A theosophist's point of view

Chapter I. Three Planks In The Platform— Three Postu- Lates In The Philosophy

Theosophical Society founded at New York 1875 — First plank, Nucleus of Universal Brotherhood; second, Study of ancient and modern religions, philosophies and sciences; third, Investigation of the unexplained laws of nature and psychic powers latent in man — All societies keep same platform — Differentiation caused by contending opinions as to government and administration — Such teachings unjustly charged as a wanton disturbance of faith — The proclamation issued by the "Theosophical Society in America" at Boston, April, 1895 — The motto: "There is no Religion higher than Truth" — A member of the Society not necessarily a Theosophist per se. The Three Postulates in the Philosophy — Emerson quoted as teaching in conformity thereto — Evolution in the East older than Lamarck and Darwin — The Book of Dyzan — The Perfectibility of Man the chief aim — Reincarnation a necessity to "mount and meliorate" — The Law of Karma (cause and effect) compels rebirth — Man is a soul — Dr. Lyman Abbott quoted — Prof. Max Muller's Gifford Lec~ tures — His definition of Theosophy — Vapid mysticism from the East has crept in to the detriment of Theosophy —

Chapter II. Ib There Atheism Or Agnosticism In The First Postulate Of Theosophy?

Misconceptions of the work of Theosophy — Bigoted views — The religious value of "The Unknowable" — Prof. Max Muller quoted — The idea of God — Prof. John Fiske's idea — Prof. Huxley on atheism — Prof. Ladd of Yale University on the "Cognitive faculty" — Herbert Spencer's symbols of "mind and matter" — The scientific method — "I and my Father are one" not fully interpreted — "I am That; that too art thou" — Dr. Paul Cams on the "Idea of God" — Sir Edwin Arnold's "Light of Asia" — Isis unveiled has a deeper meaning than the bigoted sectarian can fathom — Sir Matthew Arnold — The "God within" is the "Light that lighteth every

iii man" — Prof.Ladd's "Philosophy of Knowledge" — The "Great Breath" — The Vedic Rishis — The only God man can know i3 the divinity within — Paul at Athens — The "Unknown God" of the Athenians — Let all of Paul be quoted, not proof-texts — He studied for the ministry at the "desert school" — Why do not preachers explain that curriculum? — The Sufis, a school of Arabian esotericists, can teach Andover and Princeton something concerning Paul — Paul not correctly interpreted — He studied the basic principles of the esoteric lore, the same in all the old wisdom religions — The science of Psychology will bring clearer light on Paul's teachings. Pages 12 to 21.

Chapter III. Individuality And Personality

Proper study of Mankind is Man — New Psychology throwing light on the subject — Definition of Personality by Prof. Max Muller — Tracing to the original concepts and roots — Ego always on guard — The Perceiving Inner Self is the Higher Self, — the divinity within — Man, from Manas, a Sanscrit word, "to think" — The Thinker the Individuality — It persists — The seven-fold division of Man in Eastern teaching — Four lower the Quaternary; three upper the Triad — Emerson quoted — The school in which St. Paul studied — The Oversoul — Prof. Brinton's "Religions of Primitive Peoples" — The Christos of the Greeks same as Mahatma of the Sanscrit — Atma, the Higher Self — Marcus Aurelius — The Hindu Upanishads — Prof. Ladd of Yale on the "Knower" — The Chairs of Psychology — Lyman Abbott on Destiny — Goethe on the "stubborn power of permanence in whatever has once possessed reality, or individuality" — Faraday on a "particle of oxygen" — Atma-Vidya (soul knowledge).

