world, and builder, passed away, and his heart's desire has been fulfilled - "I shall remain preserved in the history of the latest times."

Amenhetep III, the great-grandson of Tehutimes III, was a famous builder and sportsman. His campaigns were mostly in the South, where he penetrated far into the Sudan. He will, however, be chiefly remembered for his temple building, and above all for the famous Colossi of the Plain, the gigantic figures of himself, one of which was called by the Greeks the Vocal Memnon. They were about seventy feet high when perfect, and stood on either side of a great pylon which formed the entrance to a temple. Amenhetep III had a wise and accomplished minister named Amenhetep and, to judge by the account given of his own life and deeds by the king's namesake, it was he rather than the king who was responsible for the erection of the two enormous statues. He says:

"My lord promoted me to be chief architect. I immortalized the name of the king, and no one has done the like of me in my works, reckoning from earlier times.... I acted according to what seemed best in my estimation, in causing to be made two portrait-statues of noble hard stone in this his great building. It is like heaven.... Thus I executed these works of art, his statues - (they were astonishing for their breadth, lofty in their perpendicular height: their completed form made the gate-tower look small; 40 cubits was their measure) - in the splendid sandstone mountain, on its two sides [the temple]....

"I caused eight ships to be built; they [the statues] were carried down [the river] and placed in his lofty building. They will last as long as the heaven.

"I declare to you who shall come hither after us, that of the people who were assembled for the building every one was under me. They were full of ardor; their heart was moved with joy; they raised a shout and praised the gracious god. Their landing in Thebes was a joyful event. The monuments were raised in their future place."

The musical phenomenon which used to take place in connection with the northern colossus was unknown to the ancient Egyptians; it was first noticed after an earthquake in the year 27 B.C. which destroyed the upper part of the statue, and it is generally attributed to the sudden change of temperature at sunrise causing quick currents of air to press through crevices in the rock. After the Roman emperor Septimius Severus restored the figure the sound was never heard again. Dr. Brugsch, speaking of the ability and knowledge of the statesman-architect Amenhetep, says: "Even in our highly cultivated age, with all its inventions and machines, the shipment and erection of the statues of Memnon remain an insoluble riddle."

King Amenhetep III was devoted to the worship of the great national god Amen-Ra, and built many temples in his honor. To the temple of Amen at Karnak he was exceedingly generous, masses of gold, silver, copper, and precious stones, and even a large number of lions, appear on the lists of his benefactions. In great contrast to him was the conduct of his son, Amenhetep IV, who did his best to destroy the state religion of Amen-Ra.

Sometimes a tremendous will is enshrined in an outwardly unlikely tabernacle. A striking example is found in the extraordinary religious reformer or revolutionary Pharaoh, Amenhetep IV ( generally known by the Greek transliteration, Amenophis), self-styled during the principal part of his reign, Khuenaten - the beloved of the god Aten, - who lived about 1450 B.C. In his fierce enthusiasm for reform he found sufficient driving power to defy the entrenched power of the priesthood of Amen-Ra and to disestablish and disendow the popular national cult, and to replace it by the religion of Aten, the local deity of Hermopolis, whose symbol was the sun's disk. Yet this tremendous revolution was accomplished by a man whose general build and features, to judge by his portraits (which

are evidently, from the naive realism and unflattering appearance, good likenesses) very different from what might be expected in a successful reformer. We see no massiveness, no square determined chin, no firm-set head on a strong neck. On the contrary, Amenhetep IV was slightly built, with feminine outlines, sickly and weak-looking; his head was ill-supported on a thin neck, his chin pushed forward and his mouth partly open. Obstinacy and vivacity might be indicated by his expression, but not power or dignity. Yet he was the man who carried out the only violent religious reform or revolution of which we have record in the thousands of years of Egypt's history, and he was obviously a burning spiritual enthusiast.

It is only within recent years that research has given us authentic information about the fourth Amenhetep, and not much is known yet, owing to the destruction of his capital at El Amarna and of the temples he built throughout Egypt in honor of Aten. Most of the inscriptions about his reign have disappeared and little remains but funerary writings in tombs. His successors quickly returned to the worship of Amen-Ra, and the priests of Amen did their best to blot out the memory of the 'heretic king' from the minds of men.

Enough, however, remains to prove that Amenhetep IV was an unusual man with a high and definite ideal of his own, who, by means of his autocratic position, was able to carry it to a large measure of success during his lifetime. According to the information at our disposal, the story of his effort is something of the following nature. For about two hundred years the mighty god Amen-Ra, whose worship was centered at Thebes, had received great glory and credit from the victories of the Pharaohs. First of all there was the successful war of independence against the hated Shepherd Kings, foreigners who had held the country down for about five hundred years. After they were driven out of Egypt, the borders of the country were extended to Syria in the north, the banks of the Euphrates in the east, and far south into Nubia. All these advances were credited to the power of Amen-Ra, whose priests naturally became very influential. Their authority was so great that in the reign of the famous Queen Hatshepsu and later the high priest of Amen became ruler of all the priests in the land, governor of Thebes, and grand vizier of Egypt.

Before Amenhetep IV came to the throne it had been growing upon him that the power of the monarchy was seriously threatened by the rising importance of the priests of Amen-Ra at Thebes, and he saw that an ambitious high priest might take advantage of some opportunity and seize the throne. As it turned out, his foresight was correct, for a few hundred years later Priest-King Her-Hor established a dynasty of priest-kings of Amen-Ra. To prevent, if possible, such a mischance, Amenhetep tried to destroy the power of the priesthood of Amen-Ra by deposing the god and substituting Aten, the Solar Disk, the visible form of the most popular of the Egyptian gods, the great Ra, the Sun. Aten was worshiped at Heliopolis, but the reforming king was careful not to substitute a powerful hierarchy of Heliopolitan priests for that of Thebes. The king kept the administration of the revenues in his own hands, and limited the powers of the high-priest of Aten to the domain of religion. He also established a new city as the administrative and religious center of the new state religion and as his own capital. He nearly succeeded in his desperate scheme, and the power of the cult of Amen-Ra was almost destroyed during his reign, but his successors were not able to resist the popular demand for the reinstatement of the Theban deity, skilfully engineered by the well-organized legions of his priests.

But Amenhetep (or Khuenaten as he called himself after his reform was established) had not merely a political end in view; in fact the political object was almost certainly quite secondary to a higher and more spiritual motive. As far as can be gleaned from the little that is recorded - mostly by his enemies, as is usual with reformers - his desire was to direct the attention of his subjects to a deity more universal than national, a spiritual force capable of being universally understood. The priesthood of Amen-Ra seem to have become rather narrow and the letter of their creed was in danger of killing the spirit. It would be profoundly interesting to know the exact truth about the matter, for even

when the outer garb of religion in Egypt was modified at various times in the long history of that wonderful civilization, the inner esoteric teachings were not allowed to perish and were the same. H.P. Blavatsky, in The Secret Doctrine, speaking of Maspero's idea that the Egyptian clergy had altered the dogmas of the Egyptian religion several times during fifty centuries, says:

"Here we believe the eminent Egyptologist is going too far. The exoteric dogmas may often have been altered, the esoteric never. He does not take into account the sacred immutability of the primitive truths, revealed only during the mysteries of initiation. The Egyptian priests have forgotten much, they altered nothing. The loss of a good deal of the primitive teaching was due to the sudden deaths of the great Hierophants, who passed away before they had time to reveal all to their successors; mostly, to the absence of worthy heirs to the knowledge. Yet they have preserved in their rituals and dogmas the principal teachings of the secret doctrine...." - I, p. 312

It is not unlikely, however, that Khuenaten was disgusted by the materialism of some of the priests who had managed to gain control of the outer forms and the revenues of the temples, and that his revolution was perhaps a great help to the truly spiritual teachers who were temporarily pushed into the background. We may recollect, too, that the decline of the Egyptian empire was not far off, and that the Mysteries were gradually being withdrawn. Khuenaten's hymns, preserved to some degree on the walls of tombs, are beautiful and singular in the fact that in them we see a king calling to his newly conquered subjects, Nubians and Syrians, to worship the overshadowing Aten side by side with the Egyptians. According to Khuenaten his idea of divinity is one that does not make invidious distinctions between peoples; there are no 'Chosen People' to him. This was not altogether a revolutionary idea, for it was well recognized in antiquity that the same spiritual powers were called by different names in different countries, and foreign religions were not looked upon, as a general thing, as abominable heresies. We see the Greeks traveling to Egypt and farther east to learn wisdom from the hierophants of the temples of religions quite different in outward names and forms from their own. They could not have done this if they had looked upon them as dangerous and erroneous. Khuenaten may have observed that there was a growing tendency to the segregation of religions and to the spread of the idea of orthodoxy and 'I am holier than thou,' which became later a well-marked characteristic among the followers of the exoteric religion of the Hebrews - though not among the more spiritual teachers, of course. Some Egyptologists claim that Khuenaten regarded religion, "For the first time, as a bond which binds together men of different race, language and color." This is certainly an error; it would almost be truer to say 'for the last time,' for no one can truly say that religions have been a binding force in international affairs in later ages, at least in Europe and part of Asia. The following quotations from hymns composed by the great king in honor of Aten suggest a very beautiful and spiritual mind:

"Thy dawning is beautiful in the horizon of heaven, O thou, Aten, initiator of life. When thou risest in the east, thou fillest the earth with thy beauty; thou art beautiful, sublime, and exalted above earth. Thy beams envelop the lands and all thou hast made. As thou art Ra [the creator] thou conquerest what they give forth, and thou bindest them with the bonds of thy love. Thou art afar off, but thy beams are upon [touch] the earth....

"How manifold are thy works! Thou didst create the earth in thy heart (when thou wast alone) the earth with peoples, herds, and flocks, all that are upon the earth that go upon their feet, all that are on high, that fly with their wings, the foreign lands, Syria, Nubia, Egypt.

"Thou settest every man in his place, creating the things necessary for him;

everyone has his belongings and possessions; their speech is in diverse tongues, they are varied in form and color and skin. Thou, the master of choice, madest different [from us] the strange peoples....

"Thou art in my heart; there is none other that knoweth thee, save me, thy son, Khuenaten.... O thou by whom, when thou risest, men live, by whom, when thou settest, they die.... raise them up for thy son, who cometh forth from thy substance, Khuenaten."

Professor Moret of Paris does not think Khuenaten's hymns are entirely original. He says:

"To my mind, the result of a comparison shows that the religious and poetical matter developed in the hymns of Khuenaten, consists of topics already employed in Egyptian literature and probably familiar to everyone. The 'originality' lent to the hymns of Khuenaten is probably like new wine in old bottles; it expresses old beliefs in new rhythms, and gives a touch, as far as we can judge, more vivid and personal to subjects treated by older writers."

(Vol. 19, pp. 221-27)

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A New View of Cagliostro * - C. J. Ryan

In the study of universal history there is a strange fascination in the accounts of the numberless martyrs who have been slandered and persecuted with an almost incredible ferocity because they tried to help their fellowmen to a higher ideal and practice of brotherhood. Not the least interesting of these was the extraordinary man known as Alessandro, Count di Cagliostro, who first appears in authentic history in London in 1776, and vanishes from sight in the Papal prison of San Leo in Italy in 1795. During the meteoric career of those nineteen years we see him reach dazzling heights of glory, wealth, and fame. He becomes a familiar and honored figure in the best society in Europe, establishes innumerable lodges of 'Egyptian Masonry' with the avowed object of helping humanity to greater freedom in thought and action, and of elevating and purifying the secret societies so numerous in that age. He is the lifelong friend of many of the greatest and noblest thinkers, such as Goethe and Schiller; he performs many curious psychological experiments, marvelous in the eyes of the ignorant, but now slowly becoming recognized as the result of a knowledge of obscure natural laws; he cures multitudes of sick persons of the most dangerous diseases, and is ultimately dragged into the amazing Diamond Necklace Trial in Paris. From this he is released without a stain upon his character. Though beloved and revered by thousands, an enthusiast for humanity, he suffers rancorous persecution from bigots and depraved villains, and is finally plunged into the utmost depths of misery in a subterranean dungeon where he is supposed to have perished. It is no wonder that so strange and tragical a story has never ceased to be the subject of absorbing interest, and that anything new about Cagliostro is sure to attract attention.

-------------* Cagliostro, the splendor and misery of a Master of Magic, by W. H. Trowbridge,

London, Chapman and Hall.-------------

H.P. Blavatsky, another reformer who suffered in the cause of Brotherhood, said that the twentieth century would see a great change in the popular estimation of Cagliostro. Of the three great mystics of the eighteenth century, Mesmer has already been vindicated from the charge of quackery by recent re-discoveries in psychology and hypnotism; Count Saint-Germain is still a baffling mystery to historians. Cagliostro was so shamefully and vindictively assailed by the unscrupulous, that his rehabilitation has been long delayed. The apparent circumstantiality of the accusations against him have prejudiced the minds of historians; even Carlyle, who would have revolted at the idea of knowingly slandering an innocent man, was bamboozled by them, and has stood as a serious obstacle in the way of the facts becoming known. And it must be recognised that to a certain degree Cagliostro was responsible for some part of his fate and unfortunate reputation. He does not stand upon the high level of Count Saint-Germain, his superior.

A writer stepped forward, some little time ago, to re-open the old question of Cagliostro's true standing. Mr. W.R.H. Trowbridge is an independent researcher, who holds a brief for the truth, not for Cagliostro's rehabilitation, and this makes his opinion all the more valuable. He says: "The object of this book is not so much an attempt to vindicate Cagliostro as to correct and revise what I believe to be a false judgment of history." He wisely makes no attempt to 'whitewash' the subject of his fine monograph; he considers that the facts speak sufficiently strongly in favor of that victim of prejudice and malice.

What is definitely known of the story of Cagliostro is romantic enough, but what is merely hinted at by himself is possibly far more so. According to his own account, he was left an orphan when only a few months old; his childhood was spent in Arabia, where he was luxuriously brought up in a palace. At the age of twelve he set out on his travels, during which he was received with honor by various distinguished persons in many lands, eastern and western. He declared that princes, cardinals, and the Grand Master of the knights of Malta had helped him in various ways. With the latter he lived for some time, but he refused to remain in Malta and take orders. In his youth Cagliostro studied botany and chemistry under a mysterious person named Althotas, apparently an Adept in Oriental sciences; but after leaving Malta he plunged deeply into medicine and other branches of learning. At the age of twenty-two, in 1770, he married an Italian girl named Serafina (or Lorenza) Feliciani, who afterwards accompanied him in his travels. She was quite illiterate, and H.P. Blavatsky says: "The chief cause of his life's troubles was his marriage with Lorenza Feliciani.... an unworthy woman." She was the tool of an organization bitterly opposed to his aims.

Up to the year 1776 there appears to be absolutely nothing to be gleaned about his life except from his own statements, but in that year he comes plainly into public view in London. The Count and Countess di Cagliostro, when they appeared in London, were obviously persons of wealth and some distinction, and were immediately spotted by several unscrupulous wretches as possible sources of plunder. In the goodness of his heart Cagliostro prophesied a winning number in a lottery for one of these. It was done casually, and he absolutely refused to repeat the operation. To force him to do so, he was persecuted in the most cruel ways and threatened with imprisonment for debts which he did not owe. After being subjected to extreme annoyance he was released from arrest. The history of this affair, which is fully gone into by Mr. Trowbridge, is an amazing picture of the state of the law at that period, and of human depravity on the part of the scoundrels who tried to blackmail Cagliostro. It also proves his simplicity, good-nature, and kindness of heart. His ignorance of the English language was partly responsible for the victimization he suffered. Being an honest man, instead of decamping, as he had opportunities of doing, and saving his time, money, and peace of mind, he honorably faced all the perils of 'justice' in the eighteenth century, and did not leave London till he had fulfilled all his

obligations. He was defrauded of over $15,000 in one way or another, but he declined to have recourse to the law, though he had a clear case; it is not altogether unsatisfactory to learn that all his persecutors, including the unjust magistrate, met with serious trouble before long.* [* See Theosophical Path, April, 1913)

In England, Cagliostro became a Freemason in the Esperance Lodge of the Order of Strict Observance, a secret but not revolutionary society, of purely philanthropic and social aims. This act was to have fatal consequences in the end. He left England in 1777, unknown and impoverished, and we hear nothing more of him till 1779, when he arrived in Courland.

He was received everywhere by the lodges of the Order of Strict Observance with cordiality, and he spent his time and energy in promoting his own system of 'Egyptian Masonry.' This had for its main object the moral regeneration of the world and the reorganization of society on the basis of universal brotherhood. Cagliostro believed that the pure teachings of religion had been consciously and unconsciously perverted in later times, and his system of Egyptian Masonry was partly designed to restore the true spirit of the primeval revelation, once the property of all mankind. He also believed he had the power to communicate with highly-advanced beings in the invisible worlds who could teach certain important truths.

Naturally such a declaration of advanced principles was bound to provoke the bitterest and most desperate opposition from vested interests and from the majority who were perfectly satisfied with things as they were, and so the slander was quickly circulated that Cagliostro's only object was to make money. Mr. Trowbridge shows that there is not a single authenticated instance in which he can be proved to have derived pecuniary profit from his so-called 'impostures.' This is sufficient to destroy the main portion of the charges against Cagliostro.

The history of Cagliostro's proceedings in Mittau, Courland, is carefully examined by our author. The unfavorable opinion which the Countess von der Recke, sister-in-law of the reigning Duke, did not feel nor express till long after she had given out different views, is responsible for much of the hostility with which historians have regarded Cagliostro. The Countess said nothing against him until he was suffering from the unjust obloquy which political partisanship had thrown over him during the Diamond Necklace Affair; and the author believes that her later opinion, given after she became a pronounced rationalist, under the influence of a man named Bode, a leading member of the 'Order of the Illumines,' from which Cagliostro had withdrawn, has been greatly overestimated. There are plenty of accounts of Cagliostro's honorable conduct under conditions which severely tried his integrity in Courland, to offset the change of opinion expressed by the Countess five years after, when it was popular to abuse him. As a matter of fact he left Courland in a blaze of glory, loaded with handsome presents from his admirers, regretted, honored, and recommended to the highest personages in Russia.

In Russia his Egyptian Masonry was not a success, and, in order to sustain his reputation, he turned his knowledge of medicine and chemistry to account and appeared for the first time as a healer. The usual crop of slanders appeared, and it is probable that the opposition of the Court physicians was the chief cause of his leaving Russia. The stories told against him in Russia are singularly unconvincing; for instance he was charged with bearing a false name, and passing himself off as a Prussian colonel, while he actually had in his possession letters from the highest nobility in Courland introducing him in his own name. The rumors against him sedulously propagated in Russia, in no way influenced the opinion of his admirers in Courland, though they must have been well acquainted with them owing to their close connection with the Russian official world. In May, 1790, he arrived in Warsaw, where society was on intimate terms with the great world of St. Petersburg, and was received with the most flattering welcome. Here he tried alchemical experiments, with apparently little success; the accounts of his doings are

contradictory to the last degree. Hearsay evidence, at second or third hand - contradictory with itself also - declares that he was ignominiously exposed at the Polish Court, while direct testimony is to the opposite effect. There is considerable evidence, including a letter from Laborde, the Farmer-General, that Cagliostro showed undeniable clairvoyant faculties while in Warsaw, and that he prophesied certain events to King Stanislaus Augustus and others which afterwards came to pass to the letter. As for Cagliostro's alchemical attempts, it is possible that they did not succeed, and that the disappointed gold-seekers took their revenge upon him in calumny.

We next hear of Cagliostro in Strassburg, where he spent much time healing the sick. He undoubtedly performed remarkable cures, and not only absolutely refused any pay but actually supported many poor patients while they were unable to work. He is said by Laborde to have attended fifteen thousand sick people in three years, of whom only three died. This appears to have upset the regular physicians, to whom he gave no explanation of his marvelous success. They are said to have looked upon him "with contempt born of envy." His rapid cure of the Prince de Soubise, cousin of the Cardinal Prince de Rohan, Grand Almoner of France, whose case had been given up as hopeless, led to his meeting the Cardinal, who was one of the most powerful, brilliant, and intellectual men in France, though an ecclesiastic not particularly distinguished for morals. The charge has been made that Cagliostro benefitted financially by his intimacy with the illustrious Cardinal, but the facts, as usual, are all the other way. The Cardinal, though possessed of fabulous revenues, was heavily in debt, and he testified that Cagliostro "has never asked or received anything from me." The obligation was on the other side, for Cagliostro's knowledge of 'chemistry' is credited with enabling him to make a diamond worth 25,000 livres as a present to the Cardinal. The fact remains that he gave the Cardinal the diamond. Still, Cagliostro's prominence was bound to attract blackmailing, slander, and persecution, the latter particularly from the doctors; and among others of the meanest charges that malice and envy could invent, it was declared that he was living riotously and intemperately at the Cardinal's expense. The truth was, as many of his contemporaries who were unfavorably disposed to him but not liars, frequently said in derision, that he was noted for his abstemious habits. Madame d'Oberkirch, a strong opponent, writes contemptuously that "he slept in an armchair and lived on cheese."

But we must pass to the Diamond Necklace Affair, during which the passions let loose were the beginning of Cagliostro's final ruin. For some time before this extraordinary and melodramatic event, his Egyptian Masonry had been steadily rising in favor in France, and it seemed as if Freemasonry in general was about to be restored to "its original Egyptian character" and to take a leading part in the peaceful revolution in conduct and principles that Cagliostro, in common with so many other noble minds of the age, was working for. Suddenly, when he was almost at the summit of fame and the idol of rich and poor, came the bolt from the blue that ruined all his plans. But for the misfortune of Cagliostro's downfall, who can say that the course of the Revolution would not have been very different, and that the rivers of blood would never have flowed in the streets of Paris!

The Necklace Affair, the Prolog of the Revolution, is so well known that it is not necessary to describe it. Cagliostro was fully exonerated from all blame or connection with the Countess de Lamotte's swindle. Immense crowds of sympathizers greeted his appearance from the Bastille on his release. He was congratulated not only on account of his popularity but because the verdict was considered as an affront to Marie Antoinette, who had then lost the esteem of the French people. Furious at the temper of the public, Louis XVI vented his rage upon the innocent Cagliostro by ordering him to leave France immediately. From London Cagliostro made a dignified reply to this outrage in his famous 'Letter to the French People,' which was aimed, not at the King but at de Breteuil, the head of the government, whom he held to be directly responsible for his exile. Upon the publication of this Letter, which made a tremendous sensation in France, the infamous

Theveneau de Morande, the editor of the Courrier de l'Europe, a journal which circulated widely in Europe, began with almost Satanic cleverness and perhaps under orders from Versailles, to attack the writer. It was Morande, a creature of incredible baseness, who seems to have fabricated the story that Cagliostro was the notorious Giuseppe Balsamo. He collected all the facts of Balsamo's criminal career, blended them skillfully with the false reports and accusations already brought against Cagliostro, spread them broadcast in his vile paper, and then, after satisfying the French Government by his zeal, had the effrontery to ask his victim what he would give to purchase his silence! Cagliostro indignantly refused to consider such a proposition, and Morande then induced several other conspirators as bad as himself to swear that Cagliostro owed them money. With great difficulty did Cagliostro escape the debtors' prison. Mr. Trowbridge says:

"But in the curious mass of coincidence and circumstantial evidence on which the popular conception of Cagliostro has been based, ingenious and plausible though it is, there is one little fact which history has overlooked and which Morande was careful to ignore. In turning Cagliostro into Giuseppe Balsamo, the fantastic idealist-enthusiast into the vagabond forger, 'the charlatan' as the Queen's friend Besenval describes him, 'who never took a sou from a soul, but lived honorable and paid scrupulously what he owed,' into the vulgar souteneur, Morande, by a trick of the imagination, with all the cunning calumnies of the French Court, and the so-called 'confession' wrung from its victim by the Inquisition, to aid him, could not succeed in making the two resemble one another. Yet it is on the word of this journalist-bravo, hired by the French Ministry to defame an innocent man whose unanimous acquittal of a crime in which he had been unjustly implicated was believed by Marie Antoinette to be tantamount to her own conviction, that Cagliostro has been branded as one of the most contemptible blackguards in history.

"Surely it is time to challenge an opinion so fraudulently supported and so arbitrarily expressed.... It requires no effort of the imagination to surmise what the effect would be on a jury of today if their decision depended upon the evidence of a witness who, as Brissot says, 'regarded calumny as a trade, and moral assassination as a sport.'"

The unpleasant notoriety which Morande succeeded in inflicting upon Cagliostro, and other causes upon which it is impossible to dwell in the short space at our disposal but which Mr. Trowbridge enters into in detail, made an unfavorable impression upon the English Masons, and Cagliostro felt that it was of no use staying any longer in England. While in England he enjoyed the friendship of De Loutherbourg, a prominent artist and Royal Academician, a man of high character, and greatly respected by all. This in itself speaks volumes for Cagliostro's probity.

After the terrible experiences he had passed through since the Necklace Trial, Cagliostro after various attempts, more or less successful for a while, to establish his Egyptian Masonry in Switzerland, Austria, and Northern Italy, finally, "as if driven by some irresistible force to his doom," found his way to Rome. Here, in poverty and wretchedness, he sought the assistance of the Masonic Lodge of 'Les Vrais Amis,' a secret organization, for the Order was not tolerated in the city of the Popes. The remainder of his tragical career is well known. Arrested and convicted as a Freemason, he was sentenced to a living death in the dungeons of San Leo, an isolated castle on a precipitous rock near Montefeltro. During his trial he declared all religions to be equal, and that "providing one believed in the existence of a Creator and the immortality of the soul, it mattered not whether one was Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, or Jew." He confessed to "a hatred of tyranny, especially of all forms of religious intolerance."

Mr. Trowbridge says: "when he died or how, is absolutely unknown," but he thinks that the French, when they took San Leo in 1797, would have released him if he had still been living, for they regarded him as a martyr in the cause of liberty, and anxiously

inquired after him. H.P. Blavatsky says:

"But yet - a query! Was Cagliostro dead and buried indeed at San Leo? And if so why should the custodians at the Castle of St. Angelo of Rome show innocent tourists the little square hole in which Cagliostro is said to have been confined and 'died'? Why such uncertainty or - imposition, and such disagreement in the legend? Some say that Cagliostro escaped in an unaccountable way from his aerial prison and thus forced his jailors to spread the news of his death and burial. Others maintain that he not only escaped, but, thanks to the Elixir of Life, still lives on, though over twice three score and ten years old!"

She also says that Cagliostro, having largely failed in the work he had to do, was "withdrawn" when he could no longer be of service.

Mr. Trowbridge examines at length the preposterous charge that Cagliostro, a person of cultivation and refinement, aristocratic and elegant in manners, the favorite of intellectual and eminent persons, was the vulgar ruffian known as Giuseppe Balsamo, who was almost certainly hanged for his crimes; and finds no scrap of plausible evidence to that effect. In referring to Carlyle's condemnation of Cagliostro as a quack, he declares that Carlyle's mistakes were inexcusable, for they were not due to the lack of evidence for Cagliostro, but to strong prejudice. Although Balsamo was well known to the police and to many persons in various cities in Europe, not a single individual who had ever known him personally was ever brought forward to identify Cagliostro as Balsamo. The whole Balsamo story is a pure libel. To quote H.P. Blavatsky once more:

"How long shall charitable people build the biographies of the living and ruin the reputations of the dead, with such incomparable unconcern, by means of idle and often entirely false gossip of people, and these generally the slaves of prejudice!

"So long, we are forced to think, as they remain ignorant of the Law of Karma and its iron justice."

(Vol. 17, pp. 229-36)

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History in the Light of Theosophy - H. Travers

[1918]

Theosophy is such an all-embracing subject that, to gain an adequate view of any part of it, we must have some conception of it as a whole; and its proper study involves a consideration of many lines of inquiry which ordinarily are kept distinct from each other. Modern knowledge, on the other hand, presents a great lack of unity and uniformity; it deals separately with the different departments of inquiry, and often its results in one department are inconsistent with those in another. In no respect is this inconsistency more striking than in that of chronology. Our view of human history is altogether out of scale with our view of terrestrial history and zoological history; our scheme of dates and eras in the story of mankind bears no sort of proportion to the immense periods with which astronomy accustoms us to deal. And when Theosophy proposes to level up these inequalities, and to treat of human history in the same broad and just proportions as are observed in the other branches of chronology, it is but making a fair and reasonable claim, which should not disturb the reason, however much it may shock the prejudices, of

conventional authorities.Mathematics familiarizes us with the idea of multiple proportions based on the scale

of ten; and practical necessities oblige us to measure quantities, not by a single unit, but by a system of units, of vastly different dimensions from each other, and each adapted to the purpose in view. We turn our axles in millimeters, and polish our ball-bearings by a still smaller unit of measurement; to use the standard mile for such a purpose would be possible but hardly wise. Possible also it would be to calculate the mileage rates on our railroads in millimeters, but who would think of actually doing so? Astronomers find they cannot do with the terrestrial mile as a unit, and have had to devise a very much larger unit which contains five or six quadrillions of miles. When we leap at one bound to the thirteenth power of ten, we ought not to hold up our hands in protest at the mild suggestion of Theosophy to speak of human history in centuries instead of years and to substitute the millennium for the decade wherever convenience may seem to warrant. For illustration, let us for a moment take a prospect of history, based on the larger unit, the century, denoting this period by the word 'Year,' but referring the printer to his upper case for the initial letter.

We find then that, some 60 Years ago, a dim shadowy figure emerges from the darkness of history upon the Egyptian stage, in the shape of one Menes, half historical, half allegorical, occupying a few lines in the beginning of chapter II in the schoolbooks, just after the introductory remarks on Darwinism, etc. After this there is a vast gap of about 13 Years till we come to the alleged date of the Pyramids, 47 B.C. The Shepherd Kings ruled 21 Years before Christ, Rameses I in 14 B.C., and so on till Egypt was conquered by the Romans 109 Days before Christ. Since the Christian era, a little over 19 Years have elapsed; the Norman Conquest was eight and a half Years ago; the Spanish Armada, three and a third. A man lives for about nine Months if he is lucky, and the present war has lasted about two Weeks.

Using the same scale, we find that the 18 million years given by H.P. Blavatsky as the period during which man has existed as a physical being on earth, is represented by 180,000 Years; while the million years of the present Root-Race becomes reduced to 10,000. Thus the truth is preserved, with less violence to our nerves; though it might be thought desirable to choose an even larger unit and to clip off the corresponding number of noughts from the figures. Physical man appeared 18,000 millenniums ago, let us say, if we prefer; or even 18 million-years ago. But, after all, what is this to the time demanded by geologists, evolutionists, cosmic physicists, and astronomers? Everything is comparative, whether in space or time; and it is surely reasonable to suppose that, just as our view of planetary space is like a beetle's view of the world, so our view of history is like that of a butterfly that lives for one day. The beetle would doubtless stand on end with horror, and perhaps make offensive remarks, if told of the size of our world; while the butterfly could never be brought to believe that a man lives twenty or thirty thousand times as long as he does.

Now let us consider the chronology of Race-periods, as given in The Secret Doctrine:

"There are seven Rounds in every manvantara; this one is the Fourth, and we are in the Fifth Root-Race at present.

"Each Root-Race has seven sub-races."Each sub-race has in its turn seven ramifications, which may be called Branch or

'Family' races."The little tribes, shoots, and offshoots of the last-named are countless.. . ."Our Fifth Root-Race has already been in existence - as a race sui generis and

quite free from its parent stem - about 1,000,000 years; therefore it must be inferred that each of the four preceding Sub-Races has lived approximately 210,000 years; thus each Family-Race has an average existence of about 30,000 years. Thus the European

'Family-Race' has still a good many thousand years to run, although the nations or the innumerable spines* upon it, vary with each succeeding 'season' of three or four thousand years." Vol. II, pp. 434-5.

-------------* Referring to the diagram of a tree, in which the races are represented by

branches, leaves, and spines upon the leaves.--------------

The figures are not intended to be accurate, as this is a subject where the exact details cannot be divulged. But there is enough for our purpose. We are now in the fifth sub-race of the Fifth Root-Race; and this fifth sub-race is not yet completed; but the four preceding sub-races lasted each about 210,000 years. Further, a family race lasts about 30,000 years, so that even this embraces a period about five times as long as that usually assigned to history. But, as said, this looks vast from the beetle's point of view only; viewed with a telescope from Sirius, it would look quite small. God's day is as our year. Count the periods in centuries or millenniums, and the shock will be lessened. Look upon races as upon individuals, and the distinction is seen to be one of numerical scale only. Think of a lifetime as we think of a daytime; regard successive incarnations as we regard successive days, and the proportions become adjusted to our comprehension.

Draw a scale-diagram of time, allowing for the geological periods the figures given by science, and adding the alleged human period at the top of the diagram. The result is absurd; you must make your diagram large if you are to get the human period into it at all, so small must the latter be drawn. It is this wholly inadequate view of history that has introduced so many incomprehensibilities into our philosophy. To us it seems as though humanity made no progress; people go on making the same mistakes over and over again "all through history," we say. "All through history!" All last week. A man may make a mistake over and over again for a week, and yet be progressing on the whole. Why expect to learn the history of humanity from a study of the annals of a fraction of one family-race? The period we call history is so small comparatively that we might justly suggest that it merely embraces a passing phase of illness or laxity on the part of humanity.

The RecordsOur ordinary knowledge of history depends on documents that have chanced to

survive, and is consequently a curiously uneven patchwork. This also explains the brevity of the period comprised. How, if at all, is the history of remoter ages preserved? In the first place, writing is much older than supposed; and records have been preserved, reproduced, and carefully guarded, relating to very ancient times. H.P. Blavatsky, in The Secret Doctrine, makes remarkable statements about such secret libraries, carefully concealed and guarded in the crypts of Oriental temples and monasteries and other places inaccessible to 'civilization.' A glance at past history will show the wisdom evinced by those who, having something they wished to keep, decided to hide it. Ravaging barbarians and ignorant religious fanatics, having furnaces to feed, would soon have made fuel of these records, had they been given the chance; as they have already done with so many. Why are these records not produced? Let us answer the question by asking another. Why should they be? The world must show itself willing and able to make a better use of knowledge before the guardians of knowledge will impart it.

But apart from written records, or even from graven symbolical records, there is a Book, written by no human hand, whose records are complete, exact, and indelible. It is hinted at in the scriptures as the Book of Life whereby every man must finally be judged. It is called in Theosophy 'the Astral Light.' The hypothetical scientific ether is said to

propagate throughout the unending vistas of interstellar space the visual records of events on this earth, so that a spectator on Sirius might be supposed to see Noah coming out of the Ark - so long has the light taken to reach that distant orb from here. If this be true, then that ether is a storehouse of visual events. And if there be, not one, but many ethers, each appropriate to its own specific purpose, then not only visual records, but the records of every other class of events, including all deeds and thoughts, might be similarly preserved. In short, we arrive at the doctrine that everything which happens is preserved, and nothing ever lost, by nature's cosmic photography; and this explains the phenomena of thought-reading and psychometry, and many another mystery. If the astral light is endowed with a storage capacity commensurate with what is suggested by the theory of hyperspace, we can the more readily understand how such records could be preserved. In a word, history is enshrined in the world's memory; and the art of recollection consists in the power to consult these records, as a scholar might consult a library. But man has abused his powers to such an extent that he can no longer do this. There may be those, however, who possess the power; and it may be within the power of humanity to regain the lost faculty. At all events there is no fear of the records being lost; and truly it would be a queer world, if things could be thus lost, especially when other matters are so carefully attended to. After all, what is time, what the past; or what is the significance of the expression 'eternal present'?

Our study of history has been like the study of family annals in a village, by people not aware of the existence of other villages, or of counties, or of whole countries. The nearer to our viewpoint is the prospect, the ampler are the details; but, as the scene fades into the distance, the details merge into mere outlines. In astronomy we are told that the milk-like clouds of space may be entire universes, composed of many suns, each with his attendant planets. We divide European history into the story of many different races; but we lump Egyptian history together in one mass, though it covers a longer period. Beyond our history there must lie concealed histories upon histories; and geology tells us that cycles were marked by cataclysms that altered the distribution of land and sea. We have been working in tens, when the truth is in hundreds, thousands and millions. What we call the ancients were our grandfathers.

It can readily be understood to what an extent our ideas on a great variety of subjects have been distorted by this meager view of history; and to what an extent they would be altered by a more ample view. The part of history with which we are familiar is the trough of a wave. Every Root-Race runs through a course of seven sub-races, descending from spirituality into materiality until the middle of the fourth sub-race is reached, and then rising again until the seventh. Hence, as we are only in the fifth sub-race, we have not progressed far on the ascending arc. The universal traditions of a Golden Age, followed by Ages of Silver, Bronze, and Iron, are founded on fact; and they are accompanied by anticipations of the return of the Golden Age. But how far back (as we beetles reckon time) must that Golden Age have been! The attempt to place it somewhere within the range of conventional chronology has led some theorists to identify it with a supposed condition of 'primitive man.' If we were to try honestly to measure the past by the scientific method of plotting a curve to show the gradient, we should find that the records of Egypt, not to mention other places, would point upwards as we recede into the past. In America we find that the present Indians were preceded by the highly civilized Incas, and these again by some people who built the most colossal stone constructions within the entire range of our knowledge. The whole story of archaeology, with its stupendous architecture, its incomprehensible engineering, and its incomparable nicety in the fitting of stones, points the same way. The literature of India points back to remote times of a vast and all-embracing knowledge. The ordinary historical period is but the feeble child of a mighty parentage.

An Ancient ProphecyThe four Ages in Indian terminology were the Satya, the Treta, the Dvapara, and the

Kali (or Black) Age; the last embracing our times. The following is from an ancient prophecy regarding it:

"These will, all, be contemporary monarchs reigning over the earth; - kings of churlish spirit, violent temper, and ever addicted to falsehood and wickedness. They will inflict death on women, children, and cows; they will seize the property of their subjects; they will be of limited power, and will for the most part rapidly rise and fall: their lives will be short, their desires insatiable; and they will display but little piety. The people of the various countries intermingling with them will follow their example; and, the barbarians being powerful in the patronage of the princes, whilst purer tribes are neglected, the people will perish. Wealth* and piety will decrease day by day, until the world will be wholly depraved. Then property alone will confer rank; wealth will be the only source of devotion; passion will be the sole bond of union between the sexes;** falsehood will be the only means of success in litigation; and women will be merely objects of sensual gratification. Earth will be venerated but for its mineral treasures; the Brahmanical thread will constitute a Brahman; external types (as the staff and red garb) will be the only distinctions of the several orders of life; dishonesty will be the (universal) means of subsistence; weakness will be the cause of dependence; menace and presumption will be substituted for learning;*** liberality will be devotion; simple ablution will he purification; mutual assent will be marriage; fine clothes will be dignity; and water afar off will be esteemed a holy spring. Amidst all castes, he who is the strongest will reign over a principality thus vitiated by many faults. The people, unable to bear the heavy burthens imposed upon them by their avaricious sovereigns, will take refuge amongst the valleys of the mountains, and will be glad to feed upon (wild) honey, herbs, roots, fruits, leaves, and flowers; their only covering will be the bark of trees; and they will be exposed to the cold, and wind, and sun, and rain. No man's life will exceed three and twenty years.**** Thus, in the Kali age, shall decay constantly proceed, until the human race approaches its annihilation.

"When the practices taught by the Vedas and the institutes of law shall nearly have ceased, and the close of the Kali age shall be nigh, a portion of that divine being who exists, of his own spiritual nature, in the character of Brahma, and who is the beginning and the end, and who comprehends all things, shall descend upon earth.... By his irresistible might he will destroy all the Mlechchhas and thieves, and all whose minds are devoted to iniquity. He will, then, re-establish righteousness upon earth, and the minds of those who live to the end of the Kali age shall be awakened, and shall be as pellucid as crystal." - Vishnu-Purana, IV XXIV, H.H. Wilson's Translation.

------------* We have not the original at hand; but the context shows that 'wealth' cannot mean

material riches; that is expressed by the word 'property' just below. Coupled with 'piety', its loss resulting in degradation, it must mean spiritual riches, richness of character.

** Take this with the passage below - "Mutual consent will be marriage." Some theorists, with the beetle's vision of human history, try to represent marriage as an evolutionary product of animal instinct. But here we find that something other than either passion or consent is regarded as the essential link sanctifying a true marriage. Thus our thesis is borne out, that 'human nature' in the dark ages is not to be taken as a model; but that we can find higher ideals for the future by looking into the mirror of the past upon a humanity that had not fallen so far. Marriage is a sacred institution, but the forces that are allowed to intrude upon it are too often of a downward and disintegrative nature. The preservation of marital harmony is dependent upon the maintenance of high ideals and

temperate living throughout. ***'Learning' must be taken to mean true wisdom; it is here contrasted with

presumption. Plato said that happy was the state that should be ruled by philosophers; and he has been sneered at for saying so; but he did not mean spectacled theorists.

**** Referring to a period even worse than our own times? Or does the word translated 'years' mean some longer period than the solar year? Why twenty-three, which is not a round number?------------

A very apt summary of human history as we know it. The gods of the black age are greed and self-assertion, but the destructive forces ultimately become regenerative; the very violence and precipitancy of the spirit of the age lead it rapidly through its throes to the verge of a reawakening. Ignorance is characteristic of the age; men know nothing of life apart from the brief and limited terrestrial span; Cicero speculates and doubts like any modern. The supernal powers denoted by the 'gods' shrink to the emblems of gross and foolish superstition, and are abandoned for the crude promises of heaven and threats of hell held out by an ignorant theology. Doubt and unbelief reign; man seeks a vent for his powers in exploration of material phenomena, and learns many things, but his spiritual blindness is not assuaged. Finally he brings himself to such a pass that the law of self-preservation compels him to seek anew the knowledge that saves.

In periods of disuse, faculties lie dormant but not dead, and their organs are atrophied but not extirpated. Man has latent faculties and organs that are disused or 'rudimentary.' These point back to times when the functions were active. A heritage might pass on unspent and unused through generations, to be made available by a remote scion. Heredity will transmit qualities in latency till they reappear in activity in some descendant. How long may seeds lie sleeping before they germinate? This depends on when the requisite conditions for germination are afforded. Man himself in our day is like a tree with many latent powers of fructification, which passes generation after generation without bearing fruit, because the plant is not rightly tended and the soil and climate not fit. And so he produces leaves and leaves, and perchance occasional flowers, but no fruit. But the seeds are there, and even physically he has many unrealized possibilities, as anatomy shows. Therefore man is an epitome of history, the heir of the ages.

Human RemainsWe may pass now to a consideration of the evidence for human antiquity afforded

by human remains, including those of man himself and those of the things he made. Theosophists welcome truth, certain that facts must bear out its teachings. The theories of modern scientists, however, are continually changing; and the progress of these theories is marked by continual reluctant surrenders to the evidence of facts. The proclaimed scientific method, of framing provisional hypotheses and then modifying them as occasion demands, is thus carried out; though, in the contest between conservatism and enterprise, we may seem to detect an undue and too prolonged assertion of the claims of the former. The result is a slow but sure veering of accepted scientific opinion towards the Theosophical teachings. An illustration comes suitably to our hands, that will serve as a text for these remarks.

In Science (April 19, 1918), Prof. N.C. Nelson, of the American Museum of Natural History, reviews a Report of the Florida State Geological Survey, which contains articles by specialists on the human remains and artifacts found in the Pleistocene at Vero, Florida. One writer, Dr. E.H. Sellards, state geologist of Florida, is quoted as affirming that the exposed Vero section shows "distinct uninterrupted lines of stratification beneath which human materials are found," and concluding that -

"The human remains and artifacts are contemporaneous with extinct species of mammals, birds, reptiles, and at least one extinct species of plants, as well as with other animal and plant species that do not at the present time extend their range into Florida. The age of the deposits containing these fossils according to the accepted interpretation of faunas and floras is Pleistocene."

The reviewer considers this very important especially as four competent authorities in geology and palaeobiology contribute to the report. He remarks that anthropological literature records a score or more of isolated archaeological discoveries which lend support to the appearances at Vero, but are not confirmed by general results, so that "no archaeologist can be expected to relinquish at once his scepticism concerning the Vero discovery." Also, anthropological investigations go to show that, among the fundamental primitive arts, pottery is of relatively late date; so that the finding of pottery at Vero would dispose the archaeologist to assign a later date to the strata.

"To accept the Vero date at its present face value would compel him not only to relegate the development of pottery to an unheard-of date, but also it would oblige him to assume that this early culture of Pleistocene times was snuffed out; and that after some millenniums, marked by the arrival of the modern fauna, a new and lower type of culture became established which only after a very considerable period reached the level of the original culture. Such a happening is conceivable, but it is not plausible."

In conclusion he says that either the anthropologist must change his views as to the order of cultural traits, or the palaeontologist must concede a much smaller period since the close of the Pleistocene.

This writer candidly admits his predilections, and pleads justification for his reluctance to surrender them. In justice, we must add that considerations of space have not permitted us to quote his arguments in extenso. Now what is the Theosophical position? It has no such predilections to surrender. What predilections it has are all in favor of any evidence tending to establish a great antiquity for man and a great antiquity for man's arts. The writer's reluctance to admit the principle of fluctuation into his history of cultural development finds no echo in the Theosophical heart; for the principle of cyclic ebb and flow in all evolution is a cardinal one in Theosophy. Moreover Theosophy, besides regarding development as subject to these fluctuations, recognises that the earth has always been tenanted by different races at the same time, each of these races being at a different stage of its own evolution; and that migrations and changes of habitat took place. Hence it is not only possible but very plausible that a race making good pottery should be followed in a given locality by one ignorant of that art. In general, it may be said that the attempt to place human artifacts in a single continuous series, rigorously denoting a succession of 'ages,' is doomed to disappointment. This attempt is indeed constantly being frustrated by fresh discoveries which compel reluctant readjustments. The Indians of today are manufacturing their crude pottery on sites which preserve the works of far more cultivated people. The differences in the kinds of relics which we unearth indicate merely corresponding differences in the habits and abilities of the people that happened to be living there at different times; and it would be just as easy to construct from the relics a scale of evolution pointing backwards as forwards; for people are today making and leaving all kinds of artifacts, from the crudest to the most elaborate. In short, 'ages' are simply stages in human life, often repeated by innumerable races, succeeding one another in various orders, and establishing no such theory of evolution as is sought to be established by the conventional theorists.

With regard to the antiquity of man, we must distinguish the two separate questions of the antiquity of man and the antiquity of civilization. Science might be willing to concede

a great antiquity to man without allowing a great age to civilization. Theories of evolution seem to require that a great antiquity should be allowed for man, in order to give scope for the supposed changes. Our discoveries of primitive types of human remains are continually offset by discoveries of less primitive types of older date, so that we cannot establish the required gradient, and must, if we are to maintain the theory, postpone the date of the first appearance of man to a greater and greater remoteness. Hence anthropologists should not be surprised at discovering very ancient human remains; their theories should have led them to expect it.

A fossil is a comparatively rare thing, bearing but a small proportion to the quantity of organisms that lived. A human fossil is a still rarer accident. Lyell says:

"If we consider the absence or extreme scarcity of human bones and works of art in all strata, whether marine or fresh water, even in those formed in the immediate vicinity of land inhabited by millions of human beings, we shall be prepared for the general dearth of human memorials in glacial formations, whether recent, pleistocene, or of more ancient date. If there were a few wanderers over lands covered with glaciers, or over seas infested with icebergs, and if a few of them left their bones or weapons in moraines or in marine drifts, the chances, after the lapse of thousands of years, of a geologist meeting with one of them must be infinitesimally small." - Antiquity of Man, p. 246.

But we may expect much of the future. Fossils of any sort were ignored until Hugh Miller; gravitation is not considered by pre-Newtonian science. Nature remains hidden through the centuries for those who do not pry into her mysteries; and it is only recently that we have begun to think of human remains. And even now we do not seem over-anxious to find them. We may anticipate startling discoveries, both as to the antiquity of man and that of civilization.

In conclusion let us remember that, whatever may be man's biological history and derivation, his peculiar mental powers, and that mysterious spiritual power which endows him with the capacity of indefinite self-development, are not from below but from above. Hence we must not confine our investigations to the crust of the earth, but must seek within the depth of our own natures for that which their surface conceals.

(Vol. 15, pp. 123-32)

----------------------

Psychology

The Trinity of Human Nature - Herbert Coryn, M.D.

Who has not been in a mood he does not like, wishes were away, tries to shake off and cannot: a cloud, of which the shaking off, if we could but do it, would allow our true nature to be seen? We all say 'shake off,' knowing and so expressing in the words that it is something outside us, not ourselves.

With the mood there are thoughts that we do not want, either; not at all such thoughts as we would encourage; thoughts that jar on us as much as they might surprise anyone who could see them in our minds. Yet they persist, will not be stopped or ousted, dig and gnaw and fret till we may be half frantic. Underneath, we know very well what mood and what sort of thoughts we ought to have, that really belong to us; and in the presence of someone we respect we forcibly assume them for the time and speak

accordingly so long as he is present. A man may sometimes come home from his business to his wife and children in one of these moods. And it may be so strong and dominant that it drowns his own inner protest against it. He lets himself go with it, reinforces it, says out whole-heartedly and consentingly the harsh and pain-giving things that come up into his mind; is, in fact, for the time the mood. But then comes supper and his smoke afterwards and comfort generally; and behold, he is a different man, genial, no longer snarling and criticizing. Alcohol often effects this change, though of course at a subsequent cost to mind and body that far outweighs its artificial temporary help. Or the unpleasant mood may turn out to be the liver and a pill clear the horizon.

But then again the mood in which we find ourselves may be one that we approve, that anyone would approve, cheerful, hopeful, genial, giving rise to healthy activity, to kindly deeds, and to a flow of corresponding thoughts. Or, perhaps in the late evening, the mood may be one of great calm and peace, favorable to our highest thoughts and aspirations, to our search for spiritual light, to prayer or communion with the Divine. This is when the interior bodily functions have eased down preparatory to sleep and are no longer making their usual disturbing appeal to subconscious attention.

So we have a whole scale of moods, ranging from this highest - permitted by a certain sort of bodily quiescence - down through those in which the body prompts all kinds of healthy activity and plan-making, through the actively ill-tempered and surly states, into those of animal sluggishness and mental stagnation.

Perhaps most of us allow ourselves to be conditioned by these bodily states, to accept the mood prompted by the body, to be run by it, to go altogether with it, to be the mood, making no judgment about it at all but just taking it as it comes and living it as long as it lasts. To look at it, to say to oneself "This is a good mood" or "This is a hateful state of feeling" or "Why am I like this today?" - would be really a standing back from it, an inspection and judgment of it, and a half-conscious perception and assertion of oneself as distinct from it: rather clothed with it and looking at it from inside and through it at passing circumstances, than being it. A more consciously self-separating attitude would be expressed by saying consciously to oneself that one does not like this mood and will not permit it. And then, if one changed it by an act of will for the better, one would have asserted his humanity as distinct from and rising up out of his animalism. An animal cannot criticize his own mood, imagine and create a better one and will that to be the mood he will now have. An animal must be, and is, just the flow of his moods. There is nothing in a dog that can stand back and inspect them and will one away in favor of another. But there is a something in a man that can do this: to wit, the man himself; the man himself exercising critical judgment on himself and enforcing his judgment by an act of will. He is the triad in his body, of self, judgment, and will. And the highest kind of man, always constantly seeking his true home in the highest and noblest state of himself, habitually selects among his possible moods those which will be most favorable to his search for his path upward. These he uses as his ladder to mount on. When there is work to be done, bodily or mental, he will create the pulse of active impulse in body and brain. With others, he will have geniality and kindliness, and a child's heart with children. And when his day is closing he will encourage that quiescence of bodily activity which permits the mind to go up to its highest in the silence of common thought.

Most of the details of our bodily life we know nothing about and do not need to. In a cubic inch of blood, for instance, there are seventy thousand million blood corpuscles, each leading an intensely active life on its own account but also in the service of the body as a whole. The amount of active intelligent life in the body as a whole is beyond all imagination. But there is an ever-changing general tone or color in this conscious animal life which is what we call mood, the mood we are in, as we correctly say. Man as respects his body is an animal, but an animal so very much at the top of the animal tree that no other animal has anything approaching the range of mood or feeling that our animal has;

no other animal has more than a mere representative rudiment of some of the conscious mood-states of our animal. And, as we have said, no other animal has that in it which can stand back from some mood, look at it, judge it as good or not good, quash it if then undesirable or altogether noxious, and call up another. We are souls incarnated in animal life, too often knowing nothing of ourselves except as living this highly evolved and intelligent animalism, knowing nothing of our power to deal with it, thinking it to be ourselves, feeling that we were born with it, grew with it, and must finally sicken and die with it - in a word, overpowered by it and drowned in it. And even those who make right and fine efforts to deal with it properly and take it under control, usually lack that clear sense of what they are in relation to it and what they are doing, which alone can bring complete and splendid victory and self-redemption. For the children are not taught that they are souls (in bodies and bodily moods), but at best that they have souls. And this not only leaves 'soul' unexplained but means or suggests by implication that they are bodies and the moods of body. So they never learn to raise themselves fully into their own natures, human natures with the power of full divinization of their humanity.

The body, then, from our present point of view, considered as a member of the human Trinity, is not the so-many pounds of living matter, but the consciousness side of that, its changeful mood-driven intelligence - animal consciousness, truly, but so far above that of any other animal, even the elephant, that the word animal seems out of place for the best of its workings. Modern psychology mostly denies that man is anything else than an assemblage of highly-evolved animal powers and qualities, all of which are supposed to be represented in lower degree in the lower animals. In other words modern psychology denies the soul. Consequently it has to leave unexplained the purely human or 'soul-ar' powers of creative imagination, that most brilliant servant of the will; of self-analysis and self-criticism; of exchanging at will one state of mind for another and better, or of voluntarily accentuating a state that is felt to be a good one; of having an ideal and consciously working towards it; and finally, of will itself. All these have to be slurred over somehow, juggled with, or altogether left alone.

These are the marks and workings of soul, the second or middle member of our Trinity, that which is incarnated in the animal - partly; which has one pole down here in animal intelligent life and the other in the upper sea of spiritual being. It is the mediator between earth and heaven, the ladder of being and that which moves up and down the ladder. Its incarnation begins at birth; death is its disincarnation, its regained illumination and self-recognition. If while in the body we would take and follow to the end the path that leads to recognizing who and what we are, we should be gods. That means full incarnation, taking full charge. The foreman of a great workshop is not in full charge, or in charge at all, while he is absorbed in delighted interest in the working of the machines and forgets himself and his rightful position in enjoyment of the jokes, chat, and personal ways of the men under him. He must remember who he is, preserve the dignity of his position, and see that his men keep to and within the lines of their duty. So full incarnation, in one sense, means getting absorbed in and one with the moods and desires of the body, forgetting one's rightful position; in another it means taking full charge in full self-consciousness. And as soon as one begins to do that, one's degree of incarnation becomes fuller and fuller.

More incarnation of ourselves, fuller incarnation - that is what we must aim at. There is no emergent danger of life, fire, shipwreck, or the like, and no battlefield, in which you do not find previously commonplace men suddenly becoming heroes, readily and instantly sacrificing limb and life in the interests of others or of the cause. It is a case of more incarnation, of more of the soul suddenly coming into the body; feeling perhaps the body's inclination to shrink, the body's instinctive mood of cowardice - but utterly overriding and disregarding it. Every time one resists a sensual impulse or a tendency to 'hit back' in word or deed, or a pressure of selfishness, one has incarnated a little more fully. The

orator fired by a great cause incarnates for the period of his speech more fully. The writer who for the time forgets himself in some great thought that is pressing through his pen, is incarnated more fully. And so he may be no hypocrite in that, even though at other times his life may be far below the spiritual level of that hour. He cannot or does not maintain that degree of incarnation. And so with the poet and musician when their inspiration is as we say upon them. In reality it is they themselves, the souls, that have come as inspiration into their ordinary consciousness. The more, the fuller, we incarnate, whether for a time or in permanence, the more do we show the grander possibilities previously latent in us. But even then this higher consciousness has to work through the lower, the ordinary; through the brain; and it may become strangely distorted and mixed with lower elements and with limited preconceptions as it comes through. The gleam of real gold within it has often led to the acceptance of much base metal. It is only in humanity's greatest teachers and reformers, the permanent Lights of the ages, that we find examples of full and perfect and enduring incarnation. Lower than these summits of human attainment are the ranges of men of genius, the real leaders, the great thinkers, of all those who have self-forgettingly sacrificed themselves for a cause or for human welfare, and of all those who have consistently tried to live at their highest, to live by principle, to round out every duty as they saw it. Humble and inconspicuous are the lives of many who are really far up on this path.

In one of the ancient symbols this self-realization in and against the resistance of the body was pictured as rolling away the stone that closes in the tomb of the buried divinity so that it could come forth and manifest itself and be seen. We take up body after body, reincarnate, that in each successively we may take fuller and fuller charge. For it is only by the friction of resistance that the soul-self comes to full self-knowledge and develops its latent powers into manifesting actuality.

Since, in body and soul, we have two members of the human Trinity, where shall we look for the third, the crown, the apex of the triangle? Spirit is a word which usually arouses very vague ideas in our minds, but as we have no better one to use, we must give it as clear a meaning as we can. The word religion - and of course religion is concerned with the spiritual - is from a Latin verb meaning to bind together. And spirit is that which binds all things together. Spirit, the underlying binding and causative essence of all that lives, is only to be reached and known, say the Teachers, by him who cultivates in himself the unity feeling, the sense of oneness, the bound-together-in-one feeling, and acts accordingly. For that feeling corresponds to the fact of things. It is the uttermost Truth. It is the way to spirit and it is spirit itself. "Brotherhood is a fact in nature" is the first tenet of Theosophy. The countless millions of living units that make up our bodies are bound together into a living unity, and by that harmonious binding are enabled to reach a delicacy and richness and elaboration of life that could not otherwise be attained, that would be utterly impossible to any of those units or cells alone. And each cell is in its turn a binding together of multitudes of yet smaller, microscopic, lives; and, as science now knows, they in their turn, of others. How much further inward yet this compounding goes we do not know. But wherever we are looking in nature we see the same spirit of compounding and unifying, again and again, higher and higher; and at every stage of compounding the reward comes at once - an organism with richer life. If we think of spirit as the same as life, then the more harmonious co-operative compounding there is, and, with that, the more life, the more spirit; spirit as the cause of the compounding and spirit manifesting as the outcome - namely conscious life and intelligence.

Now comes man, so high in his consciousness that he can feel and recognize in himself the workings of this combining and harmonizing power, and he calls it the spirit of brotherhood. That is why we say that brotherhood is the deepest fact in nature. One of the rewards of cultivating it is joy. However we may fall from our conviction in practice, there is no one without the conviction that a life or a day spent in the spirit and conduct of brotherhood would be the happiest kind of life and the happiest of all days. No one doubts

that friendship is the happiest of all relationships between men, or that if all humanity were in a state of mutual friendship or brotherhood the earth would be heaven at once and all men's highest powers unchained. That their powers would be unchained may not at first seem so obvious. But could an inventor get the inspiration of new ideas, a composer of new melodies and successions of harmony, a poet of new vision, after a jarring wrangle in his family or a heated quarrel with some acquaintance? More: why does a musician or poet or great thinker write at all save for this deepest of all instincts, to have others with them in the place to which they have been elevated? Why does a man who gets hold of any idea at once want to talk of it, to have others with him in it, perhaps combine with him into a society for its propagation, however abstract it may be? It is this eternal instinct of combination, showing itself even when a man rushes out to tell of a bit of good fortune that has come to him. What else has actuated the great Teachers, the Buddhas, the Christs, when they gave all the years of their lives to the laborious spreading of their gospel, unstayed by hatred, persecution, ingratitude? The mere casual chat of two friends evidences the same, the getting into pleasant unity with each other through the nothings they are communicating. A most perfect example of the spirit of unity or of brotherhood is found between two in perfect married life. The pleasures of books, music, recreation and the rest, are no pleasures to either except with the companionship of the other. All the pleasures, all the aims, stand rooted in that, have that for the background and setting, grow under that sky. "Everything has lost its interest," you will hear one of them say after the death of the other.

Brotherhood is indeed the one state or atmosphere in which alone all the powers and life of man can come to perfection. It is the glow of the spiritual sun; it is the secret thrill of space and sky. Having it and looking downward to those in need, it takes the form of compassion; in ourselves, it is the mother of every kind of growth, of richness of life and consciousness; having it and looking upward to those spiritually in advance of us, it becomes reverence and devotion; and it is likewise loyalty to every great cause. Compassion, reverence, loyalty, life - are one thing, brotherhood.

Some may think that a man's powers could equally be called out by ambition. A moment's thought will show that that is not so. Could you not in a moment detect the difference between the false ring of the orator who is trying to shine, to impress us with his power, and the one whose speech has the fire of self-forgetting devotion to the cause he is enlisted in? The heart of one has the divine magnetic fire; the other's is cold. And the center of life and of brotherhood is the heart. By that fire alone can the keyboards of the brain be set into responsive vibration to the great ideas which reflect the spiritual essences of things. The ambitious man dwindles and hardens; the other grows, expands, mellows. And if you once think in terms of reincarnation you can see how wide will the difference become through the stretch of successive lives. We must have brotherhood, loyalty, reverence, or our light will ultimately go out; we are not wanted, are no part of things, are not in the stream of nature and of evolution at all.

Science considers evolution as a set of progressive changes in living being. The impelling cause, the inwardness of the vast process, it has not got at. It is in the position of a man who should study compassion as a series of donations, here of a dime to a blind man, there of a dollar to a hungry beggar, and again of a hospital to a city, considering himself unable to penetrate the cause of these gifts, the conscious motive-glow in the heart of the giver. Mind could only understand and classify and measure the gifts in their outwardness. To get at the real cause of them our man would have to find the like of it within himself, in his own heart.

It is not with brain-mind that we can understand and open up communion with spirit or Deity. That mind will only make a great man of it, a large person of some sort sitting up in Sirius or Alcyone. There is an all-embracing, all-penetrating, all-sustaining divine consciousness, known and present in the heart of all of us as compassion, brotherhood,

yearning for unity, loyalty, reverence, aspiration. Let us begin at that center of warmth and glow and work upward to the measureless Light whose reflection is in us; but let us not let the mind come in and personalize and limit that 'ideal of ideals.' Some of its simpler workings and effects mind can appreciate; it can make some sort of symbol of this Presence as light all-permeant; but the divine consciousness in that light must be felt and known in a part of our nature that we can only call into perceptive action by the silencing of the common mind-workings. What is real prayer but this, the stilling of the mind with its ceaseless flow of inward talk, and in the silence reaching after that Presence of divine consciousness which has no form? All the divergencies and quarrels of sects have come from insisting upon forcing this into mind-made forms. And in proportion as they have done so they have lost the reality. H.P. Blavatsky in her Key to Theosophy says:

"We call our 'Father in heaven' that deific essence of which we are cognizant within us, in our heart and spiritual consciousness, and which has nothing to do with the anthropomorphic conception we may form of it in our physical brain or its fancy: 'Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you?'"

Our souls are the first and highest emanations of the all-formative divine essence, Lights born in and from the infinite Light, and incarnating thence for the salvation and spiritualization and intellectualization of animal man below. Animal man, we say, though it was not man but highest animal only, till thus humanized. And we, souls, Lights from the Light, have forgotten our divinity in this lower life and have to recover it again with the added wisdom, the deepened consciousness, of all the struggle and pain and experience.

