Chapter III: The Teachings (11)

_Ex nihilo nihil fit_--from nothing nothing is made. Nineteenth century science has succeeded in proving what the world's thinkers have long believed. Matter and energy are indestructible. "Creation" in the sense of manufacture out of nothing is unthinkable. If the soul is one with the Universal Energy, "it is not a thing of which a man may say, 'It hath been, it is about to be, or is to be hereafter,' for it is without birth and meeteth not death." "Nature is nothing less than the ladder of resurrection, which step by step leads upward." The eternal Soul, now linked to a mortal body, has lived before and will live hereafter.

The last and most important of the logical imperatives demanding a belief in reincarnation is the thesis: Immortality of soul demands complete eternity of soul. That which has a beginning, of necessity has an end. The child is born, grows into youth and manhood, lives its life, but it dies. Death's fingers clutch at birth. That which is born is mortal. Thus the soul must be birthless if it is to be deathless. It must have lived before its present body and it will outlive any body which it may hereafter enliven. Reincarnation is merely the natural corollary to eternity.

Let us now turn to the practical considerations reinforcing our belief. Even when discouraged we feel that life has a purpose and a meaning. This is, to keep adding to experience and to knowledge. The amount actually experienced and learned within the limits of a single life is so small in comparison with the possibilities of experience and knowledge that it can only serve as an introduction into deeper mysteries. The scholar does not graduate until he has fulfilled the requirements of a definite standard. The knowledge and experience of one life is surely too low a standard to admit of graduation from earth. Our globe is a school and the souls are the scholars. What is once gained is never lost. "Be ye perfect even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect." Think of the hope! An infinite future with the possibility of an infinite progress in knowledge and attainment!

Ambition, zeal, and love, demand an infinity to express themselves. Love of work, love of learning, love of loved ones, presuppose by their existence the complete eternity of the Soul. So, too, all our impulses which tend toward expansion and increase, all those which break loose from the present into the expanse of the future, require that the soul be immortal and consequently eternal.

Notice, aside from logic, what a belief in rebirth and in the eternity of the Soul, means. It gives hope in the perfectibility of man, inspiration in his divinity, and comfort in the trials of life, trials that are just and capable of teaching greater knowledge. There is no inspiration which in the future cannot be attained by honest effort. These are a few of the blessings which the philosophy of Theosophy has to offer to you and to me, a philosophy of soul-evolution that is an ever-present help in trouble, one that is both logical and practical, a "religious science, and a scientific religion." Search within yourself and listen to the message of Theosophy: Truth

takes no rise
From outward things, whate'er you may believe;
There is an inmost center in us all,
Where truth abides in fulness.

THE VICTORY OF THE DIVINE IN MAN: by Rev. S. J. Neill

Nothing moves on with even flow. It seems to be inherent in the very nature of the universe that there should be ripples in the great Life-Current of Existence, just as there are waves in the sea. A well-known scientist once asked me if I had ever noticed how a stream of water, perfectly smooth, apparently flowing over a sheet of quite smooth glass would nevertheless produce ripples. There is no known explanation of this except it be that the water at its source had received unequal impulse which it never lost. So in the universe, the great impulse of the Creative Word in manifestation stamps cyclic law on all things. We see this in the coming and going of the seasons; in the recurrence of day and night; in the ebb and flow of the sea. Human life too, is made up of cycles great and small. The seven ages of human life, mentioned by Shakespeare, are distinctly marked. The four ages corresponding to the changing seasons of the year, are also well known.

The wise note and take advantage of cyclic law. To educate during the time of youth is like sowing seed in the springtime. Many people have distinct moods at certain times: at one time they are happy, hopeful, buoyant; at another time they are miserable and despondent. No doubt much of this moodiness is the result of people allowing themselves to drift. We can, if we _will strongly enough_, rise above this condition of things. We can cast out the morose, sullen, discontented states of mind, and make the character firm and strong, calm and hopeful. We can cultivate a good temper and a sunny atmosphere. Just as man can make a clearing in the forest or on the hillside, so we can make a clearance within our minds and in our mental atmosphere. And the happy feeling thus produced will be part of the harvest we shall reap, for it will return and return, it will become cyclic, until at last it will be most truly natural for us to dwell in light and sunshine. And we ourselves shall be producers of light and sunshine. Joy and peace will attend our steps, and wherever we come it will be a sunny place.

We can do this; we can rise above circumstances and control them because at the center of our being the Light of Life ever shines forth. Dwelling in Time, and therefore to some extent subject to heat and cold, summer and winter, joy and sorrow, we can, nevertheless, rise above these things. We can create surroundings for ourselves. The more we are truly alive the more we shall be able to do this. It may be that the birds by some act of will, to them as simple as breathing, can change their polarity and thus remain poised in air without a motion. It should be possible, and it is possible, for us to change our moral or spiritual polarity when we will, and rise above all terrestrial attractions. All holy scriptures regard this as certain. The _Bhagavad-Gîtâ_ on nearly every page speaks of man overcoming his lower nature and being master of circumstances. The Bible teaches the same thing: "Cease to do evil; learn to do well." "Resist the Devil and he will flee from you." "Overcome evil with good." "Do good hoping for nothing again." Jesus treats his disciples as men who have within them a divine possibility, and says: "Where I am, there shall ye be also."