Chapter IV. Soul And Spirit— The Distinction

Vague definition in dictionaries — Theosophical explanations clearer — "Soul a vehicle of Consciousness" — Prof. Clerk Maxwell on the "go" of a thing — Prof. Denton on the "Soul of Things" — Hermes Trismegistus of Egypt — Pope on Soul — Emerson's Oversoul — Anaxagoras 500 B. C. — Heraclitus before him — Pythagoras 586 B. C. — The soul of a man is the iv

"go" of a man — Atoms have souls, all have souls — The "go" implies a "goer" and a direction to go — Voltaire's attempt to define — Spinoza and Leibnitz — Matthew Arnold — Charles Johnston, M. R. A. S. of the Bengal Civil Service, Retired, Prize Sanscrit Scholar of India — Quotation from his "The Memory of Past Births" — Man formed from combined attributes — A scientist's agnosticism as to attributes — How did man obtain these attributes — The teaching of the sages — Major Powell on "Motility and awareness" — Prince Guatama's teaching on the continuous "I am I" — Lord Kelvin's hypothesis on life coming to this planet on a meteoric stone — Prof. Newton in Smithsonian Report — Lord Kelvin's computation as to age of this earth — Nature's Finer Forces elaborated in the Science of the Tattvas in Sanscrit — Hierarchies of Beings, all under law as we are — Prof. Huxley on the analogy in favor of superior beings — Darwin's reasoning — Elisha Gray's illustration of the sensitive plate in photography — Same reasoning by Theosophists during all ages — The sponge as a metaphor — Atma (spirit) the seventh principle — Paul's division, — body, soul, spirit — Whittier quoted — The bridge between man and divinity never broken.

Chapter V. Reincarnation

Is Reincarnation paralleled in nature? — Second Postulate of the philosophy sustains it — Whittier in accord — Astronomy confirms appearance and disappearance — The spectra as proof — Prof. Huxley on the right to claim support from the great argument of analogy — Clerk Maxwell — Prof. Max Muller — Sir William Crookes — Camille Flammarion — Shopenhauer — Upanishads — Lessing — Hegel — Leibnitz — Herder — Fichte — Goethe — Parallel in the solar system and individuated globes — The air we breathe, breathed over again — J. B. Dumas quoted — Geology in support — Botanical Gazette, May 1895 — Spore fruits retain individuality although soaked six years in alcohol — Wheat in pyramids of Egypt — Conservation of energy — Flux and Re-flux — The Sage of Koheleth — Emerson also in line — Henry Drummond quoting Huxley unconsciously confirms Theosophic teaching — Prof. E. B. Wilson, of Columbia College, New York, on "The Cell in Inheritance and Heredity" — Prof. H. W. Conn of the

Chair of Biology in Wesleyan University in "The Story of the Living Machine" — The "Tattvas" of the Sanscrit — The anathema against pre-existence of sonls at Constantinople A. D. 553 — The social nature of Christendom at that time — Gregory Nazianzen's comments on Church Councils — Dr. Momerie on same — The translation of the papal edict — Dr. L. Mosheim — Plato taught the doctrine — Herod quoted — Gibbon followed the trail of this thought — Orlando J. Smith in his work, "Short Views of Great Questions" — Drummond's failure to convince — A Methodist preacher on total depravity — Babes born are "devils in bud" — The Theosophist answers: They are gods in embryo — Transmigration and Metempsychosis definitions confusing — Sir Wm. Jones Pages 52 to 87.

Chapter VI. Karma

The law of cause and effect — Always present in the thought of Man under various aphorisms — Prof, Jevons on finer matter — Dr. Young — Prof. DuBois — The Great Breath — Kismet in Arabian thought — Karma in Aryan thought — Calvinism on Predestination — The Buddhistic Parable of the Lost Son, compared to the Prodigal Son — The masculine and feminine the human organism — Charles Johnston on Karma — The Parsees.

