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    "num": 48,
    "slug": "50-xviii-summary-of-the-mutual-position-668",
    "title": "XVIII. SUMMARY OF THE MUTUAL POSITION ... 668",
    "of": 48,
    "words": 4315,
    "text": "## XVIII. SUMMARY OF THE MUTUAL POSITION ... 668\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, vol 1, bk 3, ch 18\n\n###### The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol.\n1\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 668 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n[[This page continued from previous section]]\n\n##### XVIII.\nSUMMARY OF THE MUTUAL POSITION.\n\n**T**HE reader has had the whole case presented to\nhim from both sides, and it remains with him to decide whether\nits summary stands in our favour or not. If there were such a\nthing as void, a *vacuum *in Nature, one would find it\nproduced, according to a physical law, in the minds of helpless\nadmirers of the \"lights\" of science, who pass their\ntime in mutually destroying their teachings. If ever the theory\nthat \"two lights make darkness\" found its application\nit is in this case, when one half of the \"lights\" imposes\nits Forces and \"modes of motion\" on the belief of the\nfaithful, and the other half opposes the very existence of the\nsame. \"Ether, Matter, Energy\" -- the sacred hypostatical\ntrinity, the three principles of the truly *unknown *God\nof Science, called by them **P**HYSICAL **N**ATURE!\n\nTheology is taken to task and ridiculed for believing in the union\nof three persons in one Godhead -- one God as to substance, three\npersons as to individuality; and we are laughed at for our belief\nin unproved and unprovable doctrines, in Angels and Devils, Gods\nand Spirits. And,\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 669 THE EXACT SCIENCES OF -- NEGATION.\n\nindeed, that which made the Scientists win the day over Theology\nin the Great \"Conflict between Religion and Science,\"\nwas precisely the argument that neither the identity of that substance,\nnor the triple individuality claimed, after having been conceived,\ninvented, and worked out in the depths of Theological Consciousness,\ncould be proved by any Scientific inductive process of reasoning,\nleast of all on the evidence of our senses. Religion must perish,\nit is said, because it teaches *mysteries. Mystery is the negation\nof Common Sense*,* *and Science repels it. According\nto Mr. Tyndall, metaphysics is *fiction*,* *like\npoetry. The man of Science *takes nothing on trust; *rejects\neverything *that is not proven to him*,* *while\nthe Theologian accepts *everything on blind faith. *The\nTheosophist and the Occultist, who take nothing on trust, not\neven *exact *Science, the Spiritualist who denies dogma\nbut believes in Spirits and in *invisible but potential influences*,*\n*all share in the same contempt. Very well, then; what we\nhave to do now, is to examine for the last time whether *exact\n*Science does not act precisely in the same way as Theosophy,\nSpiritualism, and Theology do.\n\nIn a work by Mr. S. Laing, considered a standard book on Science,\n\"Modern Science and Modern Thought,\" the author of which,\naccording to the laudatory review of the *Times*,* *\"exhibits\nwith much power and effect the immense discoveries of Science,\nand its numerous victories over old opinions, whenever THEY HAVE\nTHE RASHNESS TO CHALLENGE CONCLUSIONS WITH IT,\" one reads\nin chapter **III.**, \"On Matter,\" as follows:\n\n\"**W**HAT IS THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE COMPOSED\nOF? **ETHER**, **MATTER**, **ENERGY\"**\n. . . . . is the answer.\n\nWe stop to ask, \"What is Ether?\" And Mr. Laing answers\nin the name of Science: --\n\n\"*Ether is not actually known to us *BY ANY TEST OF\nWHICH THE SENSES CAN TAKE COGNIZANCE, *but is a* *sort\nof mathematical substance which *WE ARE COMPELLED TO ASSUME\n*in order to account for the phenomena of light and heat.*\"\n\nAnd [[sic]] what is matter? Do you know more about it than you\ndo about the \"hypothetical\" agent, Ether?\n\n\"*In perfect strictness*,* it is true that chemical\ninvestigations can tell us *. . . . NOTHING DIRECTLY *of\nthe composition of living matter*,* and *. . . . *it\nis also in strictness true*,* *THAT WE KNOW NOTHING\n*about the composition of *ANY* *(*material*)*\n*BODY WHATEVER AS IT IS.\" (*Lecture on Protoplasm\nby Mr. Huxley.*)\n\nAnd Energy? Surely you can define the third person of the Trinity\nof your Material universe?