So our task is to awaken ourselves to our own real nature, and all the great Teachers of all ages have been giving us instruction how to do it. Since we feel ourselves as thinking beings, it is through the right molding of thought, through the filling of thought with the light, that we accomplish the awakening. That is not filling thought with reasonings and speculations. They have their place, but not here. The way of this highest work, of this awakening, has been given from this platform by Katherine Tingley again and again and again, from every point of view, in every aspect, in the hope that each hearer may find that step which is for him the next. She does it month by month in the opening pages of The Theosophical Path, and in a paper once issued to her students she thus put the practical essence of her teaching:

"A pure, strong, unselfish thought, beaming in the mind, lifts the whole being to the heights of Light. From this point can he discerned, to a degree, the sacredness of the moment and the day.

"In this life, the petty follies of everyday friction disappear. In place of lack of faith in one's self, there is self-respect; the higher consciousness is aroused, and the Heart acts in unison with the Mind; and man walks as a living Power among his fellows."

We try to carry that Light in our thought all day; our first conscious act of the day as it opens is to establish it in our imaginations with the will that it shall shine on through the hours; and our last conscious endeavor as we retire shall be to seek communion with the infinite Light that is the inspiration and may be made the sustainment of our endeavors.

(Vol. 17, pp. 547-55)

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The Conflict of Duty with Desire

- Lydia Ross, M.D.

[1919]

The hour has struck for recognizing the human side of life. In religion, interest in and also indifference to the old theology are giving way to inquiries for a sound and simple philosophy of reality, related to the here and now. In governmental and social affairs, traditions and established institutions are being challenged to show wherein the essentially human interests are served first, while material power and possessions are to be reckoned as secondary matters. Likewise in medical science, the materialistic researches for causes and cures have fallen so far short of controlling the sum-total of disease and disorder, that there is a reaction toward the larger human truths of man's life as a whole.

In line with the above is the Presidential Address of Prof. Hugh T. Patrick, read before the Institute of Medicine, of Chicago. The doctor surely speaks for many less able speakers who are also convinced that scant justice has been done to the subject of 'The Patient Himself.' He says:

"My theme is that much-neglected individual, the patient himself. Concerning his organs and their functions, we have numberless tomes. Concerning the diseases that attack his parts, we have whole libraries. Concerning the various ways of cutting him open and sewing him up, there are several six-foot shelves. For the manifold instruments, machines, and appliances of our armamentarium, an extensive congeries of industries is in constant operation. Indeed, some of us are so used to practicing medicine by machinery that the cortical cell bids fair to shrink into sterile desuetude. But of the patient himself - the man, the woman, the child - relatively little is thought or written.

"....His personality is what he is - the man himself; and he is the sum of all his tendencies and experiences; his desires, aversions, affections, hates, passions, inhibitions, appetites, reflections, and knowledge. The tendencies are few and simple, the experiences myriad. And a little thought shows that most of this experience has been in the form of conflicts. From the beginning, life is a conflict: an effort to live and be happy - that is to say, an effort to adapt ourselves to the conditions under which we must live.

"....Some of us have neuroses or psychoses because we are unable to harmonize with our environment - and for no other reason....

"In short, the neurotic is an individual in trouble with no easy and direct means of escape. A neurosis is a defense reaction, a means of escape; a psychologic dugout in which to hide. That the difficulty may be imaginary, the patient fleeing from a ghost, does not alter the situation. His effort to adjust his appetites and desires to the demands of convention, society, the herd, are the same as ours. He attempts to dodge defeat and to shift responsibility for lack of success as do we whom a lenient society calls normal.... Very, very often the nervously inadequate person unconsciously shifts the responsibility to some bodily trouble, when he naturally comes into the physician's domain. And too, too often the physician takes his complaint at its face value....

"How many of us constantly keep in mind that we, the acme of civilization and culture, have every instinct and passion of the caveman? Are we always alert for the ever-present emotional-ideational-intellectual conflict? And do we recognize its importance? To repeat: The product of these conflicts is We - the patient himself."

Dr. Patrick takes his own case-book to illustrate his point, showing that after much medication and surgery had failed to relieve certain patients from functional or even organic symptoms, entire recovery ensued upon relieving some emotional strain. He showed the futility of operations, rest-cures, etc., etc., when the remedy lay in making the patient fit his environment, or in rearranging it so that it fitted him. This is a refreshing note

to strike in current medical literature, where man, the 'image of the Creator,' is regarded mainly as the irresponsible product of his own organs, which in their turn are at the mercy of the microbes. Even the psychologists seem to be psychologized with the many-sided picture of routine symptoms.

Dr. Patrick's human sense, however, turns to the unseen levels of causes, in a fellow-creature with an immaterial nature whose reactions are to be reckoned with. To a trained scientist's grasp of outstanding pain, disability, nervous and psychic symptoms, he adds that sympathetic quality of intuitive insight which transcends the finesse of modern diagnostic technique. His recognition that poverty and domestic discord and social misfits, etc., etc., may react injuriously upon the body functions, and even upon the organs, is more likely due to his evolution than to his education. Unfortunately the college curricula do not include the subject of the subtle relationship of the real man to his body. In short, the viewpoint of the above quotations is a wholesome sign of reaction against the futility of current medical materialism.

The Theosophical student takes issue with modern science, wherein it regards human evolution as a physical process only. Man, as a soul, endowed with the light of reason, is involved in the matter of an animal body, and, throughout many lives, is engaged in a threefold evolution of body, mind, and spirit. That the higher nature is generally overlooked now, is due to the fact that human errors reincarnate as well as man. Thus, when the old theology which denied man's divine birthright gave way to skepticism and indifference, the materialism of the 'miserable sinner' idea was born anew in modern scientific form. Hence the present era of world-war, and of a universal fever of discord and uncertainty and passionate unrest, presents the typical symptoms of a humanity whose abnormal mental and material gains are become malignant growths of the lower nature. These monstrous growths of materialism have drained the life-currents and have increased at the expense of the palsied and atrophied spiritual senses.

That the vital fault of the age lies deep in the nature is reflected even in the character of the diseases of civilization. The medieval scourges, due to frank filth, seem to have reincarnated in this sanitary age in forms too subtle for material analysis or treatment. Note how years of constant search for the origin of cancer end with an annual report of failure to find the cause, or to offer a theory in keeping with the facts, or even empirically to control its steady increase. Is not the useless and functionless piling up of originally normal cells in cancerous tumors the malignant correspondence of the selfish and anti-social quality in our civilization, which today is threatened with self-destruction? Note also the moral and ethical degeneration which seeks 'jazz' and 'turkey trot' and 'futurist ' and 'cubistic,' and many other bizarre and self-indulgent expressions of art and music and rhythm and social relations. Is not this emotional reversion of life-currents a counterpart of the spread of degenerative diseases which insidiously destroy the integrity of the heart and blood vessels? The laboratory researches have not located the cause.

The cells have their own degree of consciousness, and, being informed by the sympathetic nervous system of the vibratory quality in the 'man above the eyebrows,' they will either respond in kind, or react in the conflict of a neurosis. Indeed, the cells must perforce respond to the live wire of conscious nerve. This response will make for progress - evolution, or for a restless whirlpool - perversion, or for a turning aside and going backward - degeneration. The whole natural force of the evolutionary stream is behind the civilizee's body-cells, urging them to function in keeping with his higher possibilities. It is Nature herself who audits the account between the man and his body. She analyses the true inwardness of the case, uninfluenced by incidental microbes, or by any other medical fad or moral fashion. The savage thrives physically, in spite of a murderous and degrading career, because his acts are in keeping with his degree of consciousness. He does not harass his 'medicine man,' as we do ours, with problems of cancer and neuroses. He violates the civilized code without doing violence to his conscience, i.e., his awareness of

right and wrong. With the civilizee, however, it is very much otherwise, as Nature reckons cause and effect. We have forfeited an Eden of irresponsibility by our knowledge of good and evil. It is not the health-officer, or the theologians, or Mrs. Grundy to whom we must answer finally. It is the evolutionary law of adjustments with which we must make our peace.

Evolution is a progressive process of awakening of the incarnating god, who can transmute material forces, when its intuition is not blinded by the impulses of the animal body. This profound metaphysical fact is the simple, natural impetus back of selfless deeds of heroism and devotion to duty. And even more familiar is the negative evidence of the fact, in the danger of retarding the natural process of transmuting the material forces of human nature into finer functional activities. For unless the two sides of the dual nature act in unison, both the man and his body will suffer from the discordant action. Note that the physical cells of the modern man, like the vast, complex machinery of life he has evolved, are so highly organized as to be functionally capable of carrying out ideal purposes. And because his physical tissues and his evolved social mechanism are fit instruments for the use of the higher humanities, for the finer forces of co-operation - of brotherhood - he must pay the price in disease, degeneration, disorder or disaster for the deflected or retarded or perverted functioning of the human or the material organism.

It is a reversion to jungle tactics to argue questions with tooth and claw, however camouflaged the brute power be by military technique. War is evolutionary surgery - wonderful in its daring and spectacular methods, but it does nothing to purify the bad blood in the international life-currents, and thereby forestall recurrence of malign centers of thought and feeling. The world has just paid a fearful price in blood and treasure and bitter suffering for its military surgery of four years' duration. Not only would a fraction of the same united effort have stopped the war, but a naturally balanced growth of dual human nature in our civilization would have prevented the abnormal conflict.

Trace the outbreak of bad blood back to the various national currents. Study the maladjustments in the industrial realms. Does anyone question that the inherent upbuilding, creative, reciprocal forces functioning in the industrial world are capable, if rightly balanced, of equalizing the disorder of supply and demand, with benefit to all concerned? Reduced to the simplest terms: Could not the human family, equipped with the modern organized industries and general machinery of life, supply all its needs, if it were functioning normally to that end? The only bar to a natural condition of things is Selfishness - the overgrowth of the lower instincts.

Modern life is trying to work out human destiny on the lines of an over-clever thinking animal, - a dehumanizing course which makes for fiends in the end. But Mother Nature bars the way with warning signboards of suffering and disease. She is ever mindful of future lives, when we must reap what we now sow, and must painfully retrace every false step. She cannot touch man's free will, even when he chooses to get experience by upheavals and revolution, instead of proceeding easily in lines of natural evolution. But his body belongs to her realm, so that she can mercifully cut short an unnatural career by cancer, degeneracy, or insanity.

That the modern problems of disease are the same in quality as the crying wrongs of the body politic, is no mere figure of speech. The facts will bear analysis from any angle - sociological, ethical, educational, artistic, or any of the phases of human life as a whole. The human-minded doctor may note that patients are suffering from functional lack of the same finer forces of which the churches are confessing their shortage. The multimillion-dollar sectarian drives are relatively easy to start. Far more difficult is the arousing of the devitalized spirit of brotherhood to functional unity, among the followers of him whose only recorded drive was in scourging the money changers out of the temple. The doctor and the minister are challenged by the same problems: How to equalize material power and brain-mind plus, with spiritual health minus. With this equation worked out, they could give

the clue to the captains and privates and rebels of industry.The riddle of the Sphinx is no mere classic myth, but the eternal problem of earth-

life. As of old, the modern man is being devoured by the mystery of his own being, and will be, until he knows himself as something other than his body.

Theosophy views man's complex nature so broadly as to make him include his environment, in the deeper sense. Each man, in this and previous lives, and always under the karmic law of cause and effect, has evolved the exact quality of conditions in and around him. The soul knows its own needs of experience, and is drawn by karma to the environment which offers it opportunity to take up the unfinished business of its past career, in gaining self-knowledge. "The play's the thing"; and the immortal Player brings over his own stage-setting of conditions from the past, in the way of social status, talents, tendencies, mental and physical make-up, human ties, etc. Even the gods are powerless to change any man's past; so far, his fate is fixed. But only so far; for "every day is a new beginning," wherein he may change his relation to the inevitable conditions he must meet.

In reality, it is worse than futile for a man to try to run away from an environment that belongs to him. He only puts off the evil day, when he must work out the delayed account, with compound interest from each evasion. Without knowledge of karma and reincarnation, the world has lost sight of the logical necessity of doing one's duty, first or last. Duty is that which is due; and often nothing less than the intuition can tell whether one owes it to himself and to his surroundings to go or to stay, when he is held by ties of 'affection or dislike.' It may be a fine point to decide whether he is out of tune because his lower nature wants to evade an unselfish duty, or because his better self is urging him to express his nobler powers, and so easily show himself 'equal to the event.' A character with a strongly marked duality will doubtless suffer unrest from both impulses.

Meantime, the highly-organized nervous system which bridges the gulf between the conscious and subconscious man, is often shaken and shattered by the conflicting impulses it transmits back and forth. Here is a practical point for the alienists who are puzzled by the problems of increasing mental and nervous diseases: the lack of alignment between the ideals which should function in true civilization and the current motives in action. With the moral status of the age as abnormal as it is, Nature justly repudiates so diseased and imperfect a product, knowing that perfection in the human realm is no less possible than is perfection in type in her lower kingdoms.

It is wholly natural for the opposing forces of spirit and matter in humanity to contend for supremacy. But it is unnatural, in the evolutionary stage of twentieth-century civilization, for the real man - the soul - to be dominated by an animal brain and body, however sublimated and refined the sensuous powers may be. The present is a peculiar time of stress and strain, when the better nature's aspirations are weighed down by the whole inertia of matter. H.P. Blavatsky explains this in The Secret Doctrine, where she says that our present humanity, having descended to the very depths of materiality during countless lives, has now begun to round out the ascending arc of the evolutionary cycle. This puts new hope and meaning and inspiration into the general confusion and upheaval of today, when "old things are passing away."

It is true that the neuroses and psychoses are sign manuals of conflict with the environment, in the broad sense that each man is a world in himself. But the disharmony which Dr. Patrick notes is even deeper-seated than he puts it. It is often the vital conflict between the inner and the outer man, between duty and desire, between the immortal Pilgrim and his ever-changing body. In view of the real sacredness of life, it becomes a grave responsibility to attempt to diagnose and prescribe a course of action. In any event, the physician involves himself in the karma of the case, and he has need to study the ancient philosophy of life, for his own sake as well as for the patient's welfare.

As long as we ally ourselves with the animal nature, lingering in an outgrown stage of racial development, we must expect to be cuffed and buffeted into line by Mother

Nature. She takes us at our own estimate, of moral irresponsibility. It is time we "put away childish things," and progressed along the lines of least resistance, as Katherine Tingley says, in "self-directed evolution."

In the Theosophic study of man's sevenfold nature can be found revelation upon revelation regarding 'the Patient Himself.' With this knowledge, the doctors will regard the patient as an incarnating soul, the heir of ages of past experience, in which inhere the basic conditions of health and disease. To see and act upon this truth will develop the intuition which can find the potential finer forces of wholeness. We shall realize the sacrilege and dangerous folly of seeking causes and cures for human disorders in 'animal experimentation' and unclean serums.

(Vol. 18, pp. 539-45)

"Help Nature and work on with her; and Nature will regard thee as one of her creators and make obeisance. And she will open wide before thee the portals of her secret chambers, lay bare before thy gaze the treasures hidden in the very depths of her pure virgin bosom. Unsullied by the hand of matter, she shows her treasures only to the eye of Spirit - the eye which never closes, the eye for which there is no veil in all her kingdoms. Then will she show thee the means and way, the first gate and the second, the third, up to the very seventh. And then, the goal - beyond which lie, bathed in the sunlight of the Spirit, glories untold, unseen by any save the eye of Soul." - H.P. Blavatsky: The Voice of the Silence

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The Angel and the Devils - H. T. Edge

Stevenson's well-known tale of Jekyll and Hyde is justly deemed a classic. It comprises the essentials of a gem of art both in idea and form: a powerful idea artistically expressed. To paint such a vignette, the artist had to limit himself, as is always necessary when we wish to paint one particular scene. Hence, in satisfying dramatic demands, philosophical breadth had to be sacrificed. Of this the author was fully aware. He says, speaking through Jekyll:

"I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two. I say two, because the state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point. Others will follow, others will outstrip me on the same lines; and I hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous and independent denizens."

And again:

"Had I approached my discovery in a more noble spirit, had I risked the experiment while under the empire of generous or pious aspirations, all must have been otherwise, and from these agonies of death and birth, I had come forth an angel instead of a fiend."

And of course it seems evident that the decomposition of the compound Jekyll should have resulted in the separate emergence, not only of an evil principle, but of a good

one as well. Otherwise what becomes of the good principle? Again, Jekyll contained some evil principles which were not represented in Hyde: namely, his vanity, his fear, his hypocrisy. Hyde was at least whole-hearted. As the author suggests, the personality of man is very complex; and if a sudden violent dissolution of its tenement could liberate the denizens from the family union in which they are held together, their name would be found to be Legion rather than Two. There are on record certain experiments in what might be called a psychological vivisection, wherein the operator has succeeded in dismembering his unfortunate subject's personality into quite a number of distinct and different entities.

The motive of Jekyll's experiments was to find a means of gratifying his evil instincts without hindrance from other motives. Faults in our methods of education are responsible for the fact that some evil tendencies in human nature are not overcome but merely masked or suppressed, so that they still exist, and, being denied expression, run to morbid forms. They may cause diseases, hidden blemishes, neurotic conditions, etc. This is sometimes made the theme of morbid writings which are served up in the sensational press; they exaggerate and present only the somber side of the question. We probably express a good deal of our bad tendencies vicariously. We pick quarrels, in order that we may vent our irritation without having to shoulder the blame; we subtly inspire others to do the things we dare not do ourselves. And, though we cannot send forth a physical Hyde to do our deeds of darkness, we can and do send forth into the aether evil thoughts, which may express themselves through the organism of some receptive individual who thus becomes, as it were, our Hyde.

It is probably true, and many can confirm this out of their experience, that sentiments impossible of expression in the waking state may find expression in dreams; for then it is possible that the element of self-consciousness, which is so destructive of pure feelings, may be wholly absent.

As themes for the romancer, one might suggest the author's idea that, had he drunk his potion under a noble impulse, an angel would have emerged; or that, following the usual rules of decomposition, two beings would have emerged simultaneously to pursue unhindered their respective paths. The details of the narrative would require some modification and working up; if only to get over the difficulty as to clothing which would arise when the portly Jekyll dismembered himself into two separate beings. But that is a matter of detail. Imagine that the wayfarer in the tale, instead of encountering a human fiend doing a deed of darkness, had met with an incarnate angel, representing the good side of Jekyll, doing deeds of love and charity all unhindered by the hostile elements. Imagine the drama that could be made with the angel and the devil both at work, now separate, now lost in recombination.

It will be best for us at present to resist any temptation to dwell on the dark and morbid side of this question and to present instead the bright side. In man there are the angel and the devil. The devil is simply the animal side of our nature, which, harmless enough in itself, has appropriated a spark of mind from the higher side of our nature, and has thus become what no animal can be - a self-conscious gratifier of appetite, a schemer of evil. Science has insisted enough on the animal side of our nature; and dogmatism has emphasized our sinfulness. Let us try to dwell on the brighter side.

We have not to try and find some extraordinary method for liberating the angel from his enthralment in the body, so that he can fare forth unlet to do his good deeds. To do that would be to flee the field of battle, the field of duty and opportunity. We have to make a temple for that angel in the shrine of our own physical tenement. In the tale, we find that Hyde was always present in Jekyll, and often made his presence felt; that the Doctor sometimes gratified his propensities in his own person and without liberating the fiend. Hence the idea of a decomposition of personality and body is not essential. Finally the devil takes possession of the body entirely, in defiance of the drug. And thus with the angel: can we not sweep our mansion and make it a fitting tenement for the angel, so that

the devil may be driven forth?It is necessary, of course, to guard against considering the angel and the devil as

separate infesting creatures: that would be superstitious and harmful. That way madness lies. We do not need to create personal devils, but to uncreate them; we do not want angels to work for us, we want to work for ourselves. The practical thing is to bear always in mind that we stand between the two influences, and have the power of leaning towards either. Then there is the power of habit; actions engender habit; the body is built up by habits of thought and feeling and action.

The possibilities of self-delusion are enormous and surprising, especially to those who have entered seriously upon the examination and reform of their own nature. It is only necessary to allude to the lengths to which anger and fear, suspicion and jealousy, vanity or depression, can carry us, in creating pure delusions of the imagination, which are as solid as realities, when not checked and dispelled by reference to actual facts. But this should be for us a lesson in the possibilities open to us on the brighter side of the question. If our creative powers of imagination and emotion can create such illusions of darkness, what may not the imagination and the liberated will, acting in conjunction, be able to accomplish in creating good influences?

Spiritual forces act on a higher plane than other forces, and are therefore much more potent. Hence the power of a pure aspiration: it calls into play the higher forces in our nature. Should the idea of personal aggrandisement or satisfaction, in any of its numerous forms, inspire the wish, then the spiritual forces are not called into play, but only the lower forces of desire, and the result is more delusion. If the aspiration is mixed, then an alchemical process of purification and precipitation will take place. Delusions will arise, quickly come to a head and burst, and the pure metal will shine forth beneath the dross. Alchemy is a very apt way of expressing the problem of self-purification. We aim at purifying the gold in our nature. In the crucible is a woeful mixture. We add the powerful reagent, the mixture melts and seethes; the dross coagulates and comes to the surface, so that it can be skimmed; and the pure metal remains.

Let the tale of Jekyll and Hyde serve not merely as a warning against the evil that is in us, striving to find a means of unhindered expression, but as a bright promise of the unexpressed good, that is likewise seeking for expression. Let us give the good side of our nature a chance. Sometimes, when we meet another person with a cloud on his brow, and realize that he is dwelling in a prison which he has created for himself, and is missing all the joy of life on account of his preoccupation with his gloomy thoughts and his troubles, purely imaginary perhaps - we are helped to realize our own similar condition of thraldom. It is some form of fear, anger, vanity, etc., that is holding us in this bondage; and we are weakly heeding the whisperings of the almost tangible demon we have built up in ourselves by the indulgence of such moods. But the bare idea that this is the case is sufficient to deal the illusion its death-blow.

Shakespeare might well compare life to a stage. Each one of us is a whole drama in himself; and a drama of Shakespeare's, with all its persons, might be taken to represent but a single individual, with all the diverse and conflicting elements of his character. Personality is indeed multiple; and it needs no experimenting mesmerist, with his neurotic subjects, to tell us so; for we see it in ourselves and our fellows. It is not two souls, but many, that dwell in our breast. Yet this does not mean that the whole thing is a delusion and that we have no real Self at all. An actor is a real man, however many parts he may play; and though we may change our costume often, the body remains the same. There is a true Self, and this we have to discover.

"The light that burns in thee, dost thou feel it different in any wise from the light which shines in other men?"

There is our ideal. The more the idea of separateness prevails, the more are we liable to delusion. All the emotions enumerated above have the quality of personality in them.

The angel in man is simply his own real Self - not a ministering deity. It is as though Man, the pilgrim, had lost his way in the mists and false lights. He needs to rub his eyes and drive away the dreams.

(Vol. 17, pp. 45-48)

"We find two distinct beings in man, the spiritual and the physical; the man who thinks, and the man who records as much of these thoughts as he is able to assimilate. Therefore we divide him into two distinct natures; the upper or the spiritual being.... and the lower or the physical." - H.P. Blavatsky: The Key to Theosophy --------------

The Man and the Mask - H. Travers

In the story 'Markheim,' by R.L. Stevenson, occurs the following passage, where the hero, a man who has gone from bad to worse and has just committed his first murder, is communing with a mysterious visitor.

"'Know me!' cried Markheim. 'Who can do so? My life is but a travesty and slander on myself. I have lived to belie my nature. All men do; all men are better than this disguise that grows about and stifles them. You see each dragged away by life, like one whom bravos have seized and muffled in a cloak. If they had their own control - if you could see their faces, they would be altogether different, they would shine out for heroes and saints!'"

What is the disguise that grows about a man and stifles him, if not the personality that he has created about his Soul - about his real Self during his incarnate life? Life, we are told, is play-acting; the very word 'personality' is derived from persona, which means first a mask worn by players, secondly a part played by an actor, and thirdly the character which anyone sustains in the world. But, if the personality is the character sustained by a man in life, who is the man - he who sustains the character? He must be the real Self; and, in the case of the great majority of people in this age, he remains in the background, hidden beneath his mask and beneath the weight of clothing which he has put on in order to play his part.

The duality of human nature, an everlasting problem, and one that has been made clear by Theosophy, is here beautifully illustrated.

This outer shell of our nature, this mask of personal character, this house in which our Self dwells, is meant for our instrument and obedient servant. It can become our master and tyrant.

People cavil at fate and destiny, and wonder how and why they are so bound and make such a failure of their lives. Here we see the reason; we can trace the gradual process from its beginning. And, in looking back to that beginning, we at once think of the persons who influenced our earliest and tenderest years: what a responsibility was theirs! How much we were at their mercy! And did they understand these truths about the duality

of human nature? Did they strive to guard the freedom of our Soul and to prevent this vampire-tyrant of selfish personality from growing up around it and throttling it? Perhaps they were ignorant and heedless of this sacred duty; perhaps, in their folly and weakness, they even pampered and fostered the foe. They held, it may be, before our young eyes, a fond and fanciful ideal of what they wanted us to be, thus creating a fictitious part for us to play, a false ideal for us to live up to. They yielded to our desires and pampered our self-love, requiring only a decent semblance of good behavior; so that we soon learned to wear a decent mask in their presence, and to take off the muddy boots of our character in their drawing-room.

All through life, from the earliest beginnings of responsibility (and how early those are!) we are confronted each moment with two roads, a right and a left; and we may acquire the habit of choosing the left every time. What wonder then if we find ourselves ever verging more and more widely to the left. What wonder that the man in the story, always choosing pleasure before duty, went gradually from innocent indulgence to the culminating point of murder for money.

Between the responsible self-conscious Man and his environment there is continual action and reaction. Pessimists say that we are at the mercy of environment. This is what they say; and we all know the fable of the fox who, having lost his tail in a trap, tried to persuade all the other foxes to discard their tails. If I found myself a failure in life, what a temptation it would be to me to save my vanity by trying to persuade myself and others that it could not be helped! It was destiny; hence the blame is on destiny, not on Me! And, if I found my pride vexed by the example of one who had stood where I had fallen, what a wicked delight I would take in striving to prove that that one was in reality as bad as I, that he was a hypocrite, that his success was unstable and only temporary!

Those that seek to persuade themselves and us that we are helpless victims of circumstances are foxes that have lost their tails. If we keep the center of our being weak and negative, the electric currents (as it were) will flow in from the outside; but if we make ourself positive, the current will flow the other way.

The great truths that give the key to the problems of life are found to be unexpectedly simple - provokingly simple, we might say; for people are apt to feel irritated when told of them, like Naaman when he was told to bathe in the Jordan for the cure of his leprosy. That irritation also comes from the fact that, when the real cure is proposed, the little devil in us takes alarm, because it feels that its empire is now threatened in earnest. Hence people often decline to adopt these simple remedies. They are like a patient who would rather take bottles of medicine than leave off some favorite food: his little devil knows that it has nothing to fear from the medicine, but it dreads the homelier treatment.

And so the problem of how to run our life is subject to just such a simple remedy, just such a homely and unwelcome remedy. It is a question of being able to resist minute temptations, tiny attractions, that come to us every moment. It is these little failures that make things so hard when the big trials come.

Turn again to the initial quotation: "I have lived to belie my nature. All men do." Is this too pessimistic? Can no man ever express his real Self, and must every man be dragged away by the currents of life? What are the facts? That some men are dragged away more than others; not all men fall from petty dishonesty to theft, from theft to burglary, and from burglary to murder. Hence the question is one of degree. Our lives may belie our real nature, but they may belie it more or less. The very man in the above story does actually repent and reform: he refuses to escape and reap the fruits of his crime, and he gives himself up to justice.

In this story, as in the same author's celebrated Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the important points are (1) the distinction between the Real and the fictitious self, (2) the terrible danger that the fictitious self, by constant feeding, may gain power enough to dethrone the real Self from the empire of body and mind. These two points we should do

well to keep ever before us.The first requisite, then, is discrimination, that we may distinguish the real Self from

"this disguise that grows about and stifles" us. This is best done by action: we must follow duty, not desire. Thus alone can we purify our motives and be sure that the real Self is acting and not the man of desire. Life gives us plenty of chances to choose between duty and desire; it rests with us which we will choose in each case. Thus we shall strengthen either the real man or the fictitious man, according to our choice.

The Theosophical teachings were given to help us follow the path of duty, not to feed our desires. The former path means liberation and mastery over life; the latter means servitude and failure. Yet there are those who seek to make Theosophy minister to ambition and the desire for personal attainments; these are those who have failed to understand Theosophy, or who are propagating bogus Theosophy for their own ends.

A drama depicting the horrors and failures of human life would be incomplete did it not also show, or at least foreshadow, man's inherent power to save himself. This he does through his faith and trust in that divine fount which is the center of his being. He thus summons to his aid a power which is superior to the attractions and snares of circumstance. Circumstance; and what is circumstance after all, if not a word for our own weak desires? The power of circumstances lies not in themselves but in our reaction to them. To rise superior to circumstance is to rise superior to our own weakness.

Self-respect, then, is another requirement; self-respect, which eschews alike vanity and despondency. Vanity and self-abasement are twin evils that succeed and reproduce each other; in neither is strength or constancy. Self-respect esteems not what is personal but what is impersonal; it means confidence in the efficacy of right motive and in the law of eternal justice (Karma); and this is quite a different thing from vainglory.

Let us then not keep our real Self as a mere vain regret, but let it shine forth in our conduct, so that it may save us from being dragged down to despair by 'this disguise that grows up around us.'

(Vol. 19, pp. 42-45)

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Medical Perspective - Lydia Ross, M.D.

Even the laity know that the doctors generally rely more upon laboratory findings for settling the diagnosis of disease than upon bed-side observation of a case. The intuitive sense of human health values which the old-fashioned, devoted family doctor evolved out of his experience, has been replaced largely by the ultra-scientific efficiency of the microscope and test-tube. The laboratory analyses, in extending, deepening, and refining knowledge of physical matter, have discovered various unknown micro-organisms and chemic pathologies. But the medical eye-strain due to continued focusing upon these material details has impaired the doctor's mental sense of human perspective, and belittled his view of the sick man as a complex whole of body, mind, and soul. The reaction of the conscious man upon the handful of dust called his body, in normal and abnormal ways, is not recognized as the same quality of dynamic power which operates constructively upon the surrounding earth in upbuilding civilizations, and destructively in wastage and war.

"Back to human nature" will be the motto of the pathologist who is to discover the hidden resources of this unknown territory of welfare and illfare. By all the laws of logical analogy, the diseased consciousness which broke out in the social pathology of war, must

be reflected, in degree, by the individual, conscious man reacting upon his body in new and subtle phases of pathology. Only the psychologist who is able to regard man as an embodied soul, can find the basic causes of disease, and especially the causes of modern epidemics, which are confessedly beyond the ken of the most searching materialism. No mind could compute the amount of suffering, horror, and despair which the world has lived out during the past four years. [WW I] That this widespread mental and emotional disorder would result in disturbing the whole social atmosphere, with an intangible miasm which would find diseased physical expression, is evident to humanistic common sense, broadly viewing cause and effect which are beyond the detailed scope of laboratory diagnosis.

The mental, nervous, and psychic cases which have developed in the armies, in spite of rigid examination of recruits, have been one of the most important military problems. Although our Army medical officers so far succeeded in eliminating the mentally defective, that among the first 800,000 men examined, only 400 cases developed, Surgeon-General Ireland reports that the mental and nervous cases requiring special treatment among soldiers in camps in this country is 2.5 per thousand, - slightly over the percentage in civil life. Among the troops overseas the number is 10 per thousand. Yet this evidence that the consciousness must be reckoned with, as well as the physical man, is not interpreted at its full value in studying modern pathology. Even though the body and the brain willingly enlist in the business of warfare, the higher side of the nature may recoil from such engagement, and put the trained soldier at odds with himself.

'Shell-shock' cases illustrate a baffling phase of disordered consciousness. Many of these men, suffering pitiably from chronic fear, trembling, and hallucinations, have been decorated for extraordinary bravery in battle - a paradox which no laboratory analysis can interpret. As the Senate Committee on Military Affairs learned recently, the effect of the announcement of the armistice on 'shell-shock' patients was, that among 2,500 of them 2,100 were restored to normal within a day or two! Surely it was no micro-organism which had caused the lack of alignment between the inner and outer man, when the mere news of peace restored the dislocation. Nor will bacteriology account for the high mortality from epidemic influenza in isolated islands and among hardy people of simple, natural life. This world-epidemic, following a world-war of unequaled ferocity, and exceeding it in fatalities for an equal length of time, points out the fact that though the armistice has silenced the guns, the enormous destructive forces evoked by humanity will expend their malign power.

A recent editorial in The Journal of the American Medical Association throws a sidelight upon the helplessness and uncertainty which the profession feel in attempting to handle the present epidemic with the technique of diagnosis and treatment evolved from unlimited laboratory experience and experimentation. The editor says:

"An unbiassed observer, after listening to the discussions concerning influenza, at the session of the American Public Health Association, would come to the conclusion that some of those present were concerned largely with justifying their course of action during the epidemic; in other words, that they had not come with an open mind. Argument after argument was made on the basis of broad generalization or of unverifiable statistics. This is especially to be regretted because most of the points under discussion concerned questions susceptible of scientific proof. None of the health officers need to apologize for what they have done or left undone. The prophylaxis and treatment of this disease on a scientific basis depend on an accurate knowledge of its etiology and epidemiology. But the etiology of the epidemic is unknown, and its mode of transmission is unknown. Health officers had no guide of action and, by the very nature of things, could not have such a guide as long as our knowledge of the disease is as meager as it is. All had done what they thought was for the best; this was indicated by the spirit of the meetings and the discussions."

Undoubtedly the questions of the present epidemic are "susceptible of scientific proof"; but only the broad perspective of the sacred science of life itself can read the deeper meaning of disease and disorder.

(Vol. 16, pp. 281-82)

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Psychology: True and False - H. T. Edge

A writer, in speaking of the speck of protoplasmic jelly as the origin from which the human embryo takes its start, says:

"We might expect (did we not know the wonderful process it is destined to undergo) any sort of development or none at all; yet within that apparently formless, microscopic compass lie potentialities which will ultimately result in the production of the complex and wonderfully co-ordinated human body, with its array of specialized organs. Such a history may well illustrate the impossibility of passing a judgment on any form of life from contemplating its origin alone." (Miss E.M. Caillard in Hibbert Journal, July [1920])

How many theories does this invalidate? Yet there seems something philosophically wrong about the last statement; and perhaps we may get over the difficulty by slightly altering the statement and saying that it is impossible to judge of a form of life from contemplating its alleged origin alone. Perhaps again the difficulty lies in the word 'contemplating,' and we should say that it is impossible to forecast the future from a cursory and superficial glimpse of the alleged origin. Thus the stigma is removed from philosophy and cast upon the shoulders of our own inefficiency.

For first, is the said speck the origin of the human organism? And next, is it nothing but a speck of protoplasmic jelly? If that speck contains the whole potentiality of what it will become, that potentiality ought to be perceivable; if the origin could be adequately studied, the result ought to be predictable. And if that speck does not contain the entire potentiality, then it cannot rightly be called the origin, but only an origin, one factor out of several.

It is important also to notice that, before the biologist can predict the outcome, he must have known it already. He has traced the path backwards from the human form to the speck, but he could never have gone forwards. And how often do we find, on examining such schemes of evolution, that the whole of that which is to be derived must first be presupposed! We attempt to pass from the atom to the God, and find ourselves obliged to begin by endowing the atom with all the powers of the God. In the attempt to reduce the complex to the simple, we have to endow each component of our analysis with greater and more wonderful powers, until the rudiment becomes more marvelous than its product. Utter failure has attended the endeavor to construct a universe and to people it by starting with a grain of dust endowed with nothing but the power of attraction. Actual experiment has revealed something very different - the electron, which seems to be the very Soul and God of the material world. We need an application of mathematics here. Is the One the smallest and humblest of numbers, as in the mathematics of the cash-register; or is it, as in the symbolic card-deck, the greatest of all the numbers; is the One the Whole?

Everything proceeds from the One, and the One is the Whole. If we reduce the complex human organism to its simplest form, if we resolve it into a unit, we thereby at the

same time elevate it to its most godlike and potent form. What human being can accomplish what that protoplasmic speck achieves?

The whole man that is to be exists beforehand, enthroned so high that our bodily senses perceive him not, and our microscopes reveal but the tip of his little finger, which we call a protoplasmic speck. What we call the evolution of the speck is the gradual descent of the man, bit by bit, into the plane of visibility. And who shall say but his death is a reascent into the sublime, leaving behind once more nothing visible but - the protoplasmic speck?

What we have been calling evolution seems to be the history of things as they come into visibility, the drama of their gradual descent upon the physical plane. A friend with a remarkable memory once told us that he recalled seeing, when he was a baby, his mother gradually growing larger and larger; she was only drawing nearer and nearer, but his infantile mind had not yet learnt the formula which relates distance to apparent size. In the same way, what we call evolution is the coming of things nearer to us. If there are latent within us finer senses that can see beyond the veil of physical objectivity, we might be able to discern the product in the germ, to see the future. Applied to the evolution of events, this would be tantamount to prophecy.

The hindbefore method in evolutionary theory has tempted people to represent thought as a chemical process, instead of regarding chemical action as a species of thought. In biology people are trying to represent man's highest and noblest aspirations as merely forms of the "primitive instincts" which they seem to descry in the lowlier organisms. Perhaps this also is a hindbefore method. Perhaps those primitive instincts are the product of the high aspirations, instead of the other way round. The vileness of the ape, is it the parent of our own social amenities; or is it a degenerative product of the same? We ask, because nowadays there are eminent people who say that the ape has descended from the man, not the man risen from the ape.

That morbid school of biology associated with the name of Freud tries to find in man's cogitations and aspirations the mere varnished and modified representatives of vulgar propensities. But consider an idiot; is a sensible man a perfected form of idiot? Or is an idiot a degenerate form of man? Is my refined yearning for the realization of harmony and happiness nothing but an elaboration of the idiot's degenerate habits? Or are his degenerate habits the distortion of those high aspirations which he is unable to realize?

If, in the abandonment of uneasy slumbers and an overloaded digestive tract, there float before my eyes visions of gruesome experiences, are these the stones out of which the lordly edifice of my soul is built? Nay, they are but the funguses and weeds that grow in an untilled soil. To try and fathom human nature by studying its most morbid manifestations may yield results of a kind; and in the same way we might learn something of the yerba-santa by studying the fungus that grows, in pitiful mockery of its host, from the roots of that plant. Yet to say that the plant is an evolutionary product of the parasite!

While philosophers and scientists of various schools are dimly groping their way towards a lucid and workable analysis of human nature, the sages of the far past would seem to have achieved it long ago, and to have reached their wisdom by the most refined methods of self-study and contemplation. We have only to refer to the philosophies of ancient India in illustration of this remark. This is not the place to enter into a description of the numerous grades of consciousness and mental action recognised in such systems; but roughly we may regard the intellect as that field of consciousness wherein are displayed the overlapping activities of spiritual vision on the one hand and animal instinct on the other. It is thus that we shall discover in our mental process many elements both of mere instinct and of divine intuition, of selfish propensity and of lofty aspiration to duty. And, if we try to represent the man himself as merely the sum-total of his component parts, we shall reduce him to a committee, with an elective and representative chairman in

perpetual conflict with his unruly constituents. Says Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita:

"It is even a portion of myself which, having assumed life in this world of conditioned existence, draweth together the five senses and the mind in order that it may obtain a body and may leave it again."

Thus man is the One and the Many; and the Many do not constitute the man, but only the house wherein he dwells and the instrument he uses. Yet this is scarcely true of the imperfect man we know; for in him there are numerous rebellious subjects disputing the government with the rightful sovereign.

An animal cannot study its own instincts; but a man can study his instincts, because he has a mind which can stand aloof from them. How then shall a man study his own mind? To view a scene in which we are included, we must rise above and out of it to a higher level; and this is the method of ancient wisdom, which prescribes self-mastery as the necessary preliminary to knowledge. To achieve vision, the mind must be steady; and as we find it pulled hither and thither by many vain impulses, it will be more profitable to practice ourselves in the mastery of these impulses than to perplex ourselves with inquiries into their origin. The latter knowledge will come in proportion as we succeed in the practical work. It is one of our failings that we let study and speculation outstrip actual work too far; and the consequence is that the study and speculation become vague and unpractical, and we are apt to lead a double life in which our conduct is far below the level of our professions. Hence practical work is as important in self-study as it is in the study of physics or chemistry.

The Higher Man can control the lower man, and the lower man can control the body. Modern biology is concerned too much with the relation between the lower man and his body, and does not attend sufficiently to the relation between the Higher Man and the lower man. The mind is, as it were, a throne; and we may permit our lower instincts to sit on that throne, so that man becomes an intelligent animal, following his own desires, though these desires may seem very refined and grandiose. But that throne can also be occupied by the spirit of wisdom and conscience, thus making man a worthy son of his divine parentage. And when the wisdom and conscience take control of the mind, the mind reacts healthily on the bodily instrument, and the animal instincts are relegated to their proper sphere and dimensions.

The kind of psychology referred to seems to bear the same relation to real psychology as pathology does to physiology, or morbid anatomy to a study of the structure of the body in health: it is a study of diseased conditions; and, as such, it has of course its proper sphere, or can be over-emphasized so as to overstep that sphere. What is needed is a study of character, based on the cardinal truth that man's psychic nature is dual, and his mind the battle-ground between animal and divine incentives. Then, instead of performing experiments upon invalids or children, we shall endeavor to summon to their aid the power of their higher nature and to check the manifestations of intrusive lower impulses.

(Vol. 19, pp. 520-23)

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Science

Was the Telescope Known in Ancient Times? - C. J. Ryan

The puzzling question of the amount of scientific knowledge possessed by the ancient peoples of the earth becomes more insistent every day. It is no use for the superior persons who delight in assuring the vanity of this age that it is the only really scientific period, and that "we are the people," to declare that the ancients were ignoramuses, dreamers, who only worked on empiric rules, and so forth, for there are numerous facts which confute these slanders. To most persons, brought up in the scholastic atmosphere of contempt for former ages which got on without newspapers, steamships, trains, or our modern brand of religion, it is difficult to realize the possibility that many scientific facts, recently discovered, may have been quite familiar to the learned scholars in the temple-colleges of ancient Egypt, India, Chaldaea, and elsewhere. But it is not unreasonable for us to modify our prejudices when definite information reaches us of some antique observation of a truly scientific nature which cannot easily fit into the theory of primitive ignorance.

Another cause for suspecting that we are living in a great illusion when we think modern civilization is the highest efflorescence of human progress, is the enormous antiquity of mankind. The geological age in which man's relics - bones or implements - are recognized, is being pushed back farther and farther; a few years ago the race was allowed forty or fifty thousand years; remains were then found (or admitted after having been found long before) from the late Tertiary, then earlier, and now the primitive flint implements called eoliths are generally accepted as of human manufacture - and they have been found in the immensely ancient Oligocene at Boncelles.

According to the testimony of the breaking down of radioactive minerals into lead and helium, the Oligocene is not less than six million years old! What, then, has mankind been doing all these ages? Vegetating in the most primitive way, until the Chaldaean age in the Old World and the Chimus in the New, a few thousand years ago, ten at the outside? How absurd this sounds when placed nakedly! The truth is, as it has always been taught in the East, that there have been innumerable rises and falls in civilization, and that progress is extremely slow.

In The Scientific American Monthly for June there is an article by Dr. Heinrich Hein upon the possibility of the ancient Babylonian astronomers possessing telescopes, which shows that the problem is not decided in the negative. Dr. Hein offers some very interesting information which makes it probable that optical aid was not unknown in very ancient times, in Mesopotamia at least, but he also omits to mention some facts of great significance in proof of considerably greater astronomical knowledge in antiquity than is generally known. He says that there is no indication in the writings of the Greeks, Romans, or Arabs that before Galileo (in 1609 and later) any one had ever perceived the crescent form of Venus. He is partially in error here, as will be shown. He says, however, that some years ago the following prophecy was discovered, written in cuneiform characters as uttered by some ancient Babylonian astrologer:

"When it cometh to pass that Venus hideth a star with her right horn and when Venus is large and the star is small, then will the king of Elam be strong and mighty, holding sway over the four corners of the earth, and other kings will pay him tribute."

Dr. Hein commenting on this, says:"This is immediately repeated with the exception that the word right is replaced by

left and the name Elam by that of Akkad. Akkad signifies Babylonia, the arch enemy of Elam, and these two nations were in ancient days (c. 2,000 B.C.) the only two great powers in Asia Minor, and were engaged in a struggle with each other for the mastery of the world as known to them, i.e., for the rulership over the whole of Asia Minor. The blotting out of a small star by the 'horn' of Venus must have been such an extraordinary

occurrence as to induce the astrologer to connect it with the greatest prize in his power to offer, dominion over the four corners of the world. There is absolutely no doubt that the Babylonian word in question signifies horn. Hence it really looks as if the Babylonians had recognised the phases of Venus."

Dr. Hein then considers the possibility of sharp-sighted persons seeing the horns of Venus in Mesopotamia. But he points out, even if Babylonia has very clear air, so have many other places. In Europe the planet often shines brightly enough to throw a shadow, and surely the Arabians live under a brilliant and transparent sky. He mentions an astronomer, Heis, who had such penetrating sight that he could easily see Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury in daylight, and eleven stars in the Pleiades where the normal person sees six, but Heis did not report seeing the crescent form of Venus.

Babylonian texts also speak of the 'horns' of Mars. Now Mars, of course, being an outer planet is never seen as a crescent, but at certain times it is distinctly gibbous, that is to say, a large proportion of its surface is in shadow, and the effect is like that of the Moon when about nine days old; the shape is so far from circular that it might easily be called horned. Mars, when strongly gibbous, is so small, hardly more than 15", that it could not possibly be visible to the naked eye. Venus is about 55" in diameter when at the clearest crescent phase, and even this is far too small for any shape to be distinguished without optical assistance. The mention of the horns of Mars, therefore, adds to the probability that the Babylonian astronomers either had some kind of telescope or learned their science from some others who had. There is of course the third possibility that 'horns' has a mystical or symbolical significance, as it has elsewhere in the Semitic tongues.

Regarding the possibility of the Babylonians knowing that Saturn had a ring, Dr. Hein is rather vague, saying that only a direct mention of the rings in a cuneiform text would be convincing. Others have thought it more than probable that the Babylonians knew about the rings, and this in spite of the well-known fact that the astronomers of the seventeenth century, Galileo and his successors, found it very difficult to recognize the true shape of the rings though they had telescopes of a simple kind. Galileo's glass, which showed Jupiter's moons and the phases of Venus, did not define Saturn's ring unmistakably.

Dr. Hein speculates as to the kind of telescope the Babylonians might have had, but only mentions the possible use of the concave mirror - the reflecting form. He refers to the story of Archimedes projecting the concentrated rays of the sun by means of mirrors against the Roman fleet at Syracuse in 212 B.C and thereby setting ships on fire, in support of the possibility of the existence of concave mirrors in antiquity.

Dr. Hein does not seem to be aware of certain facts which, from quite ordinary, matter-of-fact evidence, make it more than probable that the ancients knew a great deal about the planets, including the crescent shape of Venus and Mercury, the gibbosity of Mars, the Rings of Saturn, and even the four moons of Jupiter and possibly seven moons of Saturn!

Tests to determine whether the half-moon or crescent shape of Venus can be seen by persons of unusually keen vision were made a couple of years ago in the brilliant atmosphere of Algeria. Drawings of the planet, well lighted and free from the distracting glare which makes Venus such a difficult object for the telescope at twilight and dawn, were made and examined by specially sharp-sighted Algerian college students at varying distances. No shape could be distinguished until the pictures were near enough to appear twice the diameter of the planet at its position of best definition of shape. Full reports appeared in the scientific journals of this valuable proof of the impossibility of seeing the crescent shape of Venus or Mercury without a glass.

Furthermore, an ancient Irish astronomical textbook contains the statements that in certain positions Venus and Mercury are horned like the New Moon. This textbook was

translated, at least for the most part, into the Irish language from a Latin version of a work by Masch Allah, an Arabian or Jewish astronomer of the eighth century A.D. It was translated into Latin in the thirteenth century and into Irish about 1400. How did the Arabs (or the translators in 1400, if they added the information which is not likely) know anything about the phases of the inferior planets long before Galileo's telescope was thought of (1609) unless they had seen them or had received the true teachings from earlier scientists who had observed their shapes by means of telescopes? And these early observers may have been Chaldaeans or Egyptians or Hindus, or even men of nations now utterly lost to history, such as the Atlanteans. We know that the Chaldaeans had a good deal of knowledge of astronomy. The Babylonians used the sun-dial and had fairly accurate ideas as to the relative distances of the sun, moon, and planets from the Earth. Professor Rawlinson thought their knowledge was much greater than the Romans and Greeks believed, and he gives evidence to show that the Chaldaeans observed the four larger satellites of Jupiter, the ring of Saturn and seven of its satellites, some of which are very small and require a large telescope to show them.

Dr. Hein suggests that the Babylonians used the reflecting form of telescope with concave mirrors, and that this would be conclusively proved if we were quite certain that they did see Saturn's ring, etc. But is it not much more probable that they used the refracting telescope? Such a form of telescope consists entirely of transparent lenses, and a lens was actually found in the ruins of Nimrud, Assyria. Professor Sayce, in Babylonian and Assyrian Life (1914) says:

"The lens, which is of crystal, has been turned on a lathe and is now in the British Museum."

A magnifying glass is needed properly to read the minute writing on many of the clay tablets. The carved reliefs of Baal or Ninib, in which the god is standing within a ring, are very significant, for he has been identified with the planet Saturn, according to Prof. Sayce.

According to the teachings of Theosophy, the ancients possessed far more knowledge than our attitude of mind allows us to suspect, and we are slowly rediscovering many things that were once well known.

(Vol. 19, pp. 574-77)

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Function of Intuition in Discovery - T. Henry

The following is surely a most remarkable fact. If we take some simple folk-melody, of unquestioned beauty, deathless, full of unfathomable meaning, and analyze its structure, we find it to be a very simple arrangement of a few notes, an octave or only half an octave, in a very simple rhythm. Yet no man on earth can sit down and make another arrangement of notes that shall begin to compare with it - let him try till Doomsday. But at any time some obscure person may get an inspiration and write down another such melody, and this will be found to be as simple an arrangement of notes as the other.

A principle underlies this mystery, a principle applicable to other cases than the one we have chosen for illustration - applicable to discoveries in science, mathematics, what not? It must mean that the perfectly obvious lies ever just beyond our reach, all

unsuspected and unattained, awaiting the arrival of some moment when it can be revealed. It means that intuition is the first faculty in discovery and creation, the other faculties being a long way behind. If a man who cannot draw should sit down with a pencil and draw faces on paper until he chanced to make a madonna, how long would he have to try? The same with the would-be composer of an undying melody; the possible combinations being virtually infinite, the process of hitting on the right one by chance is hopeless. And as to any method, that is even more futile.

It has often been alleged that science learns by observing a large number of facts and arriving at the truth from them by a machine known as the inductive method. De Morgan, the mathematician, asks whether the purpose of collected facts is not rather to be used as means for verifying theories previously formed in the mind. The history of scientific discovery, he says, indicates this. Certainly a stink-bug could make no use of a large collection of scientific facts; and the fact that he is able to use the very few he does collect is due to his having in his stupid horny head a pre-formed notion as to what he intends to do with them - that is, digest them. So every explorer must have an idea of some kind in his mind. And truly explorers and inventors are people with a keen scent who are after something. They pay little attention to other matters, which they do not want, which may come in their way; they brush them aside as irrelevant and seize only those they need.

(Vol. 15, p. 266)

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Invention - M. G. Munson

"The Universe is the externalization of the Soul." - Emerson

Of all the faculties of the human soul which act and manifest on the material plane of existence, that of invention most clearly and surely proves the pre-existence and the divine origin of the creative powers of the human soul.

In every new invention given to the world, it is shown that in the hidden chambers of soul man knew the thing could be done, no matter how chimerical it appeared to the brain-mind in general. Take the airship, for instance. For years before it became an actuality, a man here and there dreamed of it, and one after another tried to put the dream into an objective form with many failures, until finally we have really practical and serviceable machines flying all over the world.

So it is with all other inventions: first, a dream; the idea comes stealing into the brain-mind from some interior source, and by nurturing it and meditating upon it, the thing in its perfection is finally produced for the use of all mankind.

Where does the idea first originate? Does it not prove that at some time in the past we had the knowledge, and that man must have had all that we now have in the world of inventions and more? - things which were lost through ages of darkness caused by degradation of those high spiritual qualities and powers, which belong to man; and now that the races are again arising from bestiality and gaining in moral and ethical appreciation, the old knowledge and inventions are returning; and the more the soul purifies itself from the sense-life of the merely animal, the higher and more helpful to the growth and happiness of man will our future inventions tend to become.

In Madame Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine, she quotes from an ancient manuscript called 'The Book of Dzyan' - so old that it is utterly unknown to our philologists

- passages recording a great battle fought in air-ships or 'Vimanas,' by opposing parties in old Atlantis, just prior to its sinking beneath the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. To find this in a book so ancient that no one knows when it was made, and in a language antedating the Sanskrit, is proof positive in written record that we are now recovering some of the ancient knowledge in the arts, sciences, and inventions, that was once ours.

The 'Book of Dzyan' was found in the temple literature of one of the ancient subterranean crypts, or cave-libraries, cut in the rock on mountains, and quotations from and references to the same events recorded in it are to be found scattered through thousands of Sanskrit Mss., which are slowly being translated. Be it remembered that this book was quoted from by Madame Blavatsky when writing The Secret Doctrine, more than thirty years ago, when the present air-ship was but a dream in the inventor's mind, laughed at by those who called themselves sane and practical. Let those who wish to know more of ancient wisdom read the two volumes of The Secret Doctrine by H.P. Blavatsky.

Through invention man rises into the truly creative realm of being and proves himself one with the creative Mind of the Universe - a god or son of the Most High, and this thought points to the fact that it is his mission finally to take his place as one of the great conscious forces of creation, working under the direction and in harmony with the primal fount of wisdom - the great central Heart of the Universe. This is what Jesus recognised as true when he said, "Is it not written in your law, 'Ye are gods'?"

Truly, the wisdom of God is found within man's heart, but no mortal mind can obtain the greater knowledge or spiritual wisdom until he aspires to and lives a god-like life, restraining his animal bodily impulses and material senses, so that all will be in obedience to his highest spiritual qualities, those lasting and beautiful virtues that so clearly distinguish man from all below him.

The arts and crafts may also be said to belong to the field of invention, being creative, though they are more distinctly from the beautiful side and appeal to the esthetic and moral nature rather than to the practical, material life that what we call invention usually ministers to. Creations in color and form, or the composer's musical productions, are first pictured to the mind or heard within - a handing-down of divine ideas, infinite in variety. The musician creates or invents his combination of chords and arrangement of musical numbers so as to express to others the divine harmonies that well up from within or are heard through his inner ear from the etheric realms of being.

What animal or bird ever shows the inventive faculty? Each genus or species of bird or animal repeats the same instinctual methods in building its habitations, generation after generation, without the slightest change and never for any other purpose than the needs of caring for its offspring. So if man is merely a higher evolution in the animal kingdom, as some scientists claim, how comes he all at once to create things for their beauty, convenience, and pleasure, or to satisfy his moral and spiritual yearnings, having no bearing whatever on his ability to exist and rear his offspring? All the arts, music, practical inventions, or scientific knowledge, are absolutely unknown to and superfluous to the monkey, and the latter has never shown the slightest sign of advancement or attainment of any of man's god-like qualities as far back as it can be traced up to the present time. This surely proves that the thinking, creative man is an incarnation of a higher order of being in the animal body he uses and inhabits. So in the light of the great scope and power of the inventive faculty, how absurd appear the arguments of the materialist for the animal origin of man, and against his immortal spirit!

(Vol. 16, pp. 81-83)

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Materialism - T. Henry

An article on the question, 'What is Materialism?', which we clip from a newspaper, shows that the word is used in so many different senses, and so vaguely, as to lead to endless and unprofitable dispute. Many authorities are quoted, and among them John Fiske, who says:

"Those persons are popularly called materialists who allow their actions to be guided by the desires of the moment, without reference to any such rule of right living as is termed 'a high ideal of life.' Persons who worship nothing but worldly success, who care for nothing but wealth and fashionable display or personal celebrity or sensual gratification, are thus loosely called materialists."

And he objects strongly to this loose usage of the word, because it implies a slur upon many philosophical materialists whose character does not at all fit the description.

Materialism is generally contrasted with idealism, and one authority goes so far as to say that the difference between the two reduces itself to a war of words. Both are monistic systems, or attempts to derive the universe from a single root; and, as neither matter nor idea are definable, except in terms that carry us back to fundamental hypostases, there really does not seem to be much difference between the two. H.P. Blavatsky couples them together, as when she says:

"We prefer the charge of folly in believing too much, to that of a madness which denies everything, as do Materialism and Idealism." - The Secret Doctrine, I, 520

And where she speaks of

"Modern 'Psychologists,' so-called, whose idealism is another name for uncompromising materialism." - I, 620, footnote.

The vagueness of the word 'matter ' enables materialists to play hide and seek with critics. For argumentative purposes they may define it as the fundamental substance of the universe, thus endowing it with the attributes of deity; while for practical purposes they may define it as "that which can be handled and weighed," or "that which can be perceived by the bodily senses."

Modern science is called materialistic on account of this latter limitation. When Tyndall said that he saw in matter the promise and potency of every form or quality of life, he meant the ordinary physical matter with which physicists deal. Evolutionary theories are called materialistic when they try to represent man as derived from the lower kingdoms by the self-evolution of matter; and when they deny the operation of any other than material forces in the process. A materialist is one who believes that there can be no thought apart from brain, and no survival of consciousness after the death of the body. This is the popular view of materialism, and the correct view in general, despite the fact that people can be named who have called themselves materialists and who yet believe in immortality and God.

Theosophists are prone to judge the question ethically rather than philosophically, and to weigh materialism by its results. Any philosophy or science which has the effect of discouraging man's belief in his spiritual nature, and of concentrating his attention and desires on the physical life, is materialistic. The materialistic attitude is that of the man who sets more store by worldly things than by high ideals of conduct and high aspirations. Religion may be very materialistic, in spite of its dogmas about God and the soul; and

conversely a professed sceptic may be the reverse of materialistic in his attitude towards life.

Materialism as a religion worships force and wealth, and denies the efficacy of the higher sentiments. Perhaps it might be better to avoid mistakes by substituting the word 'animalism' for materialism. Animalism, then, accentuates the animal nature of man and regards those propensities which man shares with the animals as being the dominant forces in his life. It denies his divine origin and nature, and scoffs at the idea of unselfish motives. H.P. Blavatsky considered that modern science was not by any means helping to stem the tide of materialism; and that, whether as promoter or unwitting accomplice, it stood in need of severe criticism, which she administers.

If a Theosophist should say: "I believe that, by thinking noble thoughts and molding my conduct to high ideals of duty, I can actually throw out a force which will influence other people for good and thus help to overcome evils"; and if then a man claiming to speak for science should reply: "I will not believe in this force of yours unless you can demonstrate it to me by laboratory methods, and publish it in such a way that any man can repeat the experiment for himself"; - would this latter speaker be a scientific materialist? And if he did his best to make the world accept this view of the matter, and wrote books urging people not to believe in anything that could not be thus demonstrated, should we be justified in convicting him of materialism?

And here we come upon the game of hide and seek again; for the man of science may say that his studies are limited to those things which can be experimentally repeated by any other man; and yet in actual practice he may be striving to limit all knowledge to that category. He may be a denier, a man who declares that there is nothing beyond what can be so demonstrated. Science may limit the field of its studies to things which can be experimentally verified by laboratory methods, but has no right to deny the existence of other things. If it does, it becomes a dogmatism and a bigotry. But we find people claiming to speak for science, and ready to shift their ground from one attitude to the other as suits the immediate convenience; now disavowing, now asserting, a dogmatic attitude.

A scientist true to professed principle, if confronted with the doctrine of Reincarnation (for instance), might say that it lay outside his province, because it cannot be demonstrated by the rules of scientific procedure. But he must not say that Reincarnation is nonsense.

Materialistic views as to the purpose and method of education; as to the real meaning and object of the marital relation; as to the nature of art and music; as to the best policy in government or economics; as to medicine, alimentation, etc. - all these have prevailed to a dangerous extent, and their prevalence constitutes materialism. The question arises as to what function scientific and philosophic views have performed in the process. This question is solved practically (as questions usually are) by Theosophy, in its policy of proclaiming higher and broader ideals; for whatever theory we may hold, it is evident that the situation demands such a policy. The danger of materialistic sciences and philosophies is recognized in practice, and countered in practice. Theosophists do believe that the promulgation of Theosophy will stem the tide of materialism; they do believe it is important to counteract the effect of materialistic teachings. Paradoxically enough, materialists recognise the value of the individual and the idea in their propaganda, so Theosophists are merely using the same weapons.

Theosophy is working to impress upon mankind a nobler idea of man; and Theosophists would define materialism as anything which tends to degrade man in his own estimation. Theosophy strives to give man a nobler happier idea of life, and materialism can be described as that which tends to make man regard life as a drifting in the tide of blind forces and resistless desires. Theosophy exalts the individual, and materialism exalts the circumstance; Theosophy sees intelligence where materialism descries only blind force.

It is sufficiently clear for practical purposes what is understood by materialism from the Theosophical viewpoint. It is futile to make such a point out of not being able to define a thing; the simplest and most familiar notions may be the most difficult to define.

It sounds like a paradox to say that materialists are superstitious. Yet, as they have so strictly limited the possibilities of nature, when convinced beyond denial that something has happened that cannot be explained by their philosophy, they are driven to the expedient of the supernatural. They believe in miracles. Or, having limited the possibilities of man, they resort to a belief in some kind of superman. Again, the body and its life being all in all to them, the soul and any higher faculty becomes reduced to a mere inspiration from a superior being. The intellectual habit of materialism often survives the formal rejection of the doctrine. And there is a materialism of the heart, felt by people who profess and perhaps honestly persuade themselves that they have embraced noble and unselfish ideals; but who, under the stress of trial, find that their aspirations are not strong enough or genuine enough to carry them through. Materialism is of the earth, earthy; and perhaps no better definition of it could be given than to say that it is the downward gravitation in man - the attraction towards his animal nature - however manifested, whether in philosophy, sentiment, or conduct.

Against the dread chill of materialism, both the individual and society must eventually react, by force of the light of life within them. Has not such a reaction already taken place in the world? The individual, pining and suffocating in a prison of materialism, amid doubts and fears and the disillusionment arising from misplaced affections, calls aloud in the silence upon "whatever gods may be" to deliver him and bless his life once more with the light and the glow. This is his salvation, and that of society must be similar. Society calls for nobler ideals and a vital philosophy; Theosophy answers: The Soul knows not defeat, and can rise again from any tomb. Man calls upon his own Soul to rescue him from the tomb in which his doubts and wayward desires have buried him.

That call will not be made in vain; for Helpers stand ever ready to respond. The Souls of the great and good, who departed from our sight in the full tide of their high aspirations, still live as mighty powers for help. And the Souls of those yet living have power to reach through viewless aethers in fellowship with those whose aspirations are akin to their own. Materialists perhaps do not believe that such influences exist; and we are not prepared to demonstrate them. But there comes a time when our need for belief is so great that we do not stop to philosophize, but make the experiment for ourselves.

Enough has now been said to show that we are not much interested in the precise definition of philosophical materialism; but that, for practical purposes, we regard materialism as whatever tends to chain man down, mentally or morally, to the lower side of his nature.