Chapter VII. The Genesis Of Man

The Garden of Eden in all archaeological literature — Means the Golden Age in each — Researches around Nippur — Sven Hedin's second trip — Bishop Usher's chronology — The Kali Yuga Cycle of the Hindus— Extract from "Biblia," an archaeological periodical — The still open question whether mankind sprang from one stock — The new theory is the oldest — Man came in streams of monadic essence as do all things pertaining to color, form and sound — Pythagoras's teachings — Chladni's demonstrations of forms in nature by wave action — Law that operates anywhere operates everywhere — The sponge cited as illustration — Inorganic matter did not start from Asiatic soil — The Protozoa originated evenly over the globe — Likewise the Mollusks and Articulates — Fishes, reptiles, birds and mammalians must have vi obeyed some uniform law — Man no exception to law — The deluge — Prof. Brinton on Anthropology — Quotation from arcane teachings — Sensations of Tone by Helmholtz — His "Klangfarbe" — Lockyer and Tesla on Messages from Mars — ■ Dr. Alexander Wilder on "generation" — The Psychological bearing — The Scientific bearing of the question. Pages 106 to 117.

Chapter VIII. The Psychic Powers Latest IX Max

The Eastern Teaching very old — Quotation from Flammarion — The A. U. M. — Formation, Transformation, Reformation — Prof. Brinton on the Psychic origin of all religions — A universal postulate — Spiritualism, Christian Science — Mental Science and Faith Cures — Society for Psychical Research — Extracts from — St. Augustine and apparitions — St. Thomas Aquinas — Peter Huber (1810) on study of ants — The "'astral" not a projection of bodies but a projection of consciousness — Huxley's "Man's Place in Nature" — From Krishna Science to Mormon Science — No pecuniary charge for services in Theosophy — Medical treatment needed — "Little Lives" of the Sanscrit same as microbes — The Environmental Stimuli of Science — Prof. Brinton on potent stimuli — The "unplumbed abyss of the sub-conscious mind" — No limit to the knowing of the Self that knows.

Chapter IX

Whirligig of Time and Cycle mean same — John Quincy Adams on Emerson — Goethe's "Westoestlicher Divan" — Leibnitz on innate ideas — Transcendental Biology — Kant's Transcendentalism — Theodore Parker on Emerson — Bronson Alcott and his Plato — Emerson and the Bhavagad Gita — Charles Malloy as Biographer of Emerson — Poem "Brahma" in Atlantic Monthly 1857 — Preceded Darwin's works — Mysticism — John Stuart Mill quoted — Prof. Goldwin Smith on Mysticism — Balfour's "Foundations of Belief — The "Riddle of Existence" by Goldwin Smith — The soal in the universe — Other quotations from the "Riddle of Existence— Camille Flammarion in "The Unknown" — Trance

vii states by monks of various orders — Recejac's "Basis of the Mystic Knowledge" — Occultism — Prof. Jastrow, University of Wisconsin — Popular Science Monthly of Sept 1900 — Prof. Jastrow's criticism — Theosophy complimented as well as criticised — Spiritualism scored — The supersensuous admitted in Theosophy — Oriental Wisdom Religions noted — The Law of Karma — We are in this world — Not to run away from it — Dr. Lyman Abbott quoted — His "Theology of an Evolutionist'' — Temptation needed in the struggle — Revival of Ancient Mysteries — Gen. Albert Pike — His "Morals and Dogma" — Gerald Massey's work — Champollion's first publication — Prof. Max Muller — "What India Can Teach Us" — Pages 140 to 166.

