Chapter I: DESIRE not to disgrace the soul. The fact that I am here certainly (3)

The difficulties of a Theosophist may be realized when we bear in mind that he has to warn people against dangers which, though real to him, by reason of his knowledge of human nature, are by them unsuspected. So many of the fads seem quite harmless. Yet the Theosophist may be aware of the direction in which they are tending, or of some ugly facts beneath the surface. His warnings are uttered with the voice of genuine compassion. He sees every one of his warnings justified as time goes on and the latent seeds of evil develop and come into view. His one aim in life is to spread a knowledge of the noble and helpful teachings of Theosophy, for these alone can cope with such a subtle and powerful foe. His pity is aroused for those who are innocently lending themselves to such a propaganda, and for those earnest truth-seekers who are deceived by the misrepresentation.

So great is the menace of evils like the above, and so rapidly are they spreading, that every attempted reform sinks into insignificance beside the importance of dealing with this. We fret about the evils of our educational system, the increase of insanity and suicide, child-degeneracy, consumption and cancer, drug-taking, the white slave traffic, unemployment and labor troubles, all kinds of problems; when down in the very marrow of our twentieth century life lurks this frightful decay. Under the most plausible and specious forms it insinuates itself. Many "teachers" are insinuating the same poison into us under the guise of fine high-sounding doctrines, and sometimes _even by using Theosophical terms_. Sometimes from beneath the surface of their public teachings some "inner doctrine" pops up as though the teachers were experimenting with the public tolerance; and we hear whispers of a "new morality," strange sexual doctrines, etc. Then, if we are wise, we suspect what lies at the root.

The consequences to our children and youth are a thing that should surely move our hearts. Parents and teachers alike are by their own confession unable to cope with the evils becoming so rampant among the young. Noted headmasters have given up in despair the attempt to stop unnatural vice among the boys entrusted by loving parents to their care. Most mothers are sublimely ignorant of what goes on in the inner life of their boys and girls, who in secret and in ignorance are all the time sowing in their constitution the soil of debility in which the poison seeds so ruthlessly sown can sprout.

In fact there is no visible power competent to deal with this evil. It lies beyond the reach of any criminal or judicial procedure. Religion is powerless before it; science can find no cure. So the conclusion remains that unless something is done, the evil will continue to grow and spread unchecked, involving in its decay the very powers that should check it, until the fabric of society is altogether loosened and our civilization comes to a premature end.

In the past whole nations probably have been swept away by this cause. Our own race has reached a point in its development where the same fate threatens it. Unless we are to experience a general outburst of libertinism, a welter of disease and insanity, a universal strife, we must find some means of restoring a knowledge of the immutable laws of life and an adherence thereto, such as taught by Theosophy. Passion can never be overcome by being indulged; it has to be subdued by self-knowledge.

Those unfortunately afflicted with unlawful desires should not seek to make society their victim in the hope of thus saving their miserable selves. Let them patiently and loyally bear their burden until unremitting effort at last brings the meed of success. Such infirmities must perish at last if they are not fed by the mind; but as they took a long time in the acquiring, they may take a long time in the undoing. Disease is thrown off by building surely, if slowly, a healthy foundation. We conclude with a few quotations from H. P. Blavatsky:

Do not believe that lust can ever be killed out if gratified or satiated, for this is an abomination inspired by Mâra [delusion]. It is by feeding vice that it expands and waxes strong, like to the worm that fattens on the blossom's heart.--_The Voice of the Silence_

Occultism is not Magic. It is comparatively easy to learn the trick of spells and the methods of using the subtler, but still material, forces of physical nature; the powers of the animal soul in man are soon awakened; the forces which his love, his hate, his passion, can call into operation, are readily developed. But this is Black Magic--Sorcery.... The powers and forces of animal nature can be used by the selfish and revengeful, as much as by the unselfish and the all-forgiving; the powers and forces of Spirit lend themselves only to the perfectly pure in heart--and this is DIVINE MAGIC.--_Practical Occultism_

There are not in the West half-a-dozen among the fervent hundreds who call themselves "Occultists," who have even an approximately correct idea of the nature of the Science they seek to master. With a few exceptions, they are all on the highway to Sorcery. Let them restore some order in the chaos that reigns in their minds, before they protest against this statement. Let them first learn the true relation in which the Occult Sciences stand to Occultism, and the difference between the two, and then feel wrathful if they still think themselves right. Meanwhile, let them learn that Occultism differs from Magic and other secret Sciences as the glorious sun does from a rush-light, as the immutable and immortal Spirit of Man--the reflection of the absolute, causeless, and unknowable ALL--differs from the mortal clay, the human body.--_Occultism versus the Occult Arts_

A MAGIC BOAT: by D. F.