(Vol. 15, pp. 305-8)

"Matter itself is a perfectly uncertain substance, continually affected by change. The most absolute and universal laws of natural and physical life, as understood by the scientist, will pass away when the life of this universe has passed away, and only its soul is left in the silence." - Light on the Path

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[Theosophy and the Ape from Man Theory]

Honor to Whom Honor is Due

- J. H. Fussell

[1918]

An interesting, and to many a startling, contribution to modern science has recently been made by Professor Wood Jones, Professor of Anatomy in the University of London. So important was this considered to be that a long report of Professor Jones' conclusions was cabled to the New York Times, which we quote here in full.

"Says Man was Ancestor of Apes"British Scientist Calls for Reconsideration of Post-Darwinian Theory

"Talgai Skull Deductions"Man Highly Developed Ages Before Period He was Supposed to be Mere Brute

"'Special Cable to The New York Times."'London, Feb. 28. That man is not descended from anthropoid apes, that these

would be in fact more accurately described as having been descended from man, that man as man is far more ancient than the whole anthropoid branch, and that compared with him the chimpanzee and orang-outang are newcomers on this planet, were assertions made by Professor Wood Jones, Professor of Anatomy in the University of London, in a lecture yesterday on the origin of man.

"'The professor claimed these assertions were proved not only by recent anatomical research, but to be deducible from the whole trend of geological and anthropological discovery.

"'One of the most interesting references in the lecture was to recent reports by Dr. Stewart Arthur Smith of Sydney on the Talgai skull discovered in 1889 in Darling Downs, N.S.W., but never seriously investigated till 1914.

"'This undoubtedly human skull, very highly mineralized,' he said, 'was found in a stratum with extinct pouched mammals, and probably is as ancient as the famous Piltdown skull, whose human nature was so hotly disputed just before the war. In deposits of the same age as those in which the Talgai skull was unearthed were found bones of dingo dogs, and also bones of extinct pouched mammals gnawed by these dogs.

"'Until the arrival of Captain Cook in Australia no non-pouched mammals were ever introduced upon the Australian island continent. It is geologically certain that Australia has always been surrounded by the sea since the time of the evolution of pouched mammals. Had it not been so, it is almost certain that many non-pouched mammals in the neighboring continents would have migrated thither.

"'How then can the presence of the Talgai man and his dingo dogs alone among these be accounted for? The conclusion deducible is that he must have arrived there in boats with his family and his domestic dogs, and the astounding fact emerges that at a period in the world's history, when only a year or two ago the most advanced anatomists were satisfied man was scarcely distinguishable from his brute ancestors, a man already so highly developed as to have domesticated animals and to be a boat builder and navigator was actually in Australia, and, to an astonishing degree, the reasoning master of his own fate.'

"In view not only of this, but of even more convincing evidence gathered from man's own anatomical structure, Professor Wood Jones made a moving appeal for the whole reconsideration of the post-Darwinian conception of man's comparative recent emergence from the brute kingdom. The missing link of Huxley, if ever found, would not be a more apelike man, but a more human ape."

Forty-one years ago, in 1877, Helena P. Blavatsky published her first great work, Isis Unveiled: A Master-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology. In the Preface, the author writes:

"It is offered to such as are willing to accept truth wherever it may be found, and to defend it, even looking popular prejudice straight in the face....

"The book is written in all sincerity. It is meant to do even justice, and to speak the truth alike without malice or prejudice. But it shows neither mercy for enthroned error, nor reverence for usurped authority. It demands for a spoliated past, that credit for its achievements which has been too long withheld. It calls for a restitution of borrowed robes, and the vindication of calumniated but glorious reputations. Toward no form of worship, no religious faith, no scientific hypothesis has its criticism been directed in any other spirit. Men and parties, sects and schools are but the mere ephemera of the world's day. Truth, high-seated upon its rock of adamant, is alone eternal and supreme."

And in the opening chapter, Madame Blavatsky writes:

"In undertaking to inquire into the assumed infallibility of Modern Science and Theology, the author has been forced even at the risk of being thought discursive, to make constant comparisons of the ideas, achievements, and pretensions of their representatives, with those of the ancient philosophers and religious teachers. Things the most widely separated as to time, have thus been brought into immediate juxtaposition, for only thus could the priority and parentage of discoveries and dogmas be determined. In discussing the merits of our scientific contemporaries, their own confessions of failure in experimental research, of baffling mysteries, of missing links in their chains of theory, of inability to comprehend natural phenomena, of ignorance of the laws of the causal world, have furnished the basis for the present study.... We have laid no charge against scientists that is not supported by their own published admissions, and if our citations from the records of antiquity rob some of what they have hitherto viewed as well-earned laurels, the fault is not ours but Truth's. No man worthy of the name of philosopher would care to wear honors that rightfully belong to another.

"....Our voice is raised for spiritual freedom, and our plea made for enfranchisement from all tyranny, whether of Science or Theology."

Madame Blavatsky's second great work, her greatest, so many regard it, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, was published in 1888, exactly thirty years ago. Its two volumes deal respectively with Cosmosgenesis and Anthropogenesis. In the latter, particularly, is given a comprehensive review of the theories advanced by modern science respecting the origin and evolution of man; and in contrast with these, a presentation of the most ancient teachings, based upon Stanzas of the Book of Dzyan, which Madame Blavatsky declares to be:

"....the records of a people unknown to ethnology; it is claimed that they are written in a tongue absent from the nomenclature of languages and dialects with which philology is acquainted; they are said to emanate from a source (Occultism) repudiated by science; and, finally, they are offered through, an agency, incessantly discredited before the world by all those who hate unwelcome truths, or have some special hobby of their own to defend. Therefore, the rejection of these teachings may be expected, and must be accepted beforehand. No one styling himself a 'scholar,' in whatever department of exact science, will be permitted to regard these teachings seriously. They will be derided and rejected a priori in this century; but only in this one. For in the twentieth century of our era scholars will begin to recognize that the Secret Doctrine has neither been invented nor

exaggerated, but, on the contrary, simply outlined; and finally, that its teachings antedate the Vedas." (Vol. I, xxxvii, Introductory)

To the last statement, Madame Blavatsky adds a footnote, saying:

"This is no pretension to prophecy, but simply a statement based on the knowledge of facts. Every century an attempt is being made to show the world that Occultism is no vain superstition. Once the door be permitted to be kept a little ajar, it will be opened wider with every new century. The times are ripe for a more serious knowledge than hitherto permitted, though still very limited, so far."

With each succeeding year since their publication, these two great works, Isis Unveiled, and The Secret Doctrine, have found a wider circle of readers. Regarded at first, save by a few, more as literary curiosities, "inventions," "exaggerations," they are being increasingly recognized as among the most serious attempts (if you like) in all literature to get at the foundations of human knowledge, and to make an impartial study of the ancient wisdom, and contrast it with modern scientific theories and religious dogmas. They are being increasingly recognized as dealing with the greatest scientific problems of this or any age; as being in themselves scientific, philosophic, and religious in the highest degree.

True, they have been rejected and derided, as Madame Blavatsky said they would be, in the last century, and are still rejected and derided by some today, but her (not 'prophecy,' but) "statement, based on knowledge of facts," that in the twentieth century scholars would begin to give them recognition, is already receiving confirmation. Not that credit is yet given, save in rare instances; not that honor is paid where honor is due, - though Madame Blavatsky never looked for honor to herself - but that with almost every year, new corroborations are appearing to demonstrate the truth of the ancient teachings, which she declared have been 'simply outlined' in The Secret Doctrine.-------

One of the greatest, and most fascinating, of all problems has ever been the origin of man. Answer that, and you will know his destiny; for that no stream rises higher than its source is axiomatic; as is also the statement that the less cannot include the greater. Ascribe to man an ape or brute ancestry, and one can expect no more than that ferocious and brutal animal instincts shall recur again and again to destroy whatever civilizing, human and, shall we say, spiritual and divine qualities may have been by what miracle, indeed? - evolved from the brutish ape-stock. But on the other hand, ascribe to man a divine origin and ancestry, and we can call upon him to claim his heritage and act in accord with his inherent divine nature.

No great question can be answered from a one-sided viewpoint, or from a partial consideration of facts relating to only one phase of it. Yet this is precisely what the Darwinists have the presumption to claim: namely, that they have solved the problem of man's origin, while at the same time ignoring the supreme facts that distinguish man from the brute. They have built, and not wisely, only upon the fact that man has a brute side to his nature, ignoring his divine potentialities, and in some cases more than potentialities, his divine achievements. They have investigated along one line only, they have discovered many facts assuredly, but have also misinterpreted many, and so have built up the huge degrading theory of man as the descendant of the ape. Claiming to use reason, they have ignored the fundamentals of logic; they have built upon the insecure foundations of unsupported theory for the establishment of what they designate as law. They have misinterpreted legend, tradition, history, biology, geology, and archaeology, and have failed to see the implications in the unbridgeable gulf between those characteristics and qualities

which have in them the potentialities of divinity and which make man truly man, and the brute instincts of the ape; between the mind of man with its limitless powers and the unreasoning instincts of the animal.

One of the greatest teachings of Theosophy, given in The Secret Doctrine, is that there is not one line only of evolution, but two lines. The modern theory postulates and concerns itself with but one, the physical, claiming mind to be product or outgrowth of physical evolution. Theosophy, as is shown in The Secret Doctrine, not ignoring this, but amplifying it, postulates another, the mental, the truly human. It postulates also a third, the Monadic, or purely spiritual, but space forbids us, and for our present purposes we do not need to discuss it, save to say that it is interblended with, and is the very ground or basis of, the other two. This must however be studied for a complete understanding of the subject, and the student is referred to The Secret Doctrine.

In fact, man is more than an animal, more than an outer animal nature, though that were developed to its highest. The animal nature evolved to its highest, as in the most highly developed human form, is not man and can never be man. Man is of another order; the human form is but the vehicle, the house, in which man, the tenant, lives. Man is the soul, the mind, (using these terms somewhat loosely, and in this instance as synonymous). Man is an inhabitant of the human form which is his dwelling and also the instrument by means of which he contacts the outer physical world and so gains experience therein.

Darwinism deals, and imperfectly, as said above, only with the evolution of the physical frame, dwelling or instrument, in which man lives, and which he uses. It has attempted, but has utterly failed, to account for the dweller, man himself. It has even failed to trace man's physical parentage, as we shall presently show on the highest authority, the authority of discovered facts.--------

Ever since its first formulation there has been, in certain quarters, persistent opposition to the Darwinian theory, (a) from scientists who, like the great French naturalist, de Quatrefages, and others, claim that certain well authenticated facts disprove the ape-ancestry of man; (b) from certain theologians who hold to the special creation theory for man's origin, basing this on a literal interpretation of the Biblical account in Genesis; and (c) from those who accept the ancient Theosophical teachings as given by Madame Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine, and in other Theosophical literature.

Other theologians, however, psychologized by the weight of modern scientific opinion, have deserted the special creation theory and accepted the Darwinian. Thus, according to them, even Jesus, Buddha, and all the great Teachers of the past, are the product of evolution from the ape. What reverence, what worship, should we not therefore give to the brute form in which is locked up, hidden away, the divine potentialities of the sublime wisdom that fell from their lips! For remember Jesus did not differentiate himself from the human race. Did he not say, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect"; and "Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother"?

If we accept the Darwinian theory, what other conclusion can we come to? Read what Professor J. Howard Moore, a noted Chicago educator, and writer on ethical subjects, says in an article, 'Our Neglect of Ethical Culture,' published in The Open Door (New York, December, 1916). He says:

"We have known now for something like two generations that man's origin was not so shining as it was once supposed to be. But so poky are we in adjusting ourselves to new truths, especially truths of revolutionary importance, that our whole educational program still proceeds on the hypothesis that the raw material of human character is celestial.

"Man did not come from the skies. He came from the jungle. We are not children of the sun. We are Children of the Ape. Man is an Animal. He acquired his psychology in the same way exactly as he acquired his backbone. He did not originate it; it was handed to him. The great trunk tendencies of human nature are the same tendencies as those that form the foundation of animal psychology elsewhere.

"Civilized peoples are the not very remote posterity of savages, and savages are the posterity of those bowed and unconsidered beings who walk over the earth with their faces toward the ground. Humanity is only a habit."

He says further: "The greatest defect of our educational system is the lack of a moral element." Are we then to look for the ground of such moral element in man's hypothetical ape-ancestry? This evidently is the trend of Professor Moore's argument. Others however, and especially students of Theosophy, trace the lack of a moral element - so far as it is lacking in our modern educational systems - precisely to the degrading teaching of such ancestry.

There is much truth in the familiar sayings which have become proverbial; "Like produces like," and "Like father, like son"; and a great teacher, illustrating the same truth, once asked: "Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?"

Is, then, the moral element traceable to the ferocious animality of the anthropoid, or to a higher source?

"We are not children of the sun. We are children of the ape. Man is an animal," says Professor Moore. Hence what can we expect from man but animal ethics, - if we can ascribe ethics to an animal?

Is this to be the basis of education? Is it not rather that the ape-ancestry theory, which has so psychologized humanity - a very large part of it certainly - during the last half century and longer, is very largely responsible for the present crisis with which our civilization is confronted?

Very different are the results already to be seen, even in so short a time as has elapsed since the beginning of the present century, in the accentuation of the moral element in education based upon a recognition of the inherent divinity of the human soul. I refer to Katherine Tingley's Raja-Yoga system of education which has this as its basis, while at the same time recognizing the duality of human nature - the animal passional side as well as the truly human, potentially and inherently divine side, the Higher and True Self, which metaphorically speaking is born of the Sun, and in its essence is pure, radiant and divine, however hidden its true nature may be, enmeshed in, covered up and seemingly warped by its association with the animal, lower self. How else is self-control possible, self-conquest, if there be not a higher to control and conquer the lower?-------

There are certain difficulties that inevitably arise in connection with the Darwinian theory which have received no satisfactory answer; and, some of them, no adequate consideration by the advocates of the theory. Yet they demand solution, else the theory falls by the weight of its own degrading absurdity. We may put them thus:

(1) Regarding the missing link needed to bridge what has been spoken of above as the unbridgeable gulf between the human mind and the brute instinct of the ape: how comes it that we find no evolution from the anthropoid upward now going on before our eyes, nor any evidence of progression, on the part of the anthropoid, in the long ages that have elapsed since the first human is supposed to have differentiated from the ape, or from the hypothetical common ancestor of both?

(2) How account for the fact that however far back we go, through archaeological research, we find evidences of civilizations as high and glorious as any in known history? Whereas, on the other hand, the lowest, savage races, such as the Blackfellow of

Australia, show no progression, but the retrogression of decrepit old age; show indeed no evidences of being nearer ape-ancestry than ourselves, but rather that they are the decaying remnants of a once highly developed people.

(3) How account for the fact that man existed before the apes? - of which there is abundant scientific evidence.

(4) How account for the fact that as the ape grows older, he becomes more brutal, the brain more restricted, whereas the opposite is true of man?

All these points are discussed by Mme. Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine and shown by her to be conclusive arguments against the Darwinian theory. But before quoting from that work, it is of interest to turn to the most recent scientific corroboration of the ancient teaching that man preceded the anthropoid apes. This corroboration, with an account of which we have headed this paper, is from no less distinguished a scientist than Professor Wood Jones, Professor of Anatomy in the University of London. His conclusion, as stated in the New York Times, based on scientific grounds, and particularly on the recent reports of Dr. Stewart Arthur Smith of Sydney, Australia. on the Talgai skull discovered in 1889 in Darling Downs, N.S.W., but never seriously investigated till 1914, is "that man is not descended from anthropoid apes, but that these would be in fact more accurately described as having been descended from man, that man as man is far more ancient than the whole anthropoid branch"; claiming that "these assertions were proved not only by recent anatomical research, but to be deducible from the whole trend of geological and anthropological discovery."

This, as we shall presently see, is in entire harmony with the most ancient teaching, the Secret Doctrine of antiquity.-------

Honor to whom honor is due, and while paying honor to Professor Wood Jones and to Dr. Stewart Arthur Smith for the careful scientific analysis of these lately discovered facts and for their clear statement of their significance, it is but just that we should recall briefly the testimony of other earlier scientists in regard to the insuperable difficulties against an acceptance of the Darwinian theory. Madame Blavatsky makes reference to many of these in The Secret Doctrine.

Speaking of "the approximate duration of the geological periods from the combined data of Science and Occultism now before us" and giving "rough approximations in accordance with the latter," she writes:

"Mr. Edward Clodd, in reviewing M. de Mortillet's work Materlaux pour l'Histoire de l'Homme, which places man in the mid-Miocene period, remarks that 'it would be in defiance of all that the doctrine of evolution teaches, and moreover, win no support from believers in special creation and the fixity of species, to seek for so highly specialized a mammalian as man at an early stage in the life-history of the globe.' To this, one could answer: (a) the doctrine of evolution, as inaugurated by Darwin and developed by later evolutionists, is not only the reverse of infallible, but it is repudiated by several great men of science, e.g., de Quatrefages, in France, and Dr. Weissmann, an ex-evolutionist in Germany, and many others, the ranks of the anti-Darwinists growing stronger with every year; and (b) truth to be worthy of its name, and remain truth and fact, hardly needs to beg for support from any class or sect."

Adding a footnote,

"The root and basic idea of the origin and transformation of species - the heredity (of acquired faculties) seems to have found lately very serious opponents in Germany. [This was published in 1888.] Du Bois-Reymond and Dr. Pfluger, the physiologists,

besides other men of science as eminent as any, find insuperable difficulties and even impossibilities in the doctrine." - The Secret Doctrine, II, 711.

Madame Blavatsky declares emphatically:

"That man was not the last member in the mammalian family, but the first in this Round, is something that science will be forced to acknowledge one day.

"That man can be shown to have lived in the mid-Tertiary period, and in a geological age when there did not yet exist one single specimen of the now known species of mammals, is a statement that science cannot deny and which has now been proven by de Quatrefages." (Introduction a l'Etude des Races Humaines). - II, 155.

"Civilization dates still further back than the Miocene Atlanteans. 'Secondary-period' man will be discovered, and with him his long forgotten civilization." - II, 266.

"The geologists of France place man in the mid-miocene age (Gabriel de Mortillet), and some even in the Secondary period, as de Quatrefages suggests.... " - II, 686.

Ernst Haeckel (in The Pedigree of Man, translated by Ed. B. Aveling, p. 49) after citing what he calls Huxley's momentous sentence that "the anatomical differences between man and the highest apes are less than those between the latter and the lowest apes," says:

"In relation to our genealogical tree of man, the necessary conclusion follows that the human race has evolved gradually from the true apes."

On this Madame Blavatsky comments:

"What may be the scientific and logical objections to the opposite conclusion - we would ask? The anatomical resemblances between Man and the Anthropoids - grossly exaggerated as they are by Darwinists, as M. de Quatrefages shows - are simply enough 'accounted for' when the origin of the latter is taken into consideration.

"'Nowhere in the older deposits, is an ape to be found that approximates more closely to man, or a man that approximates more closely to an ape....'"

And quotes also Dr. F. Pfaff, Professor of Natural Science in the University of Erlangen, as follows:

"....The same gulf which is found today between Man and Ape, goes back with undiminished breadth and depth to the Tertiary period. This fact alone is enough to make its untenability clear.'" - II, 87.

"'If,' says Professor Pfaff, 'in the hundreds of thousands of years which you [the Evolutionists] accept between the rise of palaeolithic man and our own day, a greater distance of man from the brute is not demonstrable, [the most ancient man was just as far removed from the brute as the now living man], what reasonable ground can be advanced for believing that man has been developed from the brute, and has receded further from it by infinitely small gradations.'" - II, 686-687.

And Sir W. Dawson, D., F.R.S., in Origin of the World, p. 39, says:

"'While we can trace the skeletons of Eocene mammals through several directions

of specialization in succeeding Tertiary times, man presents the phenomenon of an unspecialized skeleton which cannot fairly be connected with any of these lines.'" - II, 720.

And we find Madame Blavatsky stating unequivocally that

"Man belongs to a kingdom distinctly separate from that of the animals." - I, 186.

And though, according to the ancient teaching, man was at one time 'ape-like,' yet he never was an ape, nor was his ancestor an ape. This is of the greatest interest in view of certain legends and traditional records of the Orient, especially as recited in the Mahabharata. On this point Madame Blavatsky says:

"It is not denied that in the preceding Round [or great period of evolution before the present, the Fourth Round] man was a gigantic ape-like creature; and when we say 'man' we ought perhaps to say, the rough mold that was developing for the use of man in this Round only - the middle, or the transition point of which we have hardly reached. Nor was man what he is now during the first two and a half Root-Races. That point [i.e., the middle or transition point, just referred to] he reached, as said before, only 18,000,000 years ago, during the secondary period, as we claim." - II, 261.

"But what the Occultists have never admitted, nor will they ever admit, is that man was an ape in this or in any other Round; or that he ever could be one, however much he may have been 'ape-like.'" - I, 187.

"The man who preceded the Fourth, the Atlantean race, however much he may have looked physically like a 'gigantic ape'.... was still a thinking and already a speaking man. The 'Lemuro-Atlantean' was a highly civilized race, and if one accepts tradition, which is better history than the speculative fiction which now passes under that name, he was higher than we are with all our sciences and the degraded civilization of the day: at any rate, the Lemuro-Atlantean of the closing Third Race was so." - I, 191.

"It is sufficient," declares Madame Blavatsky, "to glance at the works of Broca, Gratiolet, of Owen, Pruner Bey, and finally, at the last great work of de Quatrefages, Introduction a l'Etude des Races Humaines, Questions Generales, to discover the fallacy of the Evolutionists," and then adds:

"We may say more: the exaggerations concerning such similarity of structure between man and the anthropomorphous ape have become so glaring and absurd of late, that even Mr. Huxley found himself forced to protest against the too sanguine expectations. It was that great anatomist personally who called the smaller fry to order, by declaring in one of his articles that the differences in the structure of the human body and that of the highest anthropomorphous pithecoid, were not only far from being trifling and unimportant, but were, on the contrary, very great and suggestive: 'each of the bones of the gorilla has its own specific impress on it that distinguishes it from a similar human bone.' Among the existing creatures there is not one single intermediate form that could fill the gap between man and the ape. To ignore that gap, he added, 'was as uncalled-for as it was absurd.'"

In a footnote to this, Madame Blavatsky quotes again from Professor Pfaff, who says:

"'We find one of the most man-like apes (gibbon), in the tertiary period, and this species is still in the same low grade, and side by side with it at the end of the Ice-period,

man is found in the same high grade as today, the ape not having approximated more nearly to the man, and modern man not having become further removed from the ape than the first (fossil) man. ....these facts contradict a theory of constant progressive development.'" - II, 681-682.

Exactly the same position as is now taken by Professor Wood Jones was taken half a century ago by the great French naturalist, de Quatrefages, as is seen from the following. We continue our quotation from The Secret Doctrine:

"Finally, the absurdity of such an unnatural descent of man is so palpable in the face of all the proofs and evidence of the skull of the pithecoid as compared to that of man, that even de Quatrefages resorted unconsciously to our esoteric theory by saying that it is rather the apes that can claim descent from man than vice versa. As proven by Gratiolet, with regard to the cavities of the brain of the anthropoids, in which species that organ develops in an inverse ratio to what would be the case were the corresponding organs in man really the product of the development of the said organs in the apes - the size of the human skull and its brain, as well as the cavities, increase with the individual development of man. His intellect develops and increases with age, while his facial bones and jaws diminish and straighten, thus being more and more spiritualized: whereas with the ape it is the reverse. In its youth the anthropoid is far more intelligent and good-natured, while with age it becomes duller; and, as its skull recedes and seems to diminish as it grows, its facial bones and jaws develop, the brain being finally crushed, and thrown back, to make with every day more room for the animal type. The organ of thought - the brain - recedes and diminishes, entirely conquered and replaced by that of the wild beast - the jaw apparatus." - II, 681-682.

Other important testimony in refutation of the claims of the Darwinists, cited by Madame Blavatsky, and by no means to be disregarded, is given by Lyell, the 'Father' of Geology, by Professor Max Muller, and by Professor Rawlinson.

"According to Lyell, one of the highest authorities on the subject, and the 'Father' of Geology (Antiquity of Man, p. 25): -

"'The expectation of always meeting with a lower type of human skull, the older the formation in which it occurs, is based on the theory of progressive development, and it may prove to be sound; nevertheless we must remember that as yet we have no distinct geological evidence that the appearance of what are called the inferior races of mankind has always preceded in chronological order that of the higher races.'"

To which Madame Blavatsky adds:

"Nor has such evidence been found to this day. Science is thus offering for sale the skin of a bear, which has hitherto never been seen by mortal eye!

"This concession of Lyell's reads most suggestively with the subjoined utterance of Professor Max Muller, whose attack on the Darwinian Anthropology from the standpoint of Language has, by the way, never been satisfactorily answered:-

"'What do we know of savage tribes beyond the last chapter of their history?'"(Cf. this with the esoteric view of the Australians, Bushmen, as well as of

Palaeolithic European man, the Atlantean offshoots retaining a relic of a lost culture, which throve when the parent Root-Race was in its prime.)

"'Do we ever get an insight into their antecedents?.... How have they come to be what they are?.... Their language proves, indeed, that these so-called heathens, with their complicated systems of mythology, their unintelligible whims and savageries, are not the creatures of today or yesterday. Unless we admit a special creation for these savages,

they must be as old as the Hindus, the Greeks and Romans [far older].... They may have passed through ever so many vicissitudes, and what we consider as primitive, may be, for all we know, a Relapse into Savagery or a corruption of something that was more rational and intelligible in former stages.' (India: What Can It Teach Us, 1883, p. 110).

"'The primeval savage is a familiar term in modern literature,' remarks Professor Rawlinson, 'but there is no evidence that the primeval savage ever existed. Rather all the evidence looks the other way.' (Antiquity of Man Historically Considered). In his Origin of Nations, he rightly adds: 'The mythical traditions of almost all nations place at the beginning of human history a time of happiness and perfection, a 'golden age' which has no features of savagery or barbarism, but many of civilization and refinement.' How is the modern evolutionist to meet this consensus of evidence?" - II, 721-722.-------

It is to be expected that exception will be taken by some to the statement of Professor Wood Jones, for error once firmly entrenched in the human mind dies hard. Indeed, such exception has already been taken by Garrett P. Serviss who has declared that Professor Jones has been misunderstood and his words misinterpreted. To the latter's statement, as reported by the New York Times, that the anthropoid apes "would be in fact more accurately described as having been descended from man," Professor Serviss takes exception, saying:

"This cannot possibly have been Professor Jones' meaning, because it involves a misunderstanding of the scientific view of man's descent that no university professor could be guilty of, although popularly it is widespread and apparently ineradicable.

"No evolutionist believes, and none has ever contended, that the ape was the ancestor of man...."

Professor Serviss evidently forgets Ernst Haeckel, usually regarded as one of the greatest evolutionists, whom we have already quoted as saying distinctly, "the necessary conclusion follows that the human race has evolved gradually from the true apes." And if the popular view of the evolutionary theory is so wide-spread and ineradicable, the evolutionists themselves are responsible for this. As to the "scientific view of man's descent," spoken of by Professor Serviss, we fail to see wherein it is scientific; in fact, as we shall see presently, quoting Professor Serviss' own words, it is based wholly on 'supposition.' Our idea of science involves something more sure than supposition as a basis.

But the arguments presented above hold equally against the view presented by Professor Serviss, namely, that

"What evolution teaches is that both ape and man had a common ancestor, from which they both arose as two branches of a tree arise by bifurcation from a single trunk."

With strange inconsistency, however, Professor Serviss still makes man the descendant of apes and monkeys as is seen in his further statement which I italicize. He says:

"The first bifurcation of that trunk has generally been dated in the Eocene or the Oligocene, the two earliest subdivisions, or ages, of the Tertiary period.

"Both of the branches then formed are supposed to hare been represented by apes and monkeys. There was yet no sign of the creature man. But in the next age, the Miocene, one of the two first branches [both supposed to have been represented by apes and monkeys, he has just said, remember] is supposed to have divided, giving rise on one side to the branch of anthropoids called gibbons, and on the other side to a branch which

again subdivided, one of its parts producing the direct though as yet unknown ancestors of man who lived in the Pliocene age (next after the Miocene), while the other gave rise to the primitive anthropoids from which are descended the chimpanzee, the gorilla, and the orang."

So, after all, Professor Serviss makes man descended from "apes and monkeys," - "both branches (the first bifurcation) then formed," he declares, "are supposed to have been represented by apes and monkeys."

"Supposed!" In fact, at the best, this 'scientific view' is nothing but supposition, theory, and is not supported by any discovered facts. And with this brief reference, we may take leave of Professor Serviss.

The insuperable difficulties against accepting an ape-ancestry for man apply equally against accepting a common ancestry for both man and ape. All honor then to those scientists and others who, recognizing these difficulties, and many perhaps realizing intuitively the fallacy of the Darwinian theory, have set their faces against its degrading psychology.--------

So, honor to whom honor is due; and especially is honor due to Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, and not only honor, but gratitude. For in her great work; The Secret Doctrine, not only has she given a masterly and scientific presentation of the whole case against the Darwinian theory, whether in respect to the ape-ancestry of man, or their common ancestry, but she has done more. She has, on logical, scientific, and philosophic grounds, once again demonstrated the truth of the ancient teaching of the Wisdom-Religion: that man is inherently divine; that the real man, the soul, is a spiritual being, potentially a god; that, as such, man has power to rise or fall, yet never can he utterly lose his potentially divine nature.

We cannot here take up this phase of the subject further. That must be left for a future occasion. We give but one more brief quotation from The Secret Doctrine. There Madame Blavatsky declares that:

"Owing to the very type of his development man cannot descend from either an ape or an ancestor common to both, but shows his origin from a type far superior to himself. And this type is the 'Heavenly man' - the Dhyan Chohans, or the Pitris so-called, as shown in the first Part of this volume (The Secret Doctrine, q.v.). On the other hand, the pithecoids, the orang-outang, the gorilla, and the chimpanzee can, and, as the Occult Sciences teach, do, descend from the animalized Fourth human Root-Race, being the product of man and an extinct species of mammal - whose remote ancestors were themselves the product of Lemurian bestiality - which lived in the Miocene age." - II, 682-683.

Man's origin being from a type superior to himself - the "Heavenly man" - his destiny is likewise to rise to the height of that origin - Divinity itself. This has been the burden of every one of the great religions of the world, and the teaching of Jesus himself. Study his words, study comparative religion, - the same teaching runs through all: - "Ye are not worms of the dust; ye are children of the Sun, children of Light, sons of the Divine, of Deity itself."

Honor to whom honor is due!Honor to the one who has again made known man's true origin, his divine heritage,

his divine destiny: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, the Light-Bringer, the great Theosophist!

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Some Common Errors in Natural History - Percy Leonard

"Regard earnestly all the life that surrounds you." - Light On The Path

"If thou wilt know the invisible, open thine eye wide on the visible." - The Talmud

The slimy serpent that leaves its trail wherever it goes, is one of those fictions of the orator and the novelist which still persists in face of the fact that a snake's skin is just as clean to handle as a glass rod. The track of a snake across a dusty road is simply a sinuous line where the dust has been pressed smooth and level. People are very reluctant to give up their belief that snakes climb trees by winding themselves spirally around the trunks; but this they never do. They ascend trees precisely as they crawl on level ground, using their belly scales to take advantage of the roughnesses in the bark. When the tree has no low branches and is perpendicular, they cannot climb it at all. They are often found intertwined among the branches of shrubs and vines, the very situations most favorable for birds nesting, which forms their main inducement for climbing.

There are many otherwise well-informed people who imagine that a slug is a snail which has left its shell at home; but a snail can no more walk abroad without his shell than an oyster or a tortoise. A slug is not a snail without a shell, but a near relation of the snail, and its shell is so small and so well concealed within the body that it is quite useless as a protection.

Eels are supposed by some to be water-snakes; but they are true fish and breathe by gills. They also possess scales invisible to the naked eye. There are genuine sea-serpents; but they are chiefly found in the Indian Ocean and the island region of the Tropical Pacific. They are brilliantly colored, 'blue, glossy green, and velvet black' and often ringed with strikingly contrasted hues. Their bodies are adapted for aquatic life by being laterally compressed and their tails are flattened like paddles. The description by Coleridge of their grace and beauty in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is said to be of remarkable fidelity tp Nature.

The popular belief as to birds living in nests still flourishes as strongly as ever. Birds do not live in nests: they just 'potter around' at large during the day and roost among the branches at night. Their nests are simply temporary cradles and are only used for rearing their young, being abandoned as soon as the fledglings are able to fly. This sweeping statement needs to be qualified, however, by the admission that the jenny-wren of England builds several nests in the spring and in cold winters uses them as shelters.

'Dewfall' is another expression which implies a very mistaken notion as to the origin of dew. Dew does not fall: it is deposited from the surrounding air on any object cool enough to condense its water-vapor into the liquid form. When a glass of iced water is seen to be beaded over with water-drops, it is simply an instance of artificially produced dew. The moisture certainly does not 'sweat' through the glass as many people seem to imagine.

Small flies are often believed to be young flies just as small pigs are undoubtedly young pigs. This is a gross popular error, widely spread. We must not suppose that a mosquito is a baby fly, a house-fly a budding youth, and the burly blue-bottle the perfect insect. As soon as the fly emerges from his chrysalis with wings and three pairs of legs, he never adds a millimeter to his stature. Some kinds of flies are large and others exceedingly minute; but once the perfect state is reached no further growth is possible.

Fish are often thought to be great drinkers from their observed habits; but though a fish does certainly draw great quantities of water into its mouth, it does it merely with the intention of passing it out again under its gill covers after extracting its contained oxygen.

River fish habitually lie with their heads upstream for this reason. It is really no disparagement to be accused of 'drinking like a fish' because it implies no more than that you are a strict teetotaler and drink small quantities of cold water with your meals according to your needs.

Then, again, everything that comes out of the sea is supposed to be fish; whales, lobsters, oysters, and medusae or jellyfish included. Of course the fish proper has a bony skeleton, breathes by gills, and is covered with scales: whereas the whale is a warm-blooded mammal which feeds its young with milk; the oyster is a mollusc like the garden snail; the lobster is a crustacean with neither scales nor bones; and the medusa is one of the lowly group of boneless Coelentera whose whole body cavity consists of stomach.

It is refreshing to note, however, that 'the many-headed multitude' is sometimes right. Snakes do fascinate their victims in spite of the learned herpetologists who set down this belief as a vulgar superstition. The writer has interviewed many intelligent observers who have witnessed this weird phenomenon at Point Loma, and their independent accounts agree with a remarkable consistency.

A short examination paper would probably reveal that many well educated people never use their powers of observation upon their surroundings, and are perfectly contented to accept the current statements about Natural History without any question as to their authenticity.

(Vol. 15, pp. 264-65)

-----------------------

Engineering Feats of the Ancients - Magister Artium

The engineering feats of the ancients was the subject of an address by Mr. George H. Pegram, President of the American Society of Engineers, from which the following is quoted in the Scientific American Supplement:

"No works of modern times compare in magnitude with those of the ancients. Consider a reservoir, to impound the waters of the Nile, covering an area of 150 square miles, with a dam 30 feet high and 13 miles long. The pyramids of Gizeh.... had granite blocks which were 5 feet square and 30 feet long, and were transported 500 miles. One of the temples of Memphis was built of stones which were 13 feet square and 65 feet long, and laid with close joints. The Appian Way from Rome to Capua was so well built that after a thousand years its roadway was in perfect condition, and even now, after two thousand years, with slight repairs, is in use. The modern engineer would question the possibility of such work, without these great examples. If one could imagine cessation of life on this continent, and our works subjected to the destructive forces of time and nature for a thousand years, what evidences of civilization would remain? ....

"We look in vain for the application of mechanical power by the ancients, whose works seem almost impossible without its assumption, but the stone reliefs showing the movement of large weights by manual power indicate that probably the other did not exist."

The subject is of frequent mention in Theosophical writing.At the ruins of Baalbek in Syria lies a stone 71 feet long, and 13 by 14 feet in its

other dimensions. Other stones, nearly as large, are found hoisted into their places in the walls. The pre-Incan ruins of Peru contain an incredible amount of masonry, vast in size and perfectly hewn, including about 250,000 miles of stone walls. But it is necessary to

take a comprehensive view of the whole field of ancient masonry in order to do full justice to the subject.

We are not satisfied with the lecturer's argument that the feats are impossible by manual labor, but that the reliefs show that nevertheless they were thus accomplished. But it suggests the idea that the stones were lightened in some way not now known. If the ancient builders were able to counteract the action of gravity, the puzzle would be explained. And we ourselves might find out how to do this tomorrow! Surely it is not impossible that this is among the secrets of science that are discoverable, and that it may have been known and lost. This is merely a suggestion. It may be that, before the knowledge was lost, the ability to use it was first lost. We do know that races of mankind, once chaste, have given way to sensuality; this would mean a loss of power. Also we know that disunion and strife have been characteristic of historical times; and this means disintegration. If, previous to the intrusion of these disruptive and debilitating influences, mankind could wield powers which it afterwards lost, there would be no cause for wonder.

Some will perhaps suggest that these engineering feats were accomplished by supernatural means; but that is only an hypothesis resorted to by materialists, who do not believe in any natural forces except those with which they are familiar. It is better to think the feats were done by perfectly natural means, but with which we are not now acquainted.

(Vol. 15, pp. 478-79)

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The Wicked Formula - H. Travers

A Formula is a cruel and heartless thing - especially when 'rigorously applied.' Or perhaps we should not call it cruel and heartless, as that is merely reading our own prejudices into the question; the formula is simply indifferent and unmoral, like a machine (which it is). One calls to mind a series of comic cartoons, in which the first scene represented a party of bigwigs inspecting a new patent sausage machine. A pig is put into the hopper; in the next scene we see no pig but only a heap of sausages on the floor. Then one of the bigwigs is seen bending over the hopper to examine the working of the machine; then he falls in. Last scene - a heap of sausages on the floor. This was not cruelty on the part of the machine; it was merely sublime indifference. So with a formula when rigorously applied.

Now there is certain a formula by the name of v = nl. Let us interpret its meaning by applying it to the case of a man walking: n is the number of steps he takes per second; l is the length of each step. Multiply these together and we get his velocity. Thus, if he takes 2 steps per second, and each step is 30 inches, his velocity will be 5 feet per second. Then the formula, v = nl becomes v = 2 x 2 1/2 = 5. Next let us apply it to the case of sound traveling through air. Let the sound be that proceeding from a tuning-fork giving middle C. Then n, or the number of waves per second, is 256; l, or the length of each wave, is 4.3 feet. Multiply these together, and we get the distance which the wave goes in one second, or (in other words) the velocity of sound in air - about 1100 feet per second.

So far good; we can take actual measurements, both of time and space, in the case of the man walking, and also in that of the sound-wave traveling. But suppose we apply this formula rigidly to another case, where we cannot take all these measurements. We may get some weird and wonderful results.

Thus, in the case of light, we have decided that its velocity is about 186,000 miles

per second. We have also calculated that the wave-length of a ray of red light is about .000076 of a centimeter. Putting these together by the formula, we reach the result that the number of vibrations per second executed by that red ray of light is four hundred trillions (400,000,000,000,000). Fancy a second of time divided into that number of parts! That number of seconds would be between twelve and thirteen million years; that number of inches would be over six billion miles. Whether science eschews imagination and deals with solid facts, or whether it delights in the play of the imagination, we shall certainly find it hard to swallow the four-hundred-trillionth of a second. Truly, in science it is sometimes a case of straining at a needle and swallowing a camel.

Now how do we reach this amazing result concerning the frequency of luminous waves? By supposing that the light wave climbs its way along the ether. If we could imagine that the light is a little insect, the length of whose stride is exactly .000076 of a centimeter; and that this insect, in some inconceivable way, manages to crawl all around the equator in about one-eighth of a second, we should have an exactly parallel case; and we should have to infer that the tiny creature waggled its little legs precisely four hundred trillion times in every second.

But some people are telling us that, when a ray of light travels from me to you, it does not step off and climb along the ether. To illustrate: suppose you were on the hind platform of a moving street-car, and wanted to reach the front platform. To do this, you jump off into the road, and run along by the car until you come to the front end, when you board it again. Now suppose you reverse the process, and jump off and run back along the road until you reach the rear end, running at the same speed as before. This will not take you so long as did your first trip, because now the car is coming forward to meet you, whereas before it was drawing away from you; now you meet it, but then you had to overtake it. So with light. Experiments were performed to see whether the time taken by light to go one way was different from that taken to go another, and no difference was found. Hence it was inferred that the light did not go along the ether at all. The analogous case would be, if you should travel back and forth in the car itself, without stepping off into the road.

Now to return to our beetle. Its stride is actually only .000076 of a centimeter long, and it does somehow manage to get around the equator eight times in every second; but we are not now required to suppose that it does this by actually crawling every step of the way. What then are we to do? Going back to the older 'emission' theory of light, we can suppose the beetle to be shot around the earth, as it were; in which case it is unnecessary for him to wiggle his legs at such an alarming rate of speed.

But not all wave-motions in the alleged ether have such short length as those of visible light. The electromagnetic waves used in wireless telegraphy are believed to be of the same nature, and it has been calculated that they travel with the same velocity as light. But their length may equal many miles, and their frequency consequently comes down to perceptible amounts, for it may come within the range of those frequencies which produce musical notes. So here the application of the formula, v = nl, yields results that are not alarming. The question is, where is one to draw the line between what is digestible and what is not?

The fact is that physics (the science of our mental processes) is in the melting-pot; and is becoming involved with metaphysics (the science of imaginated conceptions, such as matter, space, and other things which are supposed to be external - that is, in the mysterious beyond). As to the rigid application of a formula, it is an attempt to reason from the general to the particular; a process which can never he infallible except when our general principle is an axiom. And what is an axiom? If it is itself a datum of experience, then we are reasoning in a circle. And if it is not a datum of experience, what is it? An intuitive vision of truth?

(Vol. 19, pp. 215-17)

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Giants - Magister Artium

The universal stories, legends, and myths about giants may be taken as sure proof that there is a basis of fact in the belief. It would stretch credulity much too far if we were asked to believe that all this arose out of nothing at all. By far the simplest way of explaining this universal testimony is to accept the idea that gigantic human races have actually existed in the remote past; and that the remembrance has been handed down by tradition and embalmed in myth. As it is quite in accordance with scientific procedure to seek analogies in the animal kingdom, we may reasonably refer to the fact that, in the remote past, gigantic animals lived, whose huge bones are now found, but whose descendants of the same kind have now become dwarfed into little creeping things. There were the vast Mesozoic saurians, now represented mainly by the lizard that basks in the sun, and but feebly replaced even by the alligator and crocodile. There were gigantic monsters of the air, now feebly imitated by the noisome bat of the night. Even in the vegetable kingdom we find that

"....the pretty ferns we collect and dry among the leaves of our favorite volumes are the descendants of the gigantic ferns which grew during the carboniferous period." - The Secret Doctrine, Vol. II, p. 276

It is pertinent to ask whether the human kingdom has been an exception to this rule of dwarfing.

Perhaps the most familiar guise in which giants have been brought to our notice is in the fairy-tales of our childhood Jack the Giant-Killer, Jack and the Beanstalk, Grimm's Household Stories, etc. The pages of the Jewish Bible, made familiar to those who attended Sunday-School or read daily Bible-lessons, tell us that, before Noah's Flood, "there were giants in the earth in those days." Greek legend tells us how the Titans, offspring of Uranus, were overthrown by Zeus, who had on his side the Cyclopes, also giants; and how later on another war ensued between Zeus and a race of Giants that had sprung from the blood of Uranus. Scandinavian myth is full of giants, such as Thor, who have been made familiar to us in modern versions.

The word giant seems to have two significances - a gigantic human being, or a non-human monster of huge size. Giants are very generally represented as having sprung from the earth, fertilized by an influence from the gods - as in the case of the Greek Gigantes, sprung from the spilt blood of Uranus. The Bible tells us that "the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose"; and thus sprang the giant race which the Flood destroyed. The Titans sprang from heaven and earth. The writer in an encyclopaedia says that it was the common belief of the ancients that the human race had degenerated in size. Thus we have two ideas to deal with: that of giant men, and that of beings half man, half god, one-eyed monsters, etc.

It naturally occurs to people to ask what has become of the bones of the giants. But we do not state that the human race has changed in size during the last racial cycle. The Giants belonged to a remoter period, when the distribution of continental and oceanic areas was different; and their bones have long ago been reduced to the minutest dust beneath the waters of ocean. Besides this, a fossil is really a comparatively rare

occurrence, and a human fossil very much more so; not only because of the very small ratio of fossil remains to living forms, but also on account of the universal practices of burial and cremation. But the discovery of evidence is only a matter of time; palaeontology is yet young; we have scarcely scratched the surface; and prejudice has so far sought to evade, rather than to find, evidence. The most obvious things lie hid until they are looked for, and negative evidence is very unreliable - if I see a thing, I can swear it is there; but, if I do not see it, I cannot swear it is not there.

Another scientific argument in favor of the former existence of gigantic human races is that of what is known as 'atavism' or 'reversion to type.'

"Had there been no giants as a rule in ancient days, there would be none now." - op. cit. 277

But we find frequent instances of people of abnormal size. In Africa are some swarthy races whose average height is considerably above that of ordinary humanity. And it was in Africa that were preserved many remnants of very ancient human races which survived from the terrestrial cataclysms that submerged former continents.

Man was originally a colossal pre-tertiary giant, existing 18,000,000 years ago (II, 9). Of one of these early races an ancient commentary says:

"They built huge cities. Of rare earths and metals they built, and out of the fires vomited, out of the white stone of the mountains and of the black stone, they cut their own images in their size and likeness, and worshiped them. They built great images nine yatis (twenty-seven feet) high, the size of their bodies. Inner fires had destroyed the land of their fathers. The water threatened the fourth. The first great waters came. They swallowed the seven great islands." - II, 21

There were men on those continents which geology admits to have existed and to have been submerged. They were civilized, and, under the guidance of their divine rulers, built large cities, cultivated arts and sciences, and knew astronomy, architecture, and mathematics to perfection. After the great Flood of the Third (or Lemurian) Race, man decreased considerably in stature and in the duration of his life. Yet this next Race, the Fourth or Atlantean, are they who built the images nine yatis high, the size of their bodies. Speaking of this, H.P. Blavatsky calls attention to the well-known statues on Easter Island, a portion of an undeniably submerged continent, which measure almost all twenty-seven feet high and eight across the shoulders.*

"The Easter Island relics are, for instance, the most astounding and eloquent memorials of the primeval giants. They are as grand as they are mysterious; and one has but to examine the heads of the colossal statues, that have remained unbroken on that island, to recognise in them at a glance the features of the type and character attributed to the Fourth Race giants. They seem of one cast, though different in features - that of a distinctly sensual type, such as the Atlanteans (the Daityas and 'Atalantians') are represented to have been in the esoteric Hindi books."

--------------* It must be observed that we do not give the size of these statues as evidence that

the people who built them were of that size. People who build statues, especially if for worship, generally make them colossal. Besides, these statues vary in size. One authority says they vary from seventy feet to three. Another says that most of them are from fourteen to sixteen feet (this being doubtless the height from the hips up), and that the largest is thirty-seven feet and the smallest four. The statement that the men who built

them were twenty-seven feet high, therefore, rests upon other evidence. But the fact that such statues should be found at all, and in such a location, is evidence of the strongest kind in support of the teachings as to Lemuria and the Atlanteans.--------------

But not all giants were evil. The quotation continues:

"Compare these with the faces of some other colossal statues in Central Asia - those near Bamian for instance - the portrait-statues, tradition tells us, of Buddhas belonging to previous Manvantaras; of those Buddhas and heroes who are mentioned in the Buddhist and Hindu works, as men of fabulous size, the good and holy brothers of their wicked co-uterine brothers generally.... These 'Buddhas'.... show a suggestive difference, perceived at a glance, between the expression of their faces and that of the Easter Island statues. They may be of one race - but the former are 'Sons of Gods'; the latter the brood of mighty sorcerers." - II, 224

With regard to the Easter Island statues, a writer in the London Magazine of several years ago says:

"The features and general expression of the faces of all the statues are utterly unlike in every detail any known type among the Polynesians of the present time.... There is evidence that both a race of giants inhabited the land and that they were destroyed by a cataclysm."

Easter Island lies isolated in the Southern Pacific, two thousand miles from the west coast of America. It is twenty-nine miles around and volcanic in structure, with ancient craters. It contains 555 gigantic statues, beautifully carved in hard trachyte. They consist of a head and bust almost to the hips, and rest on large platforms, of which more than a hundred were found, some of them over five hundred feet long and ten feet high and wide, of immense stones uncemented but admirably dressed and fitted; many weighing over five tons each. Easter Island is a relic of that former South Pacific continent, to which geologists have given the name of Lemuria. The island was afterwards the refuge of some Atlanteans, the gigantic sorcerers who built the images. The continent disappeared several million years ago; and the Atlanteans, in their turn, disappeared several hundred thousand years ago. Think of these hundreds of millenniums during which those silent witnesses of the ages have stood there in their solitude, while the cycles of history rolled! The thought moves our awe as we strive in vain to contemplate it. Yet what more enduring than these hard igneous rocks, whether cut or in their original mountains?

Of course the great point of difference between geology and Theosophy is that, while both recognise the vast antiquity of the globe and of its living inhabitants, Theosophy recognizes the existence of human races and civilizations far back in geological time. Prejudice has so far prevented geology from accepting this; and it may seem strange that, having thrown over so much theological dogma, geologists and anthropologists should cling so tenaciously to the notion that man is a very recent product, and civilization still more recent. But the advance of knowledge will soon sweep this prejudice into the lumber-room of antiquated notions.

As to that class of giants which are represented as monsters, and as bred of the commingling of heaven and earth, let us quote the following from The Secret Doctrine:

"The pithecoids.... can, and, as the Occult Sciences teach, do descend from the animalized Fourth human Root-Race, being the product of man and an extinct species of mammal - whose remote ancestors were themselves the product of Lemurian bestiality -

which lived in the Miocene age. The ancestry of this semi-human monster is explained in the Stanzas as originating in the sin of the 'mindless' races of the middle Third-Race period." - II, 683

This explains the passage quoted above from Genesis. Man had reached his utmost point of materiality; as he is now on his upward arc of evolution, he will never again become so physically vast and gross.

Some people have adduced the fact of cyclopean architecture as evidence of the existence of giants. But we prefer not to press this point. Those monuments usually evince, not merely size, but also minute skill and delicacy, such as might rather be attributed to a race of dwarfs. It is hard to see in the mind's eye a giant cutting out of a quarry a monolith sixty feet long, and then carrying it to a building and laying it with microscopic accuracy. Such architecture is evidence of ancient scientific skill, but not necessarily of the existence of big men. None the less we do believe in the former existence of giants; and the case is only made better by the removal of questionable arguments.

(Vol. 15, pp. 369-73)

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Man's Ancestry Science Comes Round to Theosophical Views - H. Travers

[1919]

No 'End-On' EvolutionA useful summary of the present state of theories of human evolution, from the

viewpoint of a particular writer, is afforded by a pamphlet entitled, The Problem of Man's Ancestry: by Professor F. Wood-Jones; published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1918. The author points out the antiquity of the idea of evolution, Darwin's connection therewith, and the public misconception on these points.

"Charles Darwin did not, of course, discover, found, or invent evolution, he did not introduce it as a theory; but for the intellectual world of 1859 he explained a method by which it might have come about; and for all men he made it a real living factor which underlay every problem of biology."

Thus, while for the lay public Darwin's books produced opposed factions for and against evolution, for scientific men these books merely produced opposed schools of evolutionists - those who believed that natural selection was the means, and those who did not accept natural selection as the means of evolution.

"The expression 'end-on evolution' is applied to the theory that any animal represents a definite stage of progress along the scale of life, that it has evolved through the successive stages placed below it, and that its immediate ancestors are to be looked for in those types immediately beneath it in classification."

As a result of much subsequent research, however, it may be affirmed with safety of the biologist that,

"wherever his patient investigations into the ancestry and development of the lower types of animal life have been pushed home, he has not confirmed a belief in the existence of end-on evolution. Animal progress is far more complex than any procession climbing a long ladder. There are many ladders, and many climbing processions. The dictum that the highest member of the rank below develops into the lowest member of the rank above is the very reverse of truth, for the lowest member of the rank below and the lowest member of the rank above are more likely to prove akin."

As an instance of this, he considers the three great groups: Coelenterates (corals, anemone, hydra, etc.), Invertebrate Coelomates (worms, insects, spiders, etc.), and Vertebrate Coelomates (the great higher classes of backboned animals). In quite recent times it was believed that the highest of the Invertebrates were the immediate ancestors of the lowest of the Vertebrates, and that there was a real end-on evolution between these great groups. But the belief is now held by most biologists to be fallacious, and opinion has tended to turn lower and lower in the invertebrate scale in search of the ancestors of the vertebrates. Still more recent researches have rendered it practically certain that the Vertebrates do not arise from any of the Invertebrate Coelomates, and that a common origin for both great groups must be sought among the basal Coelenterates. To make this as clear as possible, we will call the three great groups A, B, and C; then, instead of C being descended from B, and B from A, the present conclusion is that C and B are both descended from A. Instead of a single stem running through A, B, and C successively, we have a root A with two branches, B and C. To quote from the author:

"Here we seem to have two old-established scales running side by side, each being wonderfully adapted and modified, but always retaining its definitely established structural bias. The one that leads to higher things does not arise from the blind-alley one, but both arise together from an extremely early form of life. One progresses so as to embrace within its phylum [stem] the highest forms of life, while the other led no farther than the spider, the lobster, and the scorpion."

In dealing with the great groups in general, we find that there is no single-line progress, and that it is not the highest member of the group below that leads to the lowest member of the group above. The affinities are between the lowest and most generalized members of all the groups. (Here we pause to ask if this last statement is not somewhat of a truism: things which are but little differentiated are more like each other than are things which are more differentiated; my father and I resembled each other much more closely when we were babies than when we were grown up.) Thus we get the analogy of a tree, in which the great groups of animals are represented by the branches, the subdivisions of those great groups by the smaller branches and twigs, and the main line of evolution by the trunk. The out-branching groups are linked by their most primitive members.What of the Mammals?

Having thus laid down a principle for the middle part of the scale of life, the author proceeds to ask, What of its upper end? What of the mammalian series and its termination in the group of the Primates? And what of the culmination of the last group in Man?

Haeckel's work he stigmatizes as perhaps without parallel for its blind dogmatism, and as likely to be soon relegated to the 'Curiosa' in booksellers' lists.

"In 'The Last Link'.... Haeckel traced the evolution of Man in twenty-six stages. In the twentieth stage Man had advanced to the level of a placental mammal, and the type of animal which marked his ancestry was a member of the 'Lemuravida.' What the 'Lemuravida' were no man knows, since they were a purely hypothetical group, invented

by Haeckel for the purpose of filling in a gap. In the twenty-first stage advance was made to the 'Lemures,' in the twenty-second to the 'Simiae,' in the twenty-third to the typical Old-World monkeys. In the twenty-fourth stage the Anthropoid Apes were reached, in the twenty-fifth Pithecanthropus, the Javan fossil, develops; and typical man is easily arrived at in the twenty-sixth."

Huxley, though a more subtle thinker, led people to think that Man's origin along the final stages of the scale of life had been scientifically proved. Adopting a saying of Buffon's, in which Buffon said of the orang-outang that "as regards his body, he differs less from man than he does from other animals which are still called apes," Huxley said that "The structural differences which separate man from the gorilla and the chimpanzee are not so great as those which separate the gorilla from the lower apes." He came to the conclusion that a true end-on evolution was shown by man, the anthropoid apes, the monkeys, the lemurs, and the pronograde quadrupedal mammals.

It is thus seen that, according to this view of Haeckel and Huxley, and of others who support them, the latter end of the life-scale is on a different principle from the middle: it has end-on evolution, whereas this was shown to have broken down in the case of the middle part of the life-scale.

As to the belief that the ancestors of man were once four-footed creatures supporting their weight equally on all four members, and carrying their body parallel with the ground, the author says that no attentive student of human anatomy can possibly believe this to be true; and quotes Klaatsch to the effect that "Man and his ancestors were never quadrupeds as the dog or the elephant or the horse."

"It is enough to study the hand and forearm of man to note the astonishingly primitive arrangement of bones, muscles, and joints, to compare them with those of a primitive type of reptile, and to contrast them with those of a quadrupedal mammal, to be certain that at no period has man or his ancestors supported the body weight upon the fore-limb resting upon the surface of the earth. One thing is certain concerning the anatomy of man, and that is that he has retained a fore-limb practically unaltered from the dawn period of mammalian history, and that this fore-limb has never been a supporting structure as has the corresponding member in such an animal as a horse."

As it is therefore hopeless to expect light on man's origin from a search among the quadrupeds, the author rules them out and tries the quadrumana, or, to use the now-preferred term, the Primates. This Order includes (1) Lemurs or Strepsirrhini, (2) New-World Monkeys or Platyrrhini, (3) Old-World Monkeys or Catarrhini, (4) Anthropoid Apes (also Catarrhini), (5) Man. To this list of groups the author adds Tarsius, to provide a place for a curious little animal of that name which lives in the Malayan Islands, and which, though at present classed with the Lemurs, is not a Lemur, but a true monkey, the most primitive (though specialized) of all the non-lemurine Primates. Thus we are left with the following conjectural sequence of groups leading to Man: Lemurs, Tarsius, New-World Monkeys, Old-World Monkeys, Anthropoid Apes.

From this list the author rules out the Lemurs; they cannot be regarded either as belonging to the monkey group or as ancestral of it; they do not belong to the Primate stem. This leaves Tarsius, the monkeys, and the anthropoid apes as possible ancestors of man. Before proceeding to consider the relations between these groups and man, the author issues a caution against mistakes that may arise from false analogies. We must not merely look for likenesses, but must also ask the significance of such likenesses. Likenesses may be due to the fact that both animals are primitive, a circumstance which admitted the lemurs to Primate rank. Animals leading similar lives, subject to similar influences, tend to grow alike by a process of adaptation, a tendency expressed by the

term 'convergence.' In fishes, types of the same general appearance and habit have been developed repeatedly from utterly different groups in widely separated geological periods. In Molluscs, the same shell may be made over and over again in geological history and by animals utterly unrelated by time or by affinity. These phenomena were overlooked in Huxley's day, says the author. We must be careful how we use likeness as tests for affinity and ancestry. The mere fact that the anthropoids are big like man is not enough; and if both have been arboreal, they may have converged in certain features owing to this circumstance.

How Man Differs from ApesMan differs from all the anthropoid apes and monkeys in three general directions:

(1) He does not possess certain features which may be termed simian or pithecoid specializations; (2) he retains a large number of very primitive features which have been lost by the monkeys and anthropoid apes; (3) he has developed some distinctly human specializations, some of which are dependent on his upright posture, but some quite independent of this fact. Among the simian features which man has avoided must be ranked that type of brain development which expresses itself in the 'Simian sulcus' and is so distinctive of all Old-World monkeys and apes. Many simian types of muscle, artery, etc. are absent in man; and the loss of the thumb, the development of cheek pouches and laryngeal sacs, and the presence of ischial callosities may also be mentioned. As to number 2:

"The human skull shows a great number of features in which a condition of basal mammalian primitiveness is retained and which offer a marked contrast to the same parts in all monkeys and apes. In the base of the human skull, and upon the sides of the brain-case, the bones articulate in an order which is that characteristic of the primitive mammal. In these regions the human skull shows a condition exactly like that of the lemurs. But all the monkeys and anthropoid apes (with one exception) have lost this primitive arrangement and follow an utterly different plan. No monkey or anthropoid ape approaches near to man in the primitive simplicity of the nasal bones.

"The structure of the back wall of the orbit, the 'metopic' suture, the form of the jugal bone, the condition of the internal pterygoid plate, the teeth, etc., all tell the same story - that the human skull is built upon remarkably primitive mammalian lines, which have been departed from in some degree by all monkeys and apes."

In speaking of muscles, he mentions the pectoralis minor, which passes from the ribs to the fore-limb. In man it is attached to the fore-limb at the coracoid process of the shoulder-girdle; in the anthropoid apes it is attached in part to the process, and in part to a ligament which passes downwards to the humerus. In many quadrupedal mammals it is attached altogether to the humerus. Now, if we follow the sequence of quadrupeds, lemurs, monkeys, apes, man, we shall say that in evolution this muscle has crept up from the humerus to the coracoid process; whereas the reverse is the truth. The coracoid process is the primitive attachment of this muscle, and this attachment is retained by man and some other exceedingly primitive animals. But by stages this primitive arrangement is lost in monkeys and apes, and is most widely departed from in the so-called lower quadrupedal mammals. And this story is only an instance, typical of many morphological facts. We cannot spare space to follow the author in his other instances, but they lead to the conclusion that the search for man's ancestors must be pushed a very long way back.

"It is difficult to imagine how a being whose body is replete with features of basal mammalian simplicity can have sprung from any of those animals in which so much of this simplicity has been lost. It becomes impossible to picture man as being descended from

any form at all like the recent monkeys or anthropoid apes, or from their fossil representatives. Man must have come from the Primate stem at an extraordinarily early period. He must have started an independent line of his own, long before the anthropoid apes and the monkeys developed those specializations which shaped their definite evolutionary destinies."

From an examination of the skeleton of the early individual discovered at Chapelle-aux-Saints, Professor Boule of Paris concluded that

"'Man has been' derived neither from the Anthropoid stem nor from any other known group. But from a very ancient Primate stock that separated from the main line even before the giving off of the Lemuroids.'"

Reverting now to Tarsius, the author seeks a place for it, and says:

"The pre-human member of the human stock would probably be a small animal, and we would not venture on a nearer guess than that which anyone is free to make as to the identity of an animal intermediate between a Tarsius-like form and man."

Tarsius, like man, shows primitive cranial architecture, his kidney is formed on human lines, his aortic arch is arranged as in man, and he shares with man the basal mammalian simplicity of the Primate group. He remains today a specialized primitive Primate, nearer akin to man than any known animal. He dates back, as Anaptomorphus, to the base of the Eocene, when he has already gained his own peculiar specializations. But as regards man, fossil evidence is lacking; and we therefore apply another test - that of the doctrine which states that every organism, in its development from the egg, runs through a series of forms through which in like succession its ancestors have passed in history. We seek to determine whether those characters which are distinctive of man as a species are acquired early or late in the development of the human embryo. Haeckel had taught that a human embryo could not be distinguished from that of an anthropoid ape until the fourth or fifth month; but this has been given up. One specific human character is that the premaxilla has ceased to exist as a separate bone in the human face, whereas in apes and monkeys it is mapped out by suture lines marking its juncture with the maxillary bones. Does this feature appear very late in the development of the human embryo? On the contrary, it is established as soon as the future bones are first represented as cartilaginous nuclei. Hence this feature, so early acquired in foetal growth, must have been acquired early in history, and the human species must be very old indeed. Man must be a very primitive animal, originating at the base of the Primate stem and acquiring his specific characters at a very remote date.

Again, in the human foot the great toe is the largest, while the monkeys and apes have the toes arranged like fingers, with the longest in the middle. The human foot, as soon as formed in the embryo, has the human type. Man has walked upright for an astonishingly long period.

Are Apes Descended from Man?We here call special attention to the following, as interesting to Theosophists:

"If man is a more primitive mammal than are the monkeys and apes, and if he undoubtedly belongs to their phylum, then it follows that far from being a descendant of the apes, he may be looked on as their ancestor."

And Klaatsch is quoted to the effect that

"When the whole evidence is reviewed, the monkeys and apes are found to be best regarded 'as degenerated branches of the pre-human stock.'"