There is much darkness in the world, much evil; but we can lessen it; we can to some extent remove it and annihilate it; and in the end we can, if we so will, produce the reign of light everywhere.

As the moral sense in us is more and more sensitive we shall regard many things as wrong which now we do not so regard. Just as we now regard many things as wrong which people in a less advanced stage do not regard as evil at all. The brighter the light, the deeper the shadows. In this sense Light and Dark are the world's Eternal ways. But a time will come when, as St. Paul says, "Mortality will be swallowed up of Life"; when the Great Light will shine so fully within us and around us that there will be nothing to cast a shadow.

Is this not some of the meaning of such places as that in the book of Revelation, where it says, "and there shall be no night there; and they need no lamp, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light"? Or as we read in the _Gitâ_, "neither the sun nor the moon nor the fire enlighteneth that place; from it there is no return; it is my supreme abode." It is also written that "the path of the just is as a shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day."

Surely all this means, if words mean anything, that perfection can be and will be reached; and that even here a large degree of perfection may be attained. "Each victory will help us some other to win." Each step we mount upward over our lower selves gives us a wider horizon and a heavenlier air to breathe. The foes we slay today, we shall never have to fight again. We not only become stronger but we become _much stronger relatively_ as our foes are weaker and fewer.

The more we live with perfect unselfishness then the more we come into the "Path of the Just." But if we do good things even, looking for the reward, we do not take the highest path. It is much to understand the nature of these two paths, for it is written: "Knowing these two paths, O Son of Prithâ, the man of meditation is not deluded." Or, in other words, though we dwell in Time, and our lower nature belongs to it, yet in our inmost and only true Self, we belong, not to Time, but to the Eternal; that is our Home and Place of Peace always.

The man who retires often to this fortress, to this place of peace, though he may have to pass through much suffering, will be raised above its destroying influence. Like the three Hebrews in the fiery furnace he will pass through the fire of affliction and not a hair will be singed nor even the smell of fire be on his garments.

We are assured that Nirvâna is on both sides of death. We can take the highest path now, and the sooner we take it the sooner shall we reach the goal. So bright a hope should give us greater strength.

ANCIENT AMERICA: by an Archaeologist

Like an oasis in a desert, like a moment of silence and a sound of distant bells amid a din of discordant sounds, comes a brief note on prehistoric America in the midst of a monthly review devoted to a résumé of the Babel of modern thought. Bewildered with foolish spite of party politics, disgusted with lucubrations on "The Coming Christ," and a new Elixir of Life discovered in Africa, the reader achieves a moment of silence and inward joy inspired by this paragraph on an ancient City of the Sun, with its illustrations of the sublime architecture and sculpture of that epoch. These pictures inspire a reverence, similar in nature, if different in quality, to that which the ancient classical architecture and statues inspire; it is more akin to that inspired by ancient Egypt. It speaks of a _spirit_, so different from any that pervades our modern life, yet arousing in the soul a response as of something familiar--familiar but very deep and ancient.

We read that in the _Bulletin of the Pan-American Union_ a writer describes Chichén Itzá. The Itzás were a tribe of the Mayas, whose civilization reached a height equaled by no other people of the Western hemisphere. They excelled in architecture, sculpture, printing, and astronomy. The pyramid on which the temple stands is 195 feet long on each side at the base and covers nearly an acre. It is made of nine terraces of faced masonry. Up the center of each of its four sides rises a stairway thirty-seven feet wide. A picture of a temple façade, in rectangular massive style like that of Egypt and covered with elaborate symbolic carving, while up from the roof rise tropical plants that have grown there, is labeled, "View of an Ancient Monastery" (so-called). The impression it gives is anything but that given by the idea of a monastery. Its spirit is alien to that of any spirit familiar to the times in which monasteries have prevailed.

It is awe-inspiring to think that this continent of America has behind it such a past, more ancient than Egypt, as great and perhaps greater. The Red Men must, many of them at least, be the remote descendants of this past.

There is something about their physiognomy that reminds us of the faces on the ancient pottery and carving; a broad-featured bronzed type--what one might call a solar type. Peoples like the Zuñis and Moquis have mysteries, into which but few white men have even partially penetrated; which shows they are the remnants of a once greater race, a part of whose knowledge they preserve in memory.

This subject of ancient America has not yet received from archaeologists the attention it deserves. Nevertheless there are explorers who study in this field, and the results of their researches are frequently written up for the Sunday editions. In this way the public gets acquainted with the subject independently of academical instruction. Such periodicals as the _National Geographical Magazine_ and _Records of the Past_ often give beautiful illustrated accounts of the ruins.