In the Scandinavian saga the vessel _Ellida_ one day quietly sailed into harbor and dropped anchor, without a living creature on board. This performance seems at first to be surpassed by that of an electric launch on Lake Wann, Berlin, which though carrying no human freight effected the following feats at the behest of a distant but controlling intelligence: steering; starting, stopping, or reversing of engines; firing of signal guns, fireworks, mines, or torpedoes; ringing of bells; lighting or extinction of electric lamps; and other operations. Of course the agency is an ingenious extension and adaptation of wireless telegraphic methods, said to be applicable also to airplanes, railroad trains, life-boats, etc. But the _Ellida_ had some excellent qualities, too, for work in all weather on the high seas.

IRISH SCENES: by Fred J. Dick, M. Inst. C. E., M. Inst. C. E. I.

To the archaeologist, the geologist, the folk-lorist, and the lover of nature in all her aspects, perhaps no area of similar extent is more replete with interest than that of Ireland. As to fairies, the county Sligo folk will tell you they have more of them to the square yard than can be found in a square mile of the county Kerry. Folk-lorists will doubtless pass upon this claim intelligently, when they wear the right sort of spectacles. Fairies aside, however, hardly a square mile of the country lacks some ruin of great antiquity.

Nearly two thousand years have elapsed since Baile Atha Cliath Duibhlinne (the town of the hurdle-ford on the black river), now Dublin, began to share with Tara the honor of being chief city. Dublin, therefore, has no known history that could be called really ancient; for in the light of the Theosophical teachings and records, two thousand years is merely modern. Tara, on the other hand, was a center of national life and government so ancient as to be probably coeval with Brugh na Boinne. Which means they were there "before the flood," or in other words, long before Poseidon went down, some eleven or twelve thousand years ago.

The fact that the city of Tara was set on a hill, suggests the idea that there may have been a time, once, when cities having certain high functions to fulfil, were usually set on hills.

In correspondence with the withdrawal of the higher influences of the Tuatha de Danaans from visible participation in Irish life, and the reign of the Formorians and their heirs, leading Ireland in common with other places to descent through dark ages, it was fitting that regal and poetic Tara should fade, and Dublin rise with its distilleries, breweries, and vivisection halls, and with many of its folk within hospitals, poor-houses, and insane asylums--in accentuation of the modern spirit. That such conditions are, in point of fact, unnecessary, can easily be deduced from the study of certain small races who have not wholly forgotten some essential principles in the art of living.

Nevertheless, Dublin, equally with other parts of Ireland, has its bright side. Much of its social life is vivacious, artistic, and literary in high degree, surpassing many cities in these respects. This city began to assume its present appearance in the eighteenth century, when Sackville street, as then named, was built. It is one of the finest streets in Europe. The munificent grants of the Irish parliament enabled many handsome public buildings to be constructed, as well as hospitals, harbors, canals, etc. Among the finest of the public edifices is that of the old houses of parliament, now occupied as a bank.

The first meeting of the Irish parliament within the part of this structure then completed, took place in 1731; but entire legislative independence was only reached in 1782. Eighteen years later, owing to some rather meretricious influences, the parliament voted away its rights; and the Union occurred in 1800. The building, which took many years to complete, possesses majesty in design combined with simplicity in arrangement, and has few rivals. Constructed of Portland stone, the style is chastely classic, owing nothing to extraneous embellishment--the mere outline producing a harmonious effect. The principal front is formed by an Ionic colonnade, raised on a flight of steps, and ranged round three sides of a spacious quadrangle. In the central part a portico projects, formed of four Ionic columns, sustaining a tympanum with the royal arms, while the apex is adorned with a colossal statue--Hibernia--with others representing Fidelity and Commerce on the western and eastern points. From the outer ends of these colonnades the building sweeps eastward and westward in circular form, the walls, unpierced by openings, standing behind rows of Corinthian columns, and having the interspaces tastefully indented by niches. Over the eastern portico are statues of Fortitude, Justice, and Liberty. The original designer of this noble edifice is unknown. The House of Lords has been left practically untouched to this day, save that the Speaker's chair is now in the Royal Irish Academy.

On the opposite side of College Green is the extensive Corinthian façade of Trinity College; and passing a short way towards Sackville (now O'Connell) street, one reaches the Carlisle Bridge, from which can be seen another magnificent building called the Custom House (though so immense as to accommodate many government offices), as well as the Four Courts and other massive structures, so numerous as to give the impression of a people possessing energy, taste, and industry. Since the early years of the nineteenth century, however, there have been no fine buildings added, if we except the splendid pile of the Science and Art Museums and Library in Kildare street.

The environs of Dublin, within a dozen miles or so, possess singular charm and variety; and on Sundays the good folk keep the jaunting-cars busy throughout the regions from Delgany, Powerscourt and the Dublin mountains, to Leixlip, Howth and Malahide. Not many know that Malahide Castle contains an altar-piece from the oratory of Mary Queen of Scots, at Holyrood, for which Charles II gave two thousand pounds sterling. Among the valuable paintings in this Castle is a portrait of Charles I by Vandyke.

There is a territory within almost equally easy reach of Dublin, whose loveliness excels anything of the kind in Ireland except possibly the Blackwater in county Waterford. It is the Boyne valley between Slane and Beauparc. Everyone in Dublin admits it lovely--but no one has seen it!

In the north and west of Ireland the scenery is frequently wild and stern. Of this character is Fairhead on the Antrim Coast, the _Robogdium Promontorium_ of Ptolemy the geographer, where on one's northward journey is obtained the first glimpse of the remarkable columnar basalt formation met with in profusion in the Giant's Causeway region. One of the basaltic pillars forming the stupendous natural colonnade over six hundred feet high at Fairhead, is a rectangular prism 33 feet by 36 on the sides, and 319 feet in height, and is the largest basaltic pillar known.

Further along this coast is the rope-bridge at Carrick-a-Rede, which sways in the wind as you walk over it, while the Atlantic waves boil in the appalling chasm beneath; and woe to you, if overcome by terror you attempt to lean on the thin hand-line.

The coast scenery in the vicinity of the Giant's Causeway is grandly impressive, as seen from a boat. The promontory called the Pleaskin, consisting of terrace upon terrace of columnar basalt, and the succession of extraordinary rock groups such as the Sea Gulls, the King and his Nobles, the Nursing Child, the Priest and his Flock, the Chimney Rock, the Giant's Organ, and finally the Causeway itself, form astonishing instances of nature's sportfulness.

The pillars in the Causeway number about forty thousand, and are composed mainly of irregular hexagonal prisms varying from fifteen to twenty-six inches in diameter, but all fitting together compactly. Among other features of the place is the Giant's Amphitheatre, which is exactly semi-circular, with the slopes at the same angle all round; while around the uppermost part runs a row of columns eighty feet high. As a German writer, Kahl, continues:

Then comes a broad rounded projection, like an immense bench, for the accommodation of the giant guests of Finn MacCumhal; then again a row of columns sixty feet high, and then again a gigantic bench, and so down to the bottom, where the water is enclosed by a circle of black boulder stones, like the limits of the arena.

We should have to go back to the era when the Bamian statues were carved out of the living rock (see _The Secret Doctrine_, ii, 388) to find giants tall enough to occupy this amphitheater gracefully.

The convulsion which lowered the Giants' Causeway, with its substratum of ocher, below the upper tier level of the Pleaskin, produced the landslide at the Giants' Organ, and submerged the continuous land connexion with Staffa, must have belonged to far pre-Atlantean times (the Atlantean continental system proper having ended nearly a million years ago), and be referable to the Secondary Age, when there really were giants somewhat approaching the size suggested. It must have been far back in Lemurian times, for the sinking and transformation of the Lemurian continental systems began in the vicinity of Norway, and ended at Atlantean Lankâ, of which Ceylon was the northern highland.

There are traditions of enormous giants in many parts of Ireland. Thus the rope-bridge chasm above mentioned, is said to have been cut by a stroke of Finn MacCumhal's sword, a feat that would have been difficult for even a Lemurian giant. The legends in Kerry express, by similar exaggeration, the size and strength of a former giant race.

This reminds us that the Raphaim (phantoms), Nephilim (fallen ones), and Gibborim (mighty ones) of the Bible refer to the First and Second semi-ethereal Races, the Third (Lemurian), and the Fourth (Atlantean) respectively.

But in order to grasp this subject intelligently, the reader may be referred to those volumes which it will be more and more the principal business of the scholars, archaeologists, and scientific men of the twentieth century to study, interpret and vindicate (vindication is already in full stride), namely, _The Secret Doctrine_, written by H. P. Blavatsky.

* * * * *

True glory consists in doing that which deserves to be written, in writing what deserves to be read, and in so living as to make the world happier for our living in it.--_Pliny_

THE BLUEBELLS OF WERNOLEU: a Welsh Legend by Kenneth Morris

Out of the bluebell bloom of the night
When the east's agloom and the west's agleam.
Over the wern at Alder-Light
And the dark stile and the stream,
There's dew comes dropping of dream-delight
To the deeps where the bluebells dream.

It's then there's brooding on wizard stories
All too secret for speech or song,
And rapture of rose and daffodil glories
Where the lone stream wandereth long;
And I think the whole of the Druids' lore is
Known to the bluebell throng.

For they say that a sky-bee wandered of old
From her island hive in the Pleiades,
Winging o'er star-strewn realms untold,
And the brink of star-foamed seas--
Thighs beladen with dust of gold,
As is the wont of bees.

She left the hives of magical pearl,
Of dark-heart sapphire and pearl and dreams,
Where the flowers of the noon and the night unfurl
Their rose-rimmed blooms and beams--
Fain of the wandering foam awhirl
On the wild Dimetian streams,

Of the rhododendron bloom on the hills--
(There's dear, red bloom in the pine-dark dell)--
Of rhododendron and daffodils,
And the blue campanula bell,
And the cuckoo-pint by the tiny rills
That rise in Tybie's Well.

(And where's the wonder, if all were known?
There's many in Michael's hosts that ride
Would lay down scepter and crown and throne,
And their aureoled pomp and pride,
So they might wander and muse alone
An hour by the Teifi side.

And if anything lovely is under the sky,
That the eye beholds, or the proud heart dreams,
When the pomp of the world goes triumphing by,
When the sea with the sunlight gleams--
It's show you a lovelier thing could I,
'Twixt Tywi and Teifi streams.

Let be! whatever of praise be sung,
Here's one could never make straight the knee,
Nor stay the soul from its paeans flung
Where the winds might flaunt them free,
For a thousand o' mountains, cloud-fleece hung,
'Twixt Hafren Hen and the sea.)

Musing, down through the firmament vales,
Here and there in a thousand flowers,
Even till at last she was wandering Wales,
Lured by the pure June hours,
Lured by the glamor of ancient tales,
And the glory of age-old towers.

Peony splendor of eve and dawn.
Tulips abloom on the border of day,
West on fire with the sun withdrawn,
Night and the Milky Way--
Ah, it was midnight's bluebell lawn
Most in her heart held sway.

O'er Bettws Mountain she came down slowly,
Drowsy winged through the tangled wern;
Where in the sky was there hill so holy,
With so much glamor to burn,
As the hyacinth wilds beyond Wernoleu,
With their white bells 'mid the fern?

Musing, round by the wern she wandered
From bell to bell with her wings acroon,
There where they laughed and nodded and pondered
Through the beautiful hours of June;
Bluebell-dark were the dreams she squandered
On the gold and green of noon.

And the wild white hyacinths, wondering, heard her,
Suddenly caught by her starry song;
Gave no more ear to the woodland bird, or
Heeded the wild bee throng,
Or laughed with delight of the sunbright verdure
Of fern they had loved so long.

Marvelous thought took hold of them wholly,
Azure of mingled darkness and light,
And they deepened to dark-heart sapphire slowly
With brooding on the splendor of night;
And the first of the bluebells of white Wernoleu
Bloomed, night-blueness dight.

And that's why the wern at Alder-Light
Is sweet with silence and deep in dream,
In that wizard region of dream-delight
Beyond the stile and the stream,
When the dews have fallen from the bloom of night
On the glooms where the bluebells gleam.

International Theosophical Headquarters
Point Loma, California

THE SOUL AT THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION: by Henry Travers

The majority of people are not very original and independent in their thinking, and consequently prefer to await the sanction of some recognized authority before accepting a doctrine. For this reason it is scarcely just to lay _all_ the blame on the institutions, ecclesiastical and otherwise, which supply this demand. For this reason, too, it will be a matter of considerable moment that a professor at the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science should have brought forward arguments which, according to the report of his address, "help the belief that man has a soul."

The arguments brought forward are as old as man himself, it is true; but doctrines are judged largely according to their immediate source. Thus a new color, an additional weight, is given to the idea that the eye has been made by "some external agency cognizant of all the properties of light," and to the idea that the brain is an instrument played upon by some power that is not material. We have heard this from the pulpit, perhaps; now we hear it from the lecture table; so we can believe it a little more strongly than we did before.

The lecturer's cautious remarks, as gathered from a brief report, seem to indicate a belief on his part that there may be a soul after all. The report is headed, "Eye and Brain Show a Soul Possibly Independent of Life." His view is said to be regarded by physiologists as offering a great stimulus to research, and "it provides for the general public a new exposition of the theory of belief in a divinity." The eye and the brain are such wonderful instruments that they surely must have been made by some intelligent power. That is the argument, and it surely must have occurred to many people before. "The brain's workings and the will-power suggested," he said, "that the brain was mysteriously affected by invisible and untraceable harmonies." The following is of interest to Darwinists:

It was natural to suppose, he declared, the existence of some external agent over and above natural selection, which [latter] would have done no more than assist in the process.

Natural selection is in fact no more than a phrase descriptive of the process itself; it can neither help nor hinder, any more than the theory of the law of gravitation can pull down a stone or the calculus of probabilities affect the destiny of a soul.

One feels as if the ancient faiths of humanity, after being confirmed and appealed against times without number, had been laid before a final court of appeal, which, after many painstaking and protracted labors, had at last begun to hand down opinions, slowly and carefully. The existence of the soul has at last been established beyond all possible cavil. It has passed all the courts, there is no further appeal, it is law. The most irrational rationalist, the most credulous sceptic, the most visionary materialist, may now believe in the soul. There really is one. At least "there was some loophole for the view that mind was not directly associated with life or living matter, but only indirectly with certain dispositions of dynamic state that were sometimes present within certain parts of it." (_Times_ report.) At present, then, we may believe in a soul--cautiously. One wonders if the British Association will ever get so far as to say that we _must_ believe in a soul.

But why should there be only one soul? Why not separate souls for the eye, the brain, the heart, the liver--all equally wonderful? The fact is that such problems as this have been debated from time immemorial, and one can but refer the curious to the world's literature. While our learned men are cautiously speculating about "a soul," the literature of Hindûstân (to take a single instance), thousands of years old, summarizes the tenets of many different schools of philosophy on the subject of the various souls in man, the faculties of these souls, the nature of the mind, its numerous powers and functions, the inner senses and their external organs, and so forth. And back of all lies the inscrutable Self of man, the Master and possessor of all these powers. Verily we have much yet to learn--the road we are going. It looks like a snail verifying the tracks of a bird. It looks as if these physiologists had just arrived at the edge of the sea, near enough to get their feet wet so as to know there is a sea. And now they are talking about a promising field of investigation.

Of course these physiologists are souls, the same as the rest of us, and they have minds and other faculties which they use all the time. But what they are doing is to bring a little of this actual practical knowledge down to the plane of formal theory. An extraordinary duality of the mind, truly! To be a soul, to act as a soul, and yet to live half in and half out of a mental state wherein conditions are entirely different! One sometimes wonders what bearing these speculations have upon actual life at all. The achievements of science lie mainly in the region of applied mechanics and chemistry. Physiology brings us closer into contact with vital questions that cannot be ignored and that yet lie without the prescribed domain.

The zoological professor also indulged in a little flight of the imagination; for in lecturing on "The Greater Problems of Biology," he made "Wonderment" a part of his theme. He pointed out that the problems of consciousness and the mystery of the reasoning soul were not for the biologist but the psychologist.

Beyond and remote from physical causation lay the End, the Final Cause of the philosopher, the reason why, in the which were hidden the problems of organic harmony and autonomy and the mysteries of apparent purpose, adaptation, fitness, and design. Here, in the region of teleology, the plain rationalism that guided them through the physical facts and causes began to disappoint them, and Intuition, which was of close kin to Faith [capitals not ours], began to make herself heard.

This is enough to make Tyndall turn in his grave, thereby causing an earthquake in Scotland. He was so very satisfied with the plain rationalism, and died before it began to disappoint. What would he have said of Intuition, if not that it is a secretion of one of our glands? It seems to have taken a long time to realize that purpose, design, etc., are qualities of mind and not of matter. It is absolutely essential that physiologists should study mind and soul, even though their immediate object be the body. What geologist could adequately study the earth if he ignored the existence of the air and the sea?

WARWICK CASTLE: by C. J. Ryan

Warwick Castle, one of the most magnificent and well-preserved of the baronial palaces of the middle ages, is among the first of the historic monuments that American travelers visit in England, for it is in the immediate neighborhood of Stratford-on-Avon, Shakespeare's birthplace, to which most Americans pay their respects early in their tour. Warwickshire is a typically English county. It is not only central in situation but, as Henry James writes, "It is the core and center of the English world, midmost England." He rightly considers there is no better way for a stranger who wishes to know something of typical English life and scenery than to spend some time in Warwickshire, with its richly-wooded and densely-grassed undulating landscape, its famous historical relics, and its literary associations. Not only is the county sacred to the memory of Shakespeare, but it is also the scene of many of George Eliot's finest stories. The backgrounds of _Middlemarch_ and _Adam Bede_ are here.

The castle stands on a commanding eminence, overlooking the river Avon, and from every point of view it presents an imposing and highly picturesque appearance. It is little touched by time, though some of it dates from Saxon times, and it passed through a great siege in Cromwellian times. The oldest portion which is conspicuous is Caesar's Tower, a solid building 150 feet high, built soon after the Norman conquest. The greater part of the castle was built in the 14th and 15th centuries, and, with the exception of the great Keep, which has disappeared, it has been very little injured. The roof of the great Hall and some parts of the other buildings were destroyed by fire in 1871, but they have been carefully restored. The dungeons below Caesar's Tower are painfully interesting, and the view from Guy's Tower is famous for its beauty. Guy, Earl of Warwick in the tenth century, is a notable hero of chivalric legend, though it is probable that the stories about him have been greatly exaggerated. Tradition relates that he defeated in single combat a doughty champion of the Danes in the time of Athelstan. If the Dane had won the English would have lost their independence, says the legend. Guy, who was disguised as a simple pilgrim when chosen--through a vision--for the defender of his country, immediately afterwards retired for life to a hermitage in a cave near Warwick, at Guy's Cliff, a romantic spot where the river Avon winds through picturesque rocks, woods, and meadows.

The interior of Warwick Castle contains many priceless relics of antiquity, such as the mace of the great Earl of Warwick, the "King-maker" (died 1471), relics of the legendary Guy, the helmet of Oliver Cromwell, the well-known Warwick vase found in Hadrian's villa, Tivoli, and many celebrated portraits by Vandyck and Rubens.

Warwick Park is noted for its magnificent ancient cedars. Nathaniel Hawthorne has written about Warwick Castle and the surrounding scenery in a way that cannot be bettered. He says, in one passage:

"We can scarcely think the scene real, so completely do those machicolated towers, the long line of battlements, the high windowed walls, the massive buttresses, shape out our indistinct ideas of the antique time."

MAN AND NATURE: by R. Machell

No sooner is the right man in the right place than order begins to take the place of confusion in any department of human activity; for order is natural and disorder is the result of an interference with the law of nature. There are some who seem to think that natural law can operate without agents and instruments, which is absurd; and there are some who seem to think that the agents and instruments of natural law are gods and angels and spirits, but not men; or that they are microbes and bacteria, and "forces," whatever that may be, and anything invisible and intangible, but not man. And why not man? Is man outside the field of nature, while he is still subject to her laws? That is hardly reasonable.

The divine, the human, and the natural, are but different aspects of the Universal, which is called Nature. The right man was not in power when these separations and limitations took the place of the true teaching. The right man is Theosophy. When Theosophy comes in then knowledge of the unity underlying all multiplicity of manifestations takes the place of ignorance which breeds confusion and causes discord. It is so easy to get hold of one part of the truth, and to make it false by separating it from the other parts of the great whole. This is what men have done and still are doing. And the Teachers, while trying to proclaim the greater Truth, have been forced at times to limit their teachings to that which will serve the immediate need of the hour by correcting some evil that has sprung from making a dogma out of a partial aspect of truth. Yet in the old mythology preserved in the Scandinavian book of the Wisdom of Brunhilda there is the teaching of man's duty to nature as the instrument of the Higher Law plainly stated in the lines from William Morris' version:

Know thou, most mighty of men, that the Norns shall order all;
And yet without thine helping shall no whit of their will befall.

The Norns are the emblems of Natural Law; they are above mankind and above the gods. All-Father Odin, who seems to correspond to the Greek Zeus, was forced to pay dearly for but a glimpse of their knowledge. They are above all the hierarchies of spiritual beings, a primordial trinity, prototype of all lesser trinities; and yet without man's help, their will remains unaccomplished among men.

It seems as if the Universal Law is supreme, but that in the world of man its action may be blocked by man, creating confusion in that world, and in those dependent upon it, which lies within the sphere of illusion we call Time. This great illusion "produced by the succession of our states of consciousness as we pass through eternal duration" (_The Secret Doctrine_), is the field of man's operation, when he blocks the action of the supreme Law by the interposing of his personal will; in it he dreams, and the dream becomes a nightmare, which beneficent nature ends by periodic cataclysms of fire or flood, while the deluded souls returning to their waking soul-state know that it was a dream.

It seems as if this state of illusion, in which we think of ourselves and our world as separate from the divine or from nature, were produced by the refusal of the personal will to carry out the will of the Supreme; for when this opposition ceases and the personal will becomes the direct agent of the spiritual will, order reigns and the world of disorder disappears. This amounts to saying that the illuminated man is no longer in darkness, when the inner light is allowed to shine through his lower mind. But as such men are no longer subject to the darkness, or the illusion of the world, they are lost to those who are still blind and in the dark unless they hold themselves down to that condition in order to help others to get free from the darkness which obscures the true life.

So in the old mythologies we find the Gods, doing on a higher plane what man does in his world, interposing their personal will in interference with the will of the Supreme, and thereby throwing a veil of illusion over the lower worlds which is the cause of a cycle of strife and discord; for the personal will has shut out the light and suspended the action of the higher Law through the failure of its agent, and produced the illusion of that series of states of consciousness we call Time. The Eternal, being beyond time, is not affected; but that is a mystery to man in his lower consciousness, in which he cannot get away from the reality of time. The lower consciousness is bound up in time, and to it time is reality; but man is not bound up in his lower consciousness, nor is he limited to its field of operation. The eternal is in him and at any moment he may get a ray of that light which we call inspiration or intuition, and by that illumination he may see the solution of the problem and feel his divinity, while utterly unable to put that knowledge so obtained into any satisfactory form of words; he may even be unable to put it into a form of thought, and may find himself with a knowledge that must remain secret.

As natural Law is Universal, so it must operate in an appropriate manner on all planes; "as above so below" (Hermetic maxim); "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (a Christian prayer); but as the action of a law is conditioned by the mind and matter on which and through which it acts, it may not be easy to recognize the One Law in its various manifestations. So we find the application of the highest philosophy in the most ordinary circumstances of daily life, for the law is universal; and when we have reached up to some high thought and got some new light, we must find means to see its application to some practical detail of life, or we have again blocked the course of the higher Law, which is seeking to penetrate to the lowest depths of matter through us.

We are thus agents of the higher Law of Nature and it is our duty to get into line as quickly as may be, and to let the light shine through.

* * * * *

COURAGE consists not in hazarding without fear but being resolutely minded in a just cause.... The Deity is the brave man's hope and not the coward's excuse.--_Plutarch_

THE WILL AS A CHEMICAL PRODUCT: by Investigator

In a current review appears an article entitled "The Will as a Chemical Product," accompanied by the portrait of a professor, beneath which is written, "Who holds that what we call 'will' in the lower animals is a mere chemical or physical phenomenon, like the sunflower's turning toward the light." This statement might just as well be turned around so as to run, "What we call chemical action is nothing but a manifestation of the mere will." However, this professor appears to be haunted with the desire to represent the whole universe as a mechanism; for, by a daring use of the "scientific imagination," which vaults scornfully over all gaps in the chain of reasoning, he applies his theory to man--including presumably himself, the author of the theory, since he does not make any mention of himself as an exception.

To begin with the sunflower, which is where the professor begins--the idea is that the solar rays cause chemical actions in the plant, the chemical actions in their turn causing movements which switch the flower around into a position where the balance of forces results in stability. Next we go to the small fresh-water crustacean. This animal, when experimented upon, did not show any heliotropism; but the professor was nothing daunted. He just poured some acid into the water, and the result was that the pollywogs all flocked to the light and stayed there. It was the same when carbonic acid gas or alcohol was put into the water. Our explanation is that the pollywogs were upset by the poisoned water and crowded into that part where the light rendered the water less poisonous or gave them greater strength to resist the ill effects. But the professor has a theory to prop; so his conclusion is that the chemical poured into the water "sensitized" the creature, rendering them heliotropic. It is wonderful what a great theory a little fact can be made to prove!

Passing to ethics--rather a large jump--the professor suggests that persons who exhibit the highest manifestation of ethics--that is, persons who are willing to sacrifice their lives for an idea--are victims of a "tropism." In other words, these unfortunate people have become slaves to the chemical reactions produced in them by the stimuli of ideas.

Well, it may suit this professor to define self-sacrifice as an obsession, but we could give other instances of the obsession of ideas which would fit the definition better. Ethics may be a chemical phenomenon, but in that case it does not much matter after all, since every other thing in the universe is also a chemical process. The professor himself is a chemical process--so, a fig for his theory! say we; who cares for a theory made by a chemical process? Frankly, we do not believe this theory. But, if the theory is false, it follows that it was not made by a chemical process after all; hence it is perhaps _not_ false. And so the logic goes round and round.

People who weave theories of this fantastic kind are people whose ideas have no relation to life; they live in a world of imagination. People who can define their own mind as a chemical process--the very mind which they are using all the time--must surely have something the matter with their thinking machinery. And we recognize in the sneer at ethics the shadow of a certain destructive "stimulus" which is certainly not of the sun but which acts on people's brains a good deal in these days.

Under the influence of a stimulus which has acted on our chemical cells, and which we feel powerless to resist, we state without apology that all chemical, physical, and electrical processes are manifestations of will. The action of the sunflower in turning to the sun is a manifestation of will. Without will, no atom could approach or recede from its neighbor. Physical notation cannot get any further than corpuscles separated by empty space; and what short of a will can bridge such a gap? Shall we define the whole universe as chemical processes, or shall we define it as mind and will? Take your choice. In the one case you have a chemical process defining itself as a chemical process; for your mind, which defines, is a chemical process; in the other case you have mind recognizing mind in other beings. Analysis of the universe must begin with consciousness; we must define matter in terms of mind; to attempt to define mind in terms of matter, while at the same time using a mind to do it with, is to make a fundamental mistake in logic that can only lead to a piling up of absurdities.

In speculating as to the cause of motion, try to imagine any other cause for it than volition. You have, let us say, two atoms; they approach one another; here is motion; what causes it? You can only answer "Attraction," which is only defining it by an equivalent word; for attraction is nothing more than a name for the very thing we are seeking to explain. If we study our own organism we find that volition is the cause of motion, and we infer that it is the same in other people. We are not conscious of any volition that moves our own vital organs, or the muscles of other people or animals, or the sunflower, or the chemical mixture. But if we do not put these actions under the same category as the ones of which we are conscious, we have to find a new and special explanation for them. It is better to accept, provisionally at least, volition as being one of the fundamental facts of the universe, and to use it as a basis of inference; for volition is a thing of which we have actual experience, while the atoms and blind forces of materialistic speculation are mere suppositions.

But delusions, however erroneous, do actually exist as such in the minds of those obsessed by them; and are capable of giving rise to mischievous actions. We have at present a regular epidemic of awful sociological theories, threatening to develop into action, and based on these mechanical and chemical ideas of the universe. Such proposals as that criminals shall be vivisected, that private or co-operative self-abuse shall be officially taught as a means of keeping down the population, and many other such notions, are the fruit of a perverted and materialistic philosophy. They give a faint idea of the reign of terror that might supervene if the destructive forces now at work should gain the upper hand. A section of the world of thought seems to be going mad and the sooner the people find it out the better.

OPEN-AIR DRAMA: by Per Fernholm, M. E., Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm)

All know that to act with knowledge at the critical moment is like throwing out a kindling spark that sets minds aflame and makes possible things which long have loomed in unattainable horizons. But the spreading of this fire proceeds on inner planes and can not be followed by those ignorant of the source. Seldom does it leave obvious traces in so short a time as is the case in the recent development of the drama.

Not more than twelve years have passed since the hills of Lomaland resounded with the soul-stirring stanzas of the _Eumenides_, the open-air drama being directed and supervised in all its detail by Katherine Tingley, and played by her students. She then declared that a new awakening in this art was at hand and that the drama would be restored once more to its true dignity as a most potent means of expressing the life of the Soul. The seed at