Not less welcome, in our opinion, will be found the following:

"Our hypothesis also demands that any so-called missing link would be very unlike the popular picture of a brutish slouching creature made more horrible than any gorilla by a dawning touch of humanity. This missing-link picture must be deleted from our minds, and I find no occupation less worthy of the science of anthropology than the not unfashionable business of modelling, painting, or drawing these nightmare products of imagination, and lending them in the process an utterly false value of apparent reality."

From the Eocene deposits of Egypt are two types, Parapithecus and Propliopithecus, which hold promise of revealing the ancestral forms which begat the human stock. In the Miocene occur the remains of real anthropoid apes. This suggests the idea that many stocks may have departed from the primitive pre-human lines, and that many may have become extinct.

If we discover missing links, they may be missing links in the ancestry of the anthropoids, not lost ancestors of man.

It is possible that not all human races arose from one common point of departure, thinks the author.

Enormous demands on time are made by these views, and indeed we are getting more and more liberal in our allowances. At Talgai in Queensland in 1884 a skull was unearthed, highly fossilized; and though we cannot assign it to any geological age definable in Europe, we know that this and other human beings were contemporary in Australia with huge species of pouched mammals which are now extinct. Remains of the dog have been found at the same early period. Now the fauna of Australia consists of pouched animals, which have existed in isolation on the island continent. The author supposes the man and his dog to have come in a boat, which implies an advanced degree of culture. Moreover he was already racially differentiated - an "Australian native"; and when his fellow-men from outside visited his descendants with Cook and La Perouse, they found them after this enormous interval but little, if any, advanced.

We need not therefore be surprised that man should have chipped flints during the Miocene period when so many anthropoid apes were flourishing. The human origin of these 'eoliths' is now very generally admitted.

In concluding, the author thinks the time has come for a restatement of the problem of human evolution; that the knowledge scattered broadcast in 1859 has not benefitted humanity, because of the unfortunate impression that man has originated after an acute and bloody struggle for existence, and by a process of survival of the fittest, from an existing anthropoid ape; that the times through which we are now passing owe something of their making to these beliefs. The evidence for an alternative theory is at hand, and upon this evidence he urges a reconsideration of the teaching of the immediate post-Darwinian school.

"Man is no new-begot child of the ape, born of a chance variation, bred of a bloody struggle for existence upon pure brutish lines. Such an idea must be dismissed by humanity, and such an idea must cease to exert any influence upon conduct. We did not reach our present level by these means; certainly we shall never attain a higher level by intensifying them. Were man to regard himself as being an extremely ancient type, distinguished now, and differentiated in the past, purely by the qualities of his mind, and were he to regard existing Primates as misguided and degenerated failures of his ancient

stock, I think it would be something gained for the ethical outlook of humanity - and it would be a belief consistent with present knowledge."

What Theosophy TeachesThus far we have followed the author of the pamphlet, and we now proceed to

comment. It is well known that Theosophists, since H.P. Blavatsky, have contended with might and main for a nobler view of human nature and origin, and have contended that such a view alone is consistent with the facts and with their just interpretation the two points with which the author concludes.

The idea that the Anthropoids are from man, rather than man from the Anthropoids - an idea advocated above and which is cropping up more frequently elsewhere of late - is also strenuously insisted on by H.P. Blavatsky.

"The pithecoids, the orang-outang, the gorilla, and the chimpanzee can, and, as the Occult Sciences teach, do, descend from the animalized Fourth human Root-Race, being the product of man and an extinct species of mammal - whose remote ancestors were themselves the product of Lemurian bestiality - which lived in the Miocene age. The ancestry of this semi-human monster is explained in the Stanzas as originating in the sin of the 'Mind-less' races of the middle Third-Race period." - The Secret Doctrine, II, 683

It is thus definitely stated, as an integral part of the body of ancient teachings known as the Secret Doctrine, that these anthropoids have descended from the human stem; and that this took place at a very remote epoch. We must bear in mind that the present Root-Race is the Fifth, which is stated to have been in existence as an independent race for 850,000 years; so that the sin of those Fourth-Race men must have taken place at least a million years ago. Notice too that the process was in two stages, the first of these being of still older date; for the Lemurians were Third-Race. Still such figures should cause no stumbling-block to geologists, calculating by estimated rate of deposition and thickness of strata.

Other quotations from The Secret Doctrine to the same effect are:

"The anatomical resemblances between Man and the Anthropoids - grossly exaggerated as they are by Darwinists, as M. de Quatrefages shows - are simply enough 'accounted for' when the origin of the latter is taken into consideration.... Nowhere in the older deposits is an ape to be found that approximates more closely to man, or a man that approximates more closely to an ape.... 'The same gulf which is found today between Man and Ape, goes back with undiminished breadth and depth to the Tertiary period.' (Pfaff.)" - Ibid., II, 87

Professor Pfaff, of the University of Erlangen, is again cited to the effect that

"'We find one of the most man-like apes (gibbon), in the tertiary period, and this species is still in the same low grade, and side by side with it at the end of the Ice-period, man is found in the same high grade as today, the ape not having approximated more nearly to the man, and modern man not having become further removed from the ape than the first (fossil) man.'" -The Secret Doctrine, II, 681-2

De Quatrefages said that it is rather the apes that can claim descent from man than vice versa. As proven by Gratiolet, the development of the skull and brain, and of the intelligence, in apes during their lifetime, is in the opposite direction from what it is in man; for whereas man's brain and mind improve with the years of his age, those of the ape deteriorate as he grows older. This indicates, according to biological law, that the ape is a

descending product, not an ascending one.But we cannot encumber the page with quotations from the ample discussions

which H.P. Blavatsky gives to the question of the alleged analogies between Man and Anthropoid. Let us pass to another point.

In the pamphlet we have been reviewing, the scheme of evolution has been compared to a tree with many branches representing the various Orders and their Groups. Each of these leads back to the trunk of the tree, from which they all diverge. We have been asked to consider at what point the branch corresponding to Man was given off from the trunk; and we have been shown that it is necessary to go very far back to find the junction. In short, the scale of animal life seems to consist mostly of side-lines, and we begin to wonder if there are any animals at all which we can claim as our ancestors, seeing that so many of them rank as cousins of the nth degree. To what is all this tending?

Man Precedes Animals in this RoundWe answer our own question by saying that it is tending to the truth - that is, to the

ancient teachings outlined by H.P. Blavatsky. For she says:

"When it is borne in mind that all forms which now people the earth are so many variations on basic types originally thrown off by the Man of the Third and Fourth Round, such an evolutionist argument as that insisting on the 'unity of structural plan' characterizing all vertebrates, loses its edge.... The human type is the repertory of all potential organic forms, and the central point from which these latter radiate." - Ibid., II, 683

"So far as our present Fourth-Round terrestrial period is concerned, the mammalian fauna are alone to be regarded as traceable to prototypes shed by Man. The amphibia, birds, reptiles, fishes, etc., are the resultants of the Third Round." - Ibid., II, 684

In short, the teaching is that, in this Round of evolution (which includes the four Root-Races mentioned) Man preceded the mammals; they were a later stage of evolution. This does not mean that they are descended from man by propagation. It means that man furnishes the astral models or prototypes for them. Man is indeed the most ancient type of all. And here it becomes essential to recognize that evolution is necessarily a twofold process.

"Man is the alpha and the omega of objective creation. As said in Isis Unveiled, 'all things had their origin in spirit - evolution having originally begun from above and proceeding downwards.'.... There has been a gradual materialization of forms until a fixed ultimate of debasement is reached. This point is that at which the doctrine of modern evolution enters into the arena of speculative hypothesis.'" - Ibid., II, 170, 190

Thus we have the type of the 'Heavenly Man,' descending into Matter and causing an upward evolution of visible forms. But the process is far more complex than can be explained in a brief article.

Man's Divine AncestryThus the teachings of H.P. Blavatsky in her writings are being day by day

vindicated; and as long as science is faithful to truth and fact, they are bound to be vindicated. It is comforting to know that scientific men are coming round to the view that man is not of degraded ancestry, and that the theories which said he was are erroneous. Nothing more outrageous can be imagined than those pictures and images of man's supposed semi-animal ancestors - beasts with a horrible gleam of human intelligence in their eyes - that are set up in museums and even shown to children in schools as object-lessons. And the result of such hypnotic suggestions is seen in the outbreak of violence

and reliance on brute force.Man himself knows better than that. He knows that his Mind is not from the

animals; and he demands that science shall demonstrate this by appeal to the facts. This has already been done by Theosophy, and science is inevitably following the lead. If we trace back the history of man (in this Round) we shall never come upon a time when he was not a fully developed being, a complete man, inseparably differentiated from the animals, as he is now; a distinct species, complete in himself. We shall find civilization preceding civilization back into the remotest past. And even though science were right as to the origin of man's body, the problem as to the origin of his Mind would still remain as unsolved as ever.

It is truly a nightmare of the mind that science should ever be regarded as the prophet of a soulless animalism; and it will be a great relief to many that the theories which support that gospel are false. To have one's intellect and one's conscience arrayed against each other on opposing sides is a terrible predicament; and glad we shall therefore be to find that this is not necessary. There do seem to be some people, whether rightly claiming the name of scientific men or not, interested in having us believe that we are more or less helpless victims of our animal nature. We are not; for whatever may be the origin and descent of our animal nature, we have, as men, our divine nature. The divine spark in man renders his mind entirely sui generis - of its own kind. He is the child of spiritual beings who existed before there was any physical man at all. And whatever we may believe as to this, we have our own nature to study; searching into which we may find abundantly the evidences of man's divinity.

(Vol. 17, pp. 523-33)

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Perpetual Motion - T. E.

The following is quoted from a speech of Lloyd George, the British Premier:

"The only way to carry any great purpose is not on your shoulders but in your heart. Carry it on your back, and it will gradually wear you down. Carry it in your heart, and it will lift you along."

The point is in the last clause. One might have expected the saying to end: "Carry it in your heart, and it will be much easier," or, "You will not feel the weight." But the speaker goes further, and says that, not only will the burden cease to press, but it will even become converted into a help, lifting you along.

This reminds one of a remark in Isis Unveiled to the following effect:

"One thing is certain, when a man shall have discovered the perpetual motion, he will be able to understand by analogy all the secrets of nature; progress in direct ratio with resistance." - Vol. I, p. 502

Does not this mean that, as in the moral world, so in the physical, there is an energy which increases in proportion to the resistance opposed to it; and that therefore perpetual motion is theoretically and practically possible? Or, to quote again from the same page:

"As everything below is like everything above, who would presume to say that,

when the conservation of energy is better understood, and the two additional forces of the kabalists are added to the catalog of orthodox science, it may not be discovered how to construct a machine which shall run without friction and supply itself with energy in proportion to its wastes?"

The principle of the conservation of energy has been supposed to do away with the idea of perpetual motion. But an examination of this principle leads to the conviction that it is merely a formula defining the relationships between known facts, and that it stands always ready for modification, should the discovery of new facts render that necessary. A writer on perpetual motion says that:

"If any machine were produced whose source of energy could not at once be traced, a man of science.... would in the first place try to trace its power to some hidden source of a kind already known; or, in the last resort, he would seek for a source of energy of a new kind and give it a new name." - Prof. Chrystal in Enc. Brit., Ninth Ed.

So the theory of the conservation of energy is prepared to accommodate itself to facts, and, in fact, to bestraddle any emergency that may arise. Can we then accept it as a prohibitive dogma? Illustration is provided by the discovery of radioactive minerals. Here was a fount of energy arising from a new source; and the source was duly acknowledged and christened. The theory of conservation simply expands and takes in the new ground. The equations are adjusted accordingly. I bow down to the inexorable truth of the equation that x = y; which does not prevent me from claiming a large liberty under it just the same.

A clock has been made in which the energy was provided by the casual rise and fall of mercury in a barometer; as this energy was found to be far more than sufficient, some of it could be stored, so as to make quite certain that the clock would not at any time cease running. Why was not this perpetual motion? The source drawn upon was the variations in pressure of the atmosphere, and the clock might be supposed to have some infinitesimal influence in slowing down the motions of the celestial machine and thus bringing on the end of the cycle of manifestation a little sooner. But this point is not worth considering; especially if we say that the universe periodically winds itself up again. It is evident that other machines can be constructed which draw upon the motions of the earth, as for instance a tidal machine.

So much mechanical work produces so much heat, but radium was found to furnish heat without the expenditure of mechanical work. Hence this energy had to be referred to a new source; and the atom was said to possess a vast potential energy, normally occupied in the maintenance of the integrity of the atom, but set free when that integrity collapsed and the atom disintegrated. This means a widening of the theory and a consequent readjustment of the equations. How often may the process be repeated? The more weighty discoveries, it appears, are empirical, and theory follows in the wake. Tomorrow I may discover some new fact which will necessitate an alteration of the theories. Thus doctrine formulates revelation; and binds only so long as no new revelation supervenes.

The theory of 'relativity' goes behind the propositions of conventional mechanics by digging into the axioms and postulates thereof; and the architects of cosmic theory find themselves planning the erection of a house on the supposition that the foundations are in constant motion and the corner posts in a state of indeterminate oscillation. This turning of constants into variables raises the burning question as to what new constants we can find or select as our standards of reference. The old adage, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? finds a new application when we ask what is the use of nailing a thing down in a certain place if the place itself cannot be trusted to stay still; or when we make an appointment to

arrive at a certain time, and then find that the time has moved.So, with all this in view, it does not seem so very absurd to imagine that you or I

may discover a machine whose internal energy increases in proportion to the resistance offered; and then we can employ a mathematician to devise an equation which shall duly formulate what we have discovered. And it shall go hard with him indeed, if he does not succeed, by selecting the requisite values for his terms, in making that equation balance.

The distinction made in our initial quotation, between the effect of a burden when carried on the shoulders and when borne on the heart, may be said to define a distinction between the lower and the higher nature of man - between the material and the spiritual. The shoulders, coming under the laws of matter, tire, and must be given time to recuperate. The heart draws new strength from resistance. Perhaps it takes its energy from a bottomless fount and is thus a kind of perpetual lamp. The perpetual lamp was another quest of medieval philosophy - now classed as one of the seven great delusions. But what we have said about perpetual motion applies to it. Again we find radium coming to our aid with suggestive facts.

The rigid quantitative rules of physical science have usurped the dominion of our minds to such an extent that we apply them where their influence does no good. People speak of themselves as though they were engines having a measured quantity of energy, which run down after a measured quantity of work, and which need a measured quantity of food. But times of emotional excitement upset all these calculations, because then energy is drawn from a higher and fuller source. And so it may be surmised that within each is an exhaustless fount of energy, making our possible resources incalculable, except by an equation where x = infinity; and the perpetuum mobile is discovered in human nature at any rate.

(Vol. 16, pp. 477-79)

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Almighty Protoplasm - H. T. Edge

Turning over some old papers, we chance upon a scientific article, containing among other things an account of Protoplasm. This is defined as the essential substance common to plants and animals alike; it has certain general and primitive properties, and numerous special properties which it acquires in response to various conditions. But we come upon the somewhat dogmatic statement that some time within the last hundred million years - or, to be exact, about sixty million years ago Protoplasm came into existence on the earth in a manner wholly unknown. We find ourselves somewhat in doubt as to what is known and what is not; and the statement would seem to imply that it is known that this substance came into existence on the earth sixty million years ago, but that it is not known how it came into existence.

Protoplasm was probably in the form of small specks of a jelly-like substance, of structure complicated indeed but not so complicated as the Protoplasm of our day. As it was extremely liable to injury, it became necessary for it to make continual adjustments to the natural forces that impinged upon it; and it was this admirable power of harmonizing itself with its surroundings that has enabled it to survive until today.

Now this Protoplasm, having tried to achieve many things, but having also achieved many failures, was finally successful in two lines of effort, whereby it produced (1) the vegetable, and (2) the animal kingdom.

What was the primal quality that enabled Protoplasm to harmonize itself with its

surroundings? The orthodox moralist will be somewhat aghast at the reply: it was irritability. This amiable and efficient quality, combined with a power of perceiving changes in the intensity of light, heat, moisture, etc., enabled Protoplasm to harmonize itself with its surroundings. Thus the long-continued play of evolutionary forces gradually led to its development into forms which would serve the organism better and better, until finally the process culminated in Man.

From an encyclopedia we learn that the primal qualities of undifferentiated vital matter are contractility, irritability and automatism, reception and assimilation of food, metabolism with secretion and excretion, respiration, and reproduction. A very fair list of attributes with which to endow a primal rudiment; a very liberal set of postulates with which to start out on a chain of deduction.

Those who claim for science a rigorous adherence to ascertained facts, and an avoidance of all speculation and romance; and who are disposed to hold it up to Theosophists as a model for them to copy, while imputing to the said Theosophists the very faults repudiated in Science; these will find their faith shaken by such pronouncements as the above. A more highly speculative and romantic cosmogonical scheme it would be hard to imagine; and one may be pardoned for exclaiming: 'Verily, Protoplasm is God.' For it does all that God has been required to do, arriving on earth in the full plenitude of an almighty power, - omniscient and self-create. Thus endowed, it produces the entire universe of creatures, of its own unaided will, including Man himself; and, like God, it -

'Moves in a mysterious way, Its wonders to perform.'

Well may we say, with H.P. Blavatsky, that unless more rational views are adopted, there is no alternative but to admit special creation by an anthropomorphic deity in the old-fashioned way. For to start our system at the point where this mysterious jelly appears, fully endowed with all the potentiality of those marvelous creative powers which it subsequently manifests, is to assume practically the whole problem; nor would it be more wonderful should Man himself, with all his powers fully developed, have descended sixty million years ago, from an unknown source, upon earth, instead of that omnipotent if unpicturesque primeval slime. Nay, is not the slime more wonderful than Man, since it has produced Man, together with all the other kingdoms of Nature - a thing that Man himself cannot achieve?

Thus is brought forcibly home the inevitable truth that any attempt to derive mind from matter ends in a total reversal of the purpose proposed; inasmuch as we cannot set out on the argument without first postulating the whole of what we intend to prove. Give me the egg, and I will give you the bird; show me first your seed, and I will show you my tree. Ay, but there's the rub. The egg presupposes the bird; the seed, the plant. What is this Protoplasm but the entire scheme of animate creation, done up in a small parcel, to be subsequently unrolled and spread out in detail? Or what change have we made from the old-fashioned ideas, but to remove God from his celestial hovering over the waters of chaos, and his divine breathing on the lifeless clay, in order to shut him up, like a chick in an egg, within that very clay? Sixty million years ago God descended on earth in the form of minute specks of mucilage! Why not Jupiter in the form of a snake? Why not an egg dropped into the waters of space by a great bird? In a word, where does mythology end and science begin?

Now, far as we are from accepting wholesale and without examination this drama of the earth and its primeval slime, let us for a moment assume it and see where we are even then. We find ourselves confronted with an ideal spectacle far more marvelous and inexplicable than any which mythology or theology has devised; for we find the entire

animate universe arising spontaneously from a sort of chemical mud, which mud is endowed (as necessarily it must be) with all the powers of the mind, will, imagination, etc., etc., which, by racking our imaginations, we can possibly attribute to the most highest of all deities.

This is the result of materialism, which, for the present purpose, may be defined as an attempt to philosophize under the form of concepts derived from the five physical senses. We live in a world of the physical senses, and also in a world of the imagination which we have constructed out of the materials which those senses supply. Into our imagination we have projected an ideal three-dimensional space, together with a system of dynamical principles, which we have derived from the experience of the physical senses. And we try to conceive the universe and its origin and development under that form. The ancient Atomic Theory has accordingly assumed quite a different guise from what it had in antiquity. For us, the atom is a speck of dirt; and we are compelled to commit the logical absurdity of endowing it primarily with the very attributes to explain which it was postulated. We say that matter is composed of atoms, and owes its various properties to its atomic structure, of which those properties are functions; and then we say that the atoms themselves have these same properties. Absurd as this may seem, we feel bound to do it, because the only alternative is to suppose that atoms are not matter (which is obvious); and then what becomes of our materialism?

The same thing has found its way into biology; for here we are seeking a rudiment corresponding to the atom of so-called inorganic matter. Hence this Protoplasm, which, however, is a fact, so far as its mere existence goes, for we can see and study it. Some have sought to go beyond Protoplasm into specks within the cell, to which various names have been given. But the fact remains the same, that, unless we are to derive matter from itself, thus making it equivalent to the Causeless Cause, the God Uncreate, we must derive it from something which is not matter.

For ancient philosophers, then, the atom was not a mere particle of earth, but a Soul (if we may employ so inadequate and ambiguous a word). A materialist, unable to make his philosophy serve every need of his soul, may find no alternative but to jump at one bound from dead matter to the Supreme Deity, and to imagine that Deity as performing a special act of creation in every cell and every particle in his entire universe. But a more philosophical and less restricted mind will be willing to allow the Deity some mediate agencies. Finding mind within our own body, it is not unreasonable to infer that other bodies are also endowed with mind; and that the results which the lower kingdoms of Nature manifest are produced in the same way as our own actions are produced - by the operation of mind and will. The physical forces of Nature, such as heat and all the various manifestations of energy, must be either self-produced, in which case they are spiritual powers; or else they must be the visible manifestations of something that is invisible and immaterial. In short, they must be manifestations of mind.

Thus the ancient idea that the universe is animate in each and every part is seen to be the only reasonable and logical one. Since something must be assumed for a beginning, the only logical thing to assume is mind - the faculty with which we think - and from this as a postulate - we must seek to derive everything visible and material.

To consider by way of illustration one particular case - if you are in the habit of pouring out water anywhere, you will find that all the trees in the neighborhood have discovered the fact and have sent out roots for many yards to fetch that water. How is this to be explained? If we wish to devise a materialistic explanation, we must resort to electrons, thrown off by the water, impinging on the trees, exciting reflex actions - and so forth in the usual way; all of which is surely more wonderful than Jupiter and Pan. But if we say that the tree has a consciousness of its own, which enables it to perceive the water and to do what is necessary to secure it, we have an explanation in harmony with the facts of our own experience as animate beings. If more explanation is sought, then how do we

ourselves perceive things and act upon our perceptions? The one thing is not more mysterious than the other. We have to study Mind and its properties, if we would learn more about the mysteries of that universe which is the manifestation of Cosmic Mind. What are the primal properties of Mind? Are they more mysterious than those assigned to Protoplasm? If anyone says that we are too venturesome in our ideas as to the powers of Mind, we can only refer them to the powers attributed to Protoplasm, and say, 'What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.' Mind, it would seem, has a primitive power of knowing where it is, what it wants, and how to get it. It is able to develop for itself senses and organs. It has a self-reproductive power, which it transmits to the organisms which it creates, so that they too are self-reproductive.

To understand evolution, we have to familiarize ourselves with a conception somewhat strange to the modern world - the idea of Monads, or Jivas, or Souls (to give them some of the names that have been applied). These are atoms or germs in the true sense; they are alive and conscious (though not with our consciousness). They are not material, not on the physical plane. With our physical means of research we can track them up to a certain point and no further: we can detect some speck or cell, and there come to the jumping-off place. Our authority could not get beyond his primeval jelly.

"The bud must be traced through its parent-plant to the seed, and the egg to the animal or bird that laid it; or at any rate to the speck of protoplasm from which it expanded and grew. And both the seed and the speck must have the latent potentialities in them for the reproduction and gradual development, the unfolding of the thousand and one forms or phases of evolution, through which they must pass before the flower or the animal are fully developed. Hence, the future plan, if not a Design, must be there. Moreover, that seed has to be traced, and its nature ascertained." - The Secret Doctrine, II, 653

That all Nature is ensouled is an ancient and universal belief, from which, in times of mental obscuration, humanity departs for awhile. But humanity soon grows hungry and yearns to return to the truth. Is a poet or an artist a man who tries to delude himself with the fancy that Nature is sentient, and are the beliefs of children idle fancies which we encourage from policy? Or is it the scientists that have gone astray and deluded themselves with fairy-tales?

"I love indeed to regard the dark valleys, and the gray rocks, and the waters that silently smile, and the forests that sigh in uneasy slumbers, and the proud watchful mountains that look down upon all - I love to regard these as themselves but the colossal members of one vast animate and sentient whole - a whole whose form (that of the sphere) is the most perfect and most inclusive of all; whose path is among associate planets; whose meek handmaiden is the moon; whose mediate sovereign is the sun; whose life is eternity; whose thought is that of a God; whose enjoyment is knowledge; whose destinies are lost in immensity...." - E.A. Poe, The Island of the Fay

Is not the poet - the artist - then, one who feels that he is in the presence of such a soul, and who tries to give expression to that which he feels?

It will be more conducive to man's self-respect, as well as to his happiness, to conceive himself as a member of a sentient whole, than as a hapless and irresponsible wight stranded on a dead and unfeeling clod of earth. If, instead of viewing the plants and animals as legitimate plunder, he can learn to feel towards them as an elder brother amid children, he will find more joy both in himself and in them. If unfortunate circumstances, due to the imperfections of humanity, constrain him to actions which are repellent to his sense of justice and mercy towards humbler creatures, he will submit to that necessity with a genuine reluctance that will free him from the need for sophistical attempts to justify

cruelty, and will seek the merciful and harmonious road wherever possible. And instead of flying to art and music as one who tries to console himself with make-believes, he will find in them the true interpreters of Nature, and the inseparable partners of a science that deals, not with phantoms, but with realities; not with dead matter but living souls.

(Vol. 17, pp. 416-21)

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"Relativity" - H. T. Edge

[1920]

In connection with the present interest in the question of the transmission of light, in the alleged ether, in the nature of space and time, etc., it becomes advisable to call attention to a point occasionally made by critics of science, and emphasized by H.P. Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine. We refer to actio in distans, or action at a distance. Action at a distance is supposed to be quite unthinkable and inadmissible, and the several theories of the transmission of light from celestial bodies to the earth have been constructed with a view to avoid action at a distance. Yet it can be shown that this same actio in distans, which science so abhors, is actually the only kind of action which it recognizes! This remarkable paradox is thus commented on by Stallo, as quoted in The Secret Doctrine:

"Most of them reject actio in distans.... while, as Stallo justly observes, there is no physical action 'which, on close examination, does not resolve itself into actio in distans'; and he proves it." - I, 487-8

This of course arises from the fact that our conception of matter is atomic, the atoms being separated by empty spaces. How is force transmitted across these empty spaces from one atom to another? If it is so transmitted, we have action at a distance, and the question of the extent of the distance is irrelevant; for, if force can be transmitted across a small space, it might just as well be transmitted in the same way across a large one - from the sun to the earth, for instance. Hence, why is there any need to suppose the existence of an ether, or of emitted particles, or of any other material communication at all? If we suppose the ether, we have the same difficulty over again when we try to conceive its structure; for, if it is particled, then how is force transmitted between its particles? And, if it is not particled, what is it? And why, if the ether can be unparticled, cannot matter itself also be unparticled, in which case the reason for postulating the ether, as a means of getting over action at a distance between the particles of matter, disappears?

Show me how force gets from atom to atom, and I will show you how force gets from the sun to the earth.

This interesting and important point has, as usual, been lost sight of. Yet it is quite familiar to careful thinkers that our whole conception of physics is relative to certain artificial standards derived by us from the information supplied by our physical senses; and that the laws of the universe are not likely to be limited by that information (or rather misinformation), and by those artificial standards. As remarked in The Secret Doctrine, the phenomena of the senses are shadows projected on a screen; and, if we wish to see the realities behind those shadows, we can do so only by the use of more refined means of perception.

To some extent this is now being realized; and the present epoch is quite

remarkable, and may be compared with that of some centuries ago when the idea of the sphericity of the earth and the form of the solar system forced itself into the mind. It is possible to get along comfortably on the theory that the earth is a level plane - so long as we do not push our investigations too far; but when we get to sailing across the wide oceans, we have to exchange the level plane for a spherical surface and to alter our system of co-ordinates accordingly. Straight lines at right angles to each other will no longer suffice for measurements, and lines of latitude and longitude must supervene; a town, or even a small country, may be shown on a flat map; but not the continent, the ocean, the globe.

In the same way we have been accustomed to measure the confines of the universe with reference to three straight lines at right angles to each other, and called rectilinear coordinates. We have constructed a something which we have been pleased to call space, but which in reality is a large empty room or a very thin gas, having length, breadth, and thickness. We have placed imaginary milestones along the way from here to Sirius. We have endowed this space with the qualities of threefold extension wherewith our study of matter has rendered us familiar. Shrinking from the idea of such a space, we have attempted to fill it with ether - a very poor way of getting rid of it, some may think.

And now we find that Nature refuses to recognize our theories and will not behave in the way they require; and people have been driven to realize the artificial nature of those theories and to try and construct better ones. Perhaps, they are saying, the idea of a triply extended space is as temporary and limited as the idea of a flat earth; and a straight line, if produced "ever so far" (as Euclid says), may swallow its own tail like the mythical serpent of time.

It would seem that, if we are to revise our conceptions of the structure of the universe, we must needs first revise the structure of our minds; and that we cannot see the world properly without first getting outside of it and planting our feet somewhere else. Mathematics helps us to some extent. We can form a mathematical idea of a fourfold extension, but without the ability to frame a mental picture corresponding to it. And this is about the position in which we find ourselves with regard to Einstein and his fascinating but elusive theory of Relativity.

(Vol. 18, pp. 227-28)

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Some Scientific Vagaries - Hypercriticus

A writer in the English Mechanic states that he floated some gold on the surface of mercury. This contradicts the usual formulae in physics books, because the specific gravity of gold is much greater than that of mercury. But gravity is not the only force present; there is such a thing as surface tension, and this makes all the difference practically, though apt to be overlooked theoretically. In the same way many metals will float on their own molten liquids, though the densities of the solids are given as greater than those of the respective liquids. Here surface tension may come into play, as also the fact that solid metal, when hot, may be lighter than liquid as pointed out by another writer in the same journal.

Some scientific books give, in illustration of the laws of falling bodies, a picture of an apparatus in which balls roll down an inclined plane. The idea is that the velocity acquired will be proportional to the time taken, and the distance traveled over proportional to the square of the time, according to the usual formulae. But they neglect to take into account

the fact that the balls acquire a rotation, and that this rotational velocity increases in proportion to the linear velocity of the balls; so that some of the force of gravitation is used up in creating this rotation, and therefore not all of that force is available in increasing the velocity. This is described as Galileo's experiment, by which he is said to have demonstrated the laws of falling bodies, and doubtless for short distances the error would not be perceptible. Atwood's machine can be used instead.

Elementary science books must often, of course, be content with approximate statements, unless the student is to be hopelessly confused with details and side-issues. Also it is necessary, in explaining laws, to abstract them from their surroundings in a way that never happens in actuality. We are all familiar with the frictionless inclined planes and the dimensionless particles hanging from weightless strings, etc. In the descriptions of systems of pulleys, where some of the pulleys hang in loops, the weight of the pulley itself is seldom taken into account, but reveals itself perplexingly when the experiment is tried. It is necessary to use small pulleys and large weights; but any error introduced by the weight of the pulley is usually masked by the effect of friction - two errors thus counterbalancing each other.

Friction is often a by no means negligible quantity. To illustrate the parallellogram of forces, you are sometimes told to hang a string over two pulleys, with a weight at each end and another in the middle. The string is then supposed to take up a position conformable to the well-known requirements of the laws of combined forces acting at an angle with each other. But the experimenter usually finds that the weights will stay wherever you put them, owing to the friction of the pulleys, which increases as the weights are made heavier. So friction wheels are needed; or, better, no wheels or weights at all, but three spring balances pulling against each other.

The same effect of friction comes into play disastrously when you test the laws of vibration of strings with a sonometer or monochord. If you hang the weight over a pulley at the end, you will find that a very large component of its pull acts towards the axis of the pulley, so that you cannot estimate the tension of the string by the amount of the weight. The remedy is to hang up the instrument on the wall and let the weight hang straight down; or else to include a spring balance between the weight and the string, so that the tension may be read.

It is known that the velocity of sound may be determined by sounding a tuning-fork of known pitch over the mouth of a resonance tube, and adjusting the length of the tube to the position of maximum reinforcement of the sound. Then, as the length of the tube represents a quarter wave-length, the velocity of sound equals four times this length multiplied by the frequency of fork. But this experiment never comes out accurately, because the open end of the tube introduces an error. At the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge they used to give you a correction, based on the width of the tube. But at the Royal College of Science in South Kensington they had a much better method. You performed two experiments, one for the quarter wave-length, and one for the three-quarter. The difference, as measured on the tube, is the half wavelength, and all error due to the open end is eliminated.

The same error upsets the calculations respecting the length of organ-pipes. The square wooden pipes given you in a laboratory do not answer to the theory, and organ-builders will tell you the same. It is the open end that makes the confusion, and the error varies with the shape of the pipe. I have found that, if the length of the pipe is taken from the end of the nipple, where it enters your mouth, the results come out correct; it happens to be so in the case of the particular pipes I have used.

Sometimes we find in science books errors that are quite inexcusable. For instance, here is one which memory has treasured up - in a book issued by a government department. To illustrate the difference between suspended matter and dissolved matter in a liquid: Mix some chalk in water; filter it off; that is suspension. Then dissolve some

copper sulphate and try to filter it; it passes through; that is solution. All well so far, but - the learned chemist then tells you to put the chalk and the copper sulphate together into the same water and pour it on the filter. He asserts that the copper sulphate will go through and the chalk remain. But what does the poor boy find when he tries it? That the two chemicals react on each other, carbonic-acid gas being given off and the liquid clogging up with a copious precipitate.

Another book asks you to find the heat of a furnace by heating a copper ball in it and then dropping the ball into a pail of water, and noting the rise of temperature of the water. But a large amount of steam would be generated, and, the latent heat of steam being so high, would most seriously affect the result.

The same book asks the student why, if a copper wire is fused into a glass rod, the glass always cracks. We have always found that the copper drops out; and this is what we should have suspected from the figures given for the coefficients of expansion of glass and copper.

The following question reminds one of the familiar one about how many cow's tails it would take to reach to the moon. "An iron ball suspended from the cupola of St. Paul's makes 176 vibrations in half an hour. Find the height of the dome above the floor."

The aneroid barometer is useful in telling the heights of mountains. If it gives these to within twenty feet or so, that is near enough; but in determining the height of a building such an error is ridiculous. Yet this is what the student may have to do in a laboratory, especially in one where mountains are not provided in the list of apparatus. He is sent to the top of the building with his aneroid; and the results, as shown in the book of students' records, give the height of that building as anywhere from two feet to a couple of hundred. And all this difference may be made by simply tapping the glass of the instrument and so making the needle give a jump. Speaking of results of experiments as entered in books, one finds such entries as the specific gravity of wax, 0.874329673, or the time of vibration of a pendulum, 1.658349605 seconds. If we may assume the validity of these results, it is evident that the accuracy of the worker can compensate for the imperfection of the mere apparatus.

The value of H, or the horizontal component of the earth's magnetic force, has sometimes to be calculated. In a certain laboratory there was a long passageway made of sheet-iron running along the outside of one of the walls; and the result of this was that the value of H was enormous on the side near the passage, and much less at the opposite side; so that the actual value of the magnetic force had to be experimentally determined beforehand by the head demonstrator, for different parts of the room, so that the students might find due justification for their own results.

It is often broadly stated that water cannot rise higher than its source. But it can, and sometimes does. If water is contained in a U-tube, the hydrostatic pressure in both limbs will be equal when the height of the water is the same in both limbs; but if there is a bubble of air - say, a few inches long in one of the limbs, the water must rise higher in that limb in order to maintain the equality of pressure. This condition is said to obtain sometimes in nature, and a diagram can readily be drawn to demonstrate its possibility in the case of springs and reservoirs in limestone rocks.

We may conclude these observations by appending our own solution of a very famous problem, supposed, but quite erroneously so, to be insoluble. "What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable body?" Answer: the irresistible force goes on its way, and the immovable body stays where it is. Quod erat solvendum. The writer would also like to add, to assuage the uneasiness of his mind, that, in case he has himself committed some oversights of the kind he is criticizing, he will not be offended, but on the contrary edified, if his attention is called to them. It is human to err, and at present he is still human.

(Vol. 18, pp. 62-66)

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Atoms of Sound - Magister Artium

[1920]

A correspondent in the English Mechanic says:

"Science now recognises the atomic structure of both electricity and light, and by deduction from their correlation the other physical forces, those of heat and sound, must also possess an atomic structure. The atoms of both heat and sound, however, have yet to be discovered."

The inference is somewhat violent. Because two forces are correlated, and one is atomic, therefore the other is atomic. Also there is a certain delightful freedom in speaking of the structure of a force, as being atomic or otherwise. Atomic matter we are familiar with, but atomic force demands an additional scratching of our head. We supposed that science had pronounced electricity and light to be substances or grades of matter, and that the atoms spoken of were small units of this matter. We have also gathered that, when there is a vagueness as to the terms matter and energy, the word atom can be replaced by the word quantum. So light and electricity are either energy divided into quanta, or matter divided into atoms. Time has been spoken of as atomic, or as being divisible into ultimate indivisible units or quanta. But should we classify time as a form of matter or as a form of energy? It doesn't strike one at first sight as coming conveniently under either head. True, one has heard of people staggering under a load of years, but the expression is metaphorical and scarcely implies that time is a ponderable substance. Again, one has heard of the flight of time, but seeks in vain to recall an instance of such flight being violently arrested and thereby developing heat by the transformation of kinetic energy into its thermal equivalent.

Atoms of sound is, we confess, a notion that had not occurred to us; but that was merely an oversight which we are glad to have corrected. In a natural attempt to conceive this idea, to reduce it to some sort of mental equivalent, we find ourselves asking first what is sound. Is it a sensation in my head or a form of vibratory motion in the particles of ponderable matter? Both definitions are given, but the latter is clearly the one here intended. So we have a piece of solid matter, whose particles are vibrating around points at the rate of so many times a second; and we are asked to conceive this state of affairs as being atomic in structure. Perhaps one vibration might be suggested as the atom of vibration.

With regard to heat, the difficulty in conception does not seem so great. One has only to resuscitate the old phlogiston theory, by which heat was regarded as a substance which enters or leaves bodies. If told that a hot body does not weigh any more than a cold one, we can take refuge in the belief that heat is a substance unaffected by gravity; but then what about Rumford and Davy?

In lucubrations like that quoted at the head of this article we observe the confusion of thought and want of metaphysical proficiency which characterize the mental sphere of many people. Not the least among these confusions, and one that has been characteristic of scientific thought, and often pointed out, is the neglect to discriminate between entities and abstractions. If sound is merely the name given to vibrations of a certain order, then it

is a descriptive name and stands for an abstraction or mental category. In this sense it belongs to the same class of terms as height, weight, complexion, etc., as applied to the human species. It is absurd to speculate as to the structure, atomic or otherwise, of sound, if the word denotes merely an abstraction such as this. But behind this we discern, lurking in the mind of the speculator, the notion that sound is something more than this, that it is an entity, some mysterious force, power, agent, or substance, which exists of itself independently and provokes in physical matter those vibrations that are classified under the name of sound. And surely this is the truer view. It may well be that sound exists thus independently, and that the role played by physical matter is that of rendering sound perceptible to our physical senses.

In certain ancient philosophies, with which Theosophy is to some extent concerned, sound is represented as among the most mysterious and occult potencies, and is said to be the characteristic quality of that species of superphysical matter known as akasa. It is a creative force, connected with that which in Occult Science is known as the Word. Much of interest on this question will be found in The Secret Doctrine.

Nineteenth-century science was prone to define the primal forces by their physical effects, thus reducing them to abstractions, modes of motion or of energy. It recognized nothing more real than these same effects. The trend of twentieth-century science is to regard them rather as things in themselves, capable of existing apart from physical matter and of exciting effects therein; and this is the view which the mind instinctively takes. We no longer regard electricity as a mere mode of energy in matter, but as an independent substance or force (the meaning of these terms is much confused). The same is probably destined to happen to our notions of heat and sound.

All this bears closely on the present revolution in ideas by which our ground-notions of time and space are becoming so modified. It was sufficient for the temporary purposes of nineteenth-century science to refer phenomena to a postulated temporal and spatial framework; but now our greater refinements in research require that we shall recognise the artificial and temporary character of this framework; and, though we must still keep some framework in the back of our minds, if we are to think at all, yet we shall have made notable progress by this new recognition.

(Vol. 19, pp. 591-93)

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The Spinning Earth - Fred J. Dick

[1920]

An article in the May Popular Astronomy, 'Is the Earth expanding or Contracting' (which contains some interesting speculations regarding a supposed gaseous interior), after mentioning the Colorado Canyon, etc., deals with the question of a possible expansion of the Earth as a whole. Hitherto it has usually been assumed that old Earth has been busy contracting for a good while, but in these days of topsy-turvyism and new theories with every lunation, one must not be surprised at anything - which is entirely as it should be. In The Century Path, November 14, 1909, an article 'A Lesson from the Great Pyramid' dealt with this problem of expansion and contraction from a different standpoint, partly suggested by the latitude of the Great Pyramid, and also by certain historic facts alluded to in H.P. Blavatsky's great works, Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine, which were published in 1878 and 1888 respectively. The viewpoint taken was that as certain

periodic changes of shape of the equipotential surface, or 'geoid' (mean sea-level), occurred in the far past - i.e., expansion and contraction of the polar axis simultaneously with contraction and expansion of the equatorial - it might be worth while to inquire (volume and angular moment of momentum being supposed to remain constant) what would follow if the site of the Great Pyramid was really on the 30th parallel 70,000 years ago.

The result reached was that during this interval of time the distance along the surface from equator to pole would have been augmented by about four-tenths of a mile, the polar radius being then 3949.645, and now 3950.690; the equatorial radius then 3963.822, and now 3963.296. Sensible changes in the length of some parallels of latitude would also have ensued. The site of the Great Pyramid would have been then on the 30th parallel owing to the slightly reduced radius of curvature on the meridional plane there, as compared with its present value. Thus we should have a proximate cause of major tectonic effects during the period considered, owing to the induced tensional stresses. A slight reduction in the length of the sidereal day, due to the diminished gyration-radius, was also investigated, but we should have to know whether, or when, the geoid-figure-change either ceased or reversed. If reversed, say 2500 years ago, the sidereal day would then have begun slowly to lengthen again - so far as this dynamic element is concerned, at least - which would correspond to some portion of the Moon's acceleration since then. On the other hand the evidence seems to be that some expansion between the 30th and 60th parallels is still in progress. We shall presently infer from other data that many factors enter into the question, as is indeed the case with everything in nature. But at all events, when there is a basis of ancient historic fact to work from, hypotheses and assumptions which lead in their direction should be more promising than speculation without a sufficiently extended line of observed phenomena whereon to build. Indeed, when we think of the enormous founderings of continental and quasi-continental areas, and the other upheavals of similar extent at various periods, the remarkable thing really is that possible changes in the shape of the geoid should so little have been considered. And yet, in the case of the Sun, some scientists already half suspect the existence of such alternating changes.

A year or two ago a writer in Popular Astronomy asserted that the rock-base of the Great Pyramid "destroyed the 30d-latitude idea." Not necessarily so. In this connection it should be stated that in one of the old Books of Hermes (supposed to be lost) an Egyptian pyramid is mentioned as standing upon the shore of the sea, "the waves of which dashed in powerless fury against its base." (Cf. Isis Unveiled, I, p. 520.) This attests the great antiquity of the rock-based pyramid.

It was the same writer in the magazine specified who threw orthodox astronomy overboard. For had it not been long 'demonstrated' that the amplitude of the ecliptic-obliquity-variation could not exceed one-and-a-quarter degrees? But he put the obliquity at 26d some 11,920 years ago, while according to the data in an article published in this magazine March, 1916, it should then have been about 25o 10'. His object was to show that 26 and 52 were "pyramid-numbers." But 51d 51' 54", the angle of the outer casing of the Great Pyramid (see Petrie: The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh) is not 52; neither is 26d the same as 26o 33' 54", the angle of the descending passage (which makes with the vertical axis an angle that is fundamental in the geometry of the sphere).

A sketch of some of the probable causes underlying gradual and progressive changes of ecliptic-obliquity (including actual inversion of the poles) was outlined in The Century Path, October 31, 1909. Judging from some recent scientific utterances we seem to be nearing the time when it will be recognized that the solar system is regulated under the operation of Magnetic forces - as H.P. Blavatsky repeatedly stated in her works - combined of course with the action of remarkable gyroscopic laws resulting in both precession and inversion - laws of which the magazine-writer alluded to (F.J.B. Cordeiro)

happens to be one of the ablest exponents.When we remember that only a few years ago the late Lord Kelvin spent the greater

part of a summer vacation in unconsciously presenting a new illustration of Newton's remark about "picking up pebbles on the shore" by picking up and spinning them, finding results that actually puzzled even him, we need hardly wonder that electromagnetic and gyroscopic aspects of rotational dynamics as applied to the phenomena afforded by planets and satellites have hardly yet received adequate attention. Our textbooks may deal with figures of equilibrium, or of dynamic stability, or with rotating viscous spheroids, and so on; but fundamental questions regarding planetary rotation, precession, and inversion, treated from the standpoint of bi-polar Magnetism as efficient cause, still remain to be tackled. The mere question of steady planetary or solar rotation, apart altogether from gyroscopic effects, has not yet been solved by modern science. Given a nebula, for instance, why should it rotate at all? Yet the question is answered in the oldest book in the world - the Book of Dzyan.

To be sure, one knows that observed 'magnetic-moments' of iron needles, in their cumulative aspect, are altogether too feeble to afford a basis for any effective action on planetary movement. The point is, that the Magnetism referred to by H.P. Blavatsky is of a more powerful nature. It is not limited to iron-magnetism, natural or induced. That which we call 'gravitation' is but one of its aspects. Its dual nature - like electricity, both positive and negative - is aptly described in the following quotation:

"The Earth is.... a magnet, charged with one form of electricity, say positive, which it evolves continually by spontaneous action in the interior, or center of motion.... Organic or inorganic bodies, if left to themselves will constantly and involuntarily charge themselves with and evolve the form of electricity opposite to the Earth's. Hence attraction." - Isis Unveiled, I, p. xxiii

This dual aspect of Magnetism (the capital being used to distinguish it from iron-magnetism) is recorded as a fact in the most ancient, as well as in classic and later, literature. It has even been known to, and investigated by, some leading modern scientific men. It was well known personally to H.P. Blavatsky. A single instance of the suspension of the "law of universal gravitation," if occurring only once in a century, ought, one would think, to be of paramount interest to astronomers of all men! But 'suspension' is not the word. We might have said 'total reversal.' There is no such thing as magic - if that word connotes suspension of Nature's immutable laws. But there are known, and unknown, laws. Alter the polarity and you have less 'weight.' Continue doing so, and the 'weight' may become negative. Intensify the original polarity, and the 'weight' may be augmented. Yet the 'quantity of matter' remains constant. If such things are facts - seeing that the residual attractions or repulsions depend on the balance of positive and negative charges, not upon the 'quantity of matter' as hitherto supposed (except as regards inductive capacity), in respect of solar and planetary mutual interactions - the dynamics of astronomy may stand in need of revision. The dynamics of the hypothetical atoms seems more nearly on correct lines, depending as the theory does on the positive and negative charges and the changes which may accrue, involving what is rather vaguely called 'mass.'

H.P. Blavatsky says:

"The two [Magnetic] poles are said to be the storehouses, the receptacles and liberators, at the same time, of Cosmic and terrestrial Vitality (Electricity); from the surplus of which the Earth, had it not been for these two natural 'safety-valves,' would have been rent to pieces long ago." - The Secret Doctrine, I, p. 205

This gives some idea of the enormous dynamic power of the forces, or electric

vortices, which are actually in control of the Earth's movements. Supposing that one Magnetic end of the Earth be repelled and the other attracted by impinging solar electric forces, we should then have a dynamic 'couple' or 'torque.' Notice also that the line joining the Magnetic poles avoids the Earth's center of inertia. Such are the main elements in the problem which would lead to a tentative solution from known motions, provided we could express the Earth's 'moment of inertia' round one or another axis freed from hitherto accepted theories, and provided we understood other factors which enter into the question.

Among these factors is one rather calculated to alarm some authors of textbooks on physics and astronomy, although the best of such are happily free from too dogmatic generalizations. Some scientific writers, however, might be apt to close their mental doors, on the plea that new (old) facts, unless accompanied by precise metric analyses and appropriate 'graphs,' could possess for them no value. But however this may be, we may derive gleams of hope from the circumstance that the nineteenth-century past-masters in physics include such names as Crookes, Varley, Hare, and P.G. Tait - the last, one of the authors of The Unseen Universe, and the other three, fearless investigators of unpopular, and also dangerous, facts in Nature. Now the factor alluded to is the existence of such things as Karmic disturbances of the axis of the 'wheel,' or Earth. There is also the suggestion that some of these, along with re-inversion to some prior inclination, are comparatively rapid. But this would open up questions of the nature of the interaction between Cosmic and sub-Cosmic Intelligence and Intelligences, on the one hand, and the moral status and intelligence attained at certain cyclic periods by incarnate Man on Earth, on the other. While it is impossible here to enter upon such matters (which are dealt with in The Key to Theosophy and The Secret Doctrine), we may at least confidently assert that if the supposedly mechanistic aspects of the Cosmos are recognized to be wonderful in their beauty, harmony, and mutual adjustment, the inner aspects and worlds of life must grow ever grander and more beautiful as we begin to realize somewhat of the noumenal, causative, and real. To do this, self-knowledge has first to be the goal. This may seem childish - and very unscientific. Nevertheless there is no fact in Nature better attested than that self-knowledge is the first step on the road to real science. It is reached through unselfishness and self-conquest. Self-knowledge, Patanjali used to say, leads to clear perception extending "from the atomic to the infinite."

(Vol. 19, pp. 227-31)

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Theosophy and Science - C. J. Ryan

[1920]

The attitude of Theosophy towards modern science has been sometimes misunderstood by critics. Science holds such an important place in modern life that it is desirable to clear away these misconceptions from time to time.

Students of Theosophy have a great respect for the self-sacrificing work, the skill, the devotion to their ideals, of the uncommercial men of science; but they have a strong conviction that the majority of modern scientists have approached the problems of life in too materialistic a spirit, and have thereby limited their usefulness. The mechanistic view of nature, now so prevalent, is a serious danger. The authority of science is now as great as that of religion in former times. Extraordinary mechanical appliances and forces are in

our hands, regardless of our moral fitness, and still more tremendous forces are almost within our grasp. The world, dazzled by the mechanical inventions of the past century or so, is almost worshiping such things, and many people believe, erroneously but not unnaturally, that 'science' means the application of intelligence to practical inventions and improvements in comfort.

Now the Theosophical position in relation to these conditions is clear. It declares that unless the principle of Universal Brotherhood becomes a vital factor in national, international, and - as the basis of these - in individual life; unless we learn that we are not merely intellectualized animals, but immortal souls, using the body and mind as instruments, the possible developments of cold, purely intellectual and unmoral physical science are filled with peril to the spiritual progress of civilization. The spread of organized scientific research and so forth does not imply the strengthening of public conscience. Scientific discovery applied to comfort, luxury, and destruction, has not diminished selfishness; probably the reverse. The application of the principles of internal combustion which brought about the automobile has revealed a hitherto unsuspected intense carelessness for other people's safety on the part of joy-riders. Because we have learned more of the principles of mechanics we have not freed ourselves from the desire to kill and mutilate our brothers; and because we have concocted unpleasant animal serums to inject into our veins, and have invented some more or less doubtful means of reducing the ravages of diseases which we have largely brought upon ourselves, we have not thereby commenced the reforms in our thoughts and methods of living which will prevent sickness and premature death. Claims that some of the diseases directly caused by infractions of morality can be rapidly cured by treatments obtained by recent scientific research are a source of jubilation in scientific circles. But suppose our young manhood had been self-controlled and self-respecting in such important matters, there would have been no need for scientific research in that direction, nor for alleged cures which to many will simply offer a premium to further excesses. It is difficult to see how science, in this matter, has strengthened the hands of those who are working for a higher standard of morality.

Owing to the misuse of scientific research in the sphere of warfare, and to the power science has given to the strong and unscrupulous, as well as to the aloofness of so many professors of science to the moral or humanitarian results of their investigations, some great thinkers have denounced modern science altogether. Tolstoi was extremely severe; he declared it was one of the principal causes of the misery of mankind because it gives tyrants the opportunity of oppression, and because it leads away from a truer and more spiritual science - the handmaid to the higher interests of mankind. Tolstoi’s views on the subject were extreme and we cannot follow them to their limit, but he was certainly right in advising people to give their greatest energies to the improvement of social conditions, to the proper education of children, to living rightly, and to the cultivation of the land. Without going to the extremes of Tolstoi and throwing away a good thing because of the abuses connected with it, we may agree that the moral state of society is not a bit better for all the modern developments of science, and it is questionable whether our physical state is. The revelations made by the medical examination of the drafted men in this country and in England during the great war were, as everyone knows, startling. The British Prime Minister said they hoped to have an army of men of standard A 1, but they had to put up with a majority who were hardly C 3. We have heard a good deal about the lengthening of human life in modern times, but what are the facts as given by the official statistics? Professor Fisher of Yale reports:

"Notwithstanding the great reduction in the infections diseases, there has been so much increase in the degenerative disorders that the expectation of life after middle age is actually less today than it was a generation ago."

Professor Mazyek Revenel of Missouri University writes:

"The last census (1910) shows that the number of people in the United States who die from diseases of the blood vessels is nearly four times as great as it was ten years ago."

The census showed that while infant mortality has been reduced a little, more people die early in middle life than formerly. The increasing diseases are cancer and diseases of the brain, kidney, heart, and blood-vessels. These are carrying off more people over forty-five years of age than formerly and are causing the average length of life to be shorter after that age than was the case a generation ago.

As for the moral condition of the age, many would say that the widespread acceptance of the Darwinian teaching that Nature's method of progress was by a bloody and brutal Struggle for Existence had unmistakably lowered the spiritual ideals and provided excuse for some of the perversions of the times.

A well known writer, Stephen Coleridge, in his new book The Idolatry of Science, speaks plainly about the seamy side of science, and demands that some responsible body of men protest against the blind worship of everything that is labeled with the hypnotic word 'science.' He defines 'science' as a pursuit that is

"....entirely distinct from and opposite to poetry, letters, oratory, history, and philosophy; something that has no relation to, or connection with, the emotions or with the character of men; something wholly unconnected with conduct; something with which the principles of right and wrong have no concern."

He longs for an age when ugly factory chimneys will no longer pollute the air, when telephones will not destroy our privacy, when doctors will not inoculate their willing or unwilling patients, vivisect, or experiment on helpless animals or even on hospital patients; when the craze for rushing from place to place at breakneck speed will have subsided, and when many things we erroneously take for signs of progress will have been found out in their true unimportance. A reviewer in Discovery, a scientific journal, writes:

"With Mr. Coleridge's main point that the teaching of science without an accompanying training in other subjects, in character, and above all, in religion, is dangerous, we agree. But what sensible man or woman would deny this?"

I am afraid a great many sensible people have never thought that scientific studies are dangerous or that they should be purified by moral and religious training; in fact our age has been very strongly impressed with the belief that there is a very active "conflict between science and religion" that will not cease till the latter is overthrown. A Theosophist would say that what is required is not the injection of a modicum of theology or cold moral training into the materialistic atmosphere engendered by science, but a complete change in the attitude of scientists in general towards life and the spiritual world.

This change can only be brought about by an elevation in our ideals of education in general, ideals founded upon the basic principle of the divinity of man and the possibility of the transmutation of the lower, animal, devilish nature by well-directed effort. The adoption of this as the beginning of wisdom will create a safe mental and moral atmosphere in which the higher science will naturally grow and astonish us with its beauty. At present even the most advanced educational systems in general use are based upon the erroneous conception that the ordinary personality is all there is to work with, and the efforts are directed towards its development and gratification rather than towards the bringing of the immortal, spiritual Ego into control of the lower personality.

There are many definitions of science. One is, "To know a truth in relation to other

truths is to know it scientifically"; another, "Science is knowledge reduced to law and embodied in system," and "Science seeks knowledge for its own sake." But, as H.P. Blavatsky remarks:

"As it is claimed to be unphilosophical to enquire into first causes, scientists now occupy themselves with considering the physical effects. The field of scientific investigation is therefore bounded by physical nature."

In the disinterested search for Truth, even if only in physical nature, and without looking for reward in the shape of money or position, the scientific spirit is a valuable possession in this commercial age, and those who are sincerely trying to uphold their ideal are naturally impatient of criticism on the basis that science is simply the handmaid of desire, the slave of luxury and greed. Unfortunately this criticism has some reason because the scientists themselves are so positive that science is only concerned with the practical and that which can be handled by the senses. As Mr. Coleridge says, science has little to do with spiritual evolution, with character, with conduct, in short with the enduring things. Remember how Darwin, towards the end of his life, regretted his neglect of poetry and music and all that they imply. His pathetic confession of his limitation through exclusive devotion to intellectual research, his loss of the humanities, indicates his unfitness properly to appreciate the true nature of man, and suggests some reason why he only saw in mankind a branch of the animal kingdom distinguished from the rest by a more highly organized brain. He said:

"If I had to live my life again I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature."

Darwin is not unique in this; many other brilliant scientific intellects have shut themselves away from whole worlds of higher human activity or have simply looked upon them from the outside as curious phenomena without feeling their heart-pulses.

It will be seen, from the tone of these remarks, that while Theosophists do not belittle the achievements of modern science, and most emphatically are not its enemies, they are firmly opposed to the materialistic habit of thought so widely prevailing which hinders its advance towards the understanding of the greater Realities of life. In fact, students of Theosophy have such hopes of the higher possibilities of science that they dare to criticize its limitations in a friendly way without cynicism, though with frankness. In The Secret Doctrine, Madame Blavatsky's great work, she defines her position as follows:

"So far as Science remains what in the words of Professor Huxley it is, viz., 'organized common sense'; so far as its inferences are drawn from accurate premisses - its generalizations resting on a purely inductive basis - every Theosophist and Occultist welcomes respectfully and with due admiration its contributions to the domain of cosmological law. There can be no possible conflict between the teachings of occult and so-called exact Science, where the teachings of the latter are grounded on a substratum of unassailable fact." - I, p. 477.

Madame Blavatsky recognised the strictly self-limited scope of modern science, but she, declared there is great promise for the future of scientific research on certain lines; she says:

"Chemistry and physiology are the two great magicians of the future, who are

destined to open the eyes of mankind to the great physical truths." - I. p. 261

In Light on the Path we read:

"I pray that no reader or critic will imagine that by what I have said I intend to depreciate or disparage acquired knowledge, or the work of scientists. On the contrary, I hold that scientific men are the pioneers of modern thought.... The scientific workers are progressing, not so much by their own will as by sheer force of circumstances, towards the far line which divides things interpretable from things uninterpretable."

It would be impossible to speak of science and not to refer to the wisdom of antiquity. Madame Blavatsky brought to our attention the startling idea that a profound knowledge of the laws of the universe and of human life is possessed by certain Oriental philosophers, her Teachers, to whom it had been handed down by predecessors from time immemorial. Many of their teachings which she was permitted to put into her books confirm this claim; and it would be difficult to mention a department of science in which she does not offer illuminating suggestions in stating the case for Theosophy. When she wrote - about forty years ago - science was apparently winning in the so-called "conflict between religion and science." Materialistic theories, supported by hard facts and new discoveries, seemed almost triumphant. Not a moment too soon Madame Blavatsky boldly stepped into the arena, equipped with the ancient Theosophy, and offered unexpected interpretations of the discoveries to which the materialists trusted. She was received coldly; her statements were regarded as too far removed from accepted science to be accepted, except by a few who had insight and could see that Theosophy offered the only likely means of combating the increasing materialism. She said it would not be till the twentieth century that the teachings she brought would begin to receive confirmation from scientific research, and that Theosophical conceptions would be widely discussed - with or without acknowledgement. We are now seeing the beginning of all this. In the short space at our disposal we cannot mention a tenth part of the interesting subjects in which at least some leading scientists have already reached conclusions in harmony with her teachings. The enormous age of the sun and the earth; the great antiquity of the human race - millions of years rather than thousands; the fact that man is not descended from any known anthropoid ape, living or fossil; the insufficiency of Natural Selection and the Survival of the Fittest to explain Evolution; the existence of the lost continent of Atlantis; the nature of light - these are but a few of the important matters in which some or all leading scientists have reached the Theosophical position.

Theosophy does not run to extremes, as Madame Tingley has often said; it recognizes the useful and valuable aspects of science. We all know how useful science has been in breaking down superstitions in religious teachings and in compelling the clergy to recognise the rights of reason. But it has often gone too far in the attempt to destroy, and we must acknowledge the danger to the spiritual development of mankind in attaching undue importance to achievements which are so largely directed towards the multiplication and satisfaction of artificial wants and luxuries which actually act as a hindrance to the development of the higher faculties of the soul. Is there good reason to believe that we should be more miserable or morally worse if we were not able to run about at ninety miles an hour, to build 16-inch guns, or if the floods of unnecessary luxuries and rubbish produced by the aid of machinery to satisfy the cravings of desire and the demands of fashion were abated and the energy devoted to slower manufacture of substantial hand-made articles which would give the chance for the idle people who have to kill time as best they can to do some useful work and so to become happier? The monotonous grind of the factory system is one of the most disheartening products of commercialized science. We are told that numbers of factory employees gladly volunteered into the British army, not so

much from patriotism as to escape from the dullness of their lives and to taste a little adventure even at the probable loss of life or limb.

A serious danger in the development of physical science in the present condition of selfishness is that great discoveries may be made which will make warfare infinitely more terrible than it is. To exist at all, mankind may have to prohibit certain entire departments of research! The serious effect of an overdose of physical science is wittily described in Butler's clever satire 'Erewhon', in which he depicts a land where the possession of any kind of machine is a criminal offence, because the ancestors of the inhabitants had suffered so terribly from a highly scientific regime in which men had become enslaved by the marvelous perfection of machinery. It requires no special foresight to see what is likely to happen if Universal Brotherhood, based upon the only enduring principle - the Divinity of Man - is not soon made a living power in our lives. During the last few years science has discovered that there are enormous forces - beside which steam and electricity (as we have it) are feeble - lying almost within our grasp, only waiting for the genius to arise who will bring the key to release them. Radioactivity has opened our eyes to their existence. The transmutation of radium into lead releases a store of energy of gigantic magnitude, but it is a very slow process. More than a billion years is said to have been taken to transmute some of the radioactive mineral thorium into lead. Chemists are incessantly working to find how to hasten the process and obtain control of the vast powers released; most of them are quite regardless of the probable dangers of unloosing these terrible forces upon a selfish age. When - or if - this is done (and perhaps the Powers-that-Be will forbid) a pound or two of radium in the hands of one unprincipled man or a trust could be utilized to run millions of horse-power machinery, or when enough ammunition for a park of artillery and perhaps the means of employing it can be carried in your pocket, who is to be trusted with such mighty power over his fellows? The old gods Thor and Jupiter with their thunderbolts would be infants with popguns compared with a man armed with the stupendous forces of radioactivity, but unfortunately man lacks the wisdom of the gods. Professor Frederick Soddy, the eminent English chemist of Oxford University, has glimpsed the danger. In a recent article he says that science has laid its hand upon a tool, which, if controllable, could eliminate forever the nightmare of existence prolonged from day to day only by unremitting toil. Rejoicing in the possibilities afforded by the harnessing of radioactivity in the reduction of grinding, deadening, mechanical labor, and the freeing of man for higher activities, he sees, also, the terrible possibility of the new forces, so nearly in sight, being misapplied by the prevailing selfishness of the age. He says:

"The uses already made of science show how necessary it is that a new social order be developed before a million times more awful powers are unleashed by man. So far the pearls of science have been cast before those who have given us in return the desolation of scientific warfare and the almost equal desolation of unscientific government.