Chapter X. A Theosophist's Attitude To Christianity

Bitter attacks from orthodox pulpits — Theosophists not iconoclasts — Upholders of true Christianity — Dr. Momerie quoted — Ecclesiastics'. "rarely hesitate to lie" — Early lying in the church — Rev. Heber Newton of New York — Theosophist welcomes teachings of leading Christian thinkers — Charles Kingsley — Lyman Abbott — N. D. Hillis — Phillips Brooks — J. Minot Savage — Heber Newton — Robert Collyer — William Ellery Channing — James Martineau — Cardinal Gibbons on the Good Samaritan — Nothing new in Christian Scriptures — Truth older than Christianity— The Real always was Real — Bunsen quoted — The Way the Truth and the Life on Egyptian Granite — Zoroastrian lore — The Upanishads — The Book of the Dead — Sunday School Lessons — Dazing the minds of children — Prof. Huxley quoted — His letter to the "Three Bishops" — "The Warfare of Science" by Andrew D. White — A Presbyterian preacher's sermon — Divinity's first manifestation in the flesh — A Washington preacher's attack on Buddha's teachings — Sir Edwin Arnold in refutation — Prof. Max Muller, Rhys Davids — Spence Hardy — Dr. Paul Carus's Gospel of Buddha — Harvard University's translations of Sanscrit — The Theosophist consults authorities on Buddha — Lowell's poem on great teachers — The rock-cut edicts of Asoka — Buddha not a sanctified juggler— The Nazarene not a showman — Prof. Huxley quoted on Miracles — Lyman Abbott on the miraculous — Prof. William Kingdon Clifford — The Parliament of Religions under Asoka — Christianity borrowed from Buddhistic records —

viii

Dr. J. D. Buck's "Mystic Masonry" — Krishna's "immaculate conception;" all sun-gods thus conceived — "Sons of God" in the days of the Alexandrian University — The Theosophist not a believer — He doubts to investigate — He investigates to believe — Honest doubt beginning of true piety — No dogmas as now existing in the teachings of Tertullian — The scientific doubter purified religion — "Christ the first true gentleman" — The shock to orthodoxy — A Baptist preacher in Atlanta — He says "Theosophy is an invention oj? the devil" — James Lane Allen's "Reign of Law" — A Methodist preacher — Wants all books burned that do not agree with the Bible — Cremation — Frances E. Willard quoted — Lyman Abbott on resurrection of the physical body — It rises in the grass and flowers — The Ten Commandments — Borrowed from the Chaldeans — They borrowed from older civilizations — The Trinity, older than Christianity — Osiris, Isis and Horus in Egypt — Creator, Preserver, Destroyer as Brahma, Vishnu, Siva in India — Church edifices not religion, but instruments to promote religion — Theosophists prefer teachers to preachers — No corner stone ever laid by a Founder of a Faith — They were out among the people — Prof. Hyde of Dartmouth College quoted — The business of the scholar is the pursuit of truth. Pages 167 to 192.

Chapter XI. The Scientific Aspect Of Theosophy

Theosophy admits all laws discovered — Asserts existence of others — Ernest Haeckel on knowledge of the "Psyche" — Law of Substance — Conservation of Matter — Conservation of Energy — Conservation of Consciousness follows — "The Riddle of the Universe" by Haeckel — "Guesses at the Riddle of Existence" by Prof Goldwin Smith — The law of effort — Unity of affinity in the whole of nature — Prof. Lester F. Ward — Achievement his talismanic word — Effort a word to denote more — The Positivism of our day — The race not immortal — Faraday and Goethe quoted — The dead to rise again must be born again — Jowett's Plato — Prof. Max Muller on reincarnation — The French school of philosophers — Materialists and Idealists — The Theosophist an Idealist — Prof. Du Bois of the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale College — The creative power of mind — Spinoza — Tyndalls' address at Belfast 1874 — Promise and potency of every form of life in matter — Monism — Herbert Spencer — Professor Brinton — Romanes — Helmholtz — Paulsen — Dolbear — Ancient and Modern Physics — Thomas E. Willson late librarian New York World — Theosophical Forum — ■ Quotations from — The Sanscrit — India — Vedas — Evolution — Erroneous views held as to the "double" of man — The Missionary Bleek among the Bushmen — Minds disordered by religious excitement — Devachanic Planes — Intuition as direct knowledge — Prof. C. Lloyd Morgan of Bristol, Eng., on "Psychology and the Ego" — Theosophical Societies should devote renewed effort to the systematic study of Psychology — Churches will not instruct — Prof. Ladd of Yale — Theosophists do not "read science" into their system — They have it from the ancients — The Revival of Alchemy Occult Societies in Prance — Wendell Phillips on "Lost Arts" — Liebnitz — The Smithsonian Institution. Pages 193 to 214.