\n\n\"**T**HE **E**NERGY IS THAT WHICH\nIS ONLY KNOWN TO US BY ITS EFFECTS*.*\"* *(*Books\non Physics.*)\n\nPray explain, for this is rather hazy.\n\n\"**I**N MECHANICS THERE IS ACTUAL AND POTENTIAL ENERGY:\nWORK\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 670 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nACTUALLY PERFORMED, AND THE CAPACITY FOR PERFORMING IT. **A**S\nTO THE NATURE OF MOLECULAR **E**NERGY OR **F**ORCES, THE\nVARIOUS PHENOMENA WHICH BODIES PRESENT SHOW THAT THEIR MOLECULES\nARE UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF TWO CONTRARY FORCES -- ONE WHICH TENDS\nTO BRING THEM TOGETHER, THE OTHER TO SEPARATE THEM. . . . . **T**HE\nFIRST IS MOLECULAR ATTRACTION, THE SECOND FORCE IS DUE TO *vis\nviva*,* *OR MOVING FORCE.\" . . . *. *(*Ganot's\nPhysics*.)\n\nJust so: it is the nature of this *moving force*,* *the*\nvis viva *that we want to know. What is it? . . . . .\n\n\"**WE DO NOT KNOW**!\" IS THE INVARIABLE\nANSWER. \"**I**T IS AN EMPTY SHADOW OF MY IMAGINATION,\"\nexplains Mr. Huxley in his *Physical Basis of Life.*\n\nThus the whole structure of Modern Science is built on a kind\nof \"mathematical abstraction,\" on a Protean \"Substance\nwhich eludes the senses,\" (Dubois Reymond,) and on *effects*,*\n*the shadowy and illusive will-o'-the-wisps of a *something\n*entirely unknown to and beyond the reach of Science, \"*Self*-*moving*\"*\n*atoms!* Self*-*moving *Suns, planets, and stars!\nBut who, then, or *what *are they all, if they are self-endowed\nwith motion? Why then should you, physicists, laugh and deride\nour \"Self-moving *ARCHAEUS\"? *Mystery is rejected\nand scorned by Science, and* *\"*MYSTERY is the\nfatality of Science*,\"* *as Father Felix has truly\nsaid. . . . . Science *cannot *escape it!\" The language\nof the French preacher is *ours*,* *and we quote\nit in \"*Isis Unveiled*\"* *(*Vide *Vol.\nI. 338-9). Who -- he asks -- who of you, men of Science:\n\n\". . . . has been able to penetrate the secret of the formation\nof a body, the generation of a single atom? What is there, I will\nnot say at the centre of a sun, but at the centre of an atom?\nWho has sounded to the bottom the abyss in a grain of sand? The\ngrain of sand, gentlemen, has been studied four thousand years\nby science, she has turned and returned it; she divides it and\nsubdivides it; she torments it with her experiments; she vexes\nit with her questions to snatch from it the final word as to its\nsecret constitution; she asks it, with an insatiable curiosity:\n'Shall I divide thee infinitesimally?' Then suspended over this\nabyss, science hesitates, she stumbles, she feels dazzled, she\nbecomes dizzy, and in despair says: ***I DO NOT KNOW****.*\"\n\n\"But if you are so fatally ignorant of the genesis and hidden\nnature of a grain of sand, how should you have an intuition as\nto the generation of a single living being? Whence in the living\nbeing does life come? Where does it commence? What is the life\nprinciple?\"*\n\nDo the men of science deny all these charges? Not at all, for\nhere is a confession of Tyndall, which shows how powerless is\nscience, even over the world of matter.\n\n\"The first marshalling of the atoms, on which all subsequent\naction depends,\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* \"Le Mystere et la Science,\" Conferences, *Pere\nFelix* *de Notre Dame*; des Mousseaux: \"*Hauts\nPhen. Magiques.*\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 671 NO VOID POSSIBLE.\n\nbaffles a keener power than that of the microscope.\" \"Through\npure excess of complexity, and long before observation can have\nany voice in the matter, the most highly trained intellect, the\nmost refined and disciplined imagination, *retires in bewilderment\nfrom the contemplation of the problem. *We are struck dumb\nby an astonishment which no microscope can relieve, doubting not\nonly the power of our instrument, but even whether we ourselves\npossess the intellectual elements which will ever enable us to\ngrapple with the ultimate structural energies of nature.