"In the world that is to come the control of financiers, lawyers, politicians, and the merely possessive or acquisitive, must give place to a system in which the creative elements must rule....

"It is a tragedy to see the splendid achievements, both of brain and brawn, of modern peoples squandered and turned to evil by rulers alien to their spirit, and owning an allegiance to the standards of dead civilizations and dying beliefs."

He says, further, that higher ideals are the only ones under which the coming great gifts of science can be safely entrusted to the world. Professor Soddy is one voice speaking from a great silence among his colleagues; we ask, Where is the compelling conscience of the learned academies, the united demand of the scientific world that shall insist that before these awful powers are let loose (perhaps by the private chemist of some money-making trust) some preparation shall be made that they will not prove a fearful

curse? We hear no such demand; we hear only that science must be free and that it has nothing to do with the consequences of its discoveries.

A few years ago Professor Soddy suggested, to the disquietude of scientific critics, that it was not impossible that the legends of the destruction of Atlantis had a foundation in fact, and that the Atlanteans had succeeded in harnessing the inter-atomic forces, and had so misused the tremendous powers released that Nature had taken her revenge, civilization had been destroyed, and had had to start again after ages of Stone-Age savagery.

Students of Theosophy are not alone in doubting that this is a period of real progress for all our material progress and scientific research. The eloquent British divine, Dean Inge, has lately created a strong impression by a lecture delivered at Oxford University on "The Idea of Progress," in which he took a gloomy view. He pointed out that no physical progress could be traced since the Stone Age in Europe. The primitive Cro-Magnon race who lived in France perhaps fifty thousand years ago, perhaps very much more, were at least equal to any modern people in size, strength, and size of brain; in fact they are almost identical with the highly intelligent French inhabitants of the Dordogne district today. The Dean said he would be a bold man who would claim that we were intellectually equal to the Athenians or superior to the Romans, and continued:

"If progress meant the improvement of human nature itself, the question to be asked was, whether modern civilized man behaved himself better in the same circumstances than his ancestor would have done. It seemed to him to be very doubtful whether, when they were exposed to the same temptations they were more humane, or more sympathetic, or juster, or less brutal than the ancients."

He also referred to the great war [WW I] as an example of the lack of progress in modern times.

Another important factor induces us to hesitate in putting too much confidence in materialistic science or in giving its exponents too much authority; that is the differences in scientific belief. We should not regret this lack of uniformity; it proves vitality and is a sign of progress, but it shows that we are living only on the fringe of real knowledge. What, for instance, can be more confusing to the plain man than to find rival schools of medicine, each claiming to possess the key to health, and the more numerous demanding legislation to enforce medical dogmas, fashionable for the hour, such as vivisection, vaccination, 'sex-hygiene,' etc., against which other schools protest as being thoroughly unscientific and even injurious. In subjects like astronomy, or geology, strong differences of opinion are not vital to our welfare, but in medicine they are. Even in biology - a subject apparently removed from 'practical politics' - the whole world has been strongly affected by the dogma of the Survival of the Fittest, i.e., the Strongest; and the brutal principle of the Struggle for Existence, so widely trumpeted, has probably done much to produce the unbrotherly conditions which culminated in the great war and which do not seem to have been improved by it, if we may judge by press reports. And now we are being told by many biologists that the mechanical principles of Darwinism, the Survival of the Fittest, Natural Selection, etc., are after all only minor factors in the process of Evolution and that the deeper causes are still unknown. When we are asked to legislate in favor of proceedings which are repulsive to the best feelings of our hearts, of compassion and justice, in the name of science, let us think of the continual changes of opinion among scientists and hold to the simple faith that ultimate good cannot come from wrongful acts, however plausible in appearance at the moment. On May 29th the eminent Professor J.H. Jeans, lecturing at the Royal Institution, London, remarked:

"Science progressed on well-established lines in the Nineteenth Century, but the

Twentieth will have to record the shattering of a large part of that foundation."

According to Theosophy real progress in knowledge - science - can only be made in one direction, all others are side-issues, and that is in the study of the nature of man. Man contains within himself the keys which open the greater mysteries of life, but these keys are not to be found by the unprepared. By the unprepared we do not mean those who have not mastered the book-learning of the age, but those who have not mastered their lower nature, who have not passed beyond that state where worldly desires attract. The ancient proverb, "Discipline must precede philosophy," may seem stern and forbidding, but it was the result of ages of experience, and it holds good today in regard to Real Knowledge - the "Knowledge of Things as They Are," not merely of appearances. There is an Eastern saying, "When the disciple is ready, the Teacher is ready too," but the pupil has to do the preliminary work of self-discipline before the higher spiritual science can be unfolded. Simplicity in outward matters may be the form which will be associated with profound wisdom and penetration in the soul; the higher science may require few material or mechanical appliances, but it will be powerful for good because it will always work with the spiritual forces in man and nature. A true science will find means of healing disease which require no suffering victims, human or animal. When the human race begins to wake to the divinity within and ceases to crucify the inner Christos, science will pay more attention to the causes of ills than to attempted cures.

We know that examples of all the mechanical powers, the levers and so forth, are found in man's body; Theosophy teaches us that all the intellectual powers, and all the spiritual powers in the universe, have their counterparts in the soul. We have obscured them; we are more than half-dead. True science, infinitely greater than what we have today, will help us to find ourselves, to find our divinity. And there will be no conflict between that science and religion, because they will be one.

(Vol. 19, pp 415-24)

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General Theosophy

The Tidal Wave - H. P. Blavatsky

[Extracts]

"The tidal wave of deeper souls, Into our inmost being rolls,And lifts us unawares,Out of all meaner cares."

- Longfellow

The great psychic and spiritual change now taking place in the realm of the human Soul, is quite remarkable.... Verily the Spirit in man, so long hidden out of public sight, so carefully concealed and so far exiled from the arena of modern learning, has at last awakened. It now asserts itself and is loudly re-demanding its unrecognized yet ever legitimate rights. It refuses to be any longer trampled under the brutal foot of Materialism,

speculated upon by the Churches, and made a fathomless source of income by those who have self-constituted themselves its universal custodians.... The Spirit in man - the direct, though now but broken ray and emanation of the Universal Spirit - has at last awakened....

Look around you and behold! Think of what you see and hear, and draw therefrom your conclusions. The age of crass materialism, of Soul insanity and blindness, is swiftly passing away. A death struggle between Mysticism and Materialism is no longer at hand, but is already raging. And the party which will win the day at this supreme hour will become the master of the situation and of the future.... If the signs of the times can be trusted it is not the Animalists who will remain conquerors. This is warranted us by the many brave and prolific authors and writers who have arisen of late to defend the rights of Spirit to reign over matter. Many are the honest, aspiring Souls now raising themselves like a dead wall against the torrent of the muddy waters of Materialism. And facing the hitherto domineering flood which is still steadily carrying off into unknown abysses the fragments from the wreck of the dethroned, cast-down Human Spirit, they now command: "So far hast thou come; but thou shalt go no further!"

....The renovated, life-giving Spirit in man is boldly freeing itself from the dark fetters of the hitherto all-capturing animal life and matter. Behold it, saith the poet, as, ascending on its broad, white wings, it soars into the regions of real life and light; whence, calm and godlike, it contemplates with unfeigned pity those golden idols of the modern material cult with their feet of clay, which have hitherto screened from the purblind masses their true and living gods....

Literature - once wrote a critic - is the confession of social life, reflecting all its sins, and all its acts of baseness as of heroism. In this sense a book is of a far greater importance than any man. Books do not represent one man, but they are the mirror of a host of men. Hence the great English poet-philosopher said of books, that he knew that they were as hard to kill and as prolific as the teeth of the fabulous dragon; sow them hither and thither and armed warriors will grow out of them. To kill a good book, is equal to killing a man.

The 'poet-philosopher' is right.A new era has begun in literature, this is certain. New thoughts and new interests

have created new intellectual needs; hence a new race of authors is springing up. And this new species will gradually and imperceptibly shut out the old one, those fogies of yore who, though they still reign nominally, are allowed to do so rather by force of habit than predilection. It is not he who repeats obstinately and parrot-like the old literary formulae and holds desperately to publishers' traditions, who will find himself answering to the new needs; not the man who prefers his narrow party discipline to the search for the long-exiled Spirit of man and the now lost Truths; not these, but verily he who, parting company with his beloved 'authority,' lifts boldly and carries on unflinchingly the standard of the Future Man. It is finally those who, amidst the present wholesale dominion of the worship of matter, material interests and Selfishness, will have bravely fought for human rights and man's divine nature, who will become, if they only win, the teachers of the masses in the coming century, and so their benefactors.

But woe to the XXth century if the now reigning school of thought prevails, for Spirit would once more be made captive and silenced till the end of the now coming age. It is not the fanatics of the letter in general, nor the iconoclasts and Vandals who fight the new Spirit of thought, nor yet the modern Roundheads, supporters of the old Puritan religious and social traditions, who will ever become the protectors and Saviors of the now resurrecting human thought and Spirit. It is not those too-willing supporters of the old cult, and the mediaeval heresies of those who guard like a relic every error of their sect or

party, who jealously watch over their own thought lest it should, growing out of its teens, assimilate some fresher and more beneficent idea - not these who are the wise men of the future. It is not for them that the hour of the new historical era will have struck, but for those who will have learnt to express and put into practice the aspirations as well as the physical needs of the rising generations.... In order that one should fully comprehend individual life with its physiological, psychic and spiritual mysteries, he has to devote himself with all the fervor of unselfish philanthropy and love for his brother men, to studying and knowing collective life, or Mankind. Without preconceptions or prejudice, as also without the least fear of possible results in one or another direction, he has to decipher, understand and remember the deep and innermost feelings and the aspirations of the poor people's great and suffering heart. To do this he has first "to attune his soul with that of Humanity," as the old philosophy teaches; to thoroughly master the correct meaning of every line and word in the rapidly turning pages of the Book of Life of Mankind and to be thoroughly saturated with the truism that the latter is a whole inseparable from his own Self.

How many of such profound readers of life may be found in our boasted age of sciences and culture? Of course we do not mean authors alone, but rather the practical and still unrecognised, though well-known, philanthropists and altruists of our age; the people's friends, the unselfish lovers of man, and the defenders of human right to the freedom of Spirit. Few indeed are such; for they are the rare blossoms of the age, and generally the martyrs to prejudiced mobs and time-servers. Like those wonderful 'Snow flowers' of Northern Siberia, which, in order to shoot forth from the cold frozen soil, have to pierce through a thick layer of hard, icy snow, so these rare characters have to fight their battles all their life with cold indifference and human harshness....

....The root of evil lies, therefore, in a moral, not in a physical cause.If asked, what is it then that will help, we answer boldly: - Theosophical literature....

Yet, even in the absence of such great gifts one may do good in a smaller and humbler way by taking note and exposing in impersonal narratives the crying vices and evils of the day, by word and deed, by publications and practical example. Let the force of that example impress others to follow it; and then instead of deriding our doctrines and aspirations the men of the XXth, if not the XIXth century, will see clearer, and judge with knowledge and according to facts instead of prejudging agreeably to rooted misconceptions. Then and not till then will the world find itself forced to acknowledge that it was wrong, and that Theosophy alone can gradually create a mankind as harmonious and as simple-souled as Kosmos itself; but to effect this Theosophists have to act as such. Having helped to awaken the spirit in many a man - we say this boldly challenging contradiction - shall we now stop instead of swimming with the Tidal Wave?

- From Editorial in Lucifer, November 15th, 1889.

(Vol. 19, pp. 311-14)

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Advantages and Disadvantages in Life - William Q. Judge

That view of one's Karma which leads to a bewailing of the unkind fate which has kept advantages in life away from us, is a mistaken estimate of what is good and what is

not good for the soul. It is quite true that we may often find persons surrounded with great advantages but who make no corresponding use of them or pay but little regard to them. But this very fact in itself goes to show that the so-called advantageous position in life is really not good nor fortunate in the true and inner meaning of those words. The fortunate one has money and teachers, ability, and means to travel and fill the surroundings with works of art, with music and with ease. But these are like the tropical airs that enervate the body; these enervate the character instead of building it up. They do not in themselves tend to the acquirement of any virtue whatever but rather to the opposite by reason of the constant steeping of the senses in the subtile essences of the sensuous world. They are like sweet things which, being swallowed in quantities, turn to acids in the inside of the body. Thus they can be seen to be the opposite of good Karma.

What then is good Karma and what bad? The all-embracing and sufficient answer is this:

Good Karma is that kind which the Ego desires and requires; bad that which the Ego neither desires nor requires.

And in this the Ego, being guided and controlled by law, by justice, by the necessities of upward evolution, and not by fancy or selfishness or revenge or ambition, is sure to choose the earthly habitation that is most likely, out of all possible of selection, to give a Karma for the real advantage in the end. In this light then, even the lazy, indifferent life of one born rich as well as that of one born low and wicked is right.

When we, from this plane, inquire into the matter, we see that the 'advantages' which one would seek were he looking for the strengthening of character, the unloosing of soul force and energy, would be called by the selfish and personal world 'disadvantages.' Struggle is needed for the gaining of strength; buffeting adverse eras is for the gaining of depth; meager opportunities may be used for acquiring fortitude; poverty should breed generosity.

The middle ground in all this, and not the extreme, is what we speak of. To be born with the disadvantage of drunken, diseased parents, in the criminal portion of the community, is a punishment which constitutes a waif on the road of evolution. It is a necessity generally because the Ego has drawn about itself in a former life some tendencies which cannot be eliminated in any other way. But we should not forget that sometimes, often in the grand total, a pure, powerful Ego incarnates in just such awful surroundings, remaining good and pure all the time, and staying there for the purpose of uplifting and helping others.

But to be born in extreme poverty is not a disadvantage. Jesus said well when, repeating what many a sage had said before, he described the difficulty experienced by the rich man in entering heaven. If we look at life from the narrow point of view of those who say there is but one earth and after it either eternal heaven or hell, then poverty will be regarded as a great disadvantage and something to be avoided. But seeing that we have many lives to live, and that they will give us all needed opportunity for building up character, we must admit that poverty is not, in itself, necessarily bad Karma. Poverty has no natural tendency to engender selfishness, but wealth requires it.

A sojourn for everyone in a body born to all the pains, deprivations, and miseries of modern poverty, is good and just. Inasmuch as the present state of civilization with all its horrors of poverty, of crime, of disease, of wrong relations almost everywhere, has grown out of the past, in which we were workers, it is just that we should experience it all at some point in our career. If some person who now pays no heed to the misery of men and women should next life be plunged into one of the slums of our cities for rebirth, it would imprint on the soul the misery of such a situation. This would lead later on to compassion and care for others. For, unless we experience the effects of a state of life, we cannot understand or appreciate it from a mere description. The personal part involved in this may not like it as a future prospect, but if the Ego decides that the next personality shall be

there then all will be an advantage and not a disadvantage.If we look at the field of operation in us of the so-called advantages of opportunity,

money, travel, and teachers we see at once that it all has to do with the brain and nothing else. Languages, archaeology, music, satiating sight with beauty, eating the finest food, wearing the best clothes, traveling to many places and thus infinitely varying impressions on ear and eye; all these begin and end in the brain and not in the soul or character. As the brain is a portion of the unstable, fleeting body the whole phantasmagoria disappears from view and use when the note of death sends its awful vibration through the physical form and drives out the inhabitant. The wonderful central master-ganglion disintegrates, and nothing at all is left but some faint aromas here and there depending on the actual love within for any one pursuit or image or sensation. Nothing left of it all but a few tendencies - skandhas, not of the very best. The advantages then turn out in the end to be disadvantages altogether. But imagine the same brain and body not in places of ease, struggling for a good part of life, doing their duty and not in a position to please the senses: this experience will burn in, stamp upon, carve into the character, more energy, more power, and more fortitude. It is thus through the ages that great characters are made. The other mode is the mode of the humdrum average which is nothing after all, as yet, but an animal.

(From The Path, July 1895)

(Vol. 19, pp. 413-15)

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The Antiquity of Man - Herbert Coryn, M.D.

[1918]

Theosophy undoubtedly has some quarrels with modern science - to speak more accurately, with inferences which science draws from facts thus far accumulated.

And with all due respect to science - and a great deal of respect is due - Theosophy is not in trouble about the divergencies. Science consists of facts and of inferences from facts. Facts are constantly accumulating. Some of them are in line with those already known. But every now and then one or a group turns up which necessitates an entire reconstruction of old theory. This has always been happening, and no one can say at what moment and in what branch of science it will not happen again. So the theories are provisional, mostly, and ought to be so phrased. The phrasing should be: "As far as facts now known go, the case stands thus."

"Obviously," some one early last century might have said, "we can never know anything of the chemical constitution of the stars. How can we get a piece of star into our laboratories and test it?" But then came the spectroscope, and it became suddenly possible to ascertain from the qualities of a star's light what sort of matter was sending out that sort of light.

Until the end of last century the chemical 'elements' were elements, simple, uncompounded, unchangeable. Anyone who should have questioned this - and Theosophy did question and deny it - was almost blaspheming. But suddenly, almost in a day, we had the X-rays and radium, and it appeared that every 'element' was, after all, a compound of still simpler units.

In regard to the antiquity of man Theosophy is consequently content to differ widely

at present from science. And this especially because science is so rapidly and constantly differing from herself on this point. A little while ago we could almost number on the fingers of our hands the few thousands of years during which man, as man, was allowed to have existed on the planet. But with later discoveries of human remains the time of his origin has gone back, and we may now, on good scientific authority, talk about half a million years.

And the entire theory about him is beginning to be in confusion. We are familiar, of course, with the theory of evolution: how from the microscopic amoeba in the drop of dirty water up to man the scale of ascent was uniform and unbroken. Going downward from man, the link just preceding him was represented by some monkey-like ancestor from which certain of the apes diverged and from which man took the direct step forward - first into the lowest savagery and so onward. But it is beginning to be recognised that the 'missing link' is still missing; that the origin of man is still unaccounted for, and that it was from the already-produced man-type of hitherto unexplained appearance that the ape-type broke off on to a side path. And as for man's ascent from small-brained, brute-skulled savagery, it is now scientifically mooted that on the whole the evidence of the skulls shows that the earliest man whose traces we can find was possessed of as good a brain in point of size as we of the Twentieth century.

Theosophy is therefore content to wait for scientific acceptance of its teaching of the immense antiquity not only of man, but of man civilized; and of types of genuine civilization - especially as respects consciousness - of which we cannot yet form any clear conception.

And here is one little-considered item in man's anatomy which is infinitely suggestive. You doubtless know that in the development of the human embryo, in the prenatal evolution, it rapidly passes through stages representing all the main lower types; that it epitomizes, as it were, the whole path of evolution upward from the simple one-celled stage. At last it is human, with the human brain and the surface complexity of convolutions of the brain peculiar to thinking man.

Now this covering of the surface of the brain with those foldings or wrinkles called convolutions - foldings complex in accordance with the complexity of human mind - occurs twice in embryonic development. Wrinkles and convolutions are marked in and then smoothed out again as if they had never been there. After this they are produced a second time, this time finally.

What does that early set of folds mean? Does it not suggest a long-gone-by epoch in human mental evolution when there was a type or quality of intellect that has been put aside in favor of the type or quality that is ours? It is a prehistoric relic of which nothing has yet been made in science, and not a brute but a human relic, a relic, we must suppose, of a kind of mind not now functioning, but at one time in full activity.

Again: it is of course true that there have been skulls discovered, dating from immensely far back, which show that at that period there were men of the lowest type compatible with the name of human.

But suppose that in ten thousand years the scientist of that time should find in Australia the skulls of Bushmen. Would it therefore follow that nowhere else in the world there were men of a higher type than Bushmen? Degraded skulls have of course been found in Europe. But does it therefore follow that nowhere else at the time the owners of those skulls lived there were men of infinitely higher type? And, as I said, the evidence for the existence of such a higher type is already coming in.

Now as to the remains of older civilizations.Let us first consider this possibility, and at the same time consider the meaning we

attach to the word civilization:We think of our own civilization with all its material complexity and outward

richness. If we are told of some very high ancient civilization we carry our present

conception backward and demand evidences of some sort of like material and outward complexity.

But a civilization might reach a very high point in terms of mind, of consciousness, and yet be very bare and plain outwardly. Thought might have been carried a long way, to very high levels, philosophically and spiritually considered; not turned outward, as we have turned our thought, to mechanical invention and material complexity. There may have been peoples living a very simple outward life whose consciousness was nevertheless much higher than ours. We have more than a suggestion of this in what we know of ancient India, of the times when some of the Vedic hymns were first written and men speculated on spiritual things in ways of which we can divine something from the earliest Upanishads. The Vedas especially are like the ancient cities of Troy, strata upon strata, and with no suggestion of spiritual barbarism anywhere. They suggest in fact a general preoccupation of the mind of that day with spiritual and philosophical matters that we of our times cannot parallel.

So that civilizations of a far past may have arisen and vanished that have left no trace at all, pre-Vedic civilizations, of which we can form no idea, civilizations which, from the standpoint of consciousness, have no resemblance to ours. And yet, deep within ourselves, their results must lie buried, waiting resuscitation. For Theosophy teaches that the mind of man is far more complex than our psychology knows of; that it develops aspect after aspect through the great groups of successive civilizations, each such group developing some special aspect; and that that, once developed, is as it were laid aside while another comes forward for development - just as that early group of convolutions are laid aside for another; and that it will not be till the end, the finale of human evolution on this planet, that all will reawaken together, blend with the last developed, and show us the completed man. We are more complex, have more hidden powers and aspects and faculties, than we know; and just as some man, placed in new conditions, may suddenly show himself possessed of faculties and aptnesses which perhaps not even he suspected, so with ourselves as a whole. Old conditions have gone by and did their work upon us. And the results remain upon the shelf whilst we turn a new face of our many-faced consciousness to new conditions. But nothing is lost. The old remains on call when the call shall come.

But apart from civilizations of which not a trace seems to remain - and Theosophy asserts on the authority of its records that there were many such civilizations, and not only on continents now for ages beneath the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific and about the North Pole - there are many whose shells, whose vast ruins, still remain, the greater part unexplored by archaeologists. How much is known, not to speak of the civilizations that produced the titanic remains in South America along the slopes shoreward of the Andes and in Mexico, hundreds of miles of them, but even of the remains themselves, guarded as they are by equally titanic or almost impregnable vegetation and by the peculiar and deadly fevers of the localities? Yet we know enough at least to wonder at a race that could have produced such structures.

When history first throws her light upon Egypt, she throws it upon a complex and fully-grown civilization that could only have been reached through long and historically unillumined stretches of time.

And of the prehistoric Eastern world here is H.P. Blavatsky's cursory sketch of our ignorance:

"In their efforts to collect together the many skeins of unwritten history, it is a bold step for our Orientalists to take, to deny, a priori, everything that does not dovetail with their special conclusions. Thus while new discoveries are daily made of great arts and sciences having existed far back in the night of time, even the knowledge of writing is refused to some of the most ancient nations, and they are credited with barbarism instead

of culture. Yet the traces of an immense civilization, even in Central Asia, are still to he found. This civilization is undeniably prehistoric. And how can there be civilization without a literature, in some form, without annals or chronicles? Common sense alone ought to supplement the broken links in the history of departed nations. The gigantic, unbroken wall of the mountains that hem in the whole table-land of Tibet, from the upper course of the river Khuan-Khe down to the Karakorum hills, witnessed a civilization during millenniums of years, and would have strange secrets to tell mankind. The Eastern and Central portions of those regions - the Nan-Shan and the Altyn-Tagh - were once upon a time covered with cities that could well vie with Babylon. A whole geological period has swept over the land since those cities breathed their last, as the mounds of shifting sand, and the sterile and now dead soil of the immense central plains of the basin of Tarim testify. The borderlands alone are superficially known to the traveler. Within those table-lands of sand there is water, and fresh oases are found blooming there, wherein no European foot has ever yet ventured, or trodden the now treacherous soil. Among these verdant oases there are some which are entirely inaccessible even to the native profane traveler. Hurricanes may 'tear up the sands and sweep whole plains away,' they are powerless to destroy that which is beyond their reach. Built deep in the bowels of the earth, the subterranean stores are secure; and as their entrances are concealed in such oases, there is little fear that anyone should discover them, even should several armies invade the sandy wastes where -

"'Not a pool, not a bush, not a house is seen,And the mountain-range forms a rugged screenRound the parch'd flats of the dry, dry desert....'

"But there is no need to send the reader across the desert, when the same proofs of ancient civilization are found even in comparatively populated regions of the same country. The oasis of Cherchen, for instance, situated about 4000 feet above the level of the river Cherchen-daria, is surrounded with the ruins of archaic towns and cities in every direction. There, some 3000 human beings represent the relics of about a hundred extinct nations and races - the very names of which are now unknown to our ethnologists. An anthropologist would feel more than embarrassed to class, divide, and subdivide them; the more so, as the respective descendents of all these antediluvian races and tribes know as little of their own forefathers themselves, as if they had fallen from the moon. When questioned about their origin, they reply that they know not whence their fathers had come, but had heard that their first (or earliest) men were ruled by the great genii of these deserts. This may be put down to ignorance and superstition, yet in view of the teachings of the Secret Doctrine, the answer may be based upon primeval tradition. Alone, the tribe of Khorassan claims to have come from what is now known as Afghanistan, long before the days of Alexander, and brings legendary lore to that effect as corroboration. The Russian traveler, Colonel (now General) Prjevalsky, found quite close to the oasis of Cherchen the ruins of two enormous cities, the oldest of which was, according to local tradition, ruined 3000 years ago by a hero and giant; and the other by the Mongolians in the tenth century of our era.

"'The emplacement of the two cities is now covered, owing to shifting sands and the desert wind, with strange and heterogeneous relics; with broken china and kitchen utensils and human bones. The natives often find copper and gold coins, melted silver, ingots, diamonds, and turquoises, and what is the most remarkable - broken glass.... Coffins of some undecaying wood, or material, also, within which beautifully preserved embalmed bodies are found.... The male mummies are all extremely tall powerfully built men with long waving hair.... A vault was found with twelve dead men sitting in it. Another time, in a separate coffin, a young girl was discovered by us. Her eyes were closed with

golden discs, and the jaws held firm by a golden circlet running from under the chin across the top of the head. Clad in a narrow woolen garment, her bosom was covered with golden stars, the feet being left naked.' - From a lecture by N. M. Prjevalsky

"To this, the famous traveler adds that all along their way on the river Cherchen they heard legends about twenty-three towns buried ages ago by the shifting sands of the deserts. The same tradition exists on the Lob-nor and in the oasis of Keria.

"The traces of such civilization, and these and like traditions, give us the right to credit other legendary lore warranted by well educated and learned natives of India and Mongolia, when they speak of immense libraries reclaimed from the sand, together with various reliques of ancient Magic lore, which have all been safely stored away."

We spoke of the great submerged continents beneath the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, whose once existence is now fairly orthodox geology. These, Theosophy teaches, had their humanity and their civilizations recorded, too; but not on records to which science has yet been given access. Why should it be given access to them, when it will give no consideration to the Graeco-Egyptian tradition recorded by Plato? Read Donnelly's book Atlantis for the whole of what can as yet be said on that score.

And let us remember that nature is not very kindly to remains. She has her ever-ready earthquake; her slow age-long denudations by rain and frost; her slow subsidences and upheavals, land and water ever changing place; her glaciers and avalanches and volcanoes; her sandstorms and her all-dissecting vegetation. Given time enough and she can wipe out the last trace of any human structure.

Well, after all this, we can perhaps come to a reckoning. Civilization is the perennial flowering of the deathless plant humanity. And as, through the botanical ages, the plant, flowering year after year, slowly changes its type under the laws of evolution, so humanity. It flowers here and then as the evolved individuals transfer themselves there for other incarnations and come at last to a new and changed florescence. The dregs remain as types which wear out, the mental and moral degenerates of the type which was. Have we not degenerates enough visible in our midst today? Read the daily records of the crimes. Look at some of the faces in the streets. The new type flowers; a new phase of mind and consciousness is produced, intellectual, aesthetic, spiritual, moral, or what not. Some of the results are stored for use hereafter, as nature puts away for future use some organ of the animal body, or, if it has altogether served its turn, transforms it for some other function. The race betakes itself to the evolution of some new aspect or faculty or adds a further point to an old one. So we get the ups and downs of history. And so it is possible for those who do not see what is doing to argue that there is no progress; that the process is blind and functionless, a mere succession of samenesses that accomplish nothing. Do you not see what that means: that causes can be set going with no effects? That men can put forth their whole powers, mental or moral or spiritual, in art or science or what not - and remain what they were, the power expended vanishing traceless? For that is what it means to say that civilization does at best but repeat civilization. Every effort made by any of us on any line, mental or other, every worthy effort of will against our inertia, is a working force, raising him who makes it and contributing something not there before to the civilization of which he is a part. And as there always are and were those who make and have made such efforts, have even filled their lives with them, so there must be and have been eternal progress. And as a man at different parts of his life may work at different parts of his nature and develop each a step further, so with the successive civilizations. They represent humanity as a unit working at different parts of its nature. No effort fails of its result. And all results, when not now manifest, are stored against the great and superb future of our race.

So by way of final lesson we can remember that no noble stroke of work done by any of us on his own nature is wasted. It goes to his account and to the account of his

civilization and to the account of all humanity. To make the smallest effort is to set a cause to work, and from then on the eternal current of effect is ceaselessly moving out.

II.

In a short paper such as that in the December issue, it was of course impossible to get very far into our subject. But before going further we will re-survey for a moment the round then traversed.

Theosophy teaches an immense antiquity for man, not only on continents now above water, but on others long submerged continents now beneath the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the seas about the North Pole.

For such corroboration of Theosophic teaching as is thus far generally available we pointed to the universal traditions among the very oldest peoples of long-vanished and godlike races that were their primeval ancestors, traditions unusually complete and definite in the case of Atlantis, the Atlantean continent, summarized for us from Plato and other sources by Donnelly in his book of that name; to the universal traditions of great deluges, earthquakes and volcanic fires, which destroyed these lands with the races thereon; to existing prehistoric remains in various parts of the earth, of whose origin archaeology knows nothing and speculates little, of whose mere existence, indeed, in some areas - Western South America about the slopes of the Andes, for instance - it is but barely aware; to the fact that when history catches her first far glimpse of Egypt there was already a full-fledged civilization that must have occupied - who can guess how much time? - for its evolution; and to such ancient literature as the Vedas of India, poems evidently of many strata in time, the oldest of these strata, of unguessable date, dimly but surely indicating a race eminently spiritual and philosophic.

To men whose survey of history and whose cast of mind do not suggest to them that history, as an immense succession of civilizations - apparently beginningless - has a meaning, we have nothing to say. But to those who have a conception of evolution as a self-realizing divine purpose with a divinely and fully-perfected man as its goal and who think of history in that way, to these Theosophy will bring a great light.

As the plant flowers year after year, through long periods changing its type in accordance with the laws of evolution, plants coming later in time having evolved structures of which there is no trace in the earlier families, so the human plant flowers age after age into great or lesser civilizations, in each adding something to its powers, mental and spiritual. And as nature, in the animal kingdom, puts away some developed organ, hiding it beneath the skin against it shall perhaps again be needed, the while she devotes herself to perfecting another - has not man, for instance, a third eye now buried deep in the brain? - so with man's faculties and modes of consciousness. In the slow succession of civilizations now this and now that faculty or aspect of the total inner nature is taken in hand and advanced a step, whilst some other becomes partly or perhaps wholly latent. There are seers here and there among the Scotch and Scandinavian mountaineers, those who can at times discern something of the outlines of a finer world than this of our five senses. The faculty was perhaps once universal, now laid aside save in the case of exceptional individuals, whilst other faculties have their turn for development.

And so with the mind. Looking back but two or three thousand years, to the brief and recent civilization of historic Greece, we can see the sudden and special evolution of the sense of formal beauty and proportion. Through the darker ages that followed, it was lost, receded into the background of consciousness. As the Greeks had it, in their completeness and intensity, we have it not. We are specially concerned with quite other aspects and activities of consciousness. And if we can see something of this general truth in looking back from our own day and page in history to one so recent, we can imagine

how compelling would the principle appear if we could appreciate the real life and keynote of consciousness of civilizations immeasurably more remote than that of little Greece but yesterday.

And yet, as Theosophy teaches, we ourselves here now were the people who lived through those earlier civilizations, and in us are buried or partly buried all that they developed, just as in our brains is buried that third eye behind the visible two. For humanity is a deathless plant; only its flowerings vanish.

Theosophy upholds the doctrine of evolution as strongly as modern biological science, and it extends the domain of evolution much further. But in respect to man its picture of the working of evolution is very different from that of science, the science of today. Theosophy does not admit that any of the savages or uncivilized peoples now to be found in the world in any way represent past stages in human evolution. They are stages of degeneration. As we noted in our last paper, it has already been suggested in recent science that the apes are divergencies from man, that sometime in the immensely distant past they diverged from the then human stock, diverged and, we must say, degenerated. This leaves the origin of that human stock without any explanation. Science finds it beginning, as it were, in mid-air, inexplicably there when she first gets her eye of imagination upon it.

Theosophy concurs in this doctrine of the origin of the apes as divergencies from man and degenerations. And degenerations likewise, says Theosophy, are the present savage and uncivilized and semi-civilized races. In this view Theosophy has the support of some eminent anthropologists.

Now if the ape-ancestor was not the ancestor of man, but was man himself; and if the savages and semi-civilized races do not represent earlier human conditions but are degenerations from them, what sort of picture can we form of the human line itself from which all these diverged and degenerated, the line running back interminably into the past and threading together all the civilizations of which there is history or remains or traditions?

Let us consider the history of the globe as we get it from geology. We spoke of the submergence of great continents where now are the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

A once-existing Pacific continent has long been suggested in science, as, more recently, that of the Atlantic ocean. Professor Irvine, of the University of Sydney, even speculates that on the former there may have been great empires. Speaking of what he calls "unanswered enigmas of the Pacific," he refers in a recent address to the strange megalithic buildings and monuments on some of the islands scattered over that great ocean, great structures of whose source archaeology is absolutely ignorant - as likewise are the peoples now inhabiting the islands. The presence of these remains suggests, he says, that before the arrival of the black and brown peoples

"....there existed great barbarian empires in the Pacific itself. Whence these people [of the empires] came; what manner of men they were; how or why they disappeared; whether through some vast convulsions like the sinking of a continent, or by extermination by some unknown maritime people, all of these are unanswered enigmas of the Pacific."

There were, says Theosophy, great empires, and there was barbarism and civilization just as there is today. And the mighty continent sank amid vast convulsions of nature. As it was sinking, Asia was coming up. As the Atlantic continent sank, Europe was emerging. The surface of the globe is never still. Rains and rivers wash away the high places into the sea. The earthquakes fracture the crust. The glaciers wear it down. The volcanoes cover it with lava. Sea and land slowly change places. Islands sink and come up. Everywhere there is active geological history a-making. Great Britain has been three times under water. This America of ours once was not. And Africa once was not. The whole earth may have - Theosophy says has - passed through periods when her changes

were much more violent and extensive than now. The movement of the axis of rotation, now limited to a few feet, causing constant alterations of latitude everywhere, may at times have been much wider, wide enough to produce effects enshrined in human memory as the universal tradition of great and destructive deluges in the far past.

It is for such reasons, says Theosophy, that the line of animal evolution leading directly on to man, has been lost, or, rather, never found. The link is truly - 'missing.' And a good many other links, lower down the scale, also, their places being taken by speculation. The biologists have the ends of the branches of the great trunk of the tree of evolution. They have not the trunk and therefore not the places on it where the branches arise. And likewise they have not the top of the trunk - which is the original man, or man's body - and cannot construct his body's true history. And still less his mind's true history, that mind which, in the chief of its aspects, is absolutely different from and not relatable to the mind of any animal, and which, even in the aspect which it shares with the mind of the animal, is so much more evolved that it leaves a 'missing link' to which the others, the physical ones, are trifles. For man is of course an animal - in his body; but 'an animal spiritualized,' an animal electrified by spirit.

They try nowadays to increase the growth of plants by means of electricity. Suppose the plant could, as it were, capture the electricity and substitute it for its own slow vital currents, and achieve as much evolution in its plasticity and powers of adaptation and intelligence in a day as in an aeon of ordinary progress! But we should have to suppose the electricity as co-operating, or even rather as instigating its own capture and voluntarily taking up residence.

It was Alfred Russel Wallace, co-founder with Darwin, of the principle of evolution, who conceived for himself the Theosophic idea that the gulf between man and animal, the mental gulf, could only be explained by the hypothesis that man was an animal into which a soul, a divine or spiritual entity, had incarnated, had come in to dwell and to crown animalism with humanity.

Through the slow ages nature had been getting ready for man. As the end of her long evolutionary work upon animal life and form, she had at last prepared a form of texture fine enough to embody a soul, to be its field of experience of living matter. "This," she said, "I have made for you. All my powers and essences are brought together for you here in this compacted sentient form. Come and dwell herein, and in experiencing it, you will come to know me. Mastering it, you will become my Master and I your servant for future work you could not do without me, could not do as pure spirit."

So a divine soul, collectively the first emanation of Deity, Lights from the one Light, came and took up its abode in each of these prepared forms.

And this was the time of the Golden Age, the Garden of Eden, legendized among so many ancient peoples that it may be called a universal legend.

What was then 'man'? The sensitized, conscious, animal form, exquisitely instinctivized for all the purposes of its life, thrilling in every fiber in response to nature's finer forces: or the pure, indwelling soul, as yet hardly conscious of its tenement, still a spirit, hardly yet awake to the thrill of sensation in matter? The life of spirit and that of matter had but begun to blend and each was nearly unaware of the other. Spirit was not yet energizing as mind.

Mind is spirit energizing in matter, on matter, acting and reacting with it. Its action on matter, nerve and brain-matter, we call will. Remembering is its power of holding and reproducing experiences at will and by will, a power possessed by no animal. Imagination is its power of recombining the memory of experiences at will, which also is possessed by no animal. Will, and willed remembering, and willed imagination are the marks of man as a soul; upon these, thought depends; upon these, consciousness of self, of I, depends. They are spirit working as mind, specifically human mind.

And it was not until mind was born, linking spirit and matter, that the line of

civilizations could begin. Civilizations are making for the re-establishment of the Golden Age, the Age of spirit again, plus the experiences and powers gained through their progression.

Now we can get some sort of perspective as we look backward. Starting from our own time we come first to civilizations like that of Greece, well within the compass of history. Further back, and now to the far verge of history, are such civilizations as those of Babylon and of Egypt as she is just seen upon the horizon, civilizations of which, because of their material ruins and some fragments of their literature, we can construct some dim idea. Further back yet are those of which the material ruins alone remain, the work of nameless peoples of which history knows nothing whatsoever, ruins in the Eastern and Western worlds. And when we have settled with them, shall we not find ourselves asking whether there may not have been remains still more ancient, so ancient as to have been totally destroyed by one or another or many of nature's processes, or, in some cases buried far out of our reach?

And lastly, perhaps, the civilizations that did not build at all, or hardly. For the ways of the people and their thought were not the ways and thought of those that came after.

We think we know something of the ancient Egyptians. Maybe we do - something. If we had no record of old Greece we could judge in some degree of the consciousness, the quality of mind, of the people by the artistic quality of their statuary and buildings and temples. A people full of the love of outward beauty and proportion, we should say; perhaps also of inward beauty of soul.

Now think in the same spirit of old Egypt, of her gigantic temples and colonnades, of her pyramids, of the great sphinx (stone symbol of eternity), of the mighty statuary, and consider what must have been the consciousness of this people. We cannot enter into it, cannot appreciate it at all, so different must it have been from that of Greece, to say nothing of our own. In the soul of the people at their greatest must have been an undertone of grandeur, of proportioned magnitude, of sublimity, utterly different from the undertone of the Greek soul and again from that of our time. It is this which changes from epoch to epoch, this keynote of the undertones of consciousness.

The 'fall of man' was no sudden event, neither is it a meaningless myth. Man, spirit-man, 'fell' when his spiritual consciousness began to be touched or invaded by the keen natural sensations of the perfected animal form he had ensouled. It was in the program. He began to stand between the two worlds or poles, those of spirit and of sentient matter, the pulsating matter of his body. 'Lucifer, Son of the Morning,' fell - as he had to. He awoke, as it were, on this side of himself, the matter or sense side, and took over into his own possession the physical consciousness which nature had evolved in the animal being, the body. The man who has lived all his days from birth onward in the country may never realize its peace and beauty till he has the contrast of the city's noise and hardness to give him the contrast and make him long again for the place he left. So with the spiritual world - or rather, consciousness. Man could only get to know it, to appreciate and aspire to it, by having in a sense left it for the other, by having thus a contrast to set it against. Mind is the field where this contrasting is done. The below is reflected in mind as sensation and reacted upon as appetite and desire. The above is reflected in mind as the sense of sublimity, of beauty, of moral worth, as the presence of lofty ideals of every kind, and reacted upon as aspiration of every kind. In the beginning there was a spiritual purity that knew not itself. Our goal is a purity re-won by effort and that knows itself. And in every civilization there have been some few who achieved this and became henceforth the spiritual teachers of the race.

So the immense stretch of human history begins to have a meaning, but only for those who can understand that the history is of ourselves, of us now here today. It is we ourselves that have lived it from the first, epoch after epoch, suffering, learning, lapsing, recovering, accumulating stores of power and experience of whose latent presence in

ourselves we do not dream. The Teachers of Theosophy have the records of it all, but it would be useless as yet to give more than the general outline.

(Vol. 15, pp. 500-5; Vol. 16, pp. 27-32)

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How Birds Reward Their Friends - Percy Leonard

It is becoming quite the fashion nowadays to look after the birds. Suitable boxes are set up for them to nest in; crumbs and suet are served in winter-time; bird-baths and drinking fountains are provided in the hot weather; and their nests are protected from cats and nest-robbers.

It has been objected that this is an interference with Nature's plan and tends to make paupers of the birds. If food is provided, the birds will become too lazy to hunt for themselves and so the destructive insects will multiply and our crops will be ruined. However reasonable this may appear on the surface, it has been proved in two instances at least that man's care for the birds has resulted in nothing but good.

Mr. E.H. Forbush, the State Ornithologist of Massachusetts who had attracted a large feathered population to his orchard, was well rewarded for his trouble. While an army of tent-caterpillars and cankerworms were busy among his neighbors' trees, his orchard was quite untouched and he gathered a bountiful crop of fruit.

Baron Berlepsch at Witzenhausen, in Thuringia, Germany, had persuaded five hundred pairs of birds of various species to make their home in his thirteen-acre park, when one summer a host of caterpillars invaded the district, stripping the leaves from the trees for miles in every direction; but although his estate lay in the midst of the devastated tract, the baron's trees were covered with leaves, and so active were the feathered policemen that the hungry worms never managed to get within a quarter of a mile of his boundaries.

In the four hundred acres of forest owned by this lover of birds, two thousand boxes have been erected for the use of birds which nest in holes. They are modeled exactly to resemble the cavities such birds hollow out for themselves in decayed timber. In the breeding season they are all occupied by happy families; a clear proof that the birds appreciate the friendly assistance of man, especially when he brings his intelligence to co-operate with his kindly intentions.

Few people seem to realize the enormous appetites of birds. What with their ceaseless movement, the exertion of flight, the energy expended in song, and the high temperature of their blood, they require an immense amount of nourishment. It is common to remark of a person in delicate health, that he has the appetite of a canary. As a matter of fact, in proportion to their weight, the birds consume very much more food than we do. If a man were to feed on the same scale as some of the birds do, he would eat twenty-four hens for his breakfast, a whole sheep for his dinner, and would still be able to find room for half-a-dozen roast turkeys for his supper.

In Lomaland, house-wrens build their nests in hats that hang in the bungalows of students and in the pockets of rain-coats. The hooded Arizona oriole suspends her woven cradle under the arches of the Temple of Peace; and valley quail lead forth their active, fluffy broods from clumps of pampas grass within the boundaries of the Lotus Home. With the exception of the red-breasted linnet who resembles humanity in the interest that he takes in ripe figs, our feathered population on the whole render a great assistance in

keeping down the insect plagues.We need not fear the ravages of insects although they lay thousands of eggs, as

long as we protect the birds. There seems to be a kind of balance in Nature, and if we protect the birds from foes and famine, they will take our part in our ceaseless struggle against the insects.

(Vol. 15, pp. 158-59)

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Among the noblest in the land -Though he may count himself the least - That man I honor and revere,Who, without favor, without fear,In the great city dares to stand,The friend of every friendless beast.

- Longfellow

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Blind Man's Buff - Lydia Ross, M.D.

Life is consciousness; and everything in the universe, in some degree, is alive. 'Dead matter' is a misnomer. Even mineral particles, uniting acid and alkali to produce a salt and again dissolving, or combining in plant life and again separating through decay, are conscious of attraction and repulsion. The plant consciously seeks nourishing earth and refreshing moisture, turns its face toward the sun's gracious light and warmth, and, seeming to die, is reborn in its seedlings. The acorn, without remembering its parent tree, is conscious enough of its oakhood, as it were, to express the hereditary family traits.

Nor does man ever really die. The cosmic chemistry which unites positive spirit and negative matter at his birth, and anon separates them at his death, is dealing with indestructibles, to work out striking dramatic changes in a continued performance of conscious existence. Human life is the consciousness the individual soul experiences through a brain-mind and an animal body. It is a three-fold experience, - physical, mental, and spiritual. The real man is conscious, through his body, of heat and cold, of pleasure and pain, of hunger and satisfaction, etc., as are the animals. Then, mentally conscious, he not only knows things, as do the animals, but he knows that he knows, and has the light of reason. Moreover, he is spiritually conscious, to some degree, at least, if he is 'all there.' Perhaps he is spiritually conscious only during deep sleep, when he is not alive to his body senses and even his restless brain is at rest. Though he awakes with no memory of this higher experience, he has been as certainly conscious during deep sleep as he has been alive.

This higher sense of selfhood is little realized or believed in or understood, as a rule, because it is not cultivated in relation to ordinary life of body and brain activities. Life is sacred, as well here as hereafter. It would seem sacred at all times if the best in human nature was exercised one-half as much as are thoughts and feelings of brain and body. Even the meanest of men who sought the best in himself by putting a high motive into every act and thought, soon would know that nobility was native to him. Harmony and unity prevail where the soul comes from; but ignored and treated as an exile here, it

becomes numbed with the prevailing discord and separateness, through which it vainly tries to make itself known. How can we be conscious of the best self when our selfish neglect and cynical doubt of its existence keep it chilled and starved and unconscious in its relation to the everyday level of personal experiences?

When the soul takes on a garment-body at birth, this veil of flesh makes its earth-life a cosmic game of blind man's buff. Fresh from a life of conscious reality of truth and light, of joy and liberation, where it knows itself to be, "for it is knowledge," it is fearlessly confident of finding itself, even when blinded by the flesh. The reality of the soul-life is the larger, freer, happier consciousness, whose vague memory ever haunts our higher moments. The real self brings something of this with it into the old, old game of blind man's buff, which the children of men are ever playing here. This it is which gives helpless, unthinking, unknown little babes their strange power to inspire the tenderest, deepest feelings, and to refresh the weary, wounded players with renewed interest in the baffling game.

Certainly it is something other than the babe's weak, unskilled body and unawakened mind that makes it so lovable, and that radiates a subtle atmosphere of purity and peace and trust. Before its consciousness becomes largely located in its senses, sensations, and opinions, it is more conscious than are those around it of the larger life that precedes birth and follows death.

All scientific ideas about the new-born being a mere bundle of fresh human material, blank inside, and with everything to learn, - all fall short of the facts, and fail to satisfy that innate sense of the truth which knows more than it can prove in words. These ideas fail to account for that self-centered, vital germ of consciousness which, from the first, begins, like a flower, to force its way through a dense body of earth and a strange atmosphere of brain-mind. The poet says truly that "heaven lies about us in our infancy." The divine nativity of the new-born makes it feel so 'at home' in an atmosphere of love, that it knows its devoted mother long before it knows how consciously to use its body or its mind. This intuitive response to unselfish love, argues for a like high quality of feeling, and for that rare wisdom of unity which finds itself in others. Even the wiseacres often are self-deceived in their loving, and uncertain of their lovers. The young not only sleep more, but sleep more peacefully than their elders, as if this indifference to surroundings left them freer to live in the receding memory of their foregone happiness.

These tiny new-comers begin the earth-life of blind man's buff with a happy trust, just as older children merrily accept blindfolding to enter into the little game of thus trying to find their playmates. The eyes, fitly called the "windows of the soul," take in, at a glance, a world of things that all the other senses together report far more slowly and less certainly. Open-eyed, one is so strongly impressed by the form, color, sound, texture, odor, etc., of what he sees, and also by the relations of different things and persons, that he is sure he can identify them with eyes shut. But when blindfolded in the game, the position and relation of everything seems to be changed and distorted. His comrade's voices take on strange tones. The typical turn of a chum's head, or the familiar glance that speaks from another's eye, or the composite of personal details, or the more intangible ensemble of individuality - all these left out of his mental pictures, leave them meaningless or mutilated. As he stumbles over unexpected obstacles, and eagerly grasps at empty air, finds his fellows suddenly grown taller or shorter or distorted, or estranged, he begins to think that everything has gone wrong, and everyone is at fault, and all are conspiring to baffle and defeat him. He does not distrust his own senses or his stock of opinions, certainly not; that would be so unscientific.

Each one plays the game - both the cosmic and the childish one - according to his make-up. Few keep up the confident, merry zest with which they begin. The personality plays with cunning, irritation, resentment, ambition, deceit, revenge, with indifference and sloth, or with all the sordid passion of activity. Then, with increasing confusion, it tries to

hide its defeat by a reckless or cynical pretense that the game has no meaning anyway, and is not worthwhile. The Real Player takes his bumps and bruises and falls and failures calmly, patiently, and as clues to the safe and sure course to follow. He is not deceived by his mind and his senses; but remembering himself and his fellow-selves as seen in reality, he intuitively perseveres to work out the game and regain his larger vision, plus an added power from the experiment he is making.

(Vol. 15, pp. 111-13)

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Theosophy and Capital Punishment - William Q. Judge

From ignorance of the truth about man's real nature and faculties and their action and condition after bodily death, a number of evils flow. The effect of such want of knowledge is much wider than the concerns of one or several persons. Government and the administration of human justice under man-made laws will improve in proportion as there exists a greater amount of information on this all-important subject. When a wide and deep knowledge and belief in respect to the occult side of nature and of man shall have become the property of the people, then may we expect a great change in the matter of capital punishment.

The killing of a human being by the authority of the state is morally wrong and also an injury to all the people; no criminal should be executed, no matter what the offence. If the administration of the law is so faulty as to permit the release of the hardened criminal before the term of his sentence has expired, that has nothing to do with the question of killing him.

Under Christianity this killing is contrary to the law supposed to have emanated from the Supreme Lawgiver. The commandment is: "Thou shalt not kill!" No exception is made for states or governments; it does not even except the animal kingdom. Under this law therefore it is not right to kill a dog, to say nothing of human beings. But the commandment has always been and still is ignored. The theology of man is always able to argue away any regulation whatever; and the Christian nations once rioted in executions. At one time for stealing a loaf of bread or a few nails a man might be hanged. This, however, has been so altered that death at the hands of the law is imposed for murder only, - omitting some unimportant exceptions.

We can safely divide the criminals who have been or will be killed under our laws into two classes: i.e., those persons who are hardened, vicious, murderous in nature; and those who are not so, but who, in a moment of passion, fear, or anger, have slain another. The last may be again divided into those who are sorry for what they did, and those who are not. But even though those of the second class are not by intention enemies of Society, as are the others, they too before their execution may have their anger, resentment, desire for revenge and other feelings besides remorse, all aroused against Society which persecutes them and against those who directly take part in their trial and execution. The nature, passions, state of mind and bitterness of the criminal have, hence, to be taken into account in considering the question. For the condition which he is in when cut off from mundane life has much to do with the whole subject.

All the modes of execution are violent, whether by the knife, the sword, the bullet, by poison, rope, or electricity. And for the Theosophist the term violent as applied to death must mean more than it does to those who do not hold Theosophical views. For the latter, a violent death is distinguished from an easy natural one solely by the violence used

against the victim. But for us such a death is the violent separation of the man from his body, and is a serious matter, of interest to the whole state. It creates in fact a paradox, for such persons are not dead; they remain with us as unseen criminals, able to do harm to the living and to cause damage to the whole of Society.

What happens? All the onlooker sees is that the sudden cutting off is accomplished; but what of the reality? A natural death is like the falling of a leaf near the winter-time. The time is fully ripe, all the powers of the leaf having separated; those acting no longer, its stem has but a slight hold on the branch and the slightest wind takes it away. So with us; we begin to separate our different inner powers and parts one from the other because their full term has ended, and when the final tremor comes the various inner component parts of the man fall away from each other and let the soul go free. But the poor criminal has not come to the natural end of his life. His astral body is not ready to separate from his physical body, nor is the vital, nervous energy ready to leave. The entire inner man is closely knit together, and he is the reality. I have said these parts are not ready to separate - they are in fact not able to separate because they are bound together by law and a force over which only great Nature has control.

When then the mere physical body is so treated that a sudden, premature separation from the real man is effected, he is merely dazed for a time, after which he wakes up in the atmosphere of the earth, fully a sentient living being save for the body. He sees the people, he sees and feels again the pursuit of him by the law. His passions are alive. He has become a raging fire, a mass of hate; the victim of his fellows and of his own crime. Few of us are able, even under favorable circumstances, to admit ourselves as wholly wrong and to say that punishment inflicted on us by man is right and just, and the criminal has only hate and desire for revenge.

If now we remember that his state of mind was made worse by the trial and execution, we can see that he has become a menace to the living. Even if he be not so bad and full of revenge as said, he is himself the repository of his own deeds; he carries with him into the astral realm surrounding us the pictures of his crimes, and these are ever-living creatures, as it were. In any case he is dangerous. Still existing in the very realm in which our mind and senses operate, he is forever coming in contact with the mind and senses of the living. More people than we suspect are nervous and sensitive. If these sensitives are touched by this invisible criminal they have injected into them at once the pictures of his crime and punishment, the vibrations from his hate, malice and revenge. Like creates like, and thus these vibrations create their like. Many a person has been impelled by some unknown force to commit crime; and that force came from such an inhabitant of our sphere.

And even with those not called 'sensitive' these forces have an effect, arousing evil thoughts where any basis for such exists in those individuals. We cannot argue away the immense force of hate, revenge, fear, vanity, all combined. Take the case of Guiteau, who shot President Garfield. He went through many days of trial. His hate, anger and vanity were aroused to the highest pitch every day and until the last, and he died full of curses for every one who had anything to do with his troubles. Can we be so foolish as to say that all the force he thus generated was at once dissipated? Of course it was not....

The Theosophist who believes in the multiple nature of man and in the complexity of his inner nature, and knows that that is governed by law and not by mere chance or by the fancy of those who prate of the need for protecting society when they do not know the right way to do it, relying only on the punitive and retaliatory Mosaic law - will oppose capital punishment. He sees it is unjust to the living, a danger to the state, and that it allows no chance whatever for any reformation of the criminal.

(Vol. 19, pp. 209-11, reprinted from The Path)

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Compassion: True and False - H. Travers

"To feel 'compassion' without an adequate practical result is not altruism." - H.P. Blavatsky

The remark might be made even more pointed by putting it: "To feel 'compassion' without an adequate practical result is not compassion." For the point is that such a feeling is not compassion at all, but only "compassion" (in quotation marks). It is only a mental indulgence. There is the story of an individual who was out driving in the winter, and felt so cold that he ordered a ton of coal to be bought and distributed among the poor in his neighborhood; but when he got home and was warm and comfortable, he countermanded the order, saying that the poor were used to the cold and could get along all right. Compassion is that which expresses itself in appropriate action; that which does not so express itself is something else.

The word 'adequate' in the quotation seems to indicate that, not only must there be a result, but it must be of the right kind. False compassion may yield no result at all or a wrong result - as in some kinds of 'charity.' There was a story in one of the magazines some years ago about a poor foreign Hebrew old-clothes man, who was so dreadfully persecuted by some charitable people that he fled secretly to another quarter of the city and changed his name. His children had been taken into the country, where they had had a bad time of it, his old clothes had been taken off his back and replaced by new and inappropriate ones which made the boys tease him, and his home had been turned upside down. He had been brought up under despotic government, and he regarded this charity as some inscrutable form of police tyranny, not to be resisted or questioned, but simply to be fled from. And so the poor man fled. There was a moving-picture film showing the baneful effects of the activities of a kind of rich and idle people called 'uplifters,' who brought discredit on the title they had stolen and made a bad name for all useful help by acting from wrong motives, such as selfishness and vanity, and doing harm instead of good.

The world is full of amiable well-meaning people who do not accomplish anything, and who leave action in the hands of those who are not so scrupulous. Are the virtues of these people real virtues, or are they of the kind that should be written in quotation marks and classed as mental indulgences? Without wishing to be too hard on these people, we may surmise that the latter element is at least present in considerable proportion; for they are not impelled to action, and therefore the true test of virtue fails.

I find in myself an implanted tendency to let virtuous feelings expend themselves in thought, thus leaving my hands unbraced when the time comes for deeds. This state of affairs, it would seem to me, is quite agreeable to the selfish side of my nature, which would not wish to have things otherwise; and there are grounds for suspecting a compact between two elements of my personality, the one ugly, the other fair, but both selfish; as though I were a potentate, keeping among my retinue both ruffians to do my dark deeds and beautiful damsels to adorn my leisure. I find too that a similar policy tends to relegate all my virtuous inclinations to the dim vale of the past, where they masquerade as regrets, or to the unveiled and therefore altogether supposititious future, where, as dead-sea fruit, they are destined to turn to ashes.

From all this region of futility the only avenue of escape is into the realm of action and the domain of the present moment. And it may well be that I find myself better justified

in trusting to my native impulses for good action than to my grandiose projects. For these latter serve but to alienate my attention from the little duties of the present moment, which are the stepping-stones to greater opportunities, and to place my feet instead upon a path which, however glamored, leads but to the regions of the moon.

Such considerations lead one to a realization of the truth of those sayings which tell us that the end of man is not a thought but a deed, and that, in place of casting about for great deeds to do, we should simply do what we have to do. In truth, it may be said that, as long as I bide in the realms of contemplation, I have not, as far as that particular occasion is concerned, incarnated upon earth at all, but am still only in a state of gestation, which is as likely as not to end - where it began. It is only when I have acted that I have fully incarnated.

One hardly feels qualified to address people who desire to reform the world, but these thoughts may perhaps be useful to some who feel that they have within them generous impulses which somehow fail to find due expression. It is natural for a person born in this civilization to imagine that, before he can do anything, he will have to get, to acquire, to gain something: the keynote of acquisition is strongly sounded in our civilization. But another idea is that, instead of getting, we should lose. In other words, may it not be that we have to disencumber ourselves, rather than equip ourselves anew? It is quite a familiar experience that lumber has to be cleared out before anything new can be put in; or that new liquor cannot be put into a bottle that contains the decaying remnants of what was there before. These illustrations help to explain why it is that high ideals, when suffered to lie in the mind, are apt to ferment and become useless. In our mind there is a creature like an octopus, with tentacles that draw in everything and turn it into food for the shapeless body of the monster. Thus it is that even virtues and good intentions may become mere food for self-satisfaction and the mere ornaments of a 'superior person.'

Life is our great teacher; and, like other teachers, it beneficently provides us with opportunities for independent self-expression. But we cannot learn unless we accept these opportunities. Hence the reason why we remain confined to a narrow sphere may be because we have some defect that prevents us from taking the first step, and that thereby causes us to miss many opportunities. If once we could get over this little defect, we could step out into a somewhat larger sphere, and would then be ready to take still further steps. But we fail to overcome the defect, and so we stay where we were, and have to seek consolation in viewing the distant prospect and traversing it in imagination only.

It would seem, then, that we should not so much seek to acquire new powers as to free ourselves from much that is superfluous in our character, so that we may be better able to use the powers which we possess. The Soul is not an extra; our nature is not complete without it. But it is usually hidden away and choked by superfluous growths. These need pruning, so that the Soul may have a chance. Compassion, among other things, is at the root of our nature, and waits but to be revealed. Self-satisfaction is a vampire that can never be glutted; and the more we realize the truth of this fact, the sooner we shall be ready to discard many things that we have hitherto thought necessary. A multitude of fears and anxieties will drop off naturally, when we begin to see that they have no solid ground. It is probably some such fear or care which is the obstacle, spoken of above, that is always getting in our way and causing us to miss opportunities.

Compassion, then, is more a motive power than a sentiment; at least it is not complete until expressed in action. Its enemy is selfishness; and if this is eliminated, compassion will come naturally into play. And selfishness is not confined to the doing of selfish deeds, but consists very largely in doing no deeds at all, and in being preoccupied with one's own feelings.

(Vol. 17, pp. 111-13)

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Crime and the Criminal - Herbert Coryn

The god Thor took a long and mighty drink at the horn of mead. But when he looked therein he found to his astonishment and chagrin that he had but lowered the contents by an inch.

But his challenger was terrified, for he knew that the horn was secretly connected with the ocean and that it was the whole ocean the god had lowered at his draught.

Every latent or subordinate element in my character exists in some other man in an extreme and manifest degree. Every extreme and manifest trait in any man's character exists in some degree - perhaps down to invisibility - in mine.

And men are so connected together inwardly that in letting any trait of my character develop, or in diminishing the power of any trait, I am at the same time in some degree affecting in the same direction the same trait in all other men. Some time this will seem quite axiomatic.

The poet - we take off our hats to him. Not because he has something we have none of, for in that case he would be speaking another language, not understood by us; but because he has in extremer degree something we have in less degree. Our little gift flowers vicariously there and is the better for it. He is the poet tendency of his people come to flower. He does our poetizing for us and some of his inspiration is constituted by our call - sent out unconsciously to be poetized for. He manifests a tendency we have not enough of to manifest for ourselves. If one of us could kill that in himself a certain chill would come upon the poet's power.

Most of us cannot create music. Our music center pulsates with less intensity, with intensity enough only to make us enjoy music. But because enough of us had that much intensity the music creators appeared among us to answer our need.

You and I, we think, do not commit crime. But let us be honest. The criminal is only a man who carries on into act the tendency which in you and me exists in lesser degree. If the 99 You's and I's had no such tendency, the 100th, who has, would never be born amongst us as a black sheep in our families. He cannot be said, of course, to answer like the poet our conscious need! But yet a something from our unmanifest crime tendency, a conducting wire of energy, runs along towards and into a center where this energy may manifest in act, a center that attracts it, and that center is the criminal.

This relieves him perhaps of some responsibility, by no means of all; for he drew the wires his way or let them fasten on him, let them stir his imagination into pictures of deed that become either impulse or set intent. It is not we that can say of how much it relieves him. We can only say that some of it rests with us.

The criminal is the crime tendency of his people come to flower in deed. What then is the crime tendency? It is merely disregard for others, for their rights, their welfare. When that comes out into act there is a crime; though it is only to some of such acts that we give that name. Some are quite consistent with respectability and social position. It comes out also in neglect to act (for others), but it is to still fewer of these negligences that we give the name crime.

From all of which it follows that until we as a people get this disregard for others out of our natures, or get regard for others into our natures as a prime motor, so long will one and another of us here and there carry this general disregard out into specific acts called criminal.

Shall we not say the criminal does our criming for us?

Well, anyhow, he manifests a tendency we have not (quite) enough of to carry us into overt acts called crime.