Chapter XII. Controverted Questions And Conclusions

"Disciples of Blavatsky" a wrong heading in a newspaper — Madame Blavatsky not the founder of Theosophy — It was well known to the Christian Fathers — Comments on Blavatsky — The Countess Wachmeister her companion during period of trial — Her pupils judges of her deportment — Theosophists disciples of nobody— The New York Journal on Immortality and Theosophists — An answer to same — As far back as human records go — A Sunday-school publication on the oldest books — An answer to same — The Egyptian Book of the Dead— The Four Vedas — The Zend-Avesta — Chinese Cyclopaedia — Ancient Nippur — Prof. Max Muller on oldest writings — On oldest thought — Theosophists of India on same lines — Gladstone on same search — The origin of Bible by Nehemiah — Colored by the priest Ezra — "Oracles of Truth" in India Sruta — Prof. Brinton quoted — Hymns in Public Schools — Theosophists opposed to thrones and kings as ideals for children — Un-American sentiment.

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Preface

This book was not written for Theosophists. The aim of the author is to reach the "man on the street" who has heard just enough of Theosophy to wish to know more, and who is, perhaps, overcharged with the misconceptions persistently flung by belligerents.

During the past six years the writer has voluntarily rendered service as Lecturer in Washington, Baltimore and elsewhere, and for three years as President of a Theosophical Society at the National Capital has answered questions prompted from many points of view. These questions form the basis for the reasoning in the following pages. There seems to be a uniformity of experience, judging from the interrogators, for nearly all state — "Theosophy as you teach it is not as we read it in the books." The explanation of the variation is attempted from the author's point of view, and his alone. The Theosophical Society is not bound by it, nor need any Theosophist agree to any statement made, unless, as Emerson taught, it "belongs to him."

The key to the whole effort may be discovered in the rebuke given by Prof. Max Muller: "Theosophy has been so greatly misapprehended that it was high time to restore it to its proper function." In this attempt to exalt the system of thought the irenical method is counseled, whereby it is sought to promote unity by magnifying the essentials and minimizing the non-essentials.

These essentials, which nave been adopted by all conflicting camps, are, The Perfectibility of Man; Reincarnation as the process which constantly yields an opportunity

xi for further perfectibility, and Karma, the law of cause and effect, compelling rebirth to attain perfectibility.

Theosophical writers are not quoted to sustain views presented, excepting Charles Johnston, M. R. A. S. of the Bengal Civil Service, Retired, and the Prize Sanscrit Scholar of India, and Dr. J. D. Buck, of Cincinnati, author of Mystic Masonry and other works.

Disinterested witnesses from the philosophical, scientific and religious domains of thought are liberally quoted. This is in accord with fundamental Theosophic teaching — "look for similarities, not differences."

The adoption of a new Constitution by the "Theosophical Society in America" at Indianapolis, April 30, 1901, after Chapter I had gone to press renders it necessary to add that, hereafter, all in sympathy with any of the principles of the society as outlined by three planks in the platform, may be admitted to membership. Also, incorporated in the organic law is the acknowledgment of the laity as paramount in sovereignty. An Executive Committee of seven, elected annually, will hereafter administer the affairs of the Society. This bars future factional disputes on the part of so-called "leaders." It also establishes a criterion for the individual: "Take Truth for authority, not authority for truth."

J. A. C.

- Washington, D. C, May, 1901.

xii

Chapter I. Three Planes In The Platform— Three Postu- Lates In The Philosophy

There are three planks in the platform of the Theosophical Society, founded at New York in 1875,

1st. The formation of a nucleus of universal brotherhood without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or color.