Thus we read that Dr. Max Uhle, director of the University of California's archaeological work in Peru, has discovered that a great civilization flourished at least 2000 years before the Incas, and that a highly cultured race was in existence in Peru before the Trojan war.

In Guerrero, Mexico, in a region south of the Balsas River, over an area of fifty square miles, there are remains of thousands of prehistoric dwellings and scores of pyramids. The sculptured tablets bear the usual mystic geometrical symbols of the ancient Science of Life.

A mining engineer, Mr. A. Lafave, is reported to have discovered in Arizona a prehistoric city older than Babylon or Nineveh, but nevertheless the center of a civilization very highly advanced. Great architectural skill is shown, and the symbol of what is called a sun-god was found.

The British Museum recently acquired the collection of pottery and other relics discovered by Mr. Hubert Myring in the Chimcana Valley of Peru and stated by him to be at the lowest estimate 7000 years old. Yet this pottery shows the highest possible degree of skill, while the subjects represented prove that the artists had the materials of a highly cultured and complex civilization to draw upon.

In Ecuador Dr. Marshall H. Saville of Columbia University discovered many tombs, and the objects collected show that the district was densely populated by a highly civilized people.

Writing from New Orleans, May 13, Charles F. Lummis of Los Angeles records his excavations at Quiriguá, Guatemala. A trackless jungle had to be cleared, and numerous monuments of heroic size were found; one was twenty-six feet above ground and sixteen feet below and weighed about 140,000 pounds. The greatest discovery was a palace which must have been magnificent. It was surrounded by columns and the frieze was covered with carved heads.

The ruined temples of Palenque, Uxmal, Chichén Itzá, etc., have often been described. The mysterious hieroglyphics of the Mayas have yet to be deciphered; and when they are we shall have another epoch-making revelation like that following the deciphering of the Egyptian hieroglyphics by Champollion.

Dr. Heath, a writer on Peruvian Antiquities, gives an account of the incredible size and quantity of the ruins, from which the following is selected. (See _Kansas City Review of Science and Industry_, Nov. 1878)

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 ... 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.... 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 by 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.... These stones ... vary from one-half cubic foot to 1500 cubic feet of solid contents, and if in the many many millions of stones you could find one that would fit in the place of another, it would be purely accidental.

Speaking of the terraces, he says:

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

The mention of hieroglyphs yet undeciphered, which may any day prove the key to a new revelation of history, receives apposite illustration in an article in the _Los Angeles Times_ (Sunday magazine edition) for May 14. This describes the discovery of several cylinders, resembling the clay cylinders of Babylonian civilization, which have been deciphered; and it is thought that these may prove the Rosetta stone of American Egypt. They are about three inches long by an inch and a half in diameter, hollow, the walls a quarter of an inch thick. The clay has turned to stone, thus being preserved, and the inscriptions repeat hieroglyphs known to correspond to familiar phrases.

The account in which this occurs is that of a discovery made by Prof. William Niven, a field archaeologist of Mexico City; and his statements as to the age and value of his finds are confirmed by Dr. Edward E. Seler, head of the National School of Archaeology of the Republic of Mexico. The latter authority declares the ruins and relics to be the evidences of a civilization new to archaeology, though bearing some resemblance to the ruins of the Tigris and Euphrates. This center of civilization lies about forty minutes' ride from Mexico City, under the suburb of Azcapotzalco.

It is eighteen feet beneath the surface, and from it have been produced pottery of a type different from any hitherto found in Mexico, an entire goldsmith's outfit with patterns and molds for the making of ornaments of gold and silver, pendants and rings and beads of jade, copper knives _which cut like steel_, skulls containing teeth whose cavities are filled with cement and turquoise, the cylinders just mentioned, and many other objects.

These things were found in an immense basin containing the ruins of a city some ten miles long by three or four wide. Its houses were of laid stone, cemented with a white cement, unlike the black cement of Mitla or the gray composition of Palenque. The rooms were of uniform height--nine feet; the floors of tile--or, rather, of small squares of cement, colored and traced in beautiful patterns; the walls ornamented with frescoes and friezes showing a remarkable development of the color art. _Paints used on these buildings, though evidently of vegetable composition and more than 3000 years old, are fresh and do not fade when exposed to light._

The skulls and arrowheads found in the soil above are similar to those found in other parts, and relate to peoples having no connexion with the occupants of this ancient city. Does not this prove that so-called "primitive man" was merely odd tribes of lowly nomads or settlers, belonging to fallen remnants of earlier civilizations; whereas many anthropologists seem to try to make out that they represent an earlier stage in evolution? This ancient city flourished long before the owners of the skulls and arrow-heads. All through the period of Aztec civilization it lay buried and unsuspected by the Aztecs.

The great age of this civilization is amply proved by the fact that the city was buried under the wash of a great river that came down from the mountains. Geological considerations enable us to fix the date of that river back beyond other changes that have taken place in the ground since. Hence the city must be older still. And even before this flood the city was probably already abandoned--through pestilence, war, or some such cause. It was quite by accident that it was found; the exploring party chanced to step into a cave-in. It lies beneath the thick and long-cultivated residual soil, and consequently there may be an indefinite number of such cities almost anywhere.

Among objects found was _a dental cast of a human mouth_.

The more we discover, the more do we confirm the teaching that civilization is not of recent growth. The older the civilization, the more advanced--this seems to be the rule everywhere. Clearly the arts of modern civilization have been known before and we are but rediscoverers of them.

We might go on quoting indefinitely, but must pass on to comment. It is very clear that these mighty builders, whose achievements have never since been equaled or even approached by any race in any part of the world were no barbarians or "primitive men." And we have to remember that it is not only from America that such archaeological accounts come, but from Asia, Africa, Europe, New Zealand--practically everywhere. And always one tale is the same--that of ancient civilizations and their prowess. Only recently the discoveries in Crete have altered all our views of Greek history by showing the existence of a great and widespread civilization in the Aegean, far preceding that of Greece.

And side by side with all this we find the extraordinary fact that many anthropologists are still deeply engaged in their attempts to establish a gradual ascent of man from ape ancestors. Ignoring these evidences, they are diligently seeking and collecting the bones of unburied wanderers. But even these bones do not bear out the theory, for the older bones are no more ape-like than the later ones. Men exist on earth today, even among civilized peoples, as backward in type as these bones. What is quite certain is that man degenerates as well as evolves. Culture moves in waves, having ebbs and flows. The so-called aboriginal peoples are the remote and degenerated descendants of civilizations.

But what is the real import of these discoveries? Are they mere subjects of curiosity and wonder? No; the interest lies in what they imply. For if there is to be any coherence in our views, we must make the rest of our ideas agree with our enlarged view of past history. And the conventional views of man and his life do not thus agree; they are too insignificant, and out of tune with increasing knowledge.

THE PARABLE OF THE CRUCIFIXION:

by Cranstone Woodhead

For nearly two thousand years the story of the Crucifixion which we find in the four Gospels of the New Testament has appealed in various ways to the deepest and most sacred feelings of the human heart. Yet it may possibly be questioned whether its history and deeper meaning have been entirely comprehended by more than a very small fraction of those who have fashioned the framework of their lives and aspirations upon the tragic story.

Before attempting the explanation which modern enlightenment and research have thrown upon this deeper meaning, it may be useful to consider what we really know of the origin of the gospels themselves; for the investigations of the last half century or so, have thrown much light upon this question.

It is now the opinion of most well-informed biblical critics, that the gospels, as we now know them, did not exist until about two centuries after the beginning of the Christian era. They are merely different editions of the manuscripts containing the sayings and teachings of the Nazarene initiate, which were handed round and copied by his disciples after his death, with additions and interpolations added by later writers.

It would not be profitable, nor have we time within the compass of this paper, to sketch even in outlines, the almost endless arguments which have been educed in the elucidation of the questions involved. Only a vast library could contain all the books which have been written upon the history of the gospels. Nearly all of them were written in days when the psychological influence of the ecclesiasticism of the middle ages still enthralled the judgment of even the most learned. But as time passes on, and the vast literary and archaeological treasures of the Eastern home of the gospels become more widely known, several points stand out more and more clearly from the haze of controversy and dogmatic prejudice.

For instance, it is now well known that the gospel of Matthew is but a later and much-changed edition in Greek, of the original gospel of the Hebrews (a work constantly referred to by early Christian writers), which is now almost entirely lost, only a few fragments remaining. But none of the numerous references to it lead us to suppose that it contained anything more than a collection of the logia or especial "sayings" of the Master whom they revered and followed.

The gospel of Luke, on the other hand, was originally the gospel used by Marcion the Gnostic, derived from similar sources; and this gospel also suffered the same kind of mutilation and addition at the hands of the patristic fathers.

The early Christian writers of the first two centuries, such as Papias and his contemporaries, do not appear to have been aware of the existence of the gospels which have come down to us in the present canon of the New Testament. Their quotations from what they call the "scriptures," are almost entirely from the books of the Old Testament. And when they quote the sayings of their Nazarene Master, they do it in such a way as to show that they reverenced them as ethical precepts to be followed, each man for himself, as counsels of perfection. Then the words used in these quotations vary considerably from those of our present gospels, and some of the quotations most often used, are not to be found in any of the four. They are evidently not drawn from that source. Nor is there any word or sign in these early Christian writers that they regarded their Teacher other than as a great philosopher. We find no reference whatever to the Man-God whom later dogmatism represented as a sacrifice for the sins of Humanity.

It is therefore evident that before these earlier books were incorporated into our present gospels, a mystical story was superadded containing an account of his supposed death upon the cross. This story was perfectly well understood by its writers to have an entirely different meaning to that which has been given to it in later centuries. It was a superb piece of poetic imagery derived partly from the traditions of the ancient Mysteries, then just fading away into oblivion, and partly from the teaching of the apostle Thomas, who, on his return from India, had brought home the mystical parable of the deified Krishna.[4]

[4] _Isis Unveiled_, Vol. II, p. 539.

The contemporary history of the Christian era has been so beclouded by the benumbing effect of misconceptions that it is exceedingly difficult to bring into play a dispassionate judgment of such data as are left to us. But there is no doubt that the gospels cannot be trusted as regards historical detail. The more reliable accounts show, however, that Jesus was condemned to death by the Jewish Sanhedrim after he had wandered about in Judaea for many years as a teacher. One definite tradition says that when about sixty years of age, he was stoned to death, and his body was hung upon a tree.

Had it not been for the mad fanaticism which in the early centuries, time and again, destroyed so much of the priceless literature of the past, all this would doubtless be widely known. All we can do now, therefore, is to rise above the shadows which have obscured our vision for so many centuries, and in reading for ourselves the true story of the crucifixion, find therein a message which is of the deepest importance for man's real salvation. For the crucifixion is a parable and simile of the supreme mystery of evolution, the goal towards which every human soul is progressing in the course of its spiritual development.

The student who has realized the teachings of Theosophy that man is a divine soul inhabiting a material body, on a dual line of evolution for the perfection of both, knows well the opposing nature of the forces continually at work within his inner consciousness. He knows that in his real Self, he is not the body in which he finds himself; and that the task before him is the conquest and mastery of the lower animal nature by the aid of the God within him, which is, indeed, that real Self, when he can so realize the fact so as to assume his own potential godhood.

Such has been the teaching of the Wisdom-Religion of Humanity for countless ages, and such has been the doctrine of all the divine Teachers whose wisdom has come down to us in the sacred books of the world. Of these Teachers and Sages, Jesus was one of the illustrious.

Those who have studied the religions of ancient times, the myths and allegories of all nations, especially in the poetic East from whence all historical religions have sprung, have found that there are countless records of men who have so far advanced on the line of interior enlightenment and evolution, that they have solved the supreme mystery of their own inner godhood, and have thenceforward devoted themselves to the help and enlightenment of souls less advanced in the scale of spiritual progress. There have been such men in all ages of the world, men who have accomplished the union with their own Higher Selves, and such men there are today, although little known to the world at large.

The contest which thus takes place within the human heart, has been symbolized in the imagery of every ancient civilization. The conquest of the dragon by St. Michael, of the python by Apollo, and the labors of Hercules to cleanse the Augean stable, are examples of these ancient allegories. Life after life, again and again, we slowly evolve towards the great goal. And though the end may be far away, for the great mass of humanity, yet there are ages in advance of us, as there have been ages in the past, and the Law must be fulfilled.

Thus the provision of the divine law of evolution is, that all have the potentiality of godhood. Yet some are in advance of the rest. There are gradations. Still, the unity of the one divinity in its countless aspects is preserved by the law of love and helpfulness to one another. Each man becomes his brother's keeper, and the more he realizes this, the nearer he is to his own divinity.

It is now well known that the symbolism of the crucifixion is many thousands of years older than the days of Jesus. It was created by some of the divine sages of prehistoric times to represent a great ideal, and to serve as a permanent metaphor for a great event which must come sooner or later in the history of every seeker for divine truth. This has been expressed by a modern writer as follows.

To put on armor and go forth to war, taking the chances of death in the hurry of the fight is an easy thing; to stand still amid the jangle of the world, to preserve stillness amid the turmoil of the body, to hold silence amid the thousand cries of the senses and desires, and then, stripped of all armor and without hurry or excitement, take the deadly serpent of self and kill it, is no easy thing. Yet that is what has to be done.

It will be evident that in these days, comparatively few attain the great enlightenment which follows this supreme victory. Yet, on our way thither, and in the experiences which follow the repeated conquests which must precede it, we may realize, that the voice of conscience, _when obeyed_, will gradually grow into intuition, and that intuition in its final victory becomes enlightenment. Thus self-denial, which is only another name for self-conquest, is transmuted from a dismal task into a joyful duty performed as a sacrifice to the God within.

Thus we see that the symbolism of the crucifixion is that of the conquest of the lower passional material self. Fixed upon the cross of matter the body is pierced by the spear of the spiritual will, and the soul is freed from the tyranny of the lower human self. Thenceforth, whether in or out of a body, it lives not for self but for humanity.

Such was the well-understood symbolism of the crucifixion in ancient times. It was the supreme ceremonial enacted in the divine Mysteries of Ancient Egypt, India, and Greece. And the reason why we do not now hear more about it, is that in recent centuries, these ancient teachings have been forgotten in the rush and strain of nations armed to the teeth, and in the allurements of material prosperity.

In the ignorance and darkness which followed the death of the ancient Mysteries, the beautiful ancient symbolism of the Crucifixion was soon forgotten. It was very early degraded into a materialistic dogma which has come down to our own times. The earliest Christians knew nothing of the crucifixion as _now_ taught in the churches. It is entirely absent from their writings. All they had were manuscripts containing the words of their Master, and it was not till long afterwards that this poetic symbol was added to the early versions.

Of the esoteric teachings of Jesus, one version alone has come down to later times, the _Pistis-Sophia_, of the Gnostics; and it is to be noted that therein, the teachings of Jesus are distinctly stated to have been given for years _after his crucifixion_, implying thereby his initiation into the mysteries of his own divinity.

IS LIGHT CORPUSCULAR? by T. Henry

The latest scientific contribution to the reinstated corpuscular theory of light has been made by Professor Bragg, of Leeds University, England, who in a recent lecture at the Royal Institution announced his conclusion that the _x_-rays are corpuscular. He said, as reported, that the alpha and beta rays are considered to be electrons, while the gamma rays and the _x_-rays are held to be etheric vibrations. But he thinks that all four are corpuscular, also that ultra-violet light may be corpuscular; and from this he infers that even ordinary light may be so. As we have frequently found occasion to point out, the nature of either a corpuscle on the one hand or a vibration on the other has not yet been sufficiently accurately defined to enable us to state definitely whether anything is the one or the other of the two. Light, and also electricity and other forces, are manifestations of _life_; and we view their effects alternately under their positive and negative aspects, as best suits our temporary convenience, thus forming the ideas of energy and matter. Speaking of matter or substantiality, as contrasted with force or energy, what distinctive attributes may we assign to it? "Mass" or "inertia" is one of its supposed attributes; yet there is no definite idea of what this is; often it seems to reduce itself to a passive force or resistance. But then if we are to express everything, even matter, in terms of force and energy, how can we conceive a force without a substratum or vehicle? Is not the quantity "mass" a component of the mathematical definitions of force and energy? All this confusion comes from the attempt to define physical matter in terms of physical matter. There are in physics certain primary notions of space, mass, dimension, etc., correlative with our five-sense physical consciousness. These we may either accept as axioms without attempting to resolve them any further, or, if we do make that attempt, we must resolve them into something other than themselves. This latter course means that we must leave the field of physics altogether; for it is necessary to conceive of things that are not in physical space and have none of the attributes of physical nature. To analyse dimension, space, etc., is a metaphysical inquiry. Yet it is surely essential if we are to arrive at an explanation of the phenomena _antecedent_ to physical phenomena.

Then there is the purely practical side of physical science--applied science. The worker in this field may leave metaphysics alone perhaps; but let him either leave it alone or not--one of the two. And above all, let him not overstep that sphere to lay down laws for the governance of human life; such laws being based on a knowledge that is admittedly restricted in its scope.

To return to the point at which we started--the corpuscles of light--we may suggest a new way of looking at such matters. We have been accustomed to regard the minuteness of these corpuscles as a negative quality--to say that they are deficient in size. But why not speak of bulk as a negative quality and say that physical objects are deficient in smallness? The less bulk a thing has the quicker it gets about, the more active and potent it is. There seems no limit to velocity, except the presence of objects that impede the motion of a body. Given the absence of matter, a corpuscle can get across any distance in a practically negligible time. Thus what we call "space" seems rather like an _obstacle_, and when we remove the matter we seem to remove the distance also--for practical purposes. Logically, when two things have nothing between them they are in contact; and the corpuscles seem to recognize this conclusion. The condition of greatest activity, power, and omnipresence, is that a thing shall have as little size as possible; size is a weakness. What we call space and dimension is a delusion correlative with our physical consciousness. It is a reality relatively to that consciousness, but a delusion relatively to those deeper strata of consciousness which we penetrate when we try to analyse our ideas.

We have arrived at the conception of light as a very refined, omnipresent, and active form of matter. We might as well call it a spirit; those who did so meant the same thing. At any rate it is a reality. When we call it a vibration in the ether, we reduce it to an abstraction; for a vibration is nothing in itself; nor does the device help us, for we are obliged to suppose an ether.

The universe is full of _life_ guided by _mind_. The life is on various planes, in various grades. These forces we are studying are its physical manifestation.

ASTRONOMICAL LORE: by a Student

Among the exhibits in the Science Section at the Coronation Exhibition in London, was a Chinese planisphere from the Royal Scottish Museum, which records observations that must have been made some thousands of years before the Christian era and handed down to the time of the maker.

Ancient Hindû astronomy is a standing puzzle to modern astronomers, for its records have preserved from the remotest antiquity accurate calculations of the revolution periods of the heavenly bodies, their nodes, apsides, etc.; and the ordinary theories respecting the evolution of human knowledge are flatly contradicted thereby. The _Sûrya-Siddhânta_ gives the number of revolutions performed by each planet in a period of 4,320,000 years; and the quotients obtained by dividing the period by the number of revolutions give in each case figures agreeing with our own to a nicety. How were these results obtained?

Moreover there are in some of these ancient treatises calculations that go beyond anything our astronomy has yet accepted, dealing as they do with those larger cycles concerned with apparent displacements of the fixed stars. The celebrated French astronomer Bailly made a careful study of these. Despite certain limitations due to a natural reluctance to concede superiority to an ancient Oriental people, and confessedly poor translations, he arrived at the conclusion that this people had attained profound knowledge in astronomy, and drew the general inference that civilization is extremely old, and that this earth has witnessed its rise and fall many times. Some of Bailly's conclusions are considered at length by H. P. Blavatsky in _The Secret Doctrine_, where they are used, together with those of other later well-known writers, to show the consensus of evidence in support of this branch of the teachings she outlines.

Was this knowledge obtained by observations or deductively? In both ways, probably. We know that ancient civilizations lasted for long ages, and we known that indelible records in stone were kept. Modern astronomers have discovered that one object at least of Stonehenge and similar monuments was to fix epochs depending on the precessional movement. But there is also a strong presumption that the ancient calculators possessed numerical keys. In this case their method would have been partly observation and partly deduction from general principles; a method we all apply, whether intentionally or not.

The existence of such mathematical clues--applicable to the measurement both of time and of space--has often been suspected; and in our own times isolated workers have labored in this field of speculation, discovering sundry fragments. Their efforts being usually solitary, however, and unsupported (when not actually opposed) by the generality of workers, have not achieved recognized success. Some of such speculations are considered in _The Secret Doctrine_, where it is shown that not infrequently these so-called "cranks" arrived at results commensurate with what we learn about the ancient science from other sources. Among these isolated workers may be mentioned Ralston Skinner and even Piazzi Smyth in connexion with the measurements of the Great Pyramid and certain integral approximations to the ratio π.

Doubtless mankind in bygone times, having brains and other faculties, as we have, but having studied for far longer periods than our civilization has yet had time to study, reached results which for us are still in prospect. It is conceivable too that their faculties may have been superior to ours in some respects--less materialistic, perhaps; and they may have been more united among themselves. Ancient astronomy is certainly a hard nut to crack for conventionalists.

THE MYSTERY OF THE MOLARS: by Medicus

The hero of Artemus Ward's story languished for twenty-seven long and weary years in jail. At last a happy thought struck him--he raised the window and got out.

The evolution of teeth in mammalia presents a problem which calls for an analogous feat of inventive genius. As the problem is representative of many others it is worth consideration. The study of these teeth is a specialty of Professor Henry F. Osborn's, and though to the layman this may seem a very small matter it is really big enough to concern not only science but philosophy.

Anyone who will look into the glass at his back teeth, the molars or grinders, will perceive that their tops are not flat but raised into little promontories, tubercles, or "cusps." An eye-tooth, on the other hand, is a single sharp peg or fang.

Were the molars, then, far back in evolution, made by fusing together two or three original peg-shaped teeth, each component being now represented by a cusp? Or were they always single, each growing its own several cusps for grinding purposes?

Professor Osborn has shown that the latter was the case.

We used the words "for grinding purposes." That was raising the window. It has been raised before. Once in a long while a biologist gets out. As a rule however they will not even see it, or, seeing it, they deny that it is a window. If these words, implying something possessed of the purposes, conscious and capable, will not do, how came the cusps to grow? How came the original sharp peg tooth, a _cutter_ and _piercer_, to broaden and tuberculate its top so as to form, with its opposing fellow in the other jaw, a pair of convenient _grinders_?

According to the Darwinian theory all sorts of small chance variations, useful and useless, are constantly appearing among the progeny of all species. The useful ones, conferring an advantage in the struggle for existence, persist. The others do not. The usefulness is the cause of the persistence. In scarce seasons an animal that had, for example, developed opposing grinders among its teeth would be able to utilize food not available for the mere cutters. It would tend to live--and therefore produce offspring--while they died. The grinders being handed on by heredity, their usefulness would in time secure the whole field for their owners. A new and predominant species would have arisen, to live until ousted by a stronger.

But this would only apply to variations useful from the moment of their appearance. If at first--as they often are--so small as to be useless, a mere tendency or suggestion, they would not persist. Having, according to the theory, no special purposive force behind them, and being the products of mere accident, they would quickly be diluted out of existence.

The chance theory would therefore be able to account for the persistence of such few variations only as were useful from their first appearance. Are there any such variations? _According to the theory itself, no!_ For it does not admit sudden jumps; merely fine shadings from the common type. And these fine shadings confer no advantage. Since, moreover, they occur only by some chance confluence of conditions, they must depend for their force of heredity upon the continuance of this confluence. And to account for the next, and the next, degree in the progression, the theory must require that the conditions become more and more effective--and so on, till the degrees sum up to a _useful_ degree.

What a lot of wriggling to escape the conclusion that there is a purposive force at work! Even Professor Osborn does not see it in his studies of teeth, though he walks straight up to it. Mr. Gruenberg, summarizing the Professor's work in _The Scientific American_ says:

The cusps of the molar teeth do not appear "fortuitously" and then survive in accordance with their relative fitness, as would be required by the Darwinian theory, nor do they appear fully formed in a discontinuous manner, in the sense of De Vries' theory; they appear at definite points, at first too small to have any adaptive or selective value, and become with succeeding ages larger and larger until they are of adaptive value. In other words they are _determinate_ in their origins; they develop _gradually_; and they are _adaptive_ in the direction of their development from the very start.... They arise because of some inherent tendency or potentiality to vary in a determinate direction. What this internal determining factor is we do not know.

The same problem presents itself in the origin of horns, at first and for ages too small to be of any value.

Science has recently discovered the "subconscious," finding that it possesses powers over the body, fashioning, healing, or deforming, which are quite beyond the reach of the conscious mind.

Suppose that the _sub_conscious is part of the _conscious_ of nature. Grant to nature the purposiveness which we find in the subconscious, and the difficulties respecting the appearance of variations vanish. Heredity is an aspect of the persistence of the purpose, a persistence shown likewise by the relatively wide area of a species in which a variations occurs, and by the steady progression of the variation, despite its primary uselessness, on to the stage where first it becomes helpful in the struggle for life.

A DUTCH HOUSE COURT BY PIETER DE HOOCH

Practically nothing is known of the life of Pieter de Hooch, but the fifty or sixty examples of his exquisite _genre_ painting are now almost priceless. He was a native of Rotterdam, and it is supposed he died in 1681 at Haarlem at the age of fifty. There are three of his pictures in the London National Gallery, from one of which the illustration herewith reproduced is taken. This is an out-door subject--a rather unusual choice for the master, who preferred interiors as a rule. He is noted for an extraordinary skill in depicting the atmosphere of rooms lighted by various doors and windows, and for his marvelous perfection in detail, which however, is never obtrusive nor does it interfere with the broad effect. There is an air of the greatest serenity in all his pictures, and the simple, homely subjects he preferred are transfigured into classics by the discrimination of his choice and the perfection of his mastery of the most difficult problems of light and shade and tone values. No reproduction can give the least idea of the delicate handling of tone in his works. His drawing is absolutely true to nature; the perspective of his buildings is more than photographically accurate, but it never obtrudes itself or interferes with the general effect of repose.

De Hooch painted very few large pictures; unfortunately the only one which came down to our time perished in a fire in 1864. He was little appreciated in his own lifetime--indeed it was not until the eighteenth century that he was recognized in his own country. He was a disciple of the school of Rembrandt, but his taste did not lie in the direction of life-size portraits or of the classical or scriptural stories which were the greater master's favorite subjects.

THE INCARNATION OF GENIUSES: by Henry Travers

Enthusiasts for "eugenics" imagine a time when vice and disease shall have been eliminated from the race. Their critics reply by suggesting that not only vice and disease, but also genius, would then have been eliminated from the race, and humanity be reduced to a dead uniformity. But the power which makes geniuses may be stronger than the eugenists, thus preventing them from succeeding in their utopian plan. What is genius? It is often defined as a "sport"--a natural phenomenon which defies calculations and makes light of theories of heredity. We cannot breed a race of geniuses.

As to the cause of the appearance of geniuses, some theorists appear to find sufficient explanation in a _fortuitous_ combination of parental qualities. One son in one family _happens_ to extract from his parents all their best qualities. To other thinkers, however, this "explanation" will seem more like a restatement of the problem to be solved than like a solution of it. For what is fortuity? If a scientific principle, let it be explained; if a god, perhaps we may not be willing to worship it.

The appearance of geniuses finds easy explanation in accordance with the teachings as to reincarnation, _karma_, and the sevenfold constitution of man. A human being is like a seed in a soil, drawing some of its traits from its surroundings, others from its internal nature. A lifetime is like a day, whose deeds are determined partly by present conditions and partly by the deeds of preceding days. In some people the present conditions--their parentage, upbringing, and circumstances--have the paramount influence, and their innate character evinces but little effect. In others the innate character is strong enough to mold and alter the other conditions considerably. In a genius the innate character may altogether predominate over the acquired character.

Besides our physical heredity we have a spiritual heredity--character built up in previous existences. The usual trend of upbringing is to smother this, to destroy originality.

Parenthetically one must introduce a caution here, to the effect that there are certain well-meaning attempts to preserve the originality of children, which, however, do not accomplish the right object. The parent or guardian, while shielding the child from some influences, lays it open to the assault of other influences. These other influences are the passional nature of the child. This way of preserving or stimulating originality is by no means that intended above.

To give freedom for the child's higher nature to express itself, we must protect the child from all influences that proceed from the lower nature. Then we would get geniuses; innate character would be enabled to manifest itself.

The ideas of eugenists are worthy, but, we feel sure, too narrow. In many a satire they have been ridiculed. Owing to the prevalent ignorance of man's nature, many disastrous mistakes would be made. What authority is there in sight, to which we should be willing to intrust the regulation of marriage and parentage? Great as the existing evils are, might not the remedies be worse? Might not we indeed provide conditions that would preclude any useful or aspiring soul from incarnating at all?