How to treat the criminal is one question.But to prevent him lies with us - by cultivating sense of justice, which is regard for

the rights of others; and by cultivating brotherhood, which is love of the welfare and best interests of others, the recognition of human relationship.

The criminal was one of us and mostly will be again. These remarks are therefore addressed to him also. He became temporarily a criminal because he allowed in himself a weakness of the sense of justice and of wide-reaching brotherliness. Let him then contribute to our discussion, thinking, What ought to be done with me for my lack of these qualities?

We can solve the difficult question of the treatment of criminals only if we will let some of the best and thoughtfulest from our prisons tell us out of their experience what they think is the proper treatment of the various grades and kinds of offence. We shall never solve it in our present disregard of what our prisoners themselves can contribute.

(Vol. 15, pp. 132-33)

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Death, According to Theosophic Teaching - Herbert Coryn, M.D.

It is no wonder that we have no knowledge about death, since we have no knowledge of what silence will give us. For death is the opportunity for life and action of that part of us which is paralysed by our ceaseless mind-chatter. We know of nothing beyond the mind because the mind occupies the whole of our attention. The mind is stirred to incessant action by the body and senses, and when not so stirred it goes on reproducing the memories of such stirrings. It always faces outward to the body and senses and often makes up almost the whole panorama of its thoughts from what it gets from body and bodily doings and sensations. It throws everything into talk, words, outwardly uttered or inwardly thought; and thus fills up the spaces of time and attention that do not happen to be filled with immediate sensations and doings.

So it is clear that whatever center of life and consciousness may be in us that is behind the mind's back (instead of - like the body - in front of its face) gets none of its attention, cannot get a hearing. Learning the art of silence is learning the art of turning the mind's attention inwards or backwards to the presence of this unknown center of life, turning it for the time away from the touch of sensation and bodily activities and stopping its thoughts about them and blocking back its memories of them. When this is done it begins to become aware of the deeper and diviner center, reflects what is there, what is doing there, what is known in that part of consciousness; and consequently begins to understand something about immortality and reality and essences. Death is then ceasing to be a mystery. For real silence can give more to him who acquires the power to produce it than death can give to any one else. Inducing silence in the mind enables it to look somewhere else altogether than where it is accustomed to look. Because silence is not practiced is why that somewhere else is either denied or doubted, or is unknown, or is held on mere faith or trust. It is out of this region of real knowledge that Theosophy has been handed out to us by those who had acquired the power to stand in there. It is from in there that all humanity's great teachers got their knowledge. We may get it too if we will practice the great art of silence. Silence is retiring in there out of reach of death. But of course practicing silence does not mean never speaking any more. Practicing the piano does not

mean never getting up from the piano stool any more. It is even something if we do not practice silence at all but merely see that if we were to, something new would open up in us.

At a school I know, the children begin and end their work with 'silent moments,' about a minute of silence, of hush. They do not quite understand what they are doing; but besides the fact that something does come upon them all in that minute, and besides that it is a little initiatory practice in mind-stilling, they become used to the idea that silence has a place in the day's life just as thinking and music and meals have. They do ultimately recognize that they receive something from it.

The study of genius might show us that a great deal of conscious activity of the highest sort goes on of which the mind knows nothing. Mozart and Beethoven carried about a notebook so that when in the midst of their ordinary occupation and talk some great musical theme dropped into their minds they could at once register it. Dropped from where? From the place in each of us also which we also can begin to become aware of by the practice of silence, the place of the soul, the place of knowledge and creation that death does not reach to. The hand of death does not reach up higher in our scale than the body and so much of the mind as is inseparable from body. The rest is the immortal. Death touches only what we turn away from in real silence moments. Then the rest stands out clear to us, to our inner sight and hearing. And this divine creative center seizes a lucky moment, as it were, in the course of the musician's stream of common thought, to drop into his mind between two thoughts, the divine phrase upon which he builds his symphony.

That is just by way of example. But each of us, if we had learned anything of the art of silence, would get ideas, flashes of insight along the course of our common thinkings and doings; and among them would come at last the great one that would give us our final key, the light that would make our life clear to us. And mere unassisted thinking, apart from that, will never do much for us. In that fact we have the secret of the utter confusion of modern thought, its denials, its limitations, its absence of light; and of the failure to solve anything of all the philosophies based on simple intellection.

We fear death only because we have not learned to live, have not learned what real life is. It is only in our moments of silence that we first get the taste of what real life is. From them, little by little, it spreads out and fills at last the whole. It is only from the silence that we learn not to fear death. For when death comes we have already been beyond it and known what is there. It is only in the deep part of consciousness, opened up by silence, that we keep divine touch with those that have preceded us through death and may know that they still live. It is only by the power of our silences that we come to be unshakable by anything that may happen.

By mere looking about us and into ourselves we might have known that silence contained the highest expression of life and the real clue to the only understanding of life. "Chatters like a magpie," we say of someone, thereby saying by implication almost the whole thing. Silence and chatter, death and chatter - it is the same antithesis. Animal life consists in instant reaction of some sort to everything that is perceived without. In our human life a large part of the reaction consists of talk. Everything that happens, your talkative person has to meet with a flood of talk. If no one is present the uttered talk is replaced with thought talk. The minds of most of us, even those that are not magpies, are occupied with what is happening, has happened, or will happen, and with the sayings of other people about all that. It is a stream which only differs from chatter by not being actually uttered. The whole of attention is occupied with this from the time we wake till we sleep again, and in dreams the stream continues. The stream differs little from what the animal has save in being more complex and fuller of matter. 'The silent man' - in saying this we are instinctively crediting him with having more in his mind, and with having a deeper mind, than the common; we are instinctively crediting silence with depth and

power. And our last symbol of uttermost wisdom and eternal vision is the silent sphinx in the Egyptian desert whose eyes look out beyond time and space, whose consciousness is beyond thinking in Knowledge.

From the magpie person to the sphinx - we know the truth. We need only apply what we know. We do know that silence is realization. We do know that in listening to music we may suddenly come to ourselves and find that we have lost the realization of ten minutes' length of the symphony because we let our minds run off into self-chatter about something. And the great symphony of divine life, the consciousness of our divine souls, is always going on within us and about us, and we cannot realize any of it, the meaning of any of it, for the same reason as we lost that ten minutes of the audible symphony in the concert room. If we had learned from childhood to attend inwardly in those 'silent moments' to the divine tones, even if as imperfectly as we attend to our concert music, there would have been no darkness and confusion and despair in modern life. Man would have known his deathlessness and would have lived and died in joy and peace. For in the silence, immortality is unveiled.

All this is saying that there is something in us as much beyond the brain-mind as that is beyond animal sensation; and that as we must stop the body's movements if we want to think profoundly, so we must stop the flow of brain-thought if we would become conscious of what lies beyond it. That is silence as the first is stillness. And that is also real prayer. In that the mind flowers into knowledge as it never can while it is allowed to go on producing at its will the mere leafage of common brain-thought.

It is for want of knowledge of silence, and of what silence can teach, that the word soul has now so little meaning. Unless you can feel or realize music, music is only a name to you. And your realization of it has nothing to do with your thinking. It is complete or not according as you can for the time stop thinking. Then, if you can do that, you may enter the soul state in which music can be realized. "I should like to die to that music," says someone occasionally when deeply moved by some composition. It is no unreasonable remark, for that part of us which can enter the state produced by high music is that part which death cannot touch. It is a part or degree of the mind, bathed for the time in soul light. When it returns from that level or presence and comes again face to face with common life, it is the fitter for noble and courageous action. And just as the soul takes some sudden opportunity to drop a shaft of light or inspiration into the midst of the musician's ordinary thinking, so it can often (and in some men constantly) drop the inspiration to noble and self-sacrificing action into the current of ordinary thinking. Consciously made moments of silence are really the intentional widening and holding open wide of those rifts in the thought-stream which in most of us are so narrow, so crack-like, so momentary.

Silence, then, is a uniting of the mind, or part of it, to the soul. When the union is complete and final the united duality is a thinking light, and the man is one of humanity's teachers and guides from then on.

We say a part of the mind, for of course there are two parts, one wholly in and of the body, the animal part, that cannot and is not meant to get any higher - and another from above, an emanation of the soul into the body and brain, more or less blending with the animal mind, the blend beginning soon after birth. It is this higher part that gives us powers of will and judgment and imagination that no animal possesses, that makes us human. The blend is very close until we loosen and undo it, so close that though we are human we feel the bodily animal impulses and passions as our very own. In silence we can collect ourselves to ourselves and begin again to draw near the soul whence we emanated, begin in a sense to desert the animal. And Theosophy teaches that the consciousness we get after death, during the rest-time before the next birth, largely depends on what we have done during life with that upper part of our minds. If, against the ceaseless claims of the bodily nature, we have freed in some degree this higher part of

our minds, if we have compelled ourselves to recognize that we are other than the body, to recognise ourselves and the soul - then the consciousness of the after-death time is clear and brilliant and brings us to our next birth not only refreshed but with much progress gained. We bring back some of the light, come truly "trailing clouds of glory." But if we have lived nowise beyond the common life, made little or no effort - by reason of having had no real teaching about human nature - then this intervening rest-time is but one of rest and dream, a re-living of the better and happier moments and scenes of the closed life, happy and cloudless; refreshment, not progress. And so at rebirth the way is taken up again about where it was left before.

So if we regard death as severance between the animal and the real human, the cleavage running between the two minds or the two parts of the mind, we can understand how much we gain by doing some of this very work for ourselves now in full brain-thinking consciousness. For then we get the strength for action, for deeds, of such quality as correspond with our dignity and humanity. And in noble action and in self-discipline we refine our outward and baser nature and so diminish the resistance. "A man's enemies shall be they of his own household," and we can transform them so that they are enemies no more. And that which a man conquers within himself in this life will be conquered for his next. So in the teaching of reincarnation we have every encouragement for effort now of every sort. Death is no shock and no interruption in the consciousness of the man who has fully learned to live.

Now, how shall we understand, and how and when can we get this kind of silence that is the mother of real knowledge?

There is of course the silence of lip, the mere not talking. The power of even that alone is worth something. Some people simply have not got it. If there is someone with them they have no more power to stop talking out what may happen to be in their minds than they have the power to stop breathing. They must get the power they lack, for till they do they have no chance whatever of reaching any deeper silence, even for a moment. It would be worthwhile to consider the extraordinary amount of mental and bodily and creative energy that even the emptiest talking requires. People go about absolutely and permanently bankrupt in mental-creative energy and constructive imagination from this cause only. Speech is a magic power in the real sense and may easily damage and paralyse its user. Have you ever noticed, for instance, that if you have determined to do something and tell somebody of your determination, you will probably never do that thing? Your speech took the life out of your decision or plan. But we need not stay any longer over that. It will suffice us to see that without any loss of our geniality and companionableness we can cultivate the power of preventing our mind-stream from incessantly slopping over our lips.

There are several real silences which we meet with from time to time as the days go by. The whole of a company round a table or in the drawing-room sometimes inexplicably falls a-silent all at once. It is said that when this happens anyone who will note the time will always find it to be twenty minutes past the hour. That may or may not be so; but it is a real silence, and if the company upon whom it falls would accept it, not find it awkward, let it last a minute or so, and not be hoping and yearning that one of them would quickly think of some remark to break it with, they might get something out of it. But it is never given its chance to harmonize and raise their minds and bring them to a unity one with the other.

The last words of the preacher, just as he dismisses the congregation: "And now may the Peace of God which passeth all understanding...."

For a moment there is actual silence, the real thing, a hush of mind and thought. If the people would take notice, the 'Peace' of which the preacher speaks, spiritual peace and light, is actually in some degree upon them, at work uplifting them. How many do notice? And how much time do they give it for its work? They rise; mind-chatter begins in

each; the spell is almost broken; they go out of the building and lip-chatter begins; the spell is gone. But it was the real silence as far as it went, the descent of the Holy Ghost, the pneuma, the 'breath.'

Some great musician comes to the end of his piece and the sound ceases. For a moment the real silence may be upon the rapt audience. Their minds are still; they are yet in the state to which the music raised them. The real silence - for that moment, till they fracture it to atoms with their applause.

Stand watching the sun go down over the horizon in the west. There is a great and, as it were, audible hush over all nature. She waits in silence till the sun is gone before drawing the first deep breath of evening. That three or four minutes will give us who watch, the real silence if we will. And there is silence an hour before dawn when the night is gone and the first birds of day have hardly begun to stir.

These are some of the examples of silence that we can all find and study and so learn from. It is easy to see that true silence is not vacancy of mind and not relaxation of mind. Rather it is fullness and tension. The tiger and the cat are quite motionless before they spring, but it is the stillness of tension, not of relaxation. Real silence is a listening inward. If we took notice we should find that now and then in the day it comes upon us of itself and brings something with it that just then we can assimilate.

It has been the subject of death that has brought us to the subject of silence. It has been pointed out by Katherine Tingley that the moment of death is peculiarly a moment for real silence among those about the bedside. The soul disengaging itself into freedom is more than ever in inner touch with those who were bound to it in the life just closed. It is more than ever sensitive to their feeling; it is more than ever able to give something back to their inner natures. It could rejoice if they would. It could give them from its joy and its knowledge if they would hold the sacred moments of silence. They could help and sustain it with their love and get a benediction in response. Verily, the death chamber might be full of even joy and the memory of it remain forever haloed and hallowed.

And it is not the teaching of Theosophy that death breaks the link of communion between the one who goes and them who stay. Deeper than where thought plays, deeper than the levels of mind that words can deal with, it remains unbroken, this communion between heart and heart. And if the one who goes and the one who stays were united in some great work and lofty purpose, the strength of the one to go on with that work and in that purpose is now more than ever reinforced with the strength of the other. And this same purpose and union may even draw back the one departed so quickly from rest into new birth that the two may recognizingly find each other once more side by side.

Theosophy shows, then, that death is a liberation of the soul and of the best and highest part of the mind therewith; that it gives the mind rest, where rest is needed, and healing, where life has wounded; and that because the animal nature and the incessant play of sensations have been removed with the body, there is a mental and spiritual clearness and freedom of which we can hardly form any conception. And also that the beyond of death is so conditioned by life here that if we will we can make it a state of knowledge from which we can bring back much for our succeeding birth. We can begin to lift the veil and know. The veil is our mental preoccupation with what is passing, temporary, personal. We begin to lift the veil by feeling after and recognizing the touch and presence of the soul in our moments of silence and withdrawal, and by trying to hold ever in the mind a strong, shining, unselfish purpose. For in that purpose we bring the mind into union with the soul which is the very essence and radiating place of all such purposes. If we purpose as the soul purposes, we can ultimately get close enough to it to know as it knows. In such a life we slowly get beyond that preoccupation with personality which is the cause of all our pain and all our ignorance. To quote from Katherine Tingley:

"A pure, strong, unselfish thought, beaming in the mind, lifts the whole being to the

heights of light. From this point can be discerned, to a degree, the sacredness of the moment and the day. In this life the petty follies of everyday friction disappear. In place of lack of faith in oneself, there is self-respect. The higher consciousness is aroused, and the heart acts in unison with the mind, and man walks as a living power among his fellows."

And a final paragraph from H.P. Blavatsky:

"True Knowledge is of Spirit and in Spirit alone, and cannot be acquired in any other way than through the region of the higher mind."

And, after speaking of the life ordinarily lived by men, she goes on:

"How much happier that man who, while strictly performing the duties of daily life, leads in reality a spiritual and permanent existence, a life with no breaks of continuity, no gaps, no interludes. All the phenomena of the lower human mind disappear like the curtain of a proscenium, allowing him to live in the region beyond it, the plane of reality. If man by suppressing, if not destroying, his selfishness and personality, only succeeds in knowing himself as he is behind the veil, he will soon stand beyond all pain, all misery, and beyond all the wear and tear of change, which is the chief originator of pain. Such a man will be physically of matter, he will move surrounded by matter, yet he will live beyond and outside it. His body will be subject to change, but he himself will be entirely without it, and will experience everlasting life even while in temporary bodies of short duration. All this may be achieved by the development of unselfish universal love of Humanity, and the suppression of personality, or selfishness, which is the cause of all sin, and consequently, of all human sorrow."

(Vol. 15, pp. 203-10)

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Faith and Knowledge - Herbert Coryn, M.D.

"Man, know thyself," said the Greek oracle in a famous aphorism, but it unfortunately omitted to tell him how to do it. And he has been suffering from the omission ever since. It would have been a little better and more stimulating if the oracle had said, "Man, seek thyself," or, "Man, find thyself." We could understand that last.

We know that if a shy, nervous young man is suddenly pushed into a crowded ballroom he is at first dazed and confused, has lost himself, and only finds himself or comes to himself after a good while. And the same with most of us if we were suddenly introduced into a noisy, clanging workshop with a hundred great machines going and their connecting belts whirling everywhere. It would take some time to get our brains quiet enough to find ourselves in the dazing confusion. Our bodies and brains are a far more confused and whirling workshop than that, close about us; and outside the body is the confusing whirl of life with its daily and hourly happenings. In that double confusion most of us never do find ourselves or come to ourselves, and reach death without having gained any light. For the whole of our minds has been taken up all the time with externals and has never even thought of turning away from the confusion and looking inward.

Suppose Euclid, instead of compiling his geometry and showing us how to find the properties of lines and space, had merely said, "Man, know the properties of space." But even a geometry book might be studied in two ways. If you study it properly you realize in

yourself the truth of each proposition and can never doubt it any more. You know it now. It is a part of you. It was a part of you, deep in your mind, before, but you did not know that. By following the book with your reason you got at your own hidden knowledge. Everyone knows, for instance, that two things which are each equal to some third thing are equal to one another. As soon as the young student reads that he recognizes it as the truth, knows that he knew it all along, inside, but did not previously realize that he knew it. He does not take it on faith. He does not go about saying, "I know that two things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another, because Euclid says they are, and I have absolute faith in him." Here is the difference between certain knowledge and mere faith.

For of course there are two kinds of knowledge: knowledge that is absolutely certain, like knowledge of geometry, knowledge which, though you may have been guided to it by a book, you really got out of yourself; and knowledge which you do get entirely out of a book, such as the facts of chemistry, for instance, and which, though you may verify it experimentally, you could never be said to get out of yourself. You could conceive of chemistry changing its facts as the planet gets older and matter alters its nature, but you could never imagine the possibility of two things equal to a third thing not being equal to each other. The Greek oracle, when it said, "Man, know thyself," meant, "Get certain knowledge, get out of thyself the knowledge of thyself which is already in thee, realize thyself." And to that end we may use teachings. But the knowledge is not in the teachings, but in us. They show what to do to get at it, how to transform faith in what they say into knowledge of our own.

We need to be quite clear about the two meanings of the word know, for we are told that man cannot know anything about his own real being, about immortality, divinity, life in its essence. The philosopher Kant said we might believe in Divinity, immortality, and the soul, and that it was good and helpful to do so; but that these could not become matters of knowledge, objects of knowledge. And of course they cannot; objects of knowledge cannot be looked at, weighed, measured, tested with machines.

Consider the axiom again that two things which are each equal to a third thing are equal to one another. As we saw, there are two ways of knowing that. The first way is certain; we absolutely know it from within ourselves, cannot doubt it for a moment.

Suppose we did not know it in that way. There would be another. Someone might suspect it to be true and try it in a number of cases. He would tell us that so far as his experiments went he had always found it to be true. "If," he would say, "two things that are each equal to the third thing are sometimes not equal to each other, the difference is so small that my instruments do not detect it. But of course," he would add, "it is quite possible that with further investigation we may light upon cases of two things being each equal to a third thing, yet unequal to each other. Still, as we have not yet discovered any such things and as our instruments of measurement are very refined nowadays, we may provisionally say we know that when two things are each equal to a third, they are equal to each other."

That is the other kind of knowing. It gives very good results for practical life, but of course it differs altogether from certain knowledge, and the two knowledges ought not to have the same name. This second or inferior knowledge is largely faith. We say we know that a revolving magnet will generate an electric current in a neighboring coil of wire. What we mean as scientists is that we have hitherto always found it to do so; what we call our 'knowledge' that it always will do so is really faith. For magnets might one day be found not to do that. Some change in the earth or the sun, for example, might conceivably alter the nature of magnets.

Suppose Kant and his like were wrong, and that we need not content ourselves with faith in Divinity, Immortality, and the soul, but could get real knowledge, certain knowledge. Nothing else will ever do the world any real good and bring joy and peace into human hearts. If any way were generally known to get this knowledge, men would naturally go

after it just as they now go after science and literature and music and education in general. In fact, far more eagerly. It would be considered the first and most interesting and inspiring of all knowledges, the first point in education, everything else coming after. "Of course," they would say, "you must ascertain and know about your immortality and divinity, about soul and the meaning of life. But how oxygen combines with hydrogen, and the properties of magnets, and the motions of the stars, and the Greek and Latin languages and literature, and so on, though interesting and in their way important, are not the really important things, the grand knowledge. That first; the rest can come after."

But they don't know how to get this grand knowledge. It is not got at through science; it is not got at through culture or art. Men go to the furthest point on these lines without ever getting on to this line, though some of them may be nearer to it than they know. They have never learned as certain knowledge that when death comes to them it will leave them more alive, more full of consciousness than they ever were before. Yet that knowledge can be had, can be gained in ordinary life, can be gained along with the gaining of the ordinary knowledges and forms of culture. But at best there is now only faith.

The old question: Canst thou by searching find out God? has already its answer No if the word 'searching' means thinking of the ordinary sort - namely, dealing mentally with things seen, heard, or otherwise outwardly contacted. For to 'find out' means here to come to know in the deepest sense. We can reason ourselves on to some sort of belief that Divinity, soul, and immortality must be, but we cannot reason ourselves on to knowledge that they are. And so faith is put in as a substitute. But let us render every respect to strong faith, for it brings some to actual knowledge.

All sorts of definitions of man exist. Man is a tool-using animal, a fire-making animal, a bargaining animal, and so on. There are so many that there will be no harm in trying to make one or two more. He is a beauty-appreciating 'animal,' and an ideal-making 'animal.' Let us begin with them. The Irishman said that not being a bird he could not be in two places at once. At that rate we are all birds, for we always are in two places at once. "So many men on earth, so many gods in heaven," is an old Eastern saying. Each of us, says Theosophy, lives two lives at once, a life as man on earth, and a concurrent life as soul or a god on a plane that the saying calls 'heaven.' And the god-part knows all that is done and thought by this man-part here, but the man-part here knows next to nothing of what his god-part there does and what its consciousness is like. But flashes of it thrill down to him and give him his sense of beauty, and inspire him to ideals of what he might be and what humanity might be, and give him compassion and a desire for universal good, and make him rather work for that than for his own personal advantage. And they give him the power to create beauty in sound and color and words as the expression of his highest and ever-changing ranges of feeling. And they warn him when he is thinking of doing wrong. An animal has none of any of this. It is all superadded to animal mentality. It is a mentality of its own sort, not the reasoning mentality which of course some animals do possess in a degree. And by the cultivation of all these together man takes his first step to real knowledge of his own soul, the part of him that dwells beyond. As he takes this first step and holds to it he begins to be aware in his highest moments of a Presence with him, himself but also much more than himself. His redemption has begun. The god is becoming known to him.

An animal, we said, has none of these marks of higher mentality. A dog cannot make an ideal in his mind of something higher and nobler than he is, and try to live up to that in thought and feeling. That power and part of mind is specifically human. We all have it. Below it is the reasoning power and part of mind, possessed in degree by animals also; markedly, for instance, by ants and elephants and beavers. Our higher part of mind, which is in touch upstairs with the soul, the god, is indeed derived from, a ray from, that god and can consequently be inspired from that source, from its parent. Its 'Father-in-secret' is, as it were, soon after birth let down into the body, 'sown' in it, mixes up with the

reasoning and sensuous or sense-based animal-mind, and at once forgets itself in animal sensation, - sometimes never remembers itself any more till death. And so, when at death it looks back along the life just closed, it finds that it has wasted it, got nothing out of it. So in due time it begins the next earth life none the better for having lived this present one - except perhaps that a dim something may remain in its memory from that retrospect and cause it to do a little better.

So this especially human part of us, this ideal-making part, this part with the power of imagination, goes up and down every day, every hour, between the part above it and the part below: between the soul which is its origin - the god,- and the animal part below - the sensuous and merely reasoning mind, which works among sensations and compares them, thinks about them and draws deductions from them. It goes up and down, this specially human part, carrying its imagination - a divine and creative and also path-finding power - with it. When it is downstairs, at the animal end, in the basement of our nature, it uses its imagination to recall and magnify pleasant sensations, and consequently there arises in it an intensity of desire for more of them that no animal can equal. As it goes upstairs towards the parent Light it begins to have ideals and to receive inspirations. When it is for the time a good way up, it may exhibit such powers as those of the musician, the artist, the poet, the humanity-lover, the great reformer, the hero, the spiritual teacher. But till it has recognized its oversoul, its god and emanator, for certain, and made the link very close, it is apt to be constantly slipping back again more or less into the lower places in the basement. That is why it is so important that we should have knowledge - from teaching or Theosophic study - that there is such a god within us (and beyond us). For then the mind has something definite to set its compass by and consciously and intelligently steer towards. From study and teaching comes this knowledge. We use imagination and presently get the strength of faith. And after a while this first sort of knowledge, the sort that is got from teaching or reasoning, turns into the other sort, the absolute or realized sort. We know at last. Knowledge, presently glowing into faith-imagination, and that taking fire at last into perfect and realized knowledge; thus the three stages. A man's nature has utterly changed when he gets to that last point, though all along he consciously remains his unbroken self.

You see we have had to use the word 'faith' in two senses, like knowledge. As we study Theosophy there is the conviction or faith of the reasoning mind that we are getting a true account or picture of human nature. We have an explanation that is satisfactory to our reason. Living accordingly, we presently begin to get flashes of actual realization that this is true, that there is a divine Presence aiding and illuminating us. And from that the first sort of reason-faith glows up into the assured faith of the mariner who, having till now gone by his chart, at last sees the point of land on his horizon.

Soul, in the sense we have been giving the word here - the god in and beyond us, the shining seer, the warrior - is not taught of and pointed to except by Theosophy. The word has lost its golden meaning, its light, its life, its inspiration. People do not live by it, do not look out all the time for the flashes of message from their souls, do not recognize what those flashes are when they feel them, do not know their significance and promise.

We have been using the word 'imagination.' Imagination is generally thought of as a picturing of what is actually not, a constructive picturing. But it may also be a picturing of what is. Imagination may be of living reality, contain reality, reality seen in advance. Theosophy gives material for this use of imagination and presently we find that what we imagined is fact. The god is found. True prayer is imagination, and so is meditation as distinct from reasoning. And imagination is the mother of all our tomorrows with their achievements. Without imagination we do not live but merely exist. Without it there are no tomorrows, only a repetition of the mere today. Whatsoever state a man can truly imagine himself to have attained, that state for that moment he has actually attained.

Theosophic teaching, then, shows us faith of two kinds, and knowledge likewise of

two kinds, corresponding to our two minds or two levels of mind. There is mind dependent on the senses for its knowledge, a kind of knowledge added to by reasoning and made exact for purposes of action; that field, in fact, of the lower mind that is in degree shared with us by the animals. And the faith of this mind is the sort of faith we have when, putting a seed into the ground, we look forward with reasonable assurance to its coming up - the faith of the animal which having found its food in a certain place today and yesterday, expects without question that it will be there tomorrow. It is a faith resting on remembering and reasoning, coming automatically into action. It is one and the same with passive imagination, non-creative imagination, the mere picturing of tomorrow as a repetition of today. For the faith that the seed will come up in due time, or the food be there tomorrow, is a picture of previous such events expectantly thrown forward. This kind of imagination or faith is therefore only remembrance carried to tomorrow. And the faith that some people have in their religious creed is of the same kind. The pictures of heaven and hell, for instance, are in the case of such people merely abstracts of different kinds of pleasant or painful experiences thrown forward into a post-mortem future, a process that does itself as soon as they are taught the dogmas they accept. There is no glow of creative imagination anywhere in the matter, no rising to another and greater state of consciousness.

But besides this mind we have the other - more truly, are the other - with another faith, another imagination, another knowledge possible to it. And here, in this mind when aroused and at work, all is fire, action, new being, new life seized, hope, joy, ideals ripened into actuality. Its center is the heart, throwing up its glowing energy into the brain and giving it new powers of response as co-worker with the heart in imagination. Faith in the soul is here nothing passive. It is the leap of mind towards making clear to itself what it already secretly knew. Faith, knowledge, and imagination are now at the same time three sisters and also generators of one another. Faith in the soul, the god, is a positive energy of consciousness inspired by the god himself. It is our response to the god's I am. Imagination is stirred into co-operation with this faith that has arisen in the heart and at the same time creates more of it. And some time the faith shows that it was secretly rooted in knowledge and also has knowledge for its outcome. Then man knows his divinity and deathlessness. For as this higher mind was not born with the body and animal mind but came down into their midst, so it does not die with them but is taken up out of their midst and is once more part of the parent soul or begins to energize under the full light of that. This new and completed kind of energizing is what we now, thinking of it from this side, call 'rest,' the 'rest' between two incarnations. So we understand what the old philosophies meant when they called birth an imprisonment and death regained freedom.

The great hope given by Theosophy lies in its teaching that this knowledge of the soul may be gained during life by those who will awake the activity of their higher minds by exercise and by mastery of the lower, and by study. Study gives us the map to steer by. Mastery of the lower mind with its unintermittent stream of thought-chatter shows us how it is but an instrument for practical life, a servant, and not ourselves at all. And exercise is evoking the higher imagination in the silence of brain-thought, aspiration, prayer, making ourselves sensitive to the presence of the soul within and beyond us.

Writers sometimes try to demonstrate immortality by argument, the first being Plato in his description of the closing scene in the life of Socrates. They are appeals to the reasoning mind, intended to make immortality seem possible or even probable to it. They might even bring conviction: but certain knowledge, never. We have certain knowledge of our own self-existence at every moment, and it is by pushing this same further in or further up that we come upon knowledge of our immortality. It is an extension of our present sense of our own existence, as immediate as that, as certain as that. Men come down at birth into the body from a world of light which is beyond the domain of death altogether. As the years of bodily life begin to spin their web the reasoning mind grows up in the brain and senses and surrounds this real self and overlies its knowledge and demands to be

used and its opinion obtained upon everything, even upon matters which it can never understand and is unfitted to deal with. Of course it is a useful instrument, necessary for daily practical life and conduct, so incessantly useful from moment to moment and so incessantly active, whether useful or not, that its noise and chatter drown out and prevent us from attending to anything else and make us forget that there is anything else of us but it. And so, as it does not know of immortality, behold, presently we do not know of it either; all that remains known to us of our immortal selfhood is just the selfhood without the adjective. That, fortunately, is extremely difficult to lose. And so the way back to knowledge of immortality is the reverse of the way from it; namely, the way by silencing the mind of brain and in the silence reaching up again to soul, to the light. This is no new thing; it has been said in a hundred ancient scriptures, taught all down the ages, taught by Katherine Tingley on this Isis Theater platform. Says one of the old Indian Upanishads: "When a man, having freed his mind from sloth, distraction, and vacillation, becomes as it were delivered from his mind, that is the highest point. The mind must be restrained in the heart till its activity comes to an end; - that is knowledge; that is liberty."

And in such moments the presence of the soul begins to be known. They come uninvited sometimes - to the poet, the mystic, the thinker, the saint. Emerson knew them, and Whitman. They came sometimes upon Tennyson, who said of them: "By God Almighty there is no delusion in the matter! It is no nebulous ecstasy, but a state of transcendent wonder associated with absolute clearness of mind."

Another step would have brought him in sight of the truth of reincarnation. For the soul surveys our lifetimes as we survey our days. And as we join the soul more and more day by day we begin to partake of its glorious survey. Says H.P. Blavatsky:

"True knowledge is of Spirit and in Spirit alone, and cannot be acquired in any other way than through the region of the higher mind.... He who carries out only those laws established by human minds, who lives that life which is prescribed by the code of mortals and their fallible legislation, chooses as his guiding star a beacon which.... lasts for but one incarnation. How much happier that man who, while strictly performing on the temporary objective plane the duties of daily life, carrying out each and every law of his country, leads in reality a spiritual and permanent existence, a life with no breaks of continuity, no gaps, no interludes.... all the phenomena of the lower human mind disappear like the curtain of a proscenium, allowing him to live in the region beyond it. If man, by suppressing, if not destroying, his selfishness and personality, only succeeds in knowing himself as he is behind the veil of physical matter, he will soon stand beyond all pain, all misery, and beyond all the wear and tear of change, which is the chief originator of pain. Such a man will be physically of matter, he will move surrounded by matter, and yet he will live beyond and outside it. His body will be subject to change, but he himself will be entirely without it, and will experience everlasting life even while in temporary bodies of short duration. All this may be achieved by the development of unselfish universal love of Humanity, and the suppression of personality, or selfishness, which is the cause of all sin, and consequently of all human sorrow."

(Vol. 18, pp. 453-60)

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The Fear of Death and the Hope of Life - R. Machell

It is probable that in all ages men have feared death, and have protested against

the imputation. Men speak perhaps scornfully of death, as if they had no fear of it: but still they count it a courageous act to brave its terrors. But if there is no fear to overcome, where is the courage in the deed? Some people profess to believe that the after-death state of the blessed is vastly more desirable than this earth-life; and yet they take every possible precaution to avoid the risk of prematurely entering that state of bliss. A funeral will be carried out with every evidence of woe, of mourning for the deceased, and lamentation for the untimely ending of a life, and then the grave-stone of the defunct will bear some declaration of the superior bliss and blessedness of the new life to which the lamented one has gone. Can we believe that the woe and mourning were other than an evidence of the fear of death?

In some countries the wailing and mourning for the dead is carried to extraordinary lengths: and a study of history would lead us to suppose that death has always been regarded with awe, which is strangely akin to fear. Exceptions are to be found, no doubt; but I think that they were exceptions distinguishing those few who welcomed death joyfully from the general masses of mankind, who frankly feared and hated death as much as they loved and desired life.

I do not know if there is any historical record of a people on this earth who were entirely free from the fear of death - of death as the enemy of life, if not as the enemy of man. So too the conquering of death has been regarded as a superhuman achievement, that has been accomplished only by beings of at least a semi-divine nature.

But also it would appear from the fragmentary teachings of great sages, as well as from the fully recorded doctrines of more modern philosophers and religious teachers, that the fear of death was considered by the wise as unworthy of enlightened men. Nor did these sages regard death as an enemy: some even have looked upon the messenger of release as a friend of man, who comes to liberate him from a bad dream by awakening him to a true state of spiritual life.

Even those who have looked on death as the enemy of life, have taught that its advent should be accepted as inevitable, and therefore not as a disaster to be feared.

Perhaps the strangest phenomenon of human thinking is the attitude of mind that regards death, at any time, as a disaster, as something that might have been avoided, and which seems to assume that if it were not for accident or misfortune life in the body would be eternal - although all know that they and others will die. It is the one thing in life that they can count on with certainty; yet the majority seem to look upon its advent as the most appalling catastrophe that can befall a human being.

Those who are sensible enough to accept the inevitable, still consider it a duty to maintain life in the body as long as possible, and a crime to hasten the inevitable end.

Now the explanation of this fear of death is to be found in the generally accepted idea that death ends life. A natural supposition, certainly, to a mind that is wholly concerned with affairs of the body, and that does not recognize its own spiritual essence and origin. Of course this common error of the materialist, or of the wholly unspiritual mind, is not shared by those who are convinced that life is continuous, and eternal, though death may destroy the connection between the spiritual soul and its temporary body. It is almost sure that certain enlightened people have been free from this gross error in all ages; but it would seem that such enlightenment was limited to a small minority. Historical records of past ages are very scanty; and even the little that remains is perforce only very imperfectly translated, and is unavoidably colored in the translation by the preconceptions and prejudices of our own time. So that it may well be that there was a time when the world was more highly enlightened on spiritual matters, and when men looked on death as but a gateway in the house of life through which they passed willingly to a new state of existence, by a natural process, as unalarming as the act of going to sleep is now.

There are traditions of immortal beings, who were by some regarded as human gods and by others as divine men, who were reputed to have lived on earth, but to have

had access to the regions inhabited by the immortals, who were their kin. These legends occur in many lands; and they point to a belief in the continuity of life that is hard to account for if there be no fact in nature to support it, or to support the teaching from which the legends sprang.

While the fear of death is naturally more intense among the ignorant, the ignorance from which it springs is spread throughout the most civilized countries of the world, and is perhaps as deeply rooted in the wealthy classes as among the poor. This results from the entirely materialistic character of the education that passes current in the civilized world today. The continuity of life is not taught: and the belief that death is the end of life follows as a natural consequence.

The religions that have spread most widely during the last two thousand years, seem to have tried to combat the fear of death by the promise of a future life more attractive than the present one: but the greed for happiness that caused the acceptance of this promise of an eternity of bliss, as a compensation for a temporary unpleasantness, also aroused intellectual revolt against an untenable proposition, and brought about a deeper skepticism and materialism than before. It is probable that millions of nominal adherents of these religions actually have no real conviction of a future life of any kind beyond the grave. It is also certain that the doubtful prospect of an eternity of compulsory beatitude does not appear to be sufficient compensation for loss of the emotions and sensations of physical life here on earth. For it is undeniable that the majority of avowedly religious people cling to their present life with a tenacity that denotes small faith in the promised bliss beyond the grave: and the fear of death is manifestly common among the professed devotees of all the great religions.

The natural conclusion is that these religious systems have not so far succeeded in reconciling their adherents to the inevitable calamity we call death. In what respect have they fallen short of requirements?

The only reasonable remedy for this unreasonable distrust of natural law is to be found in a serious conviction that the real self of man is not deprived of life by the death of the body. So long as the soul is regarded as an appurtenance or as an appendage of the body, the individual may naturally enough feel some doubts as to its future, and indeed as to its present reality. Besides which, the individual is more interested in his own immediate existence than in the salvation or damnation of a soul which he habitually speaks of as his own, but which he does not exactly identify with himself. One who believes that he Has a soul must necessarily feel that he himself, as owner of that soul, is more or less separate: but, if he had learned to look upon himself as a soul inhabiting a body, he would never have had any doubt as to the continuity of his existence, and he would not have come to look upon death as an end of life, a calamity to be dreaded, and to be delayed at any cost.

The Theosophic doctrine of reincarnation, which had almost dropped out of the remembrance of the modern civilized western world before the revival of the old Wisdom-Religion by H.P. Blavatsky, affords such a rational explanation of the problem of continued existence that it must almost of necessity remove one great cause of the fear of death: for he who accepts the Theosophic teaching on the subject feels an assurance that his evolution will not be broken off at death, nor will be interfered with by the loss of his physical body; because he will feel that the end of a life is no more than the end of a day's work, to be taken up next life-time, after a long night's rest, with a new body and a new brain, but with a reserve fund of acquired experience, which has been converted into what we call character. That character will be just what he has made it in past lives, and can be further improved or damaged by his present mode of life; but it can not be arbitrarily taken from him by death. For death is but a doorway in the house of life: and in that house are many mansions.

The acceptance of this doctrine is easy to one who knows that his true self is not his perishable personality, but his spiritual soul, which lives on eternally. This conviction

comes to many, who may not word their feelings in the terms I am using, and who may not be professors of any particular religion; but who feel that the self within is superior to all the events of life and death, a spectator, as it were, of a drama in which body and mind are actors on the stage of worldly life.

It is an undoubted fact that many people fear the darkness, without being able to explain why. But such fear may generally be traced, I think, to bad teaching in childhood. It is probable that the fear of the dark was in most cases deliberately put into the child's mind as a means of punishing or disciplining the infant. Bad education relies upon bribery and intimidation for the establishment of authority. The result is destruction of true morality and the loss of self-respect, as well as of self-control.

Fear is a degrading state of mind, which weakens the will and destroys self-reliance. Deliberately to plant fear in a human mind is to commit a grave sin against the indwelling soul, which thereby is deprived of its rightful influence over the mind. Fear confuses the sense of right and wrong, and substitutes an instinct of self-defense for a calm assertion of conscious right and a right contempt for self-interest. It is fear that makes men cruel - it seems to justify cruelty. The fearless man is not troubled about self-protection. The darkness is like death, to the ignorant; it represents the great unknown, which is furnished and peopled by imagination. Fear creates terrors, and peoples the darkness with monsters. The enlightened man finds light in his own heart, and his imagination peoples the darkness with beautiful visions, which are but the natural expression of his own interior condition. But few are the enlightened; and for the majority the darkness is filled with horrors, or with unpleasantness, because it acts as a screen on which the restless mind flashes moving pictures filmed on the brain by the automatic memory recording the emotions, passions, and desires of the lower nature, as well as the aspirations of the higher. So the dark may be terrible to many who have not the courage to face their own thoughts and the strength to conquer them.

Fear is the creative power of imagination distorted by moral disease. It creates terrors and monsters, and the greatest monster of its creation is the bogy called death. The monstrosity is man-made: the reality is no terror. It is but the passing through an open door, the entering upon a new day of life or perhaps upon a dream that may fill the sleeping-time between two lives. But a dream is in itself a miniature life-time. While it lasts it is real to the dreamer, though it may be regarded as a delusion when it is past. But, waking or sleeping, life goes on continuously; and we may lie down to die as calmly as we lie down to sleep, in the assurance of the continuity of our life.

This is the hope that Theosophy reveals to the student, for without the continuity of the deeper consciousness there could be no true progress possible, no hope of happiness to compensate for life's present woes; no release from the tyranny of fear; no chance to redeem our past mistakes.

Life means all this and more if life is continuous; if not, it is but a spasm of emotion or pain, meaningless, purposeless, useless. If our earth-life is the only life, it is a mockery indeed. If it is not, then it must be but an incident in a great scheme of life, in which the individuals may attain to full self-consciousness, which would be equivalent to illumination of the lower mind by the wisdom of the soul: it would mean that the individual would eventually become aware of his true relation to the Universal. It would mean escape from ignorance and egotism to a state of universal consciousness, in which the meaning of self would be revealed as a sense of one-ness, or Universal Brotherhood; which is the reflection in the mind of man of the spiritual light of the Universal Soul.

That light must shine eternally, of course, but so does the sun: yet the night may be dark and clouds may obscure the sunlight by day. So too in life; emotions, passions, and desires may create clouds that shut the sunlight of true life out from the mind: and when the night of death has come, the spiritual sun still shines and the spiritual soul is not in darkness while the lower soul sleeps and dreams its dream of heaven or hell. The night is

not eternal: but day and night alternate.If we believed the sinking of the sun denoted the end of the last and only day of life,

then night would naturally be a terror. But when night comes even the most timorous will lie down to sleep with a hope of tomorrow's awakening that is so sure as to resemble a conviction more than a hope. And I think that when death actually comes, the dying realize the fact that they are immortal, and the fear of death is gone.

But there is no need to wait for death to free us from our foolish fear of the great release. The hope of life is natural to man, because life is eternal, and the soul knows its immortality, even though the mind may be clouded by ignorance and deformed by false training and false learning. The fear of death is not natural, nor is the hope of life a fancy. Rather it is the mental echo of a truth known to the soul.

Man's nature is so complex that his life is full of problems that appear insoluble to him as long as he is ignorant of his own complexity. When he can realize that there is a marked duality in him, a higher and a lower nature, and that he fluctuates between strange opposites all the time, then a great many problems can be easily solved, and the path can be opened to a fuller understanding of the mystery of life, which, like all other mysteries, is only mysterious by reason of our ignorance.

The knowledge of Theosophy is like an open door in the wall of human ignorance. The sunlight of Truth is shining all the time outside, and that truth is what we call Theosophy, the Divine Wisdom, according to one reading of the word. The knowledge of the existence of this divine wisdom is alone enough to remove the fear of death: and the hope of life must follow.

Without hope of some sort, life would be hardly bearable: it would hardly be life, even though the body were not dead. Hope is essential to human happiness, and indeed it is essential to sanity. Without it man's pessimism would be no better than madness. Without hope man becomes lower than an animal, in whom instinct provides a substitute for reason and imagination. Without hope man is an irredeemable degenerate, and there are many such: and our social system is continually engaged in making more of them, by taking away the hope of rehabilitation from the convicted criminal. Of course this is not done intentionally. It is done in self-defense, which is nearly always a blundering expression of an unreasoning fear, due to a black ignorance of human nature.

Theosophy gives a man hope, it shows him that no mistake is final, that his inner and true self is not degraded by the mistakes of the lower man, though the higher must suffer for it. It teaches him that even if his present life seems utterly wrecked, he can be working to improve his character for the next life, in which his past mistakes may be redeemed, and past disgraces be forgotten. The doctrine of Reincarnation is an expression of the hope that life holds for all.

We cannot speak of it too often, for there are so many who have lost hope, even among the most prosperous. Many, who have succeeded in business, have beggared themselves of hope and faith in human nature, and know their lives have proved a failure in spite of the wealth they have accumulated. For no wealth can compensate for loss of hope: and when a man has grown thoroughly cynical he has lost hope, seeing alone the dark side of human nature and not realizing that there is a bright side, which is more real, though it may seem a fancy to his deadened imagination.

The loss of hope is the greatest tragedy in life, and the severest penalty for the sin against the soul that is called selfishness. That sin is so common as to be almost universal, and unhappiness is just as general, for it follows inevitably. Carried to its extreme limit it is recognized as insanity. The separation of self from the Universal is the abuse of self, the denial of the true self, the extinction of the light of the Higher Self. To understand the mystery of self man must forget himself in work for others and so find his real relation to the world in which he lives, as well as his relation to the spiritual world from which he comes and to which he must return continually for renewal of his spiritual vitality.

The Universal Soul is like the Sun which was invoked in the old formula known as the Gayatri:

"Oh thou, that givest light and sustenance unto the Universe, Thou, from whom all doth proceed, and to whom all must return: Unveil the face of the true Sun, now hidden by a veil of golden light; that we may know the truth, and do our whole duty, as we journey towards thy sacred seat!"

The hope of life is life itself, true life, the life of the true self in man, the active presence of the spiritual soul. In that alone resides the power that can redeem man's ignorance and dispel his doubts. Theosophy is the science of the Soul, the revelation of the meaning of human life; profound as life itself, and yet as simple and intelligible. For life's problems are proportioned to the understanding of each individual. Each man is the maker of his own mystery, and he must unravel the mystery he has made.

The only death that man need fear is soul-death. The death of the body is as certain as the death of any tree or plant; a change of domicile for the soul, which may sometimes occur inopportunely, but which has nothing in it to inspire fear.

The fear of death is artificial, and is wholly unnecessary. The hope of life is an intuitive perception of the fact that the real inmost self of man is undying, and that life is continuous through birth and death; the soul of man evolving through all experience of life on earth to full self-conscious spirituality, in which the individual attains to conscious union with the Universal. For life and consciousness are coeternal; and death is but the passing through a doorway in the house of life.

(Vol. 19, pp. 314-21)

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Freedom and Compulsion - T. Henry

In yielding to a lower impulse - to the passion of anger, for example, or to a fleshly lust - we feel as if we were scarcely free agents. We yield, either because we are the slaves of an acquired habit, in which case we are no longer free, or because the impulse comes upon us like a whirlwind and constrains us, as it seems, from without.

"On the other hand, when we surrender ourselves to the pressure of a higher motive, we feel that we are free; and the higher the motive, the stronger does our sense of freedom become. I find it difficult to account for these feelings except on the hypothesis that freedom is spiritual necessity or compulsion from within.

"The man who does right is constrained by a higher impulse. But the higher impulses belong to the spiritual side of man's nature, or, in other words, to the true self; and action that is initiated by one's true self is obviously free."

No; not from a Theosophical writing, but from current literature; from an article on 'Freedom and Growth' by Edmond Holmes in the Hibbert Journal (July). Theosophical ideas are certainly pervading current thought. We especially commend the words we have italicized in the above quotation, as a fine definition of freedom and a neat resolution of the antithesis between freedom and necessity. Freedom is spiritual necessity. The author shows, in the course of a lengthy discussion, that freedom and necessity are not contradictory but antithetical (and therefore correlative). One is unthinkable and

impossible without the other. The man who insists on treating them as inconsistent with each other, and on striving to do away with either the one or the other, is attempting a futile task; and, if he could succeed in destroying either freedom or necessity, he would have "canceled an entire category of human thought." You cannot have a workshop composed entirely of servants or entirely of bosses. Parts of Nature are subject to other parts, but ultimately we must arrive at some supreme point where there is freedom. Nature as a whole is free. And, in proportion as man can identify himself with Nature, he achieves freedom for himself.

"The heart of the Universe is the fountain-head of freedom. What follows with regard to man? In what sense and to what extent is he free? He is free, with the full freedom of unfettered Nature, so far as he can draw life into himself from the heart of the Universe, so far as he can live in the infinite and the eternal, so far as he can make the soul of Nature his own."

This is what Theosophists have been teaching over and over again. And, as the writer goes on to say, they have further pointed out that the attainment of freedom, as above defined, can and probably must be gradual and progressive. We need not expect to be ushered at one bound into the sublime, nor repine because this does not happen. We can go by steps, and be happy over each small advance.

As a man escapes from compulsion, he attains responsibility - another name for moral obligation. A slave, a man who works absolutely under guidance, is not responsible; hence a man who achieves emancipation from thraldom becomes responsible.

"The goal of self-realization is oneness with the One Life.... If the Universe is a living Whole, the only way for each of us to integrate himself (and so win freedom), without disintegrating it, is to become one with it. He who thinks to win freedom, not by growing into oneness with the living Whole, but by becoming a living whole on his own account, by integrating himself independently of the supreme Integer, by separating himself from the Cosmic life and finding the fullness of life in a little world of his own, has renounced his high birthright in the act of laying claim to it prematurely, and has become a disintegrative and morbific influence in the body politic of the great world to which, in spite of himself, he still belongs.

"Separatism, individualism, aggressive egoism, self-realization, with the stress on the word self, is the sin of sins, the malady of maladies, the exact equivalent, in the pathology of the soul, of the disease of rebellious and therefore malignant growth which we call cancer in the pathology of the body."

The author concludes with the statement that his destiny is to become one with the soul of things; and that he can either thwart this destiny by attaching himself to a lower destiny, or realize it by claiming his freedom.

Thus man's Savior is his own Divinity; and yet it is not his own Divinity in any exclusive personal sense, but the Divinity which he shares in common with all men, and which ensouls the Universe. What impels him to seek salvation by this means? It is surely sorrow and affliction. People in ease and contentment do not have much use for philosophy. It is trouble that is the great teacher. We find that we cannot make life bearable unless we recognize and follow its true laws. We go on developing our intellect, and increasing the fineness of our senses and feelings; and at the same time we intensify our personality; and the result sooner or later is that we feel a terrible conflict between our capabilities and aspirations on the one hand and our limitations and bonds on the other. And then we have to seek a way of release from those bonds. We appeal to the Light within, and set our feet on a path that leads into the free air.

(Vol. 18, pp. 69-71)

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The Greater Self - T. Henry

"I am persuaded that within the being of each man there is an ideal self so much higher than the self of ordinary life that he who should become fully aware of it would think himself in the presence of a god." - Dr. E. Hadley

Theosophy reveals what is in a man. It teaches this doctrine of the Higher Self and points the way how we may become aware of it, so that we may feel as though we were in the presence of a god. The presence of this deific self is not indicated by wonderful personal powers and an exaltation of vanity, but by those qualities described in the Christian Gospel as the fruits of the spirit.

We habitually live behind a veil, and it is surprising to what an extent this disability is due to mere habit and want of initiative to wean ourselves from the habitude. Thus a first great step may be taken by mere faith - the mere conviction that there is a beyond to which we can attain.

Such a belief, the belief that it is possible while on earth to attain to a state of knowledge, liberation, and enlightenment, is familiarly known as 'mysticism,' and the Neoplatonic philosophers, together with Swedenborg, Boehme, and many others, are quoted as instances. In the Christian system we have the belief in the inspiration of the Holy Ghost preached as a dogma, but not much esteemed in a practical sense by the majority of sects or of individuals.

Much discredit has been shed upon the doctrine by the perversions and eccentricities to which the frailty of human nature has often rendered it liable; but no prudent person will condemn a teaching on account of its misapplications. Many of the teachings of the ancient Wisdom have withdrawn from the knowledge of mankind for awhile, because mankind could no longer be trusted with them; just as it was found unavoidable to close monastic houses in England at the time of the Reformation, because all attempts to purify them proved unavailing.

Even now one has to be cautious in promulgating many teachings, on account of the peculiarities of human nature, which pervert them into ridiculous or harmful forms. Thus meditation, the silent aspiration of the heart towards the Light within, may become perverted into absurd practices of sitting in a peculiar posture, fixing the eyes on a fly-speck on the wall, and working oneself up into a weird and morbid state of mind. The prayer of the heart for Light and truth may be replaced by the unholy attempt to gain 'powers' by means of 'concentration,' which of course is nothing but an intensified form of selfishness and can only lead people farther away from the Light.

Hence, when we think of an ideal self behind the veils of the mind, we must expel from our mind any notion of self-advantage or the gaining of occult powers, and any notion of a 'subconscious mind' or an 'astral body,' etc., etc. For the truth cannot reveal itself to a mind dimmed and tarnished by selfish desires and by the manifold delusions which arise in such a mind. But let a man's aspirations be high and pure, his motive unselfish, and his mind well-balanced, and he will instinctively reject all influences that militate against his aspirations.

To the mind of the average man, life is a mystery and he does not understand its real purpose; but what if we can so purify the mind that Wisdom and Knowledge will enter? Then the puzzle of life may begin to grow less and we may glimpse its purpose,

consent thereto, and no longer assume the posture of complaint and rebellion against fate.It is needful to have faith that a pure unselfish aspiration is an actual Power that will

guide our steps and cause us to take the right path at each moment of choice. This is true self-dependence, a very different thing from conceit and self-importance.

Religion is as necessary to humanity as the air we breathe. From time to time great Teachers appear among men to point the true way of life, and a revival of religion takes place; but gradually the enthusiasm and faith depart from the hearts of men; and at the same time it is found necessary to formulate the religious teachings, in order that a cohesive organization may be constituted. The decline in spirituality, taken together with this formulation of articles of belief, produces what may be called a hidebound condition of religion, wherein there is more form than spirit, more ritual than faith. Thus mankind loses its life-breath and falls into scepticism and doubt and materialism; until another outpouring of the vital teachings takes place. Thus in our day we have witnessed a revival of the ancient and everlasting truths of religion, which, as is usual, has met with welcome by those wearied with the outworn forms and creeds, and with bitter opposition from many who are addicted to those old forms and afraid of venturing away from their familiar moorings.

Now, among the cardinal teachings of Religion, there is no one more vital, and at the same time more liable to perversion, than the doctrine of the divinity immanent in man. This has always been the keynote of the great religious teachers, and I need not quote passages from the Christian gospel to prove that Jesus Christ insisted most strongly upon it. But what is, invariably the fate of this doctrine in later times? It is that, owing partly to the weakness of men, and partly to the offices of ecclesiastical authorities, the doctrine of the divinity of man becomes replaced by the teaching that man has no divinity, but is inherently and inveterately sinful, and needs the intervention of a savior or of some ecclesiastical machinery to save him. This has not only happened to Christianity but to other religions as well.

Now the revival of religion consists in recalling to man's memory the vital truth that he is his own savior by virtue of the deific principle within him; that his real Self is spiritual and divine, and that it is only his lower selfish nature that is sinful. And the true original doctrine of redemption is that man shall redeem his lower nature by the might and wisdom of the divinity within him. How often does Jesus Christ teach us that the real Christ is the divine spirit in man, and that man must rely on this divine aid and comforter and not address lip-prayers to an external deity?

Thus Theosophy, instead of opposing Christianity, as some mistakenly say, is in fact reinstating Religion, reinterpreting it in the true and original way, and resurrecting the Christ spirit from the tomb in which past ages have buried it. And many eminent Christian clergymen, as well as members of their flocks, are searching earnestly for just such a way of reinstating Christianity.

If we are to reach a knowledge of this better Self within us, we must surely weaken the power of that ordinary self which usually usurps all our attention and care. Thus the true way is seen to be a way of simplification. Many people think it is just the opposite: they think that it is necessary to pile up more knowledge and attainments, to acquire a great many exalted virtues, and to reach some extraordinary elevation of consciousness. But what we have to do is rather to remove obstacles.

Selfishness is, of course, the greatest obstacle, and it may exist in many forms, obvious and disguised. It urges us to pursue a vain path in life, that leads us not to our heart's desire, but only to disappointment and regret. For selfishness is not the law of man's nature; and, in trying to make it so, he is merely using his intellect in the service of his selfish instincts, and thus piling up hindrances in his own path. The law of man's nature is far different; it is not selfishness but harmony. Those aspirations towards truth, integrity, compassion, honor, order, etc., which play so large a part in his life, are simply

the natural laws of his better Self. They are trying to express themselves, to win recognition, and to control his conduct. But he often sets them aside in favor of mistaken and personal ends. Thus he goes against the laws of his moral and spiritual health, and the ensuing trouble is the logical result.

The feeling of separate personality and interests is characteristic of the lower self, and does not pertain to the Higher; and so, if the greater Self is to become manifest in us, this will mean that we shall feel more strongly our unity with others and with all that lives; we shall cease living for self and shall live as though we were part of a whole. It is important to keep this in mind, because it will guard us against the idea of personal holiness, a mere extension of the personality, a transference of selfishness on to another plane; for, in trying to get rid of selfishness, there is always the danger that we may merely refine it.

Man in his present state is not a completely developed being; only part of his nature is unfolded. There is nothing in this that is inconsistent with the idea of continuous evolution. The most important point to bear in mind is, that man's progress depends on his own efforts, for the characteristic attribute of man is his Individuality, his power of initiative; and this faculty can only be exercised by giving it free play. If man recognizes the existence of divine Law, and resolves to act in accordance therewith, he thereby assumes responsibility and becomes, in a degree, divine. If he merely waits in the hope that gifts will be bestowed on him, then he does not exert his own Individuality, he does not grow. The circumstances of life place us in such positions that we are compelled to choose and to act; we are thrown on our own resources; and thus life, properly understood, is our teacher. Faith in the essential worthiness of his nature is one of man's greatest and most necessary resources.

(Vol. 18, pp. 234-37)

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Harmony and Antipathy - Student

"A student of Wisdom must kill out all feelings of dislike and antipathy to others."

These words are the words of H.P. Blavatsky, and the sentiment is that of the eternal Wisdom-Religion. Many Teachers have proclaimed it, yet no one can be called a plagiarist for repeating a truth which is the common property of the world and of all time. These words proclaim that this eternal truth is also a cardinal principle of Theosophy as taught by H.P. Blavatsky.

It seems unnecessary to say that a student of Wisdom must kill out his folly. We have merely to add that the feelings of dislike to others are a species of folly, in order to complete the argument.

To those who ask for instructions in practical Occultism, here is one answer ready. The trouble is that some people will probably consider the advice a little too practical. They would prefer something easier, more attractive, less exacting. This is the usual mistake made by students in search of knowledge. They ask for instructions, receive them, and then refuse to follow them. Why do they do this? Because they are not whole-hearted in their request. Intellectual curiosity desires the knowledge; ambition or pride may crave it; but there is a something in the inquirer's make-up which does not desire the knowledge, and which does not propose that he shall have it. It is this something that raises the objections and resents the advice. Did not Jesus Christ constantly meet with

such cases?To attain Wisdom we must cultivate sympathy. The attainment of Wisdom means

an enlarging of our life, a getting beyond the narrow confines of personality. But hatred and antipathy are the deadly foes of sympathy. There is nothing which accentuates the feeling of personal separateness so much as antipathy; and the feeling of personal separateness is what we are striving to supersede.

Is it large natures or small that most harbor feelings of antipathy? The question needs no answer; it is evident that by indulging such feelings we inflict an injury upon ourselves by emphasizing the smallness and meanness of our character.

The attainment of Wisdom is inseparable from practice in conduct. A student who is all shut up in himself will have no opportunity for such practice. If anyone thinks he lacks opportunity, let him not despond; for, if his desire for knowledge is sincere, it will bring him opportunity. Then he will be able to test himself, and he may accept the challenge or refuse it.

When a feeling of antipathy arises, it is time for the student to ask himself what is the matter with himself; for there surely the fault lies; there at any rate lies the remedy. An inharmonious relationship between ourself and another can be easiest adjusted from our end of the line.

But this does not mean that we should tolerate the weaknesses of others. That would not be the road to Wisdom, either for them or for us. But there are ways of discouraging these weaknesses without feeling anger or personal spite.

"That light which burns inside thee, dost thou feel it different in anywise from the light that shines in thy Brother-men?"

Most of us find it easier to see the faults in other people than to see the light in them. Why is this? We have a keener scent for the faults perhaps. Perhaps we are more willing to find faults than virtues.

But it is not our present purpose to preach a sermon, such as might be heard in any pulpit where Christian ideals of holiness are inculcated; or such as might be read in Marcus Aurelius, where the Stoic philosophy is expounded and exemplified; or such as might be found among the items of practical wisdom wherewith such a mind as Franklin's has enriched the world. Leaving the reader to his own resources in that respect, we must put our special point of view. The cultivation of sympathy as opposed to antipathy is an essential to progress in the path of liberation and enlightenment. Not that a man shall strive for his own individual perfection, but that he shall fulfil his duties as a member of the human family and recognize his privileges as the inheritor, in common with mankind, of a divine heirloom.

I have not to try and force myself into an attitude of forbearance and toleration that shall be merely superficial and hence hypocritical. I have to meditate until I can see the folly of antipathy, so that the feeling may cease naturally.

This means that I must realize the truth of the Theosophical teachings as to the constitution of man. The personal human ego is not the real Self of man; and, as long as we remain under the delusion that it is, we cannot attain true Wisdom. But it is one thing to accept this teaching intellectually, and quite another to realize it. Nevertheless, this has to be done by all men sooner or later, and the intellectual acceptance of the idea is a first step.

All earnest and thoughtful natures reach the point where life seems a useless and hopeless enignia; they lose their hopes and consolations. And this is the point where so many people give up in despair and resign themselves to what they consider inevitable. But yet it is just this point that is the starting-point for a new progress, if only we had courage and faith enough to resist despair and push on. It is at this point that we have an

opportunity to strike a new and richer chord in our nature, ridding ourselves of much that is personal and narrow, and coming to a fuller realization of the oneness of the spiritual essence in all living beings.

Personal discord is of course the great root of evil in all forms of society, from the family up to nations; it is the great problem of government. To gather together a harmonious body of people is always the problem for anyone who undertakes to teach and help. Unity is an essential for all progress in the right direction; only to a united body of students can the truth be imparted, because separate minds are unable to contain it. This union is not necessarily external and physical; it may be a union of hearts; so that physical isolation need not debar an earnest truth-seeker. But he must always bear in mind that any personal animosity or friction implies a fault in his own nature; and until this is overcome, his progress will be hindered.

It is matter of common experience that, as we grow and expand in our own character, we take more charitable and generous views of other people; and this familiar fact illustrates the truth of what has been said. For it means that the Soul-light from within is beginning to illumine the mind and dispel the mists of personality and ignorance.

Inward harmony, therefore, is the first thing to be aimed at; for wisdom can only be reflected in the calm mirror of an ordered mind.

(Vol. 17, pp. 344-46)

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A Sure and Certain Hope - Percy Leonard

Hope includes both desire and expectation. A gardener may anticipate a killing frost on a cold, clear night; but being opposed to his wishes, he cannot be said to hope for it. He may long for rain in time of drought; but with a high barometer and a cloudless sky he dare not hope. At last the heavens are black with low-hung clouds, and now far off the dripping curtain of the rain is seen sweeping across the fields; desire and expectation coincide and newborn hope springs into active life.

The actual condition of the world can never be ideal: this is an obvious truism. The divine idea seeking embodiment in material form encounters opposition from "that blind refractory force in matter which resists the will of the Great Artificer." However plastic and responsive matter may become it can never faithfully reflect the glory of the divine idea. But we must not conclude that attainment is eternally beyond our reach. The universe is indeed "the Everbecoming"; but level tablelands are periodically gained, each the successive goal of a long upward climb. Yet even these heights of achievement are only temporary stages, the starting-points for future strenuous ascents.

Much of that which passed current for hope during the last century was nothing but a pitiful make-believe, a desperate struggle against menacing despair, heroic perhaps, but utterly without the certitude of clear unhindered vision, that serene assurance which is the very essence of true hope. We must all remember a famous picture in which a blindfolded figure called Hope, crouches in a posture of utter collapse upon a pygmy world and makes such music as she can by plucking at the sole remaining string upon her lyre. But Hope should surely stand erect on some tall mountain's top and from her vantage-point survey a fruitful plain merely awaiting settlement by the exploring band she leads. Her face should shine with exultation as she scans the distant scene, far off perhaps, but full in view and waiting only to be occupied.

Tennyson, that faithful mirror of the sadness of his time, has compared himself to

"An infant crying in the night; An infant crying for the light, And with no language but a cry" -

but no Theosophist would care to accept the simile as descriptive of himself. He claims his independent manhood and declines to clamor to reluctant Heaven. He feels the stir of 'the creative word' within him, his heritage from his divine Original, and with unfaltering hope proceeds to work for human betterment with all the calm deliberation of a master-builder who has duly learned his trade.

And yet in spite of all there is an element of incompleteness and unsatisfied desire in hope. Whatever good we gain, the best is always in reserve. The divine unrest which we feel with existing conditions, is proof that we have caught a glimpse of the design of the Great Architect and recognize the incompleteness of the growing work. It is this very dissatisfaction which supplies the motive-power for Evolution's still revolving wheel. It is the living impulse ever at strife with dull inertia and the indolence of satisfied complacency.

In respect of our individual lives, without hope we should all be incorrigible pessimists. Looking around us for actual accomplishments, even those who are the most successful see nothing but a wilderness of incompleted structure rising columns suddenly cut short; spacious halls arched by no roof; foundations with no superstructure; imposing staircases leading nowhere. But while the will to build endures, Hope still looks forward to a temple worthy of a god.

This positive, sustaining, virile hope can only be possessed by those who believe in causality, and hold that future events are the outcome of past causes. A man inspired by such a hope is not depressed by dread of failure, nor does he court a dubious success. He knows the universe is ruled by law; that causes perseveringly applied can never fail of their appropriate result; that what we sow decides the harvest we shall reap.

Hope is much more than the expectancy of coming good. The presence of hope is an actual possession, a potent force, a gracious influence, an inner fire dispelling the surrounding gloom. It is itself a cause that brings about its own accomplishment.

Hope, irrepressible, serene, exhaustless, shines with unfading glory in a world strewn with the wreckage of the past. Undaunted by her disappointments Hope still lives on unquenchable, to comfort and sustain the teeming crowds of living things upon their upward way.

True hope is not an emanation of the mind, a simulated buoyancy, a man-made antidote to black despair. Those who have it not can never evolve it, nor would it be of any lasting value if they could, because like all created things it would have an end as surely as it had a beginning. Hope springs forever new, and yet it antedates the manifested worlds. Hope is a universal, cosmic force. It is like a river running underground in a dry and thirsty wilderness, it is like precious treasure hidden in a field, it is like the chime of far-off music that as yet we only faintly hear, it is something secret to be sought and found.

Hope prompts the lark to weave her lowly nest and tunes her unpremeditated song; Hope brings the wandering swallow to mud-built home again over a thousand leagues of trackless sea; Hope makes the tender spears of wheat pierce the imprisoning clod, and calls the snow-white lily-bells from their dark tomb to breathe the freshness of the upper day. Hope drives the universal wheel of life; and when the universe sinks into slumber at the coming on of periodic night, unsleeping Hope broods in the stillness and the dark, and waits to animate and guide the children of eternal life when the Day shall break once more.

(Vol. 16, pp. 417-19)

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The Saving Power of Humor - W. A. Dunn

The sense of humor is peculiarly alive in people whose vision is expansive, yet of keen insight for the vital facts of a given situation. There is something about laughter that acts like magic upon a ridiculous situation that had been treated too seriously. Writers are in doubt as to the true nature of the humorous spirit, but they agree in the main that it is a quality growing out of insight into what is disproportionate or out of place. This insight of course proceeds from the more general state of the mind that comprehends the harmonious relation between rational objects and pursuits. Public men in positions of great responsibility, are notorious for their exuberant sense of humor - in fact it might be said that they attain their political ends as much by their wit in dismissing situations only fit for laughter, as in legislation calling for constructive thought.

The absence of humor in solemn church conclaves, discussing the demerits of an original Truth seeker who has risen in their ranks, is an illuminating commentary on the true office of human wit. We laugh heartily enough at the seriousness with which our forefathers accepted the dogmatisms that paralysed their thought. We laugh because we, possessing just a little more light on what a sincere religious life depends upon, have a standard against which to contrast notions now regarded as obsolete. Therefore the sense of humor wells up when a higher insight on any problem dissolves a previous notion or belief - into laughter.

In this connection it should be remembered that no man really laughs at a good story unless he sees the point of it. He may pretend to laugh, yet few people are misled by the symptoms. The faces of a company listening to a joke remain 'thoughtful' until the vital 'point' of the story is arrived at. Then comes the explosion of laughter that dissolves the elements of description in the solvent of complete comprehension. In short, the sense of humor is an outflow of awareness that proceeds entirely from insight of the pivot-fact upon which a given situation turns; hence it is a quality which is rooted in self-consciousness itself that resolves what details of thought it is capable of seeing through, into what causes them.

Might it not be suggested that the thoughtful and serious conditions under which social and religious questions have been considered in the past, were in every instance but states of the mind 'listening' to the story of life, waiting as it were for the point of the story, when the humorous spirit could overflow? The spirit of humor might perhaps be spoken of as individual capacity to solve and resolve what is presented to it.

To restrict humor to wit that excels in story-telling, and in cheerful repartee, is not doing justice to its wider scope. There is no greater subject for laughter than observation of the easy tricks to which some people are victims because of accepting plausible suggestions from others. Although a mischief-maker is not always a desirable character, and we rightly condemn those who (in deceiving themselves) impose on innocent people for other purposes than that of creating fun; still the mischief-maker is in some respects no worse than those who avoid exercising their sense and reason in discrimination of facts behind the suggestions they swallow like baits which conceal treacherous hooks. Theatrical comedy would be impossible without gullible characters who seriously accept ridiculous situations as matters of importance.

Mark Twain is usually read for amusement. I suggest that many of the humorous situations he has created give food for philosophic thought equal to that of the greatest writers on social problems. We laugh at Mark Twain because he deals with conditions which all thinking minds recognize as proper food for mirth. With a spirit of mischief that carries no sting, he touches on the gullible frailties of mankind. Yet in employing them as

subject-matter for laughter, it should be recognized that Mark Twain's humor uncovers the shams and frauds within the bubbles he pricks, motives and forces which profound writers on social problems seldom take notice of much less dissolve into a feeling of humor.

As an example of this take Mark Twain's story of 'The Man who Corrupted Hadleyburg.' A more humorous story is difficult to find, yet it provides food for thought that illuminates many complex problems to which solemn thinkers attach values that do not belong to them, and in consequence do not resolve into their correct solution. He describes a town that is both incorruptible and respectable - in its own estimation. It had become notorious for a firm belief in its own integrity. This had settled down into that horrible state of smugness that self-satisfied communities develop when external events do not disturb their equanimity.

One day a man arrived in the town, and proceeded to act as a reasonable being, swayed by common-sense instincts of goodwill. But he was thrown back on himself by the wall of smugness that enveloped this incorruptible community. He went away and thought the matter over, and finally evolved a scheme that would blow up the wall of conceit by playing upon the hidden motives of the people who had treated him meanly - in short, he would mislead them with a false bait. The plan was quite simple, and the manner in which the author outlines it entitles him to a place in the front rank of philosophic thinkers, whose insight enables them to penetrate shams to the motives which perpetuate them.

One night after banking hours, a bearded stranger entered the "incorruptible" town with a heavy sack on his back. He took it to the house of the cashier of the bank, and finding no one there, left it with a note attached. This communication stated that the bag contained a large sum of money which a grateful stranger desired to present to some unknown resident who had once done him a service that had changed the course of his life. He could not remember the name of that resident, so he asked that steps be taken to discover the correct person. The one who actually did the service would recognize himself from the fact that he gave the stranger a certain sum of money and said certain words in parting from him. The cashier was requested in the note to deposit the "money" in the bank and publish the bequest and the conditions attending it in the morning papers. The man who did the good deed would then recognize himself and he was asked to send the words he uttered to the stranger in a sealed envelope to a reverend gentleman who would open it on a certain date before a meeting of the townspeople, and if it contained a communication corresponding with the sealed communication within the sack, the money was to be handed over as a token of appreciation from a grateful heart.

Mark Twain then describes the various changes that occurred after the publication of the conditions laid down - how a certain quality of thoughtfulness settled on the faces of "eligible" candidates - how each one became self-centered as if carrying a profound secret - how the usual gayety gave way to the effects of sleepless nights and the absence of familiar conversation. Thus the plot developed until but a short time would elapse before the great meeting to be held in the townhall, and the reverend gentleman would unseal the letter of the man who was to receive the donation and compare it with the sealed letter in the sack.

A few days before this event was to happen, the numerous pillars of society in the town each received a letter from a distant state, purporting to come from a fellow-traveler of the man donating the money. These letters told each recipient that he was the one who had done the service, because the man whose life had been influenced by the kindness, had mentioned his name and referred to the parting words asked for, which were "----"

A great change was observable in these society pillars on the day following. Satisfaction and a hidden joy were manifest on each face. Some closed contracts for purchasing new property and erecting mansions, - in short everything was ready for the great event.

The sequel can be imagined. There was nothing found in the sack but lead, and an

atmosphere filled with broken bits of every respectable reputation for integrity in the town.The ingenious explosive, lacking but one ingredient, had been lodged in the hidden

conceits and meannesses of the hypocritical community, and was made to explode by the very motive-forces contributed by the victims themselves. It might be suggested that a mean trick was played, but the point of the story lies in the fact that an honest man would instinctively avoid the whole affair; the bait would only be swallowed by those who nourished secret desires under a fraudulent exterior.

This story is capable of many applications - one being the wide distinction between one who desires and seeks true things and another who accepts external authority as his guide, yet takes no trouble to examine the truth of what is presented.

The tendencies of the emotional temperament play undesirable tricks on the intellect. Self-deception when something is done that is known to be untrue, wilfully ignores the very laws which enable one to say, this is right and that is wrong. The inevitable results arising from personal adaptation of a hidden motive to external conditions are, therefore, as truly governed by law as are adaptations between the constituents of a chemical compound. And each person enacts this law upon himself. The man who tells an untruth, who exaggerates what pleases his prevailing desire and belittles that which frustrates it, knows exactly what he is doing. He has merely to question himself to discover the weight he is attaching to the exaggerated end of the beam as balanced against what he at the same time is belittling. To see this two-sided contrast in one's own mind - is really the beginning of common sense and sincerity.

This breadth of comprehension, that resolves broken contrasts into their noumenon, is well expressed by Addison when he says:

"Wit lies most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with quickness and variety."

And old Dr. Johnson gives thought a free atmosphere to breathe in by the suggestion that:

"Good humor is a state between gayety and unconcern: the act or emanation of a mind at leisure to regard the gratification of another."

It is extraordinary how these old writers summed up in a few words the laws governing human interaction. "The act or emanation of a mind at leisure to regard the gratification of another," might be paraphrased into a thousand similitudes. The pivot of the sentence lies in the words "at leisure" - which might well refer to that state of mental receptivity which is responsive to what lies behind outer representations.

Every living being seeks a path through life that finds its urge in motives which operate as spurs to action. The ways and means which are chosen by unsophisticated natures leave no room for misunderstanding as to the motives, which are frankly expressed. But when the mind develops and invents clever plans for action, it is noteworthy that motives become more or less concealed, until it becomes exceedingly difficult to deduce from external conduct the hidden intentions seeking their own ends; of course each man is fully aware of his own private purposes, and of the discrimination with which he clothes them in general affairs of life. As the Apostle Paul states (in substance), it is not always expedient to outwardly express the motives which act as the laws of inner thought. That every one is governed by these motives and intentions is as certain as that fire burns, and that elemental substances act according to their inherent properties. In short, that outer assumptions do not determine a man's progress, but the actual purposes he conceals behind them.

Outer pretense, or a falsified representation of one's real intentions, is therefore a

two-ended mental act that is more or less known to the one who is acting. A liar is equally conscious of the lie he invents and the truth he knowingly perverts. The hypocrite intimately knows the inner motives which he conceals under the plausible drapery of pretended sanctity. In short, although the liar and the hypocrite may deceive gullible people, and perhaps gain some temporary advantage, they never deceive themselves - and in that self-knowledge lies the whole operation of Karmic law, seeing that the concealed fact and the outer practice are two ends of the same mind.

If I knowingly exaggerate my own worth in order to make an impression on another, I cannot, by any mental jugglery, dismiss the sting of conscience that announces the result of the act on my own mind - even though the one to whom it was uttered was not deceived.

Thus the two ends of one's individual thought are clearly comprehended in familiar actions, like two ends of a twisted wire. At one end thought clings to its own motives and intentions; at the other it knowingly constructs devious ways and means to realize them. Sincerity and Truth lie in that self-respect which causes the line of polarity between inner motive and outer representation to converge into a circle of perfect self-justice - and utterly refuses to think one thing and live another. Such self-deception carries its own penalty, seeing that an evil-doer divides his mind into two parts - one part weaving deceit to gain ends which the other part opposes (such as a liar knowing the truth he misrepresents).

The shafts which the humorous spirit lets loose are aimed at the incongruities to which untrue values have wilfully or ignorantly been attached. The hypocrite who thrives on the impressions he makes by argument and sophistry, shrinks and withers under the cheerful wit that shatters his pretenses and reveals the fact that his inner qualities are known.

(Vol. 16, pp. 72-76)

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The Inward Source of Power - Percy Leonard

The current teaching on religious matters usually directs us to seek outside ourselves for power to overcome temptations and to bring about a reign of righteousness. "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills," says the Psalmist, "whence cometh my help": we are recommended to look to the Strong for strength and to seek power from on high. As a matter of fact we have plenty of force at our disposal; but we allow it to run to waste. The ceaseless flow of thought which seems to constitute our very life, if properly restrained and used, would recreate our characters, regenerate our intellectual powers, give birth to opportunities, and emanate a moral oxygen to sweeten and revivify the atmosphere of thought in which men's minds are bathed.

When we hear the message of Theosophy as to the divinity within which quells the force of passion, and is potent to transform our ruined lives into careers of usefulness and power, we are apt to think that the strength of the animal passions is not sufficiently taken into account. But granting the fierce momentum of the lower tendencies; does it ever occur to us to enquire into the source from which they drew their power?

Robert Burns once complained to his 'Maker' that he had "fashioned him with passions wild and strong" whose "witching voice" was responsible for leading him astray. It is easy to see that Nature has infused the will to live, and the desire for sensation, into all forms of embodied life; and our physical frames, as part of the animal kingdom, share those tendencies with the lower orders of animated Nature. But are we not to some extent

responsible for fanning those desires by our continual thought, and heaping fuel on the flames by feeding them with currents of our mental force?

The very fact that misdirected thought can force the growth of such a brood of monsters, is sufficient argument to prove the power at our command. A Leyden jar is capable of slowly accumulating a charge of electricity which in an instant may be liberated with a powerful flash:

"The human brain is an exhaustless generator of the most refined quality of cosmic force out of the low, brute energy of Nature." - K.H. in The Occult World

- and in the same way any thought continually dwelt upon, absorbs a store of energy which may at last break loose from our control.

The power of man to hold the reins of thought is a basic truth of Theosophy, and is still for most of us a startling novelty. The teaching that a man can stand still in the center of silence and dismiss an evil thought at will, entertain a helpful thought, or, if he so prefers, suppress thought altogether, remaining in the condition of a "spectator without a spectacle," needs to be pondered over so deeply that it may become a rooted conviction and an effective power in our lives.

The region in which a man lives while thus standing over his mind and holding it in control, is like the wilderness through which the Israelites journeyed to the Promised Land. The fleshpots of Egypt have been left behind while Canaan flowing with milk and honey is still ahead, and such is the ghastly stillness of that solitude that none but the brave and stedfast will persevere to the distant goal. The purity and freshness of the desert wind are fatal to the petted darlings of the mind; our little self-conceits, our flattering illusions, pine and die: our very personality, fondly imagined as the central self, dissolves and disappears in that 'thin air.'

For those who regard the Old Testament as truly historical this interpretation may seem far-fetched and fantastic; but for those who accept the statement of Paul that "these things are an allegory," it is profoundly suggestive. As long as we hold the mind in our grasp, we exist in the world of causes. We step into the fruitful matrix of the silence out of which all things proceed, and for a moment's space our hearts beat with the rhythm of eternity. It is to this region of rarefied atmosphere that reference is made in Light on the Path where directions are given for the destruction of that giant weed of selfishness which flourishes not only in the heart of the man who lives in his desires, but also in the heart of the devotee of secret knowledge.

"Live neither in the present nor in the future; but in the eternal. This giant weed cannot flower there; this blot upon existence is wiped out by the very atmosphere of eternal thought."

By entering the silence which extends beyond our ordinary field of thought, we may in time familiarize ourselves with that vague, undiscovered region into which we all must go when death lays his cold hand upon the busy brain. 'Die before death' say the mystics, and here we have the outline of the great process which may be practiced without retiring to a hermit's cell, or binding ourselves by any fantastic vows whatever. Fulfilling all our natural duties, we may live an inner life of perfect peace, combined with a resistless unimpassioned power:

"Serene and resolute and still,And calm, and self-possessed."

Our feet may tread life's miry pathway; but on our faces beats the strong sunshine

of eternal day, and we may rest our gaze on the illimitable blue. (Vol. 16, pp. 174-75)

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Justice An Address at Isis Theater, San Diego - M. Reginald Machell

I suppose that there is no subject that has given rise to more trouble, more talk, more fighting, than justice; and there is not an easier occupation to be found for a man who has a small scattering of mind and intelligence and a certain amount of observation than that of denouncing the injustice in life. Everybody can see the injustice; and many people have come to the conclusion that there really is no such thing as justice; which is ridiculous; because if justice does not exist, whence do we get the idea of injustice? One implies the other. We all object to injustice - why? Simply because we have in us a conviction that there is justice and that justice is right.

Now when we come to analyse our complaints against the injustice of the world, we shall find ourselves driven back to the position of having to say what we would consider just. Then we find that we have very various ideas of what would be right, and that they all are based upon the assumption of justice as a fact in nature; upon our belief that there is somewhere such a thing as justice.

What then do we mean by justice? What is it? That question is not easy to answer; and yet probably there is not an individual of any kind, no matter how small his mind may be, who has not a conviction that he knows what is right, and that he knows what justice is, and that he very positively knows what injustice is. That sort of conviction is almost universal, except perhaps among the more thoughtful, who are careful as to their statements on such matters; yet even they seldom abandon the conviction that they each know definitely what justice is, and what is right or wrong.

Now, injustice, being the most common thing in the world apparently and the cause of so much complaint and so much trouble, implies a constant violation of some principle of justice inherent in life: and when we come to look into that a little, we shall find that the ideas of justice that are being violated are nearly always based upon conceptions of individual rights. When we try to discover upon what individual rights rest, then we find nothing as a rule to go upon other than a personal belief or feeling that an individual has some natural right or another.

Now, without going into an analysis of the value of these different ideals of right and justice, I think one may take it that the fact that we all have this inherent perception, this conviction of justice, is in itself an indication that there is in nature and in man a principle of justice; and that by justice we mean the principle of right; and that, further, we may say that there is a conviction - I do not say in the minds, but in the heart, in the inner nature of individuals - that the essence of things is right, the essential laws of life are right; and that law, justice, and order, are all different ways of expressing this right of things, which has been well described, I think, as the inherent fitness of things.

If you try to think of things, of anything, you will find yourself forced back to the conviction that everything that exists is a manifestation of some inherent principle, and that it exists in that form because of its inherent nature, and that further it is an expression, as far as possible under the circumstances, of its own nature; that is to say, that the whole of life is controlled by its own inherent nature, and that that control is the law of justice, the law of existence.

You will find nearly always that complaints of injustice in the world are made against

the interference of some outside influence disturbing what the complainants believe to be inherently right and proper. That is to say, we see at every turn that we have - no matter how pessimistic our minds may be, no matter how much we may doubt the existence of law in the universe, - that we have inside, behind the mind, a conviction that there is justice in life, though we are unable to get it.

Of course, when we try to grasp an inherent principle, we are attempting something that is pretty difficult to do. The whole of life is an attempt of the soul of things, the inherent principle of things, to show itself in a proper and fitting form; and of course the attempt is not always successful; it cannot be; in fact, one might say that it never will be fully successful until the final expression of the universe is achieved.

The universe, existing by its own nature, by its own laws, is inherently governed by a principle of right; and, as it is always trying to express itself in the material world, it is constantly failing, failing to achieve complete expression. The whole of life then becomes a series of experiments and developments; and when we talk about progress, we recognise that fact: we recognize that we are moving, and that we want to move forward; and therefore we demand progress, progress towards some ideal; and I believe it is unavoidable that that ideal should be justice - I do not think we can imagine any other ideal than right and justice.

The religions of the world have not succeeded in convincing mankind that the nature of life itself is right, that nature is working along lines of justice, that the life of man is full of justice. On the contrary, they have taught him just the opposite, and have invented and introduced means of tempering the injustice of the world and the injustice of life, by creating a God of mercy.

Now mercy is unnecessary if we have justice, absolute justice. We cannot have more, because anything more than justice would be a disturbance of the harmony. Mercy therefore implies the absence of justice. When we have got rid of justice, then we can modify the degree of the injustice by introducing mercy. The laws of man being always more or less fickle and experimental, are full of injustice; therefore the principle of equity and the principle of mercy are introduced to modify them and to make a temporary compromise.

The idea that justice is the root of life is a very old idea; but it has been by degrees lost sight of and interfered with by those who did not find it convenient. The various hierarchies and powers that have tried to rule the world, being in themselves exemplifications of injustice or of interference with the natural order of things, have presented ideas of injustice as the law of life, teaching that life was evil, and that the only thing to do was to discover a means of getting satisfactorily out of it, a scheme of salvation. Such things have been offered as remedies for evils that have been invented by man; because it is the mind of man that invents all the discord and then devises remedies for it: it is the mind that is the disturber, not the heart of man.

Theosophy is based upon the idea that man is a soul, (not a mind alone, or a body alone): that he has a mind, and that he has a body, but that he is a soul. He is a spiritual being, who is a radiation from the spiritual center of the universe, existing by right of his own inherent nature. The essence of right and justice is in man, it is the inner self of man, and all he has to do is to accomplish the perfect expression of his own real or inner nature.

There are people who talk about expressing their nature, when they mean expressing only their animal nature. Giving way to their animal propensities, their lower nature, they say, is 'going back to nature,' living according to nature. You can live according to nature as a pig does, or as a bird does; or you can live according to nature as a man should do, which is neither as a pig nor a bird, but as a man.

When you try to know what the real nature of man is, you will find that all the old religions and philosophies had the same idea, that man is a soul, that all souls are like rays from one light, that they are not separate in their essence, though they are separated

in their forms. In our bodies we are all separate; inside we are all one.As a matter of fact, you will find that each man thinks of himself as 'I', not in any

other way; and we all have the same 'I.' Directly we get back into the inner self, we are all alike, one essence, one 'I.' We cannot get back of that. When we try to think behind that we cannot do it, because that is our inner self, our inner nature. Or, to use an illustration, the serpent may bite its own tail, but it cannot swallow itself.

If we can get away from those things that disturb us, from passion, from anger, from ideas and theories of our legal rights, and get back into our inner consciousness, we shall find that we have a pretty sure sense of justice. When we come to apply it in any particular case, we may get all mixed up in the details, but behind the confusion we do certainly have this idea of justice, and every now and then that sense of justice gets through the veils and expresses itself; and it is something fine; everybody recognizes that it is fine and great, because in every individual there is the spark of right and justice.

What it wants is a chance to express itself. This is from the heart of man - the heart and the soul, to use the terms vaguely, to distinguish them from the mind, which thinks and reasons and argues. When we begin thinking and reasoning and arguing, we can go on indefinitely, multiplying schemes of right and wrong, and remedies for this and that; but we are getting away all the time from the inherent right of things.

Some of the religions of the world are horribly crude in their sense of right. The old idea of retributive justice, 'an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,' is the very narrowest and most distorted reflexion of a sense of justice. It is simply revenge.

Bacon says in his essays that revenge is a sort of wild justice. It appears so to some people. A man has done a wrong: they say he must suffer a similar wrong. That is to say, one wrong has been done, therefore another wrong must be done, and perforce another must follow, and yet another: naturally there is no end to it; that is to say, that a wrong done has to be multiplied, not canceled, nor balanced, because another wrong goes by right into the same scale, and it simply doubles the original, it does not balance it. What is needed is something different from the wrong, something that may be put into the other scale, something which shall be the opposite of that wrong; and that is where the noble teaching of mercy came in, as a counterweight. What is meant is simply this: that the law of life is harmony; disharmony or discord is a disturbance of the natural order of things; the readjustment of that is not attained by the perpetuation of disharmony, but by adopting such means as we know are fit to re-establish harmony.

Now in this world, as we are at present constituted, we may have to take stern means to re-establish order; and if the means are adopted with the sole view of establishing order, that may be the best we can do at the time. But if violence is done with the idea of compensating a wrong, we are simply committing another wrong; for the purpose that is behind an act counts more in the evolution of the race than the act itself, because it breeds other acts to follow. It is true that "As a man thinks, so will he act"; therefore his purposes are more forceful than his acts.

Now the idea of justice is inherent in Theosophy, and is expressed in the law of Karma, and it is made intelligible by the law of reincarnation. The old idea was that a man came from nowhere, against his own will was thrown into this world, lived, suffered, died, and then was judged worthy of an eternity of suffering or an eternity of bliss. The whole scheme seems utterly impossible to any rational man, and it offends the sense of justice; indeed it is unthinkable.

But, once freed from this old superstition, the mind protests against such an idea as unnatural. One feels that man does not come unwillingly into the universe, into life; but that he is born because of his inherent desire to exist; that the desire for existence is what brings him into life - otherwise he would not live - the desire for existence is what keeps us alive; we go on living and suffering, because we desire to live. We bring ourselves into this condition, and we go on living from life to life for the same reason, because the desire

to live is in our own nature, and our own nature, expressing itself, produces these natural results according to a perfect law of absolute justice.

When I say, perfect law and absolute justice, I mean perfect in nature and principle: in operation the most perfect principle may be interfered with. The law of gravity is very perfect and simple: a body will fall, unless interfered with; but the law of gravity is not altered, though the falling of a body may be interfered with. In the same way the law of justice is not destroyed by obstacles that come in the way of the working out of its principles.

What we have to do is to realize in ourselves the feeling of justice in our own hearts, that it is there and that it is the root of our own lives and the cause of our own being. That heart of law and order is in the universe, and we are part of it. When we get that idea, we begin to see that there is system in life, and that the misfortunes that are coming to us in one life are not the result of blind chance; but that they are the results of things that have happened in the past, they are the results of our errors in other lives, of seeds sown; and that what is to come in future lives will be the same. Then when we get this idea, we shall look differently upon the people who do wrong; we shall not be so anxious to make them suffer punishment, because if we could see a little farther, we should see that they will suffer for what they have done: it is inevitable; we have not to take charge of that; our task is justly and mercifully to re-establish the harmony which they have disturbed.

To re-establish harmony - this is justice; and we shall find that the best law of the best legislator is aimed in this direction; and the greatest minds are free entirely from that old idea of retaliation and revenge, and the 'eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth' doctrine: it is too crude, too raw altogether, for an age which claims such enlightenment as ours.

The practical working out of any principle naturally has to be adapted to the conditions in which the work is carried on, to a certain class of people, a certain race, or nation. Certain laws and customs are good, because they are suited to the condition of the people; obviously they are different in different races, and we shall find that the ideas of justice of one nation appear very crude to another. If we take some of the so-called savage tribes, we may feel rather shocked at their customs, until we find that they also are horribly shocked by ours. I heard of a chief in one of those islands where they are given to eating missionaries - a curious taste - who was horribly shocked at the whites for killing people, except for this one good purpose of eating. What did they want to kill them for, if they were not hungry? He was shocked at the idea.

And so we have to realize that all the people in the world, all races, are in different stages of evolution and development, and that we all have different ideas of right and wrong, and therefore what is necessary is to establish the conviction in the minds of people that there is law and order in the heart of things; and to do all that we can to get this inherent principle worked out into satisfactory laws and customs on the outer plane, and not to be surprised to find that they are not perfect when they are done, and then not to denounce immediately the makers of laws as criminals because they have made laws that are not perfect. We cannot expect that they will be perfect.

But if we have the idea that there is no such thing as justice in the universe, then our progress is going to be backwards, because we have no ideal to lead us forward.

Theosophy is no new thing in the world; and yet every time that a Theosophical teacher comes and speaks the truth of Theosophy, which is the truth of life, to the world, it is a new revelation of eternal principles. Truth is eternal, it is not new or old, it is eternal, and these things are new every time that they get a new expression, but they yet are eternal as the universe - we cannot get away from them - and the heart of the universe is justice. Justice must therefore rule; and when we complain of the injustice in the world, we are simply recognizing that life is evolving, and that we are in a state of progression, in which imperfection is natural; and that if we wish to progress, we have to get out of that condition of mind of arguing and reasoning and thinking simply on the outside plane, and

get into our inner self, into our own heart, and find there that justice which is at the heart of the universe.

The soul of man is full of love and justice and beauty, and it will express itself, if We will give it a chance. Theosophy is a constant appeal to the soul of man, not for an emotional, sentimental feeling of brotherhood, but for a recognition of the fact that we are all of one family. When this is recognized, then the rest will follow naturally and simply. First we have to find justice in our own nature; and by doing that, we shall find that we have established in our own heart a peace that we did not dream of before; and from that peace and in that peace we can find wisdom, which will enable us to solve every problem as it comes up. We shall no longer be pessimistic, because we shall know that justice is the inherent fitness of things, and it is itself in everything; it is law itself.

(Vol. 16, pp. 566-72)

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The Law of Cycles According to Theosophy, Applied to Life - Percy Leonard

The word cycle is defined by Webster as "an interval of time in which a certain succession of events is completed and then returns again and again." The cycle of the year begins among the snows of January, proceeds upon its course wreathed with the flowers of spring, reaches its culmination in the burning heat of midsummer, declines with the fall of autumn leaves and, ending with December's snows, begins its never-ending round once more. The whole of Nature is affected by the cyclic law. At the beginning of The Secret Doctrine, Madame Blavatsky lays down three fundamental propositions, the second of which declares:

"The Universality of that law of periodicity of flux and reflux, ebb and flow, which physical science has observed and recorded in all departments of Nature. An alternation such as that of day and night, life and death, sleeping and waking, is a fact so common, so perfectly universal and without exception, that it is easy to comprehend that in it we see one of the absolutely fundamental laws of the Universe."

The most minute bacterium enters upon a cycle of his own when first he issues forth upon his separate, individual career. He grows until he reaches his maturity, then comes the setting in of tendencies which lead to his disruption and decay, until death intervenes and terminates his brief existence.

And man, like the small speck of jelly just described, is also subject to the great sweep of cyclic law. He has his periods of strenuous, embodied life which alternate with long protracted intervals of resting in the spiritual world. Born as an infant, he proceeds by gradual growth to manhood, reaches the apex of maturity, and then declines by easy stages to old age and death. The dissolution of the body is followed by birth in the ideal world, where all that was best in the life just closed, breaks out into a luxuriance of blossoming quite impossible among the chilling and discouraging conditions of material life. At last the upward tendencies exhaust themselves and, like a bird unable to sustain its flight, the soul descends to earth again, assumes a robe of flesh once more and thus the cycle rounds upon itself.

Shakespeare must certainly have had this law in mind when he wrote: "And so we ripe and ripe, and then we rot and rot, and thereby hangs a tale." This "tale" being the law

of Cycles which we propose to unfold a little.One of the most interesting of the aspects of the law of cycles is the way in which it

draws together groups of individuals who have been intimately associated in bygone civilizations and causes them to return to earth-life at the same time and to pursue their old-time interests in each other's company. It has been stated that the average duration of man's withdrawal from the material world is fifteen hundred years, so that at this long interval groups of congenial souls revisit earth in company and stamp their thought and characters upon the age in which they live.

In the fourth century of our era there was a luxuriant efflorescence of Gnostic thought and feeling in southeastern Europe. Beliefs distinctly Theosophical were held by a large number of the population. The group of eager students of the inner workings both of human life and Nature slowly diminished and at last died out; but they had simply left their bodies for a while and disappeared from sight, and after fifteen hundred years had passed away, behold the nineteenth century, and towards its close appeared a crowd of eager searchers after Theosophical truth, so that the guardians of the ancient treasure were compelled to satisfy the urgent craving, and the movement known as Theosophical emerged upon the scene, active and vital, and to its banner rallied the thousands of the ancient Gnostics, now embodied in a western race.

There is much in the writings of Madame Blavatsky in relation to cycles, and leisured students with trained minds may follow her as she unfolds enormous cycles covering millions of years, under whose sway the solar systems wake and sleep and the great Universe itself dies and returns to life again. But Madame Blavatsky did not undergo the tortures of her daily crucifixion merely to produce scholarly books for the advantage of the cultured few. Her main endeavor was to help the much-enduring, patient, and hardworking masses to acquire a simple, sane philosophy of life in order that they might bear their heavy burdens with a greater fortitude and a more lively hope. Let us attempt then to apply the law of cycles to our daily life and see whether it will not prove a staff to help us on the upward climb.

To understand and gain the mastery of those recurrent forces that control the course of daily life, we must approach their study as dispassionate spectators, and not submit to being tossed about upon their dancing waves. By giving way to cyclic impulses, their action is thereby intensified. He who abandons himself without reserve to the stimulation of a wave of animal, good spirits, grasping at every opportunity for boisterous mirth, is certainly preparing for himself a desperate plunge into the depths of gloom and blackest melancholy. The more we push our pendulum to either side, the more it swings to the extreme in its reaction. We should avoid identifying ourselves either with the rising or the falling of the waves and stand more like impartial lookers-on.

I have read somewhere that women often seek relief from the vexations of their daily life by going to some unfrequented corner and indulging in a 'good cry.' Herbert Spencer has very philosophically studied the progress of a fit of crying and he tells us that the weeping does not proceed in regular continuity, but presents the phenomena of many minor cycles. He philosophizes as follows:

"One possessed by intense grief does not utter continuous moans or shed tears with an equable rapidity; but these signs of passion come in recurring bursts. Then after a time during which such stronger and weaker waves of emotion alternate, there comes a calm - a time of comparative deadness; to which again succeeds another interval, when dull sorrow rises afresh into acute anguish, with its series of paroxysms."

May I suggest that this philosophic attitude be adopted when next my lady readers are tempted to indulge in a 'good cry'; and that the progress of the cycle of explosive grief be attentively studied? By practicing such observations you may at length realize yourself

as a spectator rather than the actor in a tragedy, and gradually reach the dignity of an impartial and dispassionate observer and controller of the strife and tumult raging in the lower mind. One who is subject to returning spells of gloomy feeling may, by a systematic study of his mental undulations and a comparison of dates, be able to predict almost to a day the reappearance of a period of despondency, and being thus forewarned he will be able to encounter it with far more courage than if he had not gained this item of self-knowledge. Troubles, hard times, and difficulties are met with in the lives of all. Are such occurrences determined by the cyclic law?

A student once appealed to William Q. Judge for his advice. Everything seemed to be going wrong with him. Personal catastrophes, family troubles, business worries, and social difficulties seemed to combine in one great wave, threatening to overwhelm him in its fall. Mr. Judge gave him his friendly sympathy but did not deal with the student's tribulations in detail. He confined himself for the most part to making the impressive statement, "The wheel keeps on turning." And so it proved. The darkest hour was just before the dawn, and when affairs were at their worst, the situation underwent a change and things began to mend. The wheel keeps on turning. Is life a pleasant pathway? Are your prospects bright? Do not rejoice with too much triumph, nor too passionately clutch the gifts of Fortune. The wheel is bound to turn, and if you cling too closely to the tire, you may be bruised when it descends and grinds the roadway. Imagine, if you will, a fly securely perched upon the tire of an automobile. The happy insect basks in the warm sunshine as he travels on his way without exertion and at no expense. But when he has attained the highest point, the ceaseless revolution hurls him down into the dirt. Again he whirls into the sunshine and again he makes his plunge into the mud. As benevolent spectators, we would advise the much-enduring insect to retreat towards the hub. He certainly would not be carried up so high, but neither would he sink so low. His course would be more equable, less running to extremes.

Mr. Judge once recommended "a sinking down of your thoughts to the center." He could not give directions, but he recommended us to try. I fancy that this unexplained and very likely unexplainable process is the method of escape for thoughtful persons who have grown a little weary of the never-ending oscillations between joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure, health and sickness, peace and conflict; the ceaseless swinging of the pendulum, the endless see-saw of opposing states of mind. There is a hidden center in our nature where we may find a perfect refuge from the misery of change and alternation. This is the inner chamber of the heart, the shrine where dwells the Father in the secret place of which the Galilean teacher spoke. This is no Deity external to the man, but verily his inmost self. In a small Hindu book in high repute among Theosophists there is a passage bearing with great directness on the inner refuge of the man who tires of riding on the rim of life's revolving wheel.

"There dwelleth in the heart of every creature, O Arjuna, the master Iswara - who by his magic power causeth all things and creatures to revolve, mounted upon the universal wheel of time. Take sanctuary with him alone, O son of Bharata, with all thy soul: by his grace thou shalt obtain supreme happiness, the eternal place."

Earth-life itself is subdivided into smaller cycles. Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote on what he called "the curve of health." The current of vitality does not maintain a level course, but has its periodic rise and fall. For many weeks we float upon a rising tide of health. Our chronic ailments are suppressed, our daily duties are performed with ease, we overflow with vigor and good spirits. This pleasing state of things continues till we reach a culminating point of physical well-being when, though our diet, exercise, and mode of life remain unchanged, our vital powers are sensibly diminished.

This aspect of the law of cycles forces itself on the attention of athletes. By dint of

regulated diet, exercises scientifically planned, and strict attention to the laws of health, the athlete reaches a high standard of efficiency, and we might naturally think that by persisting steadily along these lines the climax might be maintained for an indefinite period. But this is quite impossible. The downward curve of health asserts its influence and the athlete is said to become 'stale.'

Our inner life is also subject to the law of ebb and flow. For a long period of weeks our grasp of spiritual things is firm and strong. The world of our ideals has descended as a great reality into our daily life. A golden thread of hope and joy is woven in the fabric of the common day, our path is on the sunlit tableland and with a light, elastic step we tread the pleasant road. And then the path slopes down into the gloomy valley of material life, and for a period of many weeks the bodily sensations force themselves more and more insistently upon the mind. The world of our ideals loses in substance and reality day after day. The sunshine of the higher life grows dim among the vapors of the valley, till at last we reach a point where knowledge of the soul depends upon the memory record of our brighter days. But when affairs are at their worst, then slowly they begin to mend, and from the lowest, muddiest point the track turns gently up the hill once more and by the same slow, gradual stages the familiar cycle runs its course anew....

....How does a knowledge of the cyclic law assist the man who has to struggle with recurring periods of mental gloom? If he has worked out the intervals of time that separate one crisis of low spirits from another, he is forearmed to meet the coming crisis with cheerfulness and understanding. He is in a position to contrive a distraction just as the crisis nears the point of maximum intensity, thus storing up impressions of a contrary nature, which will come back again on the return of the cycle just as inevitably as the bad ones. Let him set out to pay a friendly visit, not so much to warm himself at another man's fire as to contribute positively something of his own self-generated warmth of soul. Or if his will is insufficient to create a radiation of his own, then let him try to feel the joy of others by the power of sympathy and thus repel the gloomy throng of dismal thoughts that seek his mental hospitality. If he succeeds in keeping them from gaining entrance to his mind, they go away the weaker for his neglect; and if he has initiated a new train of thought - active benevolence and cheerful helpfulness for others, - these new-created tendencies accompany the routed, vampire crew when they depart, and on their next return they also will appear compelled to do so by the self-same law. By steadily persisting in this rational self-help, at last the gloomy company are starved out of existence, and the other thoughts producing vigor, positivity, and joyous life grow strong, charged with the creative power of him who gave them birth. The old, sad cycle fades away. The man is free. He passes on to radiate good cheer and hope, a light to those who sit in darkness and a new herald of the coming day.

There is a whole gospel of encouragement in this law of cycles for those engaged in struggling with their lower natures. The conflict is most certainly severe, but it is not incessant, or at least it varies in intensity. At times it seems as if the forces ranged against us were gaining ground. We are hard pressed on every side and it appears almost as if a few more days of strain would overcome our powers of defense. But he who knows a little of the law of cycles will take heart precisely when the fight is hardest, for he realizes that the night is at its blackest just before the dawn and that the point of maximum intensity is the indication that the hostile forces are about to wane.

One most important lesson that we may draw from cycles is the need of moderation, the necessity of poise. Everyone knows that trying type of person who bursts in upon you when he floats upon the very summit of a wave of boisterous good spirits. He takes no care whatever to ascertain your mood; it is enough for him that he is in a state of uproarious prosperity, and he believes that everyone should know it and should share his raptures. He prophesies a roseate future for himself and family; his prospects are superb. He places no restraint on his enthusiasm and is just a little disappointed that you do not

soar into the ether with as light a wing. A week or two elapse and you encounter him again, and what a contrast! His "curve of health" has now dipped downward to the lowest point and his vitality is running low. The mental pendulum has swung from noisy jollity to the extreme of dismal despondency. He swam so buoyantly upon the wave of joy that his reaction into the trough of melancholy is the more accentuated as a matter of course. Until our childlike brother learns to moderate his fluctuations he will eternally endure the misery of oscillating between opposite extremes.

According to Theosophy the human race is subject to an enormous cycle which opens with the Golden Age of purity and spiritual joy and then progressively declines through the Silver Age, then the Copper Age, till it at last arrives at the extreme antithesis, the Iron Age, when spiritual life is almost quenched by the lower intellect in combination with desire and passion and is unsoftened by the gentle influences of the soul. Five thousand years have passed away since Krishna, the great Indian Teacher, died and this dark age began, and under its fell shadow do we live today. In India this knowledge is allowed to deaden effort and discourage all attempts at reformation. "This is the Kali-Yuga," they exclaim, "what is the use of struggling in the Age of Iron? Let us endure with patience till the Golden Age returns, when all conditions will be favorable, and we may then expect to see our efforts crowned with some success." But fatalism such as this is quite opposed to Theosophic teaching.

Let me repeat a short quotation from a speech delivered by Katherine Tingley at Bombay in 1897.

"Oh ye men and women, sons of the same universal mother as ourselves, ye who were born as we were born, and whose souls like ours belong to the Eternal, I call upon you to arise from your dreamy state and to see within yourselves that a new and brighter day has dawned for the human race. This need not remain the age of darkness, nor need you wait till another age arrive before you can work at your best. It is only an age of darkness for those who cannot see the light, but the light itself has never faded and never will. It is yours if you will turn to it, live in it; yours today, this hour even, if you will hear what is said with ears that understand."

As a matter of fact the Age of Iron is the most effective of any of the ages for producing results. William Q. Judge has written:

"Its terrible swift momentum permits one to do more with his energies in a shorter time than in any other yuga."

The opposing forces that we meet with are not things to be wept over or to be terrified at, but should be looked upon as opportunities to be grasped, subdued, and used. As Vulcan in the midst of smoky fumes and lurid flame and the loud clang of iron on iron, wrought out his flashing blades and shining mail, so must we grapple with the fierce, wild forces that surround us, and compel the hostile powers themselves to help us on our upward way.

Did you ever see a grasshopper fallen by misadventure into a pool? The soft and yielding medium in which he floats, opposes no resistance to his desperate kicks and the poor insect feebly spins in circles, powerless to escape. But set him on the gravel path and he immediately leaps into freedom. The greater the resistance we encounter, the more effective is the challenge to the human will and the greater the results produced.

All Nature is included in the sway of cyclic law. The stellar universe with all its countless suns and planets, comets, and nebulae, pulses with the rhythmic beating of the cosmic heart. All things go through their periods of darkness and of light, of sleeping and activity, the never-ending alternation of the reign of spirit and the iron rule of matter. Is it

our fate to be forever whirling on the wheel of change, to oscillate between extremes, to dance like driftwood up and down the crests of life's unquiet sea? To answer this we must elaborate the most superb announcement of Theosophy and try to clothe in words the deepest mystery of human life. Nature, by derivation, signifies that which is born and hence must ultimately die. It has its origin, its growth, its maturity, its slow decline, and its death. It undergoes these periodic changes under cyclic law. But man in inmost essence is divine, an undivided fragment of the great Unknown, whose power originates, sustains, and finally destroys the never-ending march of universes as they flash upon the darkness of primeval night and vanish in the source from which they came.

Man's brain and body, vital force, desires, and passions, and the reasoning mind he uses as his tool, are lent to him by Nature and are subject to the rising and the falling of the tides of cyclic law; but man in inmost essence is the spectator of the fleeting shadows and derives his changeless being from the ocean of eternity. Man, when he realizes who he is, will be the master of the cycles as they turn and change, and not their victim and their slave. Then will he make his plans in absolute conformity with Nature's rhythmic tides. Then will he know the time to strike the blow and when to hold his hand; then will he know the seasons for exertion and repose, in harmony with life's eternal ebb and flow.

One very cogent reason for the tardy progress of reform is the distressing powerlessness of ordinary men as workers for the reformation of the race. We all must feel encouraged when we float upon a rising tide of impulse from the higher nature and may even make a little effort to advance; but when the impulse slackens, we too often lose heart and patiently resign ourselves to be drawn backward by the ebbing tide. We feebly let ourselves be mastered by the tides. Why should we not stand up like men, intelligent controllers of the fluctuating force?

Compare the flying arrow and the weather-vane. The weather-vane is but an indicator of the changes of the wind. It generates no force, it goes no whither, but swings in listless idleness upon its pivot. But the well-directed arrow, in despite of hostile winds, eddying currents, and the resistance of the air, urges its headlong flight and does not stop till it has plunged deep in the distant mark.

Theosophy declares that no one can become effective as a worker for humanity until he has developed such a force of character, such moral impetus, that he is independent of the variations in his power produced by cyclic law, and can continue steadily upon his course urged by that inward, hidden will of his diviner self that knows no tides.

What wonder that Theosophists are never weary of ascribing honor to the teacher who delivered to their keeping such inestimable pearls of truth as this one we have been considering! Even a very partial understanding of the law of cycles is a priceless clue to life's deep mysteries. It clarifies our vision and reanimates the drooping courage. It fortifies us with a quenchless hope and trust in the invisible and silent power that works behind the veil of Nature and conducts the teeming forms of life up the ascending spiral of advance, out of the shadow into the shine, back to the shadow into the light again, but always on a higher curve of the interminable, winding stair.

(Vol. 19, pp. 484-97)

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A Law Superior to Personal Desires - T. Henry

"The true cause of industrial warfare is as simple as the true cause of international

warfare. It is that, if men recognise no law superior to their desires, then they must fight when their desires collide."

I. What is the Matter?In the April number of The Hibbert Journal we find, as usual, many able papers

reflecting the crest-wave of modern thought on the serious questions of life. The first is entitled, 'The Sickness of Acquisitive Society,' by R.H. Tawney, M.A. Acquisitive society is the name which he gives to the existing order of society in civilized communities. It is, according to him, based on the following doctrine:

"The right to the free disposal of property and to the exploitation of economic opportunities is conceived by a large part of the modern world.... to be absolute."

These alleged rights are

"Rights which stand by their own virtue, not functions to be judged by the success with which they contribute to a social purpose."

He seems to use the word "function" in the sense of 'duty,' and to draw the contrast between rights and duties. Our society is based on the idea that individuals possess certain inherent rights - economic rights, the author calls them - independently of duty. But, says he, these rights ought to be contingent upon duty. It is true that we submit to certain modifications of this doctrine in detail, as when restrictions are placed on them for special occasions, like the recent war; but we cling to the principle, resent the restrictions, and hark back to our original claims as soon as possible.

In the nineteenth century we evolved a doctrine that the best interests of social progress were served by allowing to each individual unrestricted liberty in the indulgence of these alleged inherent rights. This was the so-called Manchester school of economics. Unrestrained individualism was the key to progress; or, in the author's happy phrase, "man's self-love was God's providence." But, lo and behold, although we have now discarded this doctrine, it having failed at the test of experience and of philosophical analysis, we still cling to our original principles; thus showing that the said doctrine was merely an excuse, to be pleaded as long as it would pass current - a piece of cant, in fact. We do not now believe that unrestricted individualism conduces by a mysterious law to the welfare of society, but we continue nevertheless to practice the doctrine of unrestricted individualism.

The opposite to this form of society would be a form which should make the acquisition of wealth contingent upon the discharge of social obligations. This the writer would call a "functional society," but says that it nowhere exists today. Our economic doctrine

"is an invitation to men to use the powers with which they have been endowed by nature or society, by skill or energy or relentless egotism, or mere good fortune, without inquiring whether there is any principle by which their exercise should be limited."It fixes men's minds

"not upon the discharge of social obligations.... but upon the exercise of the right to pursue their own self-interest.... It assures men that there are no ends other than their ends, no law other than desires.... Thus it makes the individual the center of his own universe and dissolves moral principles into a choice of expediencies."

One of the results of this doctrine reminds us Strongly of H.P. Blavatsky's article on

'Civilization, the Death of Art and Beauty'; for

"Men destroy religion and art and morality, which cannot exist unless they are disinterested; and having destroyed these, which are the end, for the sake of industry, which is a means, they make their industry itself what they make their cities, a desert of unnatural dreariness, which only forgetfulness can make endurable, and which only excitement can enable them to forget."

Thus we do not become religious or wise or artistic, but rich and powerful. In striving after acquisitions, we have neglected those real values which alone give to riches their meaning.

"The will to economic power, if it is sufficiently single-minded, brings riches. But if it is single-minded, it destroys the moral restraints which ought to condition the pursuit of riches, and therefore also makes the pursuit of riches meaningless."

We make many attempts to palliate the antagonism which arises from this universal pursuit of personal interests; but even these attempts are often based on self-interest, and therefore they are precarious and insincere. Mere tact and forbearance will not cure the evil as long as we retain the wrong principle.

Industrialism is defined by the writer, not as any particular method or process, but as a state of mind - that state of mind which exalts industry into an end in itself, instead of a means to higher ends. Industrialism, he thinks, has been made a fetish, just as much as militarism has been made a fetish.

"Men may use what mechanical instruments they please, and be none the worse for their use. What kills their souls is when they allow their instruments to use them."

It is thus clear that it is not modern invention that he condemns, but the spirit which has caused that invention to be so abused. Nor does he condemn individualism, but only its perversion. This perversion asserts that the rights of individuals are absolute, instead of asserting that they are absolute only in their own sphere, but that their sphere itself is contingent on the part they play in the community of individuals.

We move in a vicious circle and can find no cure unless we surrender the claim to unfettered exercise of alleged personal rights.

"If society is to be healthy, men must regard themselves not as the owners of rights, but as trustees for the discharge of functions, and the instruments of a social purpose."

The crucial point of this article seems to us to lie in this quotation, which we give again in conclusion:

"The true cause of industrial warfare is as simple as the true cause of international warfare. It is that, if men recognise no law superior to their desires, then they must fight when their desires collide."

Thus we see that civilization is sick from selfishness - the cardinal sin, the great destructive force.

"The one terrible and only cause of the disturbance of harmony is selfishness." - H.P. Blavatsky

"The individual cannot separate himself from the race, nor the race from the individual." - H.P. Blavatsky

As long as selfishness remains, as a principle of conduct, as an active force, it is no use devising systems, for they will contain the same destructive germ as before; and, in reacting from individualism to communism or collectivism, we shall but rehearse a familiar and futile story. If all government proceeds in reality from the governed, then any system which strives to make them conform to a spirit which they do not feel, is a system of force and cannot succeed. So we are back again in the familiar place: reform begins in the human heart. It is our ideals that we must look to.

It is evident, too, what thoughtful people must always have known, that we are all involved in the blame for the recent catastrophes. For, though one nation may have one ugly fetish, which it is necessary to overthrow, other nations have also their ugly fetishes. Of what use will it be to repress the giant evil in one place or one form, merely to have it crop out in another place and form?

II - What is to be Done?Having reached the inevitable conclusion that bad conditions are the outcome of

bad ideals, and that the human heart needs a change, we find ourselves, as usual, left in the lurch, with only an interrogation mark to console us. Religion is wanted; but, if religion itself is involved in the catastrophe, whither shall we turn for aid? Where shall true Religion be found - that eternal inspiration, which, free from the deadening influence of dogma and sect, has its home in the heart of man? Fortunately we have one sure hope -Theosophy. It was for just such a case as this that Theosophy was brought to the modern world.

Theosophy is the embodiment of those eternal principles of morality that never change, because they are the laws of human nature itself. Biology attempts to define the laws of our physical nature, where we have our kinship with the animal world; but Theosophy enunciates the laws of our higher nature. These laws constitute a universal and eternal code of ethics, which is not invented or artificial or imposed, but actually existent and inevitable. Moreover, Theosophy, by its vast and luminous philosophical tenets, gives a rational basis for ethics, appeals to the understanding, and brings conviction to the mind and the inspiration of high resolve to the heart. It is certain that Theosophy can bring the help that we seek in vain elsewhere; it has the things which other resources have not.

It is evident that we cannot make men give up their selfishness and embrace those ideals of duty and service that are shown to be so necessary, as long as we are teaching men that they are nothing more than highly evolved animals. If our social ideas have been perverted, as the writer says, so have our scientific ideas; and this perverted science is responsible for a large share of the evil. It dins into our ears the story of our animal affinities. Nobody denies that we have animal affinities; but the important question is whether we, as human beings, are to gravitate towards our animal nature, or aspire towards our divine nature; and the perversion really seems anxious that we should do the former, so much does it harp upon our supposed evolution and upon the phenomena of our lower psychic nature. If we are to stick upon the walls of our schoolrooms pictures of imaginary half-human monsters, and tell the children, "These are your ancestors; behold and worship!" - we shall not be paving the way for a change of heart from selfish and sordid ideals to high and noble aspirations.

The same must be said of perversions of religion, of such as teach that man is inherently and helplessly sinful, having no power of saving himself. To what extent are such teachings responsible for the selfishness of our society? If we are to find help in an appeal to the human heart, we must look elsewhere than to influences which so

discourage man.Theosophy insists upon the essential divinity of human nature; it teaches man true

self-reliance. It teaches him to rely, not on his mere vain personality, but upon that divine Individuality which constitutes his real Self. It bids man recognize and assert his real Rights - that is to say, his Duties, his Obligations, his Privileges. It explains to him the wonderful mysteries of his complex human nature, and shows him how by the Divine he can subdue the animal. It reminds him of the past greatness of the human race - of the heritage which promises so much for humanity's future. Theosophy is the gospel of Hope, of Courage, of Enlightenment, of true Liberation.

The Theosophical ideal of education - Raja-Yoga education - takes as first and last principle the divinity of man, and makes duty and service its keynote. Ordinary education is based on the keynote of a perverted individualism, on the idea of getting on and carving out, at almost any cost to others, one's own path amid the strife. It is this Theosophical education alone which, beginning in the tenderest years, can so mold the lives of the rising generation that the saving power shall proceed from man himself, and thus bring about a natural reform in society. Theosophy is sowing ideals broadcast. It is these seeds that we must look to for the future harvest.

Theosophy not only upholds the ideals, but it shows how they are to be realized. It points the way. The practical realization of Theosophy is the world's example, to which men are turning for help and light in their perplexities.

"If men recognise no law superior to their (personal) desires." Then we must teach them a superior desire. Do the churches teach it, does science teach it? If not, why not? And, if so, why have they not succeeded better? It would seem as though both were involved in the catastrophe. It remains for Theosophy to teach this superior law, and to teach it in such a way that it shall yield results. To begin with, Theosophy presents its marvelous teachings, the heritage of the ages - the heirloom of times when man, not fallen into separateness and the worship of material aims, saw the truth with an undimmed eye and lived in harmony with the essential laws of his nature. Such truth needs but to be revealed, pointed out. It will convince by the inherent force of its appeal to man's intuition. But these teachings must be put into practice, otherwise even they will remain dead letters....

....Then what is the superior law that men shall recognize? What is the law that is superior to their personal desires? That they shall recognize the law of their divine nature.

Man is compounded of the god and the animal. The strife in his nature must continue and intensify until one or the other of these masters the other. When the god is made servant to the animal, man becomes a demon. (This cannot happen altogether, for the divine part breaks away, as in Bulwer Lytton's Margrave, leaving the animal behind with a remnant of the intellect.) If, on the contrary, the god wins, then the animal becomes the servant, and man achieves his destiny. We cannot go on forever in a state of compromise. Each individual must sooner or later make the choice; and so with nations. It is inevitable that we should acknowledge the true law of humanity to be the higher law of the divine nature, not the lower law of the animal nature. This means that the man will strive to make harmony and brotherhood the principle of his life, not self-satisfaction. He will not be brought up in the idea that he has to concentrate his energies on making a place for himself, but in the idea that his business is to fit into his right sphere and become a useful member of the community. And in economics and industry, in place of the idea that each individual, each class, each nation, must grab all that it possibly can, we shall have the idea of mutual service and accommodation, just as in a harmonious and united family.

The parallel between a family and a group of nations has often been drawn, and the essential point is that the love and fellow-feeling in the family exclude all idea of selfish ambition and all need for safeguards against such ambition; and that the same conditions

ought to rule within nations and between nations. Hence all depends on the spirit that inspires and the ideals that guide the members of the human family. And, as said, Theosophy, with its teachings and the spirit they inspire, is the only hope of civilization for a new order of life at this crisis.

(Vol. 17, pp. 375-80)-----------------

The Meaning of 'Meaning' - Herbert Coryn, M.D.

The candidate for initiation into the old Mysteries entered the temple or crypt where they were to be enacted, with finger on lips. It was the symbol not only of silence to be preserved afterwards concerning all he was about to see or be told, but also of that silence of mind in which alone self-knowledge and world-knowledge and God-knowledge are possible, and which was to be practiced till it could be commanded at will.

The requirement looks reasonable enough when we remember that even to enter into the meaning of any great piece of music requires that we stop all the thoughts that center about the incidents of personal life, and that our response to the soul of the piece is complete only when the mind is too intent and held too tense for what is called thought at all.

This is the inner silence requisite for coming in sight of all profound truth. Truth in this sense is the soul of things, their underlying and coherent meaning, as music is the soul and meaning of the whole sequence of sounds that give it body.

'Meaning' has two meanings, diverging from one, but diverging so far that they seem quite unconnected. A typewriter is a meaningless confusion of mechanism to us when we see such an instrument for the first time. But when we have learned to use it, the sight of it or of the word has a meaning. To see its meaning means to know what to do with it, preparation of the mind for actually doing that, the imagined doing.

All seeing of meanings is action in imagination. A tree means lumber to one sort of man. Lumber-making is what he is going to do about it. To another the tree is beautiful, and that is a kind of meaning, because it answers to a doing higher up in his nature. It answers to a spiritual creative and sustaining activity emanating from that higher place or center. The universe is continuously created and sustained in being, by souls. To listen to music with appreciation is to share the spiritual creative work of the composer. That is why it has meaning. Meaning always implies action, overt or imagined, the overt being only a further stage of the other.

The soul of each of us is the inner meaning of him, of his total life, and must be sought in the same way as we listen to music to get its meaning or soul. Our lives are without understood meaning and significance because we do not do this, do not practice it - that is, practice real silence - to the point of achievement, have never even thought of doing it. We have no ear for the Truth in us, almost never (and then only by accident and for a flash or a few moments) have the mind-state that could come into unison with it and appreciate the steadfast activity going on there. We have trained our minds outward into talk instead of inwards into silence and gnosis. So life is a mystery, and few of us even recognize so much as that we are mysteries to ourselves. We just live our lives from day to day and let it go at that. Or mind, we say, is incapable of knowing reality; may only know external appearances changing one into another. As if we should say: music, the guiding life and meaning and reason of the flow of sounds, cannot be known; only the flow.

Agreed, then, that life and soul cannot be known; we have turned away from the

quest - if we were ever faced towards it, - and turn outwards for good upon our personal lives and let our minds buzz there for all the waking and some of the sleeping hours. Fortunately we cannot be altogether lost while we keep alive our love of beauty in sound and form and color. There, at any rate, is the beginning of escape into knowledge and out of personality. And also the sense of brotherhood and compassion; for they co-operate powerfully in the same direction, loosening the bonds of personality and promoting the enrichment of consciousness. The meaning lying in the sense of brotherhood is the doing of something, both for and in common with the other.

We are all co-creators and sustainers of the universe. Perception of anything would be impossible if to perceive were not also a creative sustainment of what is perceived. The universe is dependent on us from moment to moment. The highest perception of the universe is understanding its meaning, and is one act with our spiritual creation and sustainment of it. Here, perception does not wait upon the thing perceived, but is contemporaneous with its being. Separation in our minds between perception and creation is only a convenience for thought.

True silence is the withdrawal from lower meanings so as to get the higher, withdrawal from lower action so as to enhance a higher. The practice of it is the necessary condition for opening out, above, of reaching the place where we are sustaining the universe and where we know its meaning because we are its purposive life. And the great creative geniuses in the arts fail of their highest possibilities because they wait upon the chance coming of that silence out of which their inspiration is born, instead of cultivating it by conscious effort and by direct practice.

(Vol. 18, pp. 172-73)

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Memory an Eternal Record - T. Henry

We see in a magazine a quotation from Sir William Hamilton to the effect that it is probable that all our memories are preserved, and that it is forgetting, not remembering, that calls for explanation.

Not knowing the author's precise words, we cannot criticize them but the above statement is tautological in its first clause. "Our memories are preserved," is necessarily true, if a memory is to be defined as that which is preserved. Perhaps the original statement ran, "All our experiences are preserved," in which case it acquires significance.

The process of remembering is dual: we must first have registered and stored up the impression, and then we must recollect or bring it back. When people say they do not remember a thing, they mean that they cannot recollect or bring it back. If they say that the memory is not there at all, that it has faded, they are going further than their knowledge warrants; their only means of knowing whether the memory is there or not, is by finding whether it can be brought back; and the failure to do this may be due merely to not having tried hard enough or long enough

Many anecdotes bearing on the subject of suppressed memories unexpectedly revived are familiar; as, for instance, that of the servant girl who, in her illness, spoke Hebrew, which of course she did not know, but which had been spoken by some scholar with whom she had lived in earlier days. Such instances prove that impressions are stored up, and that the inability to bring them back under ordinary conditions does not prove that the impressions have been obliterated.

It is a teaching of Theosophy that nothing is ever lost, that the record of every event

is eternally preserved. This becomes to some extent comprehensible in view of the relativity of time: if the past is merely the track which we have left behind, the fact that we have left it behind does not imply that it has ceased to exist. Everywhere in nature, so far as we have explored, we find the process of registering at work. Great forest fires of centuries ago are found recorded in the fiber of ancient trees. It is an inference from the undulatory theory of light that the impress of visual events is propagated eternally into distances of space. It is this same undulatory light, with its measurable velocity, that (by logical inference from the theory) establishes mystic contemporaneity between past millenniums on this planet and present times on some distant orb; or, in less general terms, the observer on Sirius might see, through his perfected telescope directed towards our earth, "Noah coming out of the ark." Even the ascension of a saint can hardly be described as a past event, since, if he ascended with any reasonable velocity, he must at this moment be somewhere among the fixed stars.

The phenomena of psychometry attest the existence of impressions or records in contact with physical objects, so that sensitive persons may read them and describe past events connected with those objects.

The doctrine of Karma is closely connected with this doctrine of the eternal preservation of records. Every man by his acts, words, and thoughts, creates an inerasible record for himself and stamps out a roll like those that are fed into a talking-machine or a loom. Perhaps this is what was meant by the Recording Angel.

The faculty of recollecting exists in some people to a marvelous degree; and by others can be cultivated to an indefinite extent, the same being merely a matter of practice and perseverance. There are extraordinary instances of unconscious plagiarism, where authors have reproduced the actual events in the lives of people unknown to them, or have duplicated the ideas and very words of other authors which they have never seen or heard. Here it was evidently a question of reading records, records preserved somewhere accessible to the finer perceptions of the imaginative author. It seems evident that it is by no means beyond the reach of possibility that all history should be thus accessible and legible to the faculties of seers adequately endowed; and thus the truth can never be lost.

All deeds, all thoughts, are done in the sight of 'God' or of the 'Law'; the expression may be varied, but the meaning is the same. There is no such thing as a really private act or thought; everything is registered. This is how we weave around us a tissue of our own actions and thoughts, in which we become involved, making our destiny as a spider fabricates his web from his own body.

In equal steps with the power of recollecting goes the power of forgetting, which we may often find it convenient to exercise. The whole matter means power over the forces that surround us - power to select, to invite or to eschew. Thus we are not dominated by our mind, but are lord in its domain.

In view of the above considerations, one can understand that knowledge may consist rather in a power to read existing records than in a laborious process of accumulating special memories of our own; and that the ideal scholar would be one to whom all the thoughts of men were available, rather than he whose life is spent in accumulating facts.

(Vol. 19, 434-35)

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From Chieh-Shih Inn After Ch'en Tzu-ang - Kenneth Morris

Over the trees from Chieh-shih Inn I saw far off the Yellow Tower. There once in flaming pomp and power A Great King dreamed of endless fame.

O'er the mute streets where once his din Of triumphs rolled, huge red blooms flower Flaunting, their one sole splendid hour. I have forgotten that King's name.

And where his ladies used to spin Huge spiders spin; in the queens' bower The jungle beasts their prey devour. - 'Twas there love set his heart aflame.

Only the forest birds may win To know where those strewn ruins cower; There is no path from Chieh-shih Inn To that far faint Pagoda Tower. - I rode away the way I came.

(Vol. 18, p. 389)

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The "Om" - A Study in the Upanishads - A Student

By means of the 'Word's' power, both Brahms may be found within the Body," says an obscure text in one of the Upanishads.

There was Brahm the Supreme, one, the true God, holding in Itself the Idea of the whole Universe, the secret of its origination and the power of its sustainment and final indrawing, Krishna.

And there was Brahma, its particulated and hierarchied energy, only a God for the profane; but really as many of him as there are centers of evolving life. Each such conscious center - innumerable but not infinitely numerous - each such 'atom' or monad, was a ray of the Supreme, the exhaustless, sent out individualized for evolution in matter.

But how about this 'matter'? Whence came it?Each such monad, once individualized, was on the one hand a conscious center

and on the other an energic center. And its own out-going energy condensed into objectivity to it and to all of them, condensed through a number of grades, the last being fully objective gross matter. Thus we have Spencer's 'Unknowable,' "welling up" on the one side as consciousness and on the other as matter. Thus grades of objectivity; and to them corresponding, grades of sensitivity; fine senses, subtle matter; the gross sense confronting gross matter.

So each Brahma is a sounded forth 'word' (logos) of the one Father, one of Its logoi, the collectivity or synthesis or diverging point of these 'words' being the 'Word,' the Om, which is thus the 'name' of the Father, and the appeal-word, the prayer which opens our consciousness to its Source, turns consciousness inward so that it becomes aware of its inmost selfhood and of the One Self. "By means of the Word's power, both Brahms may

be found within the body."Sound is only audible to the ear - the gross sense or one of the finer ones of the

same kind - when it is making some matter vibrate; just like light - which is darkness when there is nothing for it to illuminate. So the Om sounds in silence at first; it is living spiritual silence. Then it comes outward into the first forms of the seven vowels, and breaks at last against the barriers of the seven groups of consonants, which are the forms and grades of matter. And yet these groups are but the limits or modes of hush or prolonging embodiments of the vowels.

The Om becomes also Fohat and Daiviprakriti and Kundalini and electricity according to its various planes. And of course it is Eros, desire of manifestation, "which was the primal germ of mind"; and will. And later on it is compassion; and the creative impulse of the artist. As desire in matter, it is desire of procreation.

Brahm is thus the eternal reality of the temporary Brahmas. And yet "by the Word's power" they can win out of their temporariness and establish themselves in the Father. The monad is Brahm-Brahma, Atma-Buddhi. Its presence is the cohesion of the crystal, flashing away when the crystal is crushed so as to be 'killed'; the vital unit of the plant, living where root and trunk join; the vital unit of the animal and man. In man it has begun to be aware of itself; and in the hearts of some men, of its Father.

In looking at matter we are thus only envisaging our own emanation or energy as it comes back to us. And yet, as that energy in one sense comes (or came) through us, it is the Supreme that underlies and pervades and is all things.

The whole thing is of course at and beyond the limits of mental grasp, for mind is a form of subjectivity which has thus far been reared on the food of the objective and is only beginning to be capable of inward states. It has a kind of bodily sense of self - the 'Bhutatman' of the Bhagavad Gita and then a dawning mental sense of self. A spiritual sense of self marks the beginning of the end of the cycle of pilgrimage.

So let us cultivate silence more, and try to find the Om in all its significances - this is the message of the Upanishads. Is it still valid?

(Vol. 16, pp. 172-73)

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Punctuality - R. Machell

The importance of punctuality is not to be disputed. It is more than a virtue, for it is a necessity in all the business of life. But when one begins to think about it, with a view to understanding why it is so necessary, one finds that it takes on new aspects. It becomes the expression of a great principle in nature, that great organizing, co-ordinating, harmonizing principle that we call rhythm. But what is rhythm?

The rhythmic beat of a drum which marks time is easily recognized as a controlling power in a band or in a marching company; but such a rhythm is no more than a mechanical repetition or accentuation of recurrent measures. The rhythm of complicated music may be more difficult to recognize, particularly when the measure is varied deliberately in an attempt to break away from strict form into freedom. But however free may be the form, that form exists, and is expressed by rhythm. Formlessness is inconceivable to the human mind; and the looser the form the less intelligible it is to the general public. Disorder may exist, but it is merely confusion of forms, not formlessness (strictly speaking).

We are often told that music does not exist in nature, though we can all hear

musical sounds. But the statement, like all other generalities, is only intelligible when the terms are clearly defined. If by music we mean the kind of ordered sequences of sounds familiar to human beings, then of course it may be true that the winds and waters, the birds and beasts, are not musicians. And the most obvious reason is that there is no apparent rhythm in the sequence of sounds uttered by them.

Certainly, music without rhythm of some kind is unthinkable. And so is life. Rhythm is the soul of life, the organizing principle in every manifestation of life on the physical plane. We can all see it working out its marvels in the flowers and trees, in the lower forms of organic life, as well as in the mineral world; order and organization of form is everywhere, obvious in all realms of existing beings, and is only emphasized by occasional variations in the regular order.

But when we come to human life, the rhythm is less apparent. Not that there is any lack of order: on the contrary, we are largely occupied as individuals and nations with questions of order and organization. The attempt to dispense entirely with order of any kind is like trying to speak without words, to think without thought, to live without food, to move without control of the limbs, to retain health without any system or regularity of bodily function; in fact, to live without life.

If we are to live on this plane we must conform to the laws that are the natural expression of natural forces on this plane: and the most obvious law of all is form. Without form there can be no existence on the physical plane. And form is the ordered manifestation of force. The ordering or arranging power is rhythm. So rhythm is the essential power behind creation.

But man is not merely a physical body, nor is he a mere mental function: he is a complex being, an outward manifestation of inner forces, tendencies, qualities, potentialities, that in their latent state may be considered formless; but that can only come into action, on this plane, by the creative, organizing power of rhythm.

So it may well be that in a man's soul there may exist conditions that are beyond the power of thought to express, and that may be a reflection either of the higher regions of pure rhythm, or of the lower world of chaos - "the great deep" of primordial matter, unorganized by the light of spirit, which latter manifests in the middle world, in which we live, as rhythm.

The mind, being a mirror, may occasionally reflect aspects of these higher and lower worlds; and these reflections may become ideas, more or less vaguely formulated in the lower mind as thoughts; and a man, trying to express these vaguely conceived ideas, will probably find himself in conflict with all existing conditions of the world in which he lives: for the first necessity of clear thinking is the power to give to an idea the form that is suitable to the plane on which it is to act. A man who cannot keep his ideas on the plane to which they belong is a dreamer at best.

In all such ordering of ideas the guiding and controlling power is rhythm, which is the manifestation of the spiritual creative impulse. Thus rhythm is an essential element in the life of man: and, being so, we must find it constantly asserting itself in our lives.

Most of us have at times rebelled against order, and have tried to free ourselves from restraint by disregard of punctuality, for the unthinking man sees nothing but an expression of a superior will in the demand for punctuality in life. But experience soon shows us that this quality is highly desirable in other people even if it is not quite necessary for ourselves. We are forced to recognize its expediency: but we may not trouble to think further or to understand what it really is.

Madame Tingley once spoke of punctuality as the rhythm of life; and that set me thinking: for we often hear of the 'Song of Life,' and we may as often have wondered if that phrase was more than a pretty form for a vague fancy.

The Song of Life is a fine idea; it is like the Brotherhood of Man. But few have the power to reach beyond the discord of life to the song, which for them must remain a pure

ideal, or perhaps a discarded hope. But when a body of people meet together united by a common ideal, and are energized by a common purpose, and when they begin to organize their life for the better accomplishment of an unselfish object, punctuality in the performance of every act of life ceases to be a matter of discipline and becomes the voluntary response to the inner urge of the common life. The punctuality of each individual is the rhythm of life in the common body of the community. When this is established, life becomes harmonious; when the whole life is then attuned, the orchestra is ready to make music; and when each individual feels in himself an immediate response to the beat of the conductor's baton, the duty of keeping time becomes a voluntary act of self-control, a willing response to the need of the moment; more, an eager expression of an inner rhythm that becomes outwardly manifest in the music of life.

Punctuality is not a mere obedience to rule; it is rather the prompt performance of the duty of the moment, the recognition of the eternal fitness of things that is superior to all law, and which in fact is the sole law of Nature. The rhythm of life expresses itself in punctuality, and therefore in the perfect man punctuality would be natural and spontaneous: for it is said, "The wise man does good as naturally as he breathes."

(Vol. 18, pp. 13-15)

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Recollections of H. P. Blavatsky - H. T. Edge

It has been characteristic of nineteenth-century scientific thought to represent the universe as a mechanism which moves itself, like an engine running without steam; and while science will scoff at the idea of perpetual motion - a dynamo turned by the electric motor for which it generates current - this nevertheless represents the idea which scientists have too often entertained as to the universe. The same idea has been reflected upon history: the human race produces geniuses, and the geniuses promote the progress of the human race: which is a vicious circle, a perpetual motion. But if a machine is to continue running, against a loss of energy by friction and work done, energy must be supplied to it from without; wherefore logic must always admit the existence of the spiritual behind the physical, the invisible behind the visible. And if geniuses do indeed inspire the human race, they cannot be held to draw the energy which they impart from the source to which they impart it.

A genius, therefore, must be a person inspired from a source behind and above the phenomenal world; one who brings into the world of men and events an energy derived from a superior source.

What is that source? Is it not the immortal Soul of man himself, which incarnates from age to age in many successive bodily forms, garnering wisdom and experience and thus building up a mighty character? Are not geniuses great Souls of men who have progressed to the point where it behooves them to become helpers of humanity?

In reviewing the great and rapid changes that have lately come over our ideas, we can trace them back to a genius of the end of last century, H.P. Blavatsky, whose teachings, as set forth in her books, can be seen to be the origin and basis of these changes in thought. The whole world of ideas has been thus profoundly modified, whether scientific, philosophical, or religious; and, though the leaven, in its working, has here and there produced some strange growths, its main purport has been on the whole accomplished.

Among those who are active workers in the Universal Brotherhood and

Theosophical Society, are a few whose memory goes back to the days when H.P. Blavatsky lived and worked among us, who were her pupils, and to whom therefore the drama of the Theosophical Movement is very real. The present writer made his first acquaintance with Theosophy in the year 1887, through coming across one of the few Theosophical books that were extant in those days; and he lost no time in studying the other books and in visiting H.P. Blavatsky herself. It was within a year of her last visit to London, after previous years of work in the United States, India, and continental Europe. Residing with a small circle of friends and helpers in a little villa at the west end of London, she was engaged in launching a literary campaign. For it was during those years that she founded her magazine, Lucifer, and wrote and published the Secret Doctrine, the Key to Theosophy, and the Voice of the Silence. Never was anyone more wholly devoted to the work to be done; never was character more unselfish. She labored all day and every day at these literary tasks; and when we remember that she had but an imperfect knowledge of English and but slight acquaintance with literary methods, we can but wonder all the more at the marvelous knowledge and erudition displayed in the Secret Doctrine. One who is wholly devoted to an unselfish work, and can command the infinite power of faith and trust, is able to exercise the faculties of the mind to their fullest capacity, and thus to achieve what to many appears 'miraculous.'

In the evenings H.P. Blavatsky held receptions and was visited by interested and earnest inquirers of every class, including many eminent persons. In these gatherings her energy of temperament, vivacity of manner, wide culture, and great social gifts, made her the soul of the conversation, in which she spoke fluently in English, French, or Russian, as occasion demanded. The writer had the privilege of reading the Voice of the Silence in her original manuscript, which one evening was placed in his hands by its author for his perusal.

It was in 1888 that H.P. Blavatsky, acting on a suggestion from William Q. Judge (her most valued pupil, the Leader of the Theosophical Society in America, and afterwards her successor), founded the Esoteric School of Theosophy, for the more intimate instruction of such pupils as were willing to devote themselves more thoroughly to the work of Theosophy.

Although inquirers were for the most part attracted by curiosity, intellectual interest, or some form of personal ambition; and although the Teacher, in pursuance of a necessary policy, scattered liberally the seeds of knowledge intrusted to her, yet she was ever on the watch for the signs of a truer devotion to an unselfish cause. And when even the smallest of such signs was manifested, she was prompt to meet it with the offer of her services as a Teacher of the wisdom that leads to emancipation from illusion and the snares of self. Such pupils discovered that the mission of Theosophy is not to satisfy intellectual curiosity or personal ambition, or to form a mere coterie of students or a religious sect or a mystic fraternity, but to accomplish a great work for humanity.

The title which she chose for her magazine - Lucifer - excited considerable comment, as it was expected to do; for it was a challenge. Lucifer means 'Light-Bringer'; its planetary emblem is the morning star which heralds the birth of day; in mythology Lucifer is the divinity that ministers between Olympus and earth. Like Prometheus he stands for the higher aspect of the human mind, which receives light from the divine source in human nature and transmits it to the understanding. But by some perversion the name had come to denote a devil, a fallen angel; and this perversion in nomenclature was regarded by H.P. Blavatsky as the symbol of a similar perversion in theological notions. Why should the Light-Bringer be regarded as a rebel angel, or why should the beneficent trials of initiation be misrepresented by the word 'temptation'? Man has not to fear the light of knowledge; he has only to separate knowledge from delusion, and then it becomes a lamp unto his feet. So she named her magazine Lucifer, the Light-Bringer, as a sign that Theosophy challenged all obscurantism and dogma and bigotry.

It is truly a most remarkable fact - one that defies adequate realization, as memory recalls the details - that there should be such a personality, with such a mission, in the heart of a monstrous wilderness of city, the very ultimate manifestation of modern materialistic civilization; and the sense of contrast strikes the mind forcibly, as one remembers that tiny oasis in the midst of the smoke and grime of that teeming desert. It is truly remarkable that a human life should contain such a marvelous incident as the contact with this great teacher and the privilege of being her pupil. Personality is a marvelous little thing, but the Teacher showed us that it no more makes the man than do his clothes. She set our feet on the path to a greater self-realization.

Thus one may be said to have been present at the making of history, for this time will reckon as an era in our future retrospect.

The keynote of H.P. Blavatsky's earlier life was a determined resolve to discover reality in a world where all seemed to be sham and doubt. We hear people today despairing whether truth can ever be found, or even whether there is such a thing as truth at all - so disheartened and confused have they become. But it can be found by those who love it enough to dare for it. Our task is not so hard, for the pioneer has blazed the track before our feet. We have found, in the intimate study of life, in ourselves and others, a verification of the grand old truths of Theosophy which she reintroduced to the world; and whatever tribulation we may encounter in our pilgrimage through the valleys of delusion, we never lose sight of the faith in an inviolable Law of Justice at the root of all life.

(Vol. 18, pp. 340-42)

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The Signs of This Cycle - William Q. Judge

Men of all nations for many years in all parts of the world have been expecting something they know not what, but of a grave nature, to happen in the affairs of the world. The dogmatic and literal Christians, following the vague prophecies of Daniel, look every few years for their millennium. This has not come, though predicted for almost every even year, and especially for such as 1000, 1500, 1600, 1700, 1800, and now for the year 2000. The Red Indians also had their ghost dances not long ago in anticipation of their Messiah's coming....

The Theosophists too, arguing with the ancients and relying somewhat on the words of H.P. Blavatsky, have not been backward in respect to the signs of the times.

But the Theosophical notions about the matter are based on something more definite than a vague Jewish priest's vaticinations. We believe in cycles and in their sway over the affairs of men. The cyclic law, we think, has been inquired into and observations recorded by the ancients during many ages; and arguing from daily experience where cycles are seen to recur over and over again, believing also in Reincarnation as the absolute law of life, we feel somewhat sure of our ground.

This cycle is known as the dark one; in Sanskrit, Kali-Yuga, or the black age. It is dark because spirituality is almost obscured by materiality and pure intellectualism. Revolving in the depths of material things and governed chiefly by the mind apart from spirit, its characteristic gain is physical and material progress, its distinguishing loss is in spirituality. In this sense it is the Kali-Yuga. For the Theosophist in all ages has regarded loss of spirituality as equivalent to the state of death or darkness; and mere material progress in itself is not a sign of real advancement, but may have in it the elements for its

own stoppage and destruction. Pre-eminently this age has all these characteristics in the Western civilizations. We have very great progress to note in conquests of nature, in mechanical arts, in the ability to pander to love of luxury, in immense advancements with wonderful precision and power in the weapons made for destroying life. But side by side with these we have wretchedness, squalor, discontent, and crime; very great wealth in the hands of the few, and very grinding poverty overcoming the many.

As intellectualism is the ruler over this progress in material things, we must next consider the common people, so called, who have escaped from the chains which bound them so long. They are not exempt from the general law, and hence, having been freed, they feel more keenly the grinding of the chains of circumstance, and therefore the next characteristic of the cycle - among human beings - is unrest. This was pointed out in The Path in Vol. 1, p. 57, April, 1886, in these words:

"The second prophecy is nearer our day and may be interesting; it is based upon cyclic changes. This is a period of such a change.... This glorious country, free as it is, will not long be calm; unrest is the word for this cycle.... The statesman who can see might take measures to counteract. But all your measures cannot turn back the Karmic wheel.... Let those whose ears can hear the whispers and the noise of the gathering clouds of the future take notice; let them read, if they know how, the physiognomy of the United States whereon the mighty hand of Nature has traced the furrows to indicate the character of the moral storms that will pursue their course no matter what the legislation may be."

....We are not dealing with the rights or the wrongs of either side in these struggles, but only referring to the facts. They are some of the moral signs of our cycle, and they go to prove the prognostications of the Theosophist about the moral, mental, and physical unrest. The earth herself has been showing signs of disturbance.... All these are signs. The cycle is closing, and everywhere unrest will prevail. As lands will disappear or be changed, so in like manner ideas will alter among men. And, as our civilization is based on force and devoid of a true philosophical basis, the newest race - in America - will more quickly than any other show the effect of false teachings and corrupted religion.

But out of anger and disturbance will arise a new and better time; yet not without the pain which accompanies every new birth. - From The Path, October, 1892

(Vol. 18, pp. 413-14)

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After the Storm - R. Lanesdale

After the storm there comes a calm that seems as if it were intended to wipe out all memory of the fury that raged so recently. It is quite different from the false calm that comes at intervals in the course of a long tempest. In such moments there is no peace, nor hope of peace, but just a temporary lull - a moment of preparation for a fiercer outbreak, or perhaps a collapse of the elemental machinery; a failure of nature to respond to the stimulus of the storm - in fact, a spasm of satiety. Such a pause in the middle of a storm is sometimes more appalling than the frenzy itself, for the imagination released from mere facts creates in the mind even more horrible pictures of what may follow when the storm begins again. There is no satisfaction in satiety. There may be in it a sense of hopelessness that is paralyzing in its effects, but no satisfaction; there is no sense of

finality in it, but a dull despair and an insufferable sense of impotence. The end of the storm is a moment of triumph, full of hope, and pregnant with

possibilities; the lull that comes during the course of the tempest is full of menace and imminent horror. It inspires fear. At first sight it might seem that the calm that follows the storm is but a temporary lull on a larger scale. But I think there is a real difference in kind as well as in degree. The storm is an epoch, an event, a complete expression of force, and its climax is triumphant. There is no sense of failure in it. It is an accomplishment of purpose: and as such it opens a door on to another plane of Nature, or of consciousness, and something happens. It is like striking a match: when light comes, the marvel is wrought.

After the storm there is a strange sense of finality, coupled with infinite hope. It seems for a moment as if all storms have ceased forever, and as if a new age had dawned more beautiful than any that went before. It is a moment of Realization mistranslated by the mind into terms of permanence, that are not appropriate to this plane of existence, where change is the law of life. In that moment of recognition there comes to the mind a gleam of Peace from the inmost heart of Nature (which is the heart of man), and the imagination makes of it a picture of perpetual Peace, such as belongs alone to that spiritual state in which the soul of man has its true home. The vision may be true and its interpretation false. The heart seems to tell us that there is Peace and Love in the heart of the Universe; while experience tells us that all things change on earth, and that storms are to be looked upon as part of the terrestrial program.

Without the deep insight of the soul, that illuminates the heart of man and fills it with the hope of an eternal Peace, the mind would learn pessimism from experience; and the truth of the world of matter would falsely express the greater truth of the spiritual life within. The anticipated recurrence of the storm would blot out the interior perception of eternal Peace, or make it imperceptible.

The ancient teachings of Theosophy, which in old times were called the Secret Doctrine or the Sacred Science, show the student the complexity of human nature, and reconcile the apparent contradictions that breed pessimism in the unilluminated mind of the materialist. The storms of life are not upon the same plane as that where reigns the Universal Peace to which the soul aspires. This truth alone would make men optimistic as to the future and pessimistic as to the present, if it were grasped unintelligently by the lower mind. And this is seen in the confused mentality of the ordinary religionist, who has no grasp upon the true philosophy of life; while others more selfishly intelligent would, and do, strive to escape their share of the storm and seek refuge in the inner Peace.

But the teaching of Theosophy is that the inner peace can only be attained by one who can realize his own identity with the universal soul of all, and who, in that realization, sees the impossibility of escaping permanently from the woes of life in any other manner than by accepting them fully as the price of his illumination. The task of a slave may be in fact less onerous than the labor of a voluntary worker who finds joy in the work that breaks the poor slave's heart. And this because the volunteer has seen beyond the labor to the purpose; and feels the joy of high achievement more keenly than the pain or labor of the task. His heart illuminates his mind and thus transmutes the struggle of material life into the glad experience of spontaneous expression, which is creation.

When facts like this are realized, men cease to struggle violently for peace, and look within to find in their own hearts the secret of order and the fitness of things. Then they become centers of force, but of the high force of order, that ordains and organizes all conflicting energies.

The man of science studies the wild forces of Nature and seeks to adapt them to his purposes, and to conform his conduct to conditions, so as to avoid disaster and to make use of opportunity. But when he approaches the higher science of Life, and learns more of the true nature of the Universe, in which he lives, and his own relation to it, he becomes

aware of a great Purpose that is behind all forces and all conflicts, and he perceives a prevailing harmony that seems to surround a place of Peace which is the source of Light and Life, and to which he seems to be traveling through aeons of experience, and through eternities of toil. Then it may be that he will bend all his energies to the attempt to realize his place in the Great Work, and become a worker for Brotherhood.

(Vol. 17, pp. 462-63)

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Some Thoughts on Death - Quintus Reynolds (Kenneth Morris)

"Melus ei haeron, carcharorion geiriau." - Myrddin Gwyllt

Who first started the notion that death was a thing to fear? It is a marvel it should ever have been thought: but the flesh cries out against its own dissolution, and we confuse ourselves with the flesh. How strangely we are immersed in our captivity, or exile - and yet it is not altogether either of these - here in this world where we spend our recurrent life-times!

By far the most of our time we are not here at all: not denizens of Earth, or not of the physical Earth we know. This is not our normal existence: but a spell, a fierce encounter, an adventure, that we are let loose upon periodically, exhaust ourselves at, and then retire from until we are sent forth again. It is the meeting-place of Spirit and Matter, the battlefield where the Gods fight chaos; - and we, to say the truth, are the Gods. It is almost the condition of our being here, on the field, that we should have forgotten who we are.

The battle lasts forever: it is why existence is. We come to it in relays, a perpetual stream: we could not endure, most of us, to be fighting it all the time, - or more than a very small proportion of the time. So we are born into it, discover or fail to discover that we are in it, take wounds and much discomfiture, and die out of it; then, after a few decades here, remain (it is said) in our own place, in the Empire of Souls, many centuries.

What we are, here - our conscious selves - is to the totality of our being, I suppose, like a drop of floating oil to the surface of the lake on which it floats, or a small island to a large sea. And sunk and wrapped in the little, we are unconscious of the great: while we are here in our bodies. Or it only flashes on us at moments: then we know how un-incasable in words are all its properties and qualities. Words, coinages of the mind that dwells in this lower sphere.... If they are to be of any use at all, it must be by what virtue of suggestion can be inspired into them, not by what definite precise meaning the dictionaries credit them with. Those who have looked in through the gates of death are always puzzled by the inexpressibility of what they have seen. They stutter and falter.... about a beauty, an augustness, for which there are no words nor terrestrial comparisons. It is, after all, only the astounding limitlessness of our Whole-Selves, suddenly revealed or glimpsed, which comforts or terrifies the Part-selves we are here, but amazes them always: it is the shock of this amazement that old Bishop Latimer calls the "ugsomeness of death."

Death, said Peter Pan, is a very great adventure; but no, - it is life that is that. That we should go into the lions' den periodically, and fight with beasts in this Ephesus of incarnation: should be closeted up with tigerish passions for our cell-mates, forced to make war with them, putting forth our strength or suffering mercilessly their teeth and

claws: and all that we may win new realms for the Spirit, conquer empires in Chaos for God, - that surely is the strange fierce thing, and not that we are allowed to return to the quiet and beauty of our own place between-whiles. Here in incarnation

"....this intellectual being,There thoughts that wander through eternity,"

are narrowed down to the limits of a little mind-in-the-brain; and nothing of ourselves can function (as a rule) but what can play through such a trumpery instrument: as if you should compel a Beethoven to compose only for the triangle, or allow Paderewski nothing but a tambourine.

If that great Empire of the Excarnate (which it takes death to let most of us into) were at all understood, there would be infinite comfort for humanity in the thought of it, and no "ugsomeness" at all. There, always, is the majority of mankind; there each of us spends most of his time; there we enjoy the unimaginable fulness of our being. And there, we have never dreamed that Mankind is other than a Brotherhood, a Unity, nor imagined at all the divisions, prides, spites, and revengefulnesses that vex our footsteps here. "Brotherhood is a fact in Nature," it is said : that law being laid down in the teeth of what seems all the evidence here; we should understand the truth of it better, and the saying would not seem extravagant, if we remembered that still, - now, - at this present time and abortive juncture in this world's affairs, for the vast majority of the Host of Souls no conception other than that of perfect Brotherhood is possible. This world of incarnation is only a little island in the vast sphere of our dominions: not ours rightly yet: a tough spot that we essay again and again to conquer: in the heat and dust of the warfare here we take on the nature of the Chaos in which we are struggling, and forget; but Death brings us back and back to our own status and native condition, and we see the reality of things and are consoled and renewed in courage. It is in this world only, and its purlieus, that all divisions exist. The hatreds, lusts, envies, and troubles that beset us here, have there no power of entry: none at all. We are within seventy years of possessing archangelic consciousness and full understanding of the meaning of life.

Are we now cast down, and in the midst of a tragedy? - Not so long ago we foresaw and entered upon it, covetous of that experience and the value it should be to us thenceforth forever. Who would fear the fate of Hamlet or Othello, to be suffered for one night on the stage? The direst juncture you can meet in life, is only something you have chosen to meet, because it was necessary that you should meet it: necessary to the perfection of your experience, and to be useful to you through the eternities to come. And there is no agony but shall break soon (since a lifetime is short), and give place in the proud mansions of Death to understanding of it and why it happened. The sins, weaknesses, and encumbrances of this life, we take on when we enter this life, and lay down when we pass again into the fulness of our true being. They are the enemies we engage to fight, the difficulties we foresee shall be ours in the great battle which we (I suspect not unwillingly) undertake to fight. None need lament his share of them, or feel bowed down under self-reproach; none need groan at his weakness, or cry out because passion lashes him, or sink under his sea of sorrows, or gasp over his failure. Something very grand and wise, in the Empire of the Excarnate, took upon himself, as his share in the great common duty of the Host of Souls, to meet all these things and do what he could against them, knowing what sufferings would be entailed, and also the glory of the whole scheme. In this one life things might go heavily against him; but he would make a push and do something. Out of his conflict with human flesh, something at any rate would be won. Because of his agonies and failure, the grand Success of the Host would be brought a little nearer.

It is not true, of course, that the mere death of the body lets us in at once to the

Great Kingdom. There may be far traveling to accomplish first; and the more we are sunken in this world, the farther must the traveling be. But the Islands of the Blessed are there, and we come to them: we come to our native status, and the narrow limits of personality quickly or slowly give way. They may do so here: by grand fighting we may lift ourselves, living, to the grand levels of the Heavenworld. So the Master-Souls and Perfected God's Warriors do not, we are told, absent themselves for long periods from this world; but return quickly to the battle, and enjoy Devachan through the sweat and fury of earth-life: that is, are always in the fulness of themselves, the whole archangelic nature present in the human body. But this makes no difference to the rule: the Archangelic world is the great world: the greater part of each one of us is always there; we are there consciously, the whole of us, the greater part of our time.

If we could see the Real Thing about the poorest weakling, the vilest sinner, we should be astounded by the glory revealed, and all our ideas about heroism and beauty would be extended. The criminal you hanged yesterday.... he too is the representative of Something Archangelic. "Eloquent, just, and mighty Death" reminds us of these things.

(Vol. 19, pp. 212-14)

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Of the Three Roads And How it is by Our Thoughts that We Travel Thereon - Student

I had been reading Spinoza and I suppose that for a moment I had fallen asleep. This was what I had read:

"After experience had taught me that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile.... I finally resolved to inquire whether there might be some real good which would affect the mind to the exclusion of all else; whether, in fact, there might he anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness.... All the objects pursued by the multitude, not only bring no remedy that tends to preserve our being, but even act as hindrances, causing the death not seldom of those who possess them and always of those who are possessed by them.... But love for a thing infinite and eternal feeds the mind wholly with joy, and is itself unmingled with any sadness, wherefore it is greatly to be desired and sought for with all our strength.... One thing was evident, namely, that while my mind was occupied with these thoughts it turned away from its former objects of desire and closely considered the search for the new principle; this was a great comfort to me, for I perceived that the evils were not such as to resist all remedies. Although these intervals were at first short and rare, yet afterwards, as the true good became more and more perceptible to me, they became more frequent and more lasting...."

It appeared to me that I went on reading from the book, coming to this passage, though when I came to myself in a moment I saw that the book contained no such words:

"Opening before me were roads, three in number. Of these three, the middle one, as I saw, whilst seeming to lead on and on, in truth led round and round, so that by it the poor weary travelers finished their journey where they had begun it, or nearly so, not forwarded at all.

"And another led downward, whither I could not see. But the third upward and

forward to a Height crowned and flooded with unimaginable Light."Now, the going upon these three roads was by thoughts. It was by their thoughts

that the wayfarers were carried. And the most part of them, as I said, choosing but the common thoughts for their steps, went round and round and in the end had come back to the place whence they started, in no wise changed save for their weariness.

"But some few kept their thoughts steadfastly upward and were therefore borne steadfastly upward. Their thoughts were ever of the Light ahead; and with thought of the Light they ever cast off those unkindly thoughts of their fellows and those thoughts of pleasures past and to come that were constantly delaying and misconducting the other travelers. Yet the common and innocent pleasures of the road, if they came by such, they accepted and enjoyed, refusing only to look back to any that were past, or forward to any that might he ahead. Thus filling themselves ever more and more with thought of the Light, they moved constantly forward; and I saw that one by one they entered it in joy and content, and then, shining therewith and as it were robed, they turned back to show their fellows the way and the method whereby they themselves had attained.

"But of the downward road, save that it led into ever-deepening gloom and shadow, I saw nothing."

(Vol. 16, p. 472)

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Tolerance - P. Franklin

The poet Lessing, in one of his great dramatic works entitled 'Nathan the Wise,' gives to us a helpful lesson of the real spirit of tolerance, so rarely met with today.

The subject-matter of this particular incident is not widely known, but it is yet of sufficient interest, even in these times of supposed religious tolerance, to warrant its reproduction here.

In the reign of Saladin, Sultan of Egypt, who was so beloved by his subjects as a benevolent ruler and reformer, there lived Nathan, a Jewish merchant. Through thrift, prudence, and honesty, Nathan had amassed great wealth, but notwithstanding this, he had also gained the goodwill and love of his fellowmen. Nathan was a profound student, and philosopher, and under the cognomen of 'The Wise,' he enjoyed great popularity in the surrounding country. Now, although the royal household was counted among the great patrons of Nathan, yet the Sultan had never met the merchant in person, since all business transactions were carried on in general by Sittah, Saladin's sister.

Taking the occasion of the first meeting of the Sultan and of Nathan, the poet depicts Nathan's character, his wisdom, simplicity, and sincerity, in true colors. Nathan's modesty, on being summoned before the great Saladin, leaves him altogether unconscious of the latter's purpose to discuss deep religious and philosophical subjects with him. He rather imagines that the Sultan desires certain information pertaining to the purveying of supplies for the royal household, and is in consequence taken by surprise when Saladin addresses him:

"Nathan, tell me what belief or law has mostly impressed you." Nathan answers: "Sultan, I am a Jew."Saladin replies: "And I am a Mussulman. The Christian stands between us, and

one of the three religions must be the true one."The dialog is hereupon suddenly interrupted by the presence of a courtier who

desires to obtain some necessary information, and Nathan, soliloquizing how to answer

Saladin's question without arousing antagonism, decides to narrate a tale, by which he may obtain his benevolent purpose. The tale is as follows:

Many years ago there lived in the far East a man who was the possessor of a priceless ring, given to him by a dearly loved friend. The stone was an opal reflecting many beautiful colors, and had the inherent power of charming everybody with whom the wearer came in touch. It was, therefore, no wonder that he never permitted it to leave his finger, and he legally provided that it should always remain in the family, and in such a way that the ring should invariably become the inheritance of the most beloved son in each generation without regard to age or station, and that its possession should make him the ruling head of the house.

After many generations, the ring finally came into the possession of a father with three sons, all of them obedient and beloved by him. In consequence thereof the man was sorely tried in endeavoring to make his decision to which one of his sons he should leave the ring. Whenever he found himself alone with any one of his three beloved sons, it caused him great pain, because each seemed entitled to the dignity as head of the house and the ownership of the ring. In his perplexity, and not wishing to disappoint any one of his sons, he sent for a goldsmith in secret, and gave him the order to make two more rings exactly like the original. When the artist returned the three rings, the father was greatly pleased with the result of the craftsman's labor, but he himself was unable to detect the original from the two copies. He then called each of his sons separately to him, gave him his blessing and a ring, and died.

In order to observe the effect of his tale upon Saladin, Nathan paused here, as though resting a moment or two; but being urged to continue to the end of his tale, he replied: "The rest was quite natural. Scarcely was the father dead, when each son came forward with his ring and claimed to be the head of the house. Disputes and quarrels arise, but the right ring is not distinguishable - almost as indistinguishable as is the true religion to us."

"How!" replied Saladin. "Is this the answer to my question?"Nathan: "I merely wish to excuse myself. Because the rings which the father had

intended to be not distinguishable, I do not trust myself to distinguish."Saladin: "The rings! Do not play with me. I thought the religions I named ought to

be distinguished in themselves, and barring questions of clothing, food, and drink."Nathan: "The basis of the three is the same; all are founded on history transmitted

by tradition or writing, and history must be accepted on faith and belief. Is this not so? Whose faith and belief do we doubt the least? Our own people's, of whose blood we are, and who in our youth never lacked in their love for us and never deceived us. Can I trust my forefathers less than you yours? Or vice versa? The same holds good with the Christian."

Saladin murmured to himself: "The man is right; I must be silent."Nathan continued: "But let us return to our rings. As said before, they went to law,

and each swore before the judge that he had received his ring directly from his father's own hand, as was perfectly true; and, said they, before believing in wrong-doing by their venerated father each one of them must rather accuse the others of false play.

"The judge somewhat impatiently replied to the contestants as follows: 'I am not here to solve riddles, and the right ring will not open its mouth. But wait I hear that the genuine ring possesses the power of making its possessor amiable before God and men. This must decide the matter, as the false rings cannot do this. Now, then, which of you loves his two brothers the most? - You are silent. You all, I doubt not, are deceived; your rings are not genuine. The right one likely was lost and to replace the loss the father had three others made. My advice is this: Leave the matter precisely as it now is. As each of you had a ring from his father, let him believe it to be the genuine one. No doubt your father loved you all alike, and did not wish to favor one and disappoint two of you.

Therefore, let each one strive to live in accordance with his heart's noblest love without prejudice to anyone, and endeavor to bring into action the powers of the ring. Do this with forbearance, patience, compassion, and devotion to God and mankind. Then when the powers of the stones shall have manifested themselves in your children's children, I invite you in a thousand years from now again to come before this tribunal, and a wiser man than I will occupy this seat and will speak. Go in peace.' Thus spake that wise judge."

Saladin, who was very much affected, pressed Nathan's hands and said to him: "The thousand years' of your judge are not yet completed. His seat is not mine. Go in peace, and be forever my friend."

Lessing was a contemporary of Spinoza, and like him believed in many of our Theosophic principles. His teachings are filled with pure and lofty philosophy and his life was a practical demonstration of his writings. In a short treatise entitled 'Striving after Truth,' he says:

"Not the truth, whose possession man has, or believes that he has, but the sincere effort which he makes to obtain it, constitutes the real value of the man. Because, not possession but search after truth widens his powers, and herein lies his continuous growing perfectibility. Possession causes stagnation, idleness, and pride. If God held hidden in his right hand all truth, and in his left only the desire for truth with the possibility of being eternally in error, and were to ask me which of the two I preferred, I should fall in humility before his left hand, and should say: Give me the desire for truth! the pure truth is with you alone."

(Vol. 16, pp. 457-59)

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The Treasure-Chambers of the Morning - Quintus Reynolds (Kenneth Morris)

In the inner fastnesses and treasure-chambers of the Day are all the wealth and all the weapons that we need. Beauty is there, and the power to create beauty: rather, that power, rightly understood, is ability to command entrance into those secret places.

I do not altogether mean places within the individual soul. We are quite too much wrapped up in our individual souls; we do not see that the Temple is much larger. This Temple, that is, whose pavement is the colored sea and earth, and near whose beautiful ceiling are the stars.

It is thronged with the Everlasting Silence, which is the Mother of all things, and the Father, the Richness, the Foundation, and the Peace. The hush that comes over the eastern mountains at dawn and in the morning; the clear blue beauty of the noon; the mystery of evening over the western sea: - in all these there is something declaratory and indicative. I will not say (as many would) that they are reflections outward of my soul; rather I think my soul a part of, an incident in, and a kind of reflection of, them. For I conceive them to be the moods and changes, the beneficent revelations, of a very much greater soul than mine: the Ocean, of which this is a single drop.

Which Greater Soul, again, is the Treasure-chamber; and it is there I would enter; I make claim, and think of myself as having the right to enter; or else I shall, so far as I may, pitch my tent over against its doors, and abide there patiently; if exiled, not acquiescing in the sentence.

This world, they say, is an illusion; but in what sense? I have heard some argue that we should have no truck with its beauty at all, "because it is all illusory, and the Soul is greater than Nature" (the part than the whole). I think that depends on the direction in

which you are looking. You can never, I suppose, dissect or analyze anything that is not an illusion; whatever test-tube, crucible, knife, microscope, and all that kind of thing can bring you to, will still be illusory. One might even wonder whether what we now understand as the properties of matter have been so always, - even moderately always. Our modern knowledge of them is based on such short observation. We cannot compare notes with the doctors of Vedic India, or the Egyptian chemists of pyramid-building days. Was water always H2O? I dare say it was; only we cannot prove it. We cannot prove that the elements combined, or that the functions of the human body - even the great and main functions - behaved in the same fashion ten thousand years ago as now. I in those days was another I altogether, knowing as little of what I should be now, as I know now of what I was then. The elements of my personal being were differently arranged; I had another (outward) identity. The central selfhood or Soul was the same; but in the grand rhythm of its existence another motif was being played. Truth and falsehood were mixed in different proportions; cowardice and bravery interacted differently. In the much huger rhythm of the World-Soul, too, such changes may occur; and all the laws of matter, as we know them, may be but a momentary note. The Harper of the Eternities remains the same; what flows from the harp-strings is not one endless monotone, but a tune with rippling changes and rhythms recurring.

From the one sole Cause of Causes, the Fountain, Sum, and Essence of Existence, there is a vast concatenation of causes and effects down to the mood in which I arose this morning, or the pebble lying in my path, or the worm spiring underground. Hydrogen and oxygen combine, and are water: here are physical causes followed by physical effects. But the law that these shall follow those is not physical or material. And it is in itself the effect of a cause still less so; and that, of a cause remoter again, or more inward again. Traveling along this chain of effects and causes, you come from the world of appearances to the world of consciousness; and from that, no doubt, to That which is neither conscious nor unconscious. The physical is the merest diaphanous veil of the Metaphysical. In this sense it is an illusion: look at it, and what you see is precisely a whirl and great play of nothingnesses. The path of the materialist leads nowhere: it is a blind alley; a maze to which there is no clue, in which there is no goal to arrive at, and from which there is no way out.

But look through the veil, and there is no end to the vistas that appear.A picture thrown on a screen is an illusion. Try to walk into it, and you will not go

far. That is precisely what our materialists are seeking to do. But the picture argues a slide in the lantern (which is the thought in the Universal Mind); and behind that, a light, a flame (which is the World-Soul).

So in the human world. All the traits, all the characteristics that go to make up personality, they are just little temporary combinations and arrangements of nothingnesses; and ex nihilo nihil: the things they combine to make, - our proud personal selves, - are nothing; they have as much real existence as the picture thrown on the screen. The Soul with its stern and beautiful work in the fields of Eternity to do, - that is great, that is real; but all these visible fascinations, allurements, gaieties, clevernesses, likings and dislikings, repulsions and desires, - what is there in them to hold an anchor? Janus of the Two Faces, who is Death and Rebirth, shakes the kaleidoscope, and all is different suddenly; the man dies, and that personality is done with, and shall never be again. How little, perhaps, he represented the Light behind the lantern-slide, his Root of Being! But were your eyes turned towards that Light, they could never be shadowed or discomfited: you saw it shining behind the eyes now closed; but look, and you shall see it shining also behind any eyes that may meet yours. It is not personal; rouses no desire or longings; - but through it the beauty of the morning flows into you, and you set a certain value on the leaf, the grass-blade, the pebble, on those beautiful things, your fellow human beings; - because through all, the ravishment of Paradise is visibly shining, and the

diapasons of Eternity are sounding audibly, - "Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry."About that Center and Sole Cause mystics and poets in all ages have been trying to

say something; and although they have failed and forever must fail to make palpable revelations, that should really compel us others into vision, yet their words are the illumination of literature, and the nard and frankincense and preservatives of the thought of the world. - "If I take to myself the wings of the morning, and fly to the uttermost parts of the sea, behold, Thou art there also!" How such sentences shine! how impossible they are to submit to the picking analytical methods of the legal or scientific or argumentative mind! One might find them in Laotse, in the Upanishads, in the Psalmist, in the Persian poets, in Mohammed; - who likens It to a "niche in which there is a lamp, and the lamp is lighted from a sacred tree, - an olive neither of the east nor of the west, the oil whereof would give light though no flame touched it, - Light upon light!" Light is probably the most obvious symbol for It, and the way It would first impress Itself on our mental vision: light, the source of light, the Sun. But command the mind into quietude, and banish the thought-swarms that infest waking consciousness, and It will seem meetly and augustly symboled as Silence; or sink the thought into the heart, and It will come to be for you an excellent Companionship and all-informing Compassion. Joy is another of our human words that reflects it a little; and there is another again, God; but that last has become despicably cheapened, and it might be wise never to use it, as suggesting too much indignity. That is the fate of names: when you bandy them about, without thought for the thing they represent, they deteriorate, and quickly cease to represent anything. It is so with that much-abused word God. Imagine joy - getting angry; light - inflicting punishments; silence - issuing commands; compassion - enjoying the smell of burnt offerings! It just shows what the human mind can sink to, when it will not think!

But the first of these symbols is light, and the Sun; and no doubt this is the scientific explanation of the Sun: it is the main focus of That, and chief channel through which It flows into our worlds. I am never so sure which is subjective or within me, and which objective, or without: my mind is all awry, and not functioning decently, unless the sunrise happens as much in it as in the heavens. I look out through my door; between the blobbed and tufted pine-branches, forms so familiar, the sky is of that soft aristocratic gray that seems to have in it the latency of all sorts of blues, purples, and even crimson.... And then someone has poured into this grayness a tincture, that runs out in cloudy wreaths and streaks colored like the tulip Joost Van Vondel: a rose that can only be carried by tulips, as if that form were needed to suggest, to fill out in the imagination, the fulness and richness of the color.... "Desire first arose in It, which was the primal germ of mind," says the Veda; and one seems to behold, here again, the opening of the Drama of Eternity: Brahma rising in that rosy lotus, - tulip, I say, - Eternal Beauty determined to be expressed in an infinity of visible things: - from that bloom in eastern heaven, a dispassionate serenity, a visible calm love, flowing out to all the horizons.

That was one morning; I shall venture to speak of another. There is the long line of mountains, dark like the bloom on damsons; above, the sky, quite cloudless, burning to saffron and amber; and the little candle-light of Mercury paling, and Mars and Saturn fading, and the diamond glories of Venus and Jupiter waning in the blue mid-sky. (They were all five of them somewhere between Virgo and Sagittary at that time, in the last weeks of 1919.) And yonder, under the mountains, is the gleam of the bay, frosted creamy silver suffused with bronze or apricot; and here, the familiar forms of the pines with a certain unwonted aspect on them, as if they could tell me things infinitely wonderful, and for two pins would, - only silence is so much the best way of telling the things that matter! As when you share some excellent knowledge with a very intimate friend: the thing known is too good, and the friendship too intimate, to permit speech.... Everything between the dim brown and green of the earth-floor and the coppery blue where Venus is fading, is alive, aglow, a-hush, - packed with a sense of intimacy, with surprise, with merriment too

secure for laughter, with newness as old as the world; - and then, into all this, comes the visible Sun....

I wish to capture that moment, because I verily think it is a Theophany: the birth of a Golden Idea in that Great Mind of which 'I' am a tiny aspect or component atom. The World-Soul is reillumined; and in that light there is no room, in this little space of conscious being, for remembrance of the myriad failures and the old seeming hopelessness of things. 'I' am a part of the Dawn; of its beneficence, its universality, its impersonal glad silence, cleanness, calm. In so far as I can carry that moment on with me into the day, I shall be making the day sacred; I shall be living, and not playing at life.

What relation has all this to action and practical affairs? There is the everlasting necessity that we should work for the world and the redemption of Man. It is what troubles thousands in all these nations: the will to better things is not lacking, only the knowledge how to set about it. Against every fair effort for human weal, the counteracting evil is forever flowing out of Man himself. The greeds, the ambitions, the passions, which are a part of our nature,- it is these things make earth hell. Reform and reform as you will, it all seems throwing things into some bottomless quicksand, or emptying the sea by teaspoonfuls. I have been reading lately some of the plays of a school very characteristic of the present time. They are written, yes, with compassion for pens, but with the gloom and mirk of the pit for ink. You sense the greatness of the playwrights' hearts; you are made to mourn over man's inhumanity to man; but you are shown no cure or way out of it. Reform all these effects of the inhumanity, and you still would have the inhumanity to produce new ones as bad. And as to changing the effects, - reforming things, - even that: - what a task! Not one for shifting-minded democracies that cannot be made all simultaneously to care, - that are unconvincible en masse. One would need a Hercules-Tyrannus, a universal autocrat universally benevolent. The prison-systems, that ruin many lives and save none at all; the devilish folly of capital punishment; the women on the streets, - for which unending agony not the laws, not the wickedness of individuals, but the brute thoughts of all mankind, respectable and otherwise, are responsible; the collective madness of hatred that takes nations when they go to war: - it is good for those who cultivate oblivion to be reminded scathingly of these things, and to be reminded that his will is weak, whose will is not set to combat and cure them.

Ay, but how to do it? - that is the piteous cry!All the evils of the world, and all the good, flow out of the reactions of men to their

duty. Before every individual, at every point of time, there is a duty to be done: a moment to be filled with action (in the largest sense you can give that word); these moments, as they come, are problems that ask to be solved; they give you no time for hesitation, but you must solve them each on the instant, or they escape you imperfect still, and swelling the sum of imperfections. The solution is, the Duty of the Moment. You can fill it with a divine essence; or with selfishness, greed, desire, etc.; or with laziness and indifference. There is nothing else so important as Duty; indeed, it is the king and crux of life; you might make an excellent catechism of questions and answers like this: Why is there a world? - Because there must be a field for the performance of Duty. Why are there men? Because there must be agents for the doing of Duty. - What mean you by this word Duty? (to give a little King James flavor to it). That which is due to be done during the periods of Universal Manifestation. - To Whom or What is it due? - To the Divine Self of the Universe.

This duty we do, and dedicate to self; - and swell with it the sum of human selfishness, that is to say, human sorrow. This one we compromise with and set up a poor makeshift against it; and increase the hesitation, the uncertainty, the difficulty of accomplishing anything, that so burdens the world. That other, again, we allow to ride clean over us, into the vast limbo of the incomplete and imperfect, the Waiting-to-be-solved....

Duty presents itself to everyone daily anew. At the moment of waking it presents

itself.... The Sun rises, and opens the Treasure-chamber of the morning. Will you go in, and get royal gifts for the day?

In that mood, in that silence, in that glow and universal light, there is no shadow of personality: no animosity, hatred, greed or passion or triviality; it is the Divine Part of us dwells there, and with which we come face to face there. But what a revelation it is, how startling, what a light upon these problems, to be confronted with the fact that there is a Divine Part! Something untroubled as the Eternal, clear as the bluest heaven, friendly as the morning light, - all-compassionate, because selfless. In the moment of that revelation one is a new link between Heaven and Man, and the waters of redemption flow through one.

Go now to the common things and daily duties with the peace of that dawn still shining about you, and none of the problems that crowd to you momently will be turned empty away. The man that insults or irritates you, will find no one there to insult or irritate; expecting a pygmy, he will come on a God; and take away from the encounter, healing and gems from the treasure of the morning. You have won something out of Heaven, and loosed it at large upon Earth; you have set free an elixiral essence on the air, and it will go on its way transmuting things. You have contributed to humanity strong essences of purification.

(Vol. 18, pp. 522-27)

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Truth, Justice, Silence - Lydia Ross, M.D.

The Soul and its human body - long at odds with each other - had fought out the field again, as in many a bygone life. Now the prostrate animal self lay panting and helpless, filled with deadly nausea and a cruel burden of pain. The man himself, feeling strangely apart from both his body and soul, was yet more conscious than ever of both, in a new way. He felt neither dead nor alive, neither on familiar earth nor freed from its hold. All the usual sensations of body and limbs - long nurtured into a vital sense of creature-comfort - were submerged in an alien tide of misery. Some inner upheaval had changed his relations to everything; and despite a nightmare of depression, he felt an awareness of reality that made his everyday life seem like a vague and restless dream. His old thoughts and impulses and ways seemed foreign and aimless, as if he had forgotten his purpose in living and had lost sight of the goal. Though loosened from all moorings, he was sounding strange depths, only to feel the pull of unseen chains that still bound, instead of anchoring him in the storm.

The brain, as if released at last from a busy treadmill of confused and conflicting issues, was inert and benumbed. Lying thus wounded from the fray, the man knew he was something other than body or soul, and yet was both. He knew well that he was not delirious. He knew that he was strangely self-challenged to come out of securely-entrenched folly and failure, and to fight out the embattled field upon the middle ground of duality - the never-neutral No-Man's-Land of consciousness. For once, in both body and brain, the old insistent cries of doubt and desire were stilled. Instead, beyond the protesting nausea, he was filled with a penetrating and inarticulate knowledge of what his starved and outraged soul had endured throughout long, weary years. It was a judgment-day, when he must weigh himself in the balance and reckon with the great unerring law of adjustments. He must read his own record, standing naked and alone, facing the blazing light and awful beauty of Truth.

The overshadowing victor-soul held at bay both the subtle brain-mind and the body of blind earth that long had enslaved the mind for its own use. The animal self cowered and drew up, away from the scorching light, vainly turning for ease and shelter, and groaning for mercy. Every cell in the troubled blood stream and every fiber were vaguely conscious of suffering senses, finer and deeper than those of quivering nerves. The whole being was vibrating upon a level where clear, keen, and enlarged senses were protesting against the respectably sordid and selfishly narrow line of thought and feeling which long had belittled and tortured the intuitive desire for light and liberation. The man knew, somehow, that the old level upon which he had lived had to be broken down, shaken to the very foundation, ere his physical self would loosen its hold and let him see the larger issues. He felt the death-pang of letting go of old things, while the merciful law still gave him another chance to make all things new for himself, even in this life.

The sick man was a judge, with an enviable place in society. Men respected him as one with a naturally good mind, who had made his own way. If he had not kept faith with the ideals of his youth, - well, he was no worse than the rest of his reputable set of men of affairs, not as bad as many, perhaps. He was a capable and public-spirited citizen, who was optimistic about the 'social conscience,' active in civic betterment. Now it was borne in upon him that individual conscience was the unit of all real betterment. While his body writhed and panted and begged for mercy, he recognized his symptoms as symbols of invisible conditions, symbolic of suffering wrongs at the very mainsprings of his nature.

As the judge overheard the grave talk of the nurse and the doctor about his case, it struck him as trivial and remote. They sounded like children, at a distance, playing at grown-up tragedies and prattling of heart-breaking events with the same tone and meaning they gave to their invocation of "eenie, meenie, miney, mo." He wanted to cry out to them that his symptoms were only superficial signs of disordered inner forces, just as the shaken house-tops tell of a shattering earthquake's unseen power. But he was sure that no mere words could carry the truth to those who saw things as he had seen them but yesterday. He realized how the Truth was a living thing: to know it each one, in his turn, must be it, must live out the experience.

How could one ever be well, or command even the physical strength of Nature's finer forces, unless body, mind, and soul were in equipoise? Somehow the pain was stabbing the truth into him. But beyond the wretched nausea and heaviness was an aching desire for the power of completeness and balance, that he might make things right. It was a more profound craving than any his indulged body had ever felt. It seemed like the primeval and cosmic sense of wholeness and justice and equilibrium and power, of which his fatuous personal desires were mere mocking echoes. It was a moment of choice for him, with his days of drifting gone, and never again could he plead ignorance. He made his choice then, and accepted the soul's terms to live henceforth with the awakening sword of pain ever impending - lest he forget.

The eminent consultants said that the judge was suffering from pneumonia, following influenza. No one questioned but that theirs was the last word as to causes and conditions, for they spoke the tongue of learned men, forsooth. Some of them knew him well, being drawn to him by that strangely strong tie of friendship that is the loyal echo of comradeship in other lives. He felt the close grasp of their hands now, and heard their hopeful greetings. He was pitifully certain that they could not understand how indifferent he was merely about his chances of recovery. Nor could they know that it grew more imperative, with every labored breath and aching heart-beat, that, dead or alive, here or beyond, he must make things right with himself. There was no escape or ending for that something within which was knowledge itself. He must find the realm of the real law, for, "The knowledge of It is a divine silence and a rest of all the senses."

After the doctors' friendly greetings, they laid skilled fingers on his flesh, being trained in all the resources of ultra-scientific technique to examine intelligent animals, for to

them a man was his body - a handful of sentient, animated earth. It was their custom to leave no stone unturned of this physical matter to find the ultimate cause of its disturbed forces which appeared as disease. They knew how most cleverly to measure and weigh and assay and analyse this human dust. They considered the chemistry of the body's solids and fluids and its microscopic changes, and they knew intimately the various families of tiny bacterial lives that upbuild and anon tear down the healthy and diseased tissues - knew them on sight, and called them familiarly by their given names. No one knew much about the mysterious part these little lives were playing in the deadlier drama of epidemic disease that came in the aftermath of the most deadly war. Possibly the great medical fraternity around the world failed to get light upon the subject because all eyes were fixed upon the mere earth-matter in the cases. Surely, the judge's up-to-date doctors, knowing the profession at large to be confessedly at sea about it, felt justified in knowing no less. So they went on over the familiar diagnostic ground, listening to the lungs that felt as if stifling with murky air inside. And they proceeded to time the weak and weary pulse, rapidly running away, as it seemed, from this life where the sacred rights of the heart had no place in the sorry scheme of things.

The diagnosis ignored all influence of the soul upon the body, of course, for neither microscope nor test-tube had yet detected the reaction of the nobler sentiments or of the finer forces. Consistently with this, the treatment displaced Nature's healing remedies with artificial potencies of virus from sick men, attenuated in the blood-stream of lower animals - vileness sublimated and dehumanized. The judge had not questioned the treatment in vogue, before, but now he saw the idea in a new light that brought a chill shrinking and foreboding of ill.

In the eyes of the higher law, what had unclean and unnatural mixtures of the essence of human disease with the sub-human force of irresponsible animals to do with essential justice and cleanliness and the beneficent power of conscious wholeness? In the searchlight of Truth, who could claim that the end results of a formula of human contagions with the unnatural infection of brutes, did not take more hold on the elements of harm than on those of healing? Was not the very delicate balance of natural forces and the right relation of creatures disturbed at such attempts to steal health from animals who live and evolve under Nature's laws, while men, with generations of inbred disease, and imperfect in their human type, thus seek to evade the broken laws of life?

As the doctors left the room, the judge's pet dog looked in at the open door, and crossed over to the bedside, with lightly-poised body and velvety footfall. Gently the moist tongue licked the loved master's hand, the limp fingers straying over the sensitive nose and stroking the silken ears - more smoothly perfect to the touch than my lady's skin. The creature's beautiful head bent beneath the caress, as if weighted with happiness. Then it nosed its way along, ever so softly, under the arm, and came to rest over the suffering heart, the faithful brown eyes looking up into the face of the superior being, who was as a god to the adoring brute. A warm and tender glow of comfort ran through the sick man's veins. His eyes filled with refreshing tears at the exquisite feeling and sympathetic tenderness of touch that the doctor's trained fingers and friendly words had not expressed.

This, then, was the way to make things right. The dog's unselfish devotion and unquestioning trust were the formula for the longed-for elixir that human life had all but lost sight of. True to Nature, the creature's simple, natural, spontaneous love was yet great enough to discount time and space, and easily to wing its way through the aether of fine feeling, across the aeon-wide gulf of growth between conscious animal and self-conscious master. Here was the silent, unselfish devotion as the living symbol of the sacred unity of all life, that sublime harmony which in man is the mystic at-one-ment with his own higher nature.

(Vol. 16, pp. 572-75)

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The Importance of Two Percent - Lydia Ross

Two percent of a man's character sounds like a small part of his make-up. But like the proverbial last straw that broke the camel's back, the two percent may turn the scale to make or break the man's chances in life. A business man knows how vital a difference it makes whether the profit and loss columns foot up as 49 to 51 or as 51 to 49. One way the figures stand for a chance to tide along; but the figures reversed mean bankruptcy.

If a man is naturally inclined to be 51 straight, solid manhood, and 49 percent crooked and uncertain, the chances are he will have plenty of faults. But if he avoids the usual mistake of continually slipping back and forth across the dividing line, and just holds himself steadily up to the 51 mark, in no long time he is sure to add to his average standing. There is plenty of pull downward, when one is running so near the danger line of conduct, and it is a good test of grit to keep on the right side. With two percent to the good only, and the will to hold fast to what is gained, the final result must be success, whatever stumbling-blocks have to be cleared away first.

In one way, the handicap of faults which pull a man the wrong way, can be used to better advantage than the mere negative weakness and indifference which never does much that is either good or bad. Evil doing is simply using energy in the wrong direction; a change in the direction of efforts gives the evil-doer a ready fund of force to carry him as far in the right way. The whole current of a stream can be changed into a new channel, little by little, from a small beginning of a different outlet. When 51 percent of the water is going in the new channel, it has a certain pull on the 49 percent, as well as a certain push from it. Then if the stream is not obstructed, it will widen and deepen its own bed, as it goes on about its business, and do it naturally and easily.

Two percent may sound like a small thing; but it is large enough to serve as the basis of material success, and even as a basis of that victory of victories - self-conquest. There is perhaps no disgrace merely in feeling selfish and evil impulses, but there is shame in yielding to them. Some of the noblest characters have earned their nobility, step by step, by using their will-power to conserve the vital force of strong lower impulses on to the levels of finer thought and feeling. What man has done, man can do; and there is no limit to the beauty and strength of character that may be developed by a simple, steady pull in the right direction. There is a wonderful justice in the results which are returned to each one, for in spite of all outside conditions, a man makes himself what he is.

The meanest man has an equal chance to try to make good with the best of his fellows. In fact, his determined, persistent efforts to win out put a quality into his very atmosphere, which even unconsciously arouses a like spirit of endeavor in his associates. Without words, his example is an unanswerable argument for the living truth that a man has a splendid storage of possibilities in him, waiting to be used. Example is quite as contagious as disease, and is equally subtle in the way it spreads, in surprising ways and places. A man who keeps firm hold of his two percent to the good, will influence in like manner one hundred percent of those around him, and indirectly will affect others he does not see or even know. It is the little things that count in the long run in character building, just as the multiplied minutes make up a lifetime.

(Vol. 16, pp. 63-64)

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