\"\n\nHow little is known of the material universe, indeed, has now\nbeen suspected for years, on the very admissions of these men\nof science themselves. And now there are some materialists who\nwould even make away with Ether -- or whatever Science calls the\ninfinite Substance, the noumenon of which the Buddhists call Swabhavat\n-- as well as with atoms, too dangerous both on account of their\nancient philosophical and their present Christian and theological\nassociations. From the earliest philosophers whose records passed\nto posterity, down to our present age, which, if it denies \"invisible\nBeings\" in Space, can never be so insane as to deny a *plenum\n*of some sort -- the* fulness *of the universe was\nan accepted belief. And what it was said to contain, one learns\nfrom Hermes Trismegistus (in Mrs. Kingsford's able rendering)\n-- who is made to say: --\n\n\"Concerning the void . . . my judgment is that it does not\nexist, that it never existed, and that it never will exist, for\nall the various parts of the universe are filled, as the earth\nalso is complete and full of bodies, differing in quality and\nin form, having their species and their magnitude, one larger,\none smaller, one solid, one tenuous. The larger . . . are easily\nperceived; the smaller . . . are difficult to apprehend, or altogether\ninvisible. We know only of their existence by the sensation of\nfeeling, wherefore *many persons deny such entities to be bodies*,*\nand regard them as simply spaces*,** *but it is impossible\nthere should be such spaces. For if indeed there should be anything\noutside the universe . . . then it would be a space occupied by\nintelligent beings analogous to its (the universe's) divinity\n. . . . . . I speak of the genii, for I hold they dwell with us,\nand of the heroes who dwell above us, between the earth and the\nhighest airs; wherein are neither clouds nor any tempest\"\n(p. 84).\n\nAnd we \"hold\" it too. Only, as already remarked, no\nEastern Initiate would speak of spheres \"*above *us,\nbetween the earth and the\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Behold the work of Cycles and their periodical return! Those\nwho denied such \"Entities\" (Forces) to be bodies, and\ncalled them \"Spaces,\" were the prototypes of our modern\n\"Science-struck\" public, and their official teachers,\nwho speak of the Forces of nature as the imponderable energy of\nmatter and modes of motion, and yet bold electricity (for one)\nas being as *atomic as matter *itself -- (Helmholtz). Inconsistency\nand contradiction reign as much in official as in heterodox Science.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 672 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nairs,\" even the highest, as there is no such division or\nmeasurement in *occult *speech, no \"*above*\"*\n*as no \"*below*,\"* *but an eternal\n\"within,\" *within two other withins*,* *or\nthe planes of subjectivity merging gradually into that of terrestrial\nobjectivity -- this being for *man *the last one, his own\nplane. This necessary explanation may be closed here by giving,\nin the words of Hermes, the belief on this particular point of\nthe whole world of mystics: --\n\n\"There are many orders of the gods; and in all there is an\nintelligent part. It is not to be supposed they do not come within\nthe range of our senses; on the contrary, we perceive them, better\neven than those which are called visible. . . There are then gods,\nsuperior to all appearances; after them come the gods whose principle\nis spiritual; these gods being sensible, in conformity with their\ndouble origin, *manifest all things *by a sensible nature,\neach of them illuminating his works one by another.* The Supreme\nBeing of Heaven, or of all that is comprehended under this name,\nis Zeus, for it is by Heaven that Zeus gives life to all things.\nThe Supreme Being of *the Sun* *is Light*,* *for\nit is by the disk of the Sun that we receive the benefit of the\nlight. The thirty-six horoscopes of the fixed stars have for supreme\nBeing or Prince, him whose name is *Pantomorphos*,* *or\nhaving all forms, because he gives divine forms to divers types.\nThe seven planets, or wandering spheres, have for Supreme Spirits\nFortune and Destiny, who uphold the eternal stability of the laws\nof nature throughout incessant transformation and perpetual agitation.\nThe ether is the instrument or medium by which all is produced.\"\n\nThis is quite philosophical and in accordance with the spirit\nof Eastern esotericism: for all the Forces, such as Light, Heat,\nElectricity, etc., etc., are called the \"Gods\" -- esoterically.\n\nIt must be so, since the esoteric teachings in Egypt and India\nwere identical. And, therefore, the personification of *Fohat\n*synthesizing all the manifesting forces in nature is a legitimate\nresult. Moreover, as will be shown in the division that follows\nthis one, the real and *Occult *forces in nature only now\nbegin to be known -- and even in this case, by heterodox, not\northodox, Science (*See also *§ X., **T**HE\n**C**OMING **F**ORCE), though their\nexistence, in one instance at any rate, is corroborated, and certified\nto by an immense number of educated people and even by some official\nmen of science.\n\nThis sentence, moreover, in Stanza **VI**., \"Fohat sets\nin motion the primordial World-germs, or the aggregation of Cosmic\natoms and matter, some one way, some another, in the opposite\ndirection\" -- looks orthodox and Scientific enough. For there\nis, at all events, one fact in support of this position fully\nrecognized by Science, and it is this. The meteoric showers (periodical\nin November and August) belong to\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* \"Hermes here includes as gods the *sensible Forces *of\nnature, the elements and the phenomena of the Universe,\"\nremarks Mrs. A. Kingsford in a foot-note explaining it very correctly.\nSo does Eastern philosophy.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 673 THE ALIASES OF FOHAT.\n\na system moving in an elliptical orbit around the Sun. The aphelion\nof this ring is 1,732 millions of miles beyond the orbit of Neptune,\nits plane is inclined to the Earth's orbit at an angle of 64 [[degrees]]\n3', and the direction of the meteoric swarm moving round this\norbit *is contrary to that of the Earth*'*s revolution.*\n\nThis fact, recognized only in 1833, shows it to be the modern\nrediscovery of what was very anciently known. *Fohat *turns\nwith his two hands in contrary directions the \"seed\"\nand \"the curds,\" or Cosmic matter; is turning, in clearer\nlanguage, particles in a highly attenuated condition, and nebulae.\n\nOutside the boundaries of the solar system, it is other Suns,\nand especially the mysterious \"central Sun\" (the \"Abode\nof the invisible deity\" as some reverend gentlemen have called\nit) that determines the motion of bodies and their direction.\nThat motion serves also to differentiate the homogeneous matter,\nround and between the several bodies, into elements and sub-elements\nunknown to our earth, which are regarded by modern Science as\ndistinct individual elements, whereas they are merely temporary\nappearances, changing with every small cycle within the Manvantara,\nsome Esoteric works calling them \"Kalpic Masks.\"\n\n*Fohat *is the key in Occultism which opens and unriddles\nthe multiform symbols and respective allegories in the so-called\nmythology of every nation; demonstrating the wonderful philosophy\nand the deep insight into the mysteries of nature, in the Egyptian\nand Chaldean as well as in the Aryan religions. Fohat, shown in\nhis true character, proves how deeply versed were all those prehistoric\nnations in every science of nature, now called physical and chemical\nbranches of natural philosophy. In India, Fohat is the scientific\naspect of both Vishnu and Indra, the latter older and more important\nin the Rig Veda than his sectarian successor; while in Egypt Fohat\nwas known as Toum issued of Noot,* or Osiris in his character\nof a primordial god, creator of heaven and of beings (see chapter\nxvii., \"*Book of the Dead*\")*. *For*\nToum *is spoken of as the *Protean *god who *generates\nother gods *and gives himself the form he likes; the \"master\nof life\" \"giving their vigour to the gods\" (chapter\nlxxix.) He is the *overseer *of the gods, and he \"who\ncreates spirits and gives them shape and life\"; he is \"the\n*north wind *and the *spirit of the west*;\"*\n*and finally the \"Setting Sun of Life,\" or the vital\nelectric force that leaves the body at death, wherefore the *defunct\n*begs that Toum should give him the breath from his *right\n*nostril (positive elec-\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* \"Oh Toum, Toum! issued from the great (female) which is\nin the bosom of the waters\" (the great Deep or *Space*)*\n. *. . \"Thou, luminous through the *two Lions*\"*\n*(the dual Force or power of the two *solar eyes*,*\n*or the electro-positive and the electro-negative forces.\n(See *Book of* *the Dead*,* III.*,* *and\n*Egyptian Pantheon*,* *chapter ii.)\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 674 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\ntricity) that he might live in his *second *form. Both\nthe hieroglyph, and the text of chapter lxii. in the \"*Book\nof the Dead*,\"* *show the identity of Toum with\nFohat. The former represents a man standing erect with the hieroglyph\n*of the breaths *in his hands. The latter says: --\n\n\"I open to the chief of An (Heliopolis), I am Toum. I cross\nthe water spilt by Thot-Hapi, the lord of the horizon, and am\nthe *divider of the earth*\"* *(Fohat divides Space\nand, with his *Sons*,* *the earth into seven zones)\n. . . .\n\n. . . . \"I cross the heavens, and am the two Lions. I am\n*Ra*, I am *Aam*,* *I ate my heir.* . . . . I glide\non the soil of the field of *Aanroo*,*** *given me by\nthe master of limitless eternity. I am the germ of eternity. I\nam Toum, to whom eternity is accorded. . . . \"\n\nThe very words used by Fohat in the **XI**th Book, and the\nvery titles given him. In the Egyptian Papyri the whole Cosmogony\nof the Secret Doctrine is found scattered about in isolated sentences,\neven in the \"Book of Dead.\" Number seven is quite as\nmuch insisted upon and emphasized therein as in the *Book of\nDzyan. *\"The Great Water (the Deep or Chaos) is said\nto be *seven *cubits deep\" -- \"cubits\" standing\nhere of course for divisions, zones, and principles. Therein,\n\"in the great mother, all the Gods, and the *seven great\nones *are born.\" (See chapter cviii., 4, *Book of\nthe Dead *and* Egyptian Pantheon*)*. *Both Fohat\nand Toum are addressed as the \"Great ones of the Seven Magic\nForces,\" who, \"conquer the Serpent *Apap*\"*\n*or Matter.\n\nNo student of occultism, however, ought to be betrayed, by the\nusual phraseology used in the translations of Hermetic Works,\ninto believing that the ancient Egyptians or Greeks spoke of,\nand referred, monk-like, at every moment in conversation, to a\nSupreme Being, God, the \"One Father and Creator of all,\"\netc., as found on every page of such translations. No such thing\nindeed; and those texts *are not the original Egyptian *texts.\nThey are Greek compilations, the earliest of which does not go\nbeyond the early period of Neo-Platonism. No Hermetic\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* An image expressing the succession of divine functions, the\nsubstitution from one form into another, or the *correlation\nof forces. Aam *is the electro-positive force, devouring all\nothers as Saturn devoured his progeny.\n\n*** Aanroo *is in the domain of Osiris, a field divided\ninto *fourteen *sections \"surrounded with an *iron*\nenclosure, within which grows the *corn of life seven *cubits\nhigh,\" the *Kama*-*loka *of the Egyptians.\nThose only of the dead, who know the names of the janitors of\nthe \"seven halls,\" will be admitted into Amenti *for\never; i.e.*,* *those who have passed through the seven\nraces of each round -- otherwise they will rest in the *lower\nfields; *\"and it represents also the seven successive\nDevachans, or *lokas. *In* *Amenti, one becomes\npure spirit for the eternity (xxx. 4.); while in *Aanroo *\"the\nsoul of the spirit,\" or the defunct, is *devoured *each\ntime by *Uraeus *--* *the Serpent, Son of the earth\n(in another sense the primordial vital principles in the Sun),\n*i.e.*, the Astral body of the deceased or the \"Elementary\"\nfades out and disappears in the \"Son of the earth,\"\n*limited *time. The soul quits the fields of Aanroo and\ngoes on earth under any shape it likes to assume. (See chapter\nxcix., *Book of the Dead.*)\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 675 THE GODS OF EGYPT.\n\nwork written by Egyptians (*vide* \"Book of the Dead\")\nwould speak of the one universal God of the Monotheistic systems\n-- the one *Absolute *cause of all, was as unnameable and\nunpronounceable in the mind of the ancient philosopher of Egypt,\nas it is for ever *Unknowable *in the conception of Mr.\nHerbert Spencer. As for the Egyptian in general, as M. Maspero\nwell remarks, whenever he \"arrived at the notion of divine\nUnity, the God One was never 'God,' simply.\" And Lepage Renouf\nvery justly observed that the word *Nouter*,* nouti*,*\n*\"god\" had never ceased *being a generic name\n*with the Egyptians, nor has it ever become a personal pronoun.\nEvery God was the \"one living and unique God\" with them.\nTheir \"monotheism was purely geographical. If the Egyptian\nof Memphis proclaimed the unity of Phtah to the exclusion of Ammon,\nthe Thebeian Egyptian proclaimed the unity of Ammon to the exclusion\nof Phtah,\" as we now see done in India in the case of the\nSaivas and the Vaishnavas. \"*Ra*, the 'One God' at\nHeliopolis is not the same as Osiris, the 'One God' at Abydos,\nand can be worshipped side by side with him, without being absorbed\nby his neighbour. The one god is but the god of the *nome *or\nthe city,* noutir*,* noutti*,* *and does\nnot exclude the existence of the one god of that town or of the\nneighbouring nome. In short, whenever speaking of Egyptian Monotheism,\none ought to speak of the Gods '*One*'* *of Egypt,\nand not of the one god\" (Maspero, in the *Guide au Musee\nde Boulak.) *It is by this feature, pre-eminently Egyptian,\nthat the authenticity of the various so-called *Hermetic Books*,*\n*ought to be tested; and it is totally absent from the Greek\nfragments known as such. This proves that a Greek Neo-Platonic,\nor even a Christian hand, had no small share in the editing of\nsuch works. Of course the fundamental philosophy is there, and\nin many a place -- intact. But the style has been altered and\nsmoothed in a monotheistic direction, as much, if not more than\nthat of the Hebrew Genesis in its Greek and Latin translations.\nThey *may *be* Hermetic *works, but not works written\nby either of the two Hermes -- or rather, by Thot (Hermes) the\ndirecting intelligence of the Universe (*See ch. xciv.*,*\nBook of the Dead*),* *or by Thot, his terrestrial incarnation\ncalled Trismegistus, of the Rosetta stone.\n\nBut all is doubt, negation, iconoclasm and brutal indifference,\nin our age of the hundred \"isms\" and no religion. Every\nidol is broken save the Golden Calf.\n\nUnfortunately, no nation or nations can escape their Karmic fate\nany more than units and individuals do. History itself is dealt\nwith by the so-called historians as unscrupulously as legendary\nlore. For this, Augustin Thierry has made the *amende honorable*,*\n*if one may believe his biographers. He deplored the erroneous\nprinciple that made them all (the *would*-*be *historiographers)\nlose their way, and each presume to\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 676 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\ncorrect tradition, \"that *vox populi *which nine times\nout of ten is* vox Dei*;\"* *and he finally\nadmitted that *in legend alone rests real history; *for\n\"legend,\" he adds, \"is *living* tradition,\nand three times out of four it is truer than what we call History.\"*\n\nWhile Materialists deny everything in the universe, save matter,\nArchaeologists are trying to dwarf antiquity, and seek to destroy\nevery claim to ancient Wisdom by tampering with Chronology. Our\npresent-day Orientalists and Historical writers are to ancient\nHistory that which the white ants are to the buildings in India.\nMore dangerous even than those Termites, the modern Archaeologists\n-- the \"authorities\" of the future in the matter of\nUniversal History -- are preparing for the History of past nations\nthe fate of certain edifices in tropical countries: \"History\nwill tumble down and break into atoms in the lap of the twentieth\ncentury, devoured to its foundations by her annalists,\" said\nMichelet. Very soon, indeed, under their combined efforts, it\nwill share the fate of those ruined cities in both Americas, which\nlie deeply buried under impassable virgin forests. Historical\nfacts will remain as concealed from view by the inextricable jungles\nof modern hypotheses, denials and scepticism. But very happily\n*actual *History repeats herself, for she proceeds, like\neverything else, in cycles; and dead facts and events deliberately\ndrowned in the sea of modern scepticism will ascend once more\nand reappear on the surface. . . .\n\nIn our Book II. the very fact that a work with pretensions to\nphilosophy, and which is an exposition of the most abstruse problems,\nhas to be commenced by tracing the evolution of mankind from what\n*are *regarded as supernatural beings -- *Spirits *--*\n*will arouse the most malevolent criticism. Believers in,\nand the defenders of, the Secret Doctrine, however, will have\nto bear the accusation of madness *and worse*,* *as*\n*philosophically as for long years already the writer has\ndone. Whenever a Theosophist is taxed with insanity, he ought\nto reply by quoting from Montesquieu's \"*Lettres Persanes.*\"*\n*\"By opening so freely their lunatic asylums to their\nsupposed madmen, men only seek to assure each other that they\nare not themselves mad.\"\n\n[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------\n\n** Revue des Deux Mondes*,* *1865,* pp*.\n157 *and *158.\n\n**E**ND OF **V**OL. **I**.\n\nContents",
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