2d. The study of ancient and modern religions, philosophies and sciences.

3d. The investigation of the unexplained laws of nature and the psychic powers latent in man.

Several organized societies now exist, all the outgrowth of the one movement, and all keeping intact the same platform. The differentiation was caused mainly by contending opinions as to government and administration. Nevertheless whether from the "Headquarters in India," or its "American Section/' or from the "Theosophical Society in America" or any other center of affairs in Theosophical activities, the three planks in the platform serve to distinguish the school of thought in its outer expression from the traditionalism and dogmatisms under which the members were nurtured. If anything can be discovered in these stated objects of the Theosophical Societies which could warrant the unjust charge that the dissemination of such teaching is a wanton disturbance of faith, a further reassurance is offered in the proclamation adopted at the Convention of the "Theosophical Society in America" held at Boston, April, 1895:

"To all men and women of whatever caste, creed, race or religious belief, who aim at the fostering of peace, gentleness and unselfish regard one for another, and the acquisition of such knowledge of men and nature as shall tend to the elevation and advancement of the human race, it sends most friendly greeting and freely proffers its services.

"It joins hands with all religions and religious bodies whose efforts are directed to the purification of men's thoughts and the bettering of their ways, and it avows its harmony therewith.

"To all scientific societies and individual searchers after wisdom on whatever plane and by whatever righteous means pursued, it is and will be grateful for such discovery and unfoldment of the Truth as shall serve to announce and confirm a scientific basis for ethics.

And lastly, it invites to its membership those who, seeking a higher life hereafter, would learn to know the Path they tread in this."

As a further evidence of the oneness in soul-movement, Theosophical branches the world over retain the original motto in spirit and letter:

There is No Religion Higher than Truth. The organization, moreover, is wholly unsectarian, with no creed, dogma, or personal authority to enforce or impose; neither is it to be held responsible for the opinions of its members, who are expected to accord to the beliefs of others that tolerance which they demand for their own; and it will be fair to the reader of the following pages to announce that no member of a Theosophical Society is bound by views expressed herein. The point of view as set forth by the author is that which tallies with the truth as he discerns it; it is not claimed that it is truth absolute. No better test of sincerity and fairness is known in the Theosophical estimate than one's willingness to submit his own views to a just comparison with others. This is his standing in court. On this he rests his case.

Much of the confusion found in the publications of the day concerning Theosophy arises from the failure to discriminate between the three planks in the platform, and the Three Postulates of the philosophy. This is how it comes to pass that a member of the Theosophical Society need not be a Theosophist; need not adopt the system of thought which has distinctly marked itself as Theosophy. To enter the. society is to give adherence to but one obligation — that of a conscientious belief in human brotherhood. The Society does not pretend to be able to establish at once a universal brotherhood among men, but only strives to create the nucleus of such a body. Hence it is that in the membership of the Society, in its exoteric expression, are found adherents of all sects and denominations of all religions in the world. It is simply because underlying all faiths, is an inherent sympathy and compassion for the human race.

A Theosophist per se is distinguished from a member of the Society, as outlined above, by his adoption of a philosophy which contains the germs (as the adherents believe) of all the religions, philosophies and sciences known to man as far back as human records go, and consistent with the higher and growing thought of our epoch. This philosophy is expressed in the Secret Doctrine by Three Postulates:

1st. An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable Principle, on which all speculation is impracticable, since it transcends the power of human conception, and could only be dwarfed by any human expression or similitude. (This fundamental idea must be grasped and followed through varied forms of expression, under many names, and no other proposition can be entertained that is inconsistent with it. (Secret Doctrine, p. 14 Proem.)

2d. The eternity of the Universe in toto as a boundless plane, periodically the playground of numberless universes incessantly manifesting and disappearing, called the "manifesting stars" and the "sparks of eternity." The appearance and disapeparance of worlds is like a regular tidal ebb and flow, of flux and reflux. Herein is postulated the law of cycles, alike applicable to atoms or suns, to individual man, or to solar systems. (Secret Doctrine, p. 14 Proem) .

3d. The fundamental identity of all souls with the Universal Oversoul, the latter being an aspect of the Uncaused Cause, and the obligatory pilgrimage of every soul through the cycle of incarnation from the lowest plane of consciousness to the highest. (Secret Doctrine, p. 14 Proem) .

As Emerson expressed it, in conformity with the Third Postulate:

"And, striving to be man, the worm Mounts through all the spires of form."

And this again supplements the old saying in the arcane records of the East, as found in the Stanzas of the Book of Dyzan, an esoteric work formerly allowed only to the eyes of the initiated:

"Every entity in the universe, is, was, or prepares to become a man."

This esoteric teaching corresponding to the tenets of the ancient religions, sciences and philosophies proves that the doctrine of Evolution is older by thousands of years than Lamarck and Darwin. The ancient seers left it of record in this old esoteric book:

"The spark hangs from the flame by the finest thread of Fohat (energy). It stops in the first world of Maya (Change and Illusion), and is a metal and a stone; it passes into the second, and behold a plant; the plant whirls through seven changes and becomes an animal. From the combined attributes of these, Manu (man) the thinker is formed."

Emerson, a profound student in the ancient lore of Nature's finer forces, discovered for our modern thought, years before Darwin's "Origin of the Species" appeare-1, the law which expresses the supreme effort to evolve conscious life out of so-called inert material. The following extract attests his belief which is that of the scientific anrl philosophical Theosophist:

The fossil strata show us that Nature began with rudimental forms, and rose to the more complex as fast as the earth was fit for their dwelling-place; and that the lower perish as the higher appear. Very few of our race can be said to be yet finished men. We still carry sticking to us some remains of the preceding inferior quadruped organization. . . . The age of the quadruped is to go out, — the age of the brain and of the heart is to come in. And if one shall read the future of the race hinted in the organic effort of Nature to mount and meliorate, and the corresponding impulse to the Better in the human being, we shall dare affirm that there is nothing he will not overcome and convert, until at last culture shall absorb the chaos and gehenna. He will convert the Furies into Muses and the hells into benefit. — Culture.

Thus, everything in Theosophic thought points toward man. The very basic principle underlying the three planks in the platform, and the three postulates of the philosophy involves Man — the Perfectibility of Man. How? By due course of evolution. Can one life afford the opportunity to "mount and meliorate? The Theosophist reasons consistently, as he believes, that it will require many lives in succession before perfection is attained. These repeated incarnations are compelled by the law of Karma, which means action and reaction, cause and effect. The law of Karma is the broadest generalization known in the thought of the school.

So, the Perfectibility of Man, brought about through Reincarnation, which is compelled by Karma, gives the scope of Eastern philosophy and science a claim for a disinterested hearing. But the reader may ask — "Where does Religion obtain a status by such a formula?" The answer is, again — in the Perfectibility of Man! Religion, as defined by the teachings of the sages, is — "devotion to the highest goodness known to man." This devotiQn brings perfectibility. "What will you do with man's soul?" the inquirer insists. The answer is always ready in the teachings of the seers — ''Man has no soul; that would make the possessor and the possession a duality; man is a soul — that makes him a unity, an individuality. It is the soul that has a body, a covering; not the body possessing a soul as a property of matter. Imagine a student of the wisdom of the ages accepting the soul as a manufacture out of nothing at birth, a mere function or property of matter, instead of a growth by development!

This point of view may startle the reader who still clings to the incredible traditions and discredited apologetics of a faith nurtured in the darkest centuries of the Christian era, but it seems by the law of evolution, and the conception of a rational order in the universe that one must change one's point of view at every milestone reached on the upward ascent. As Lyman Abbott in behalf of the liberal Christians who hear him gladly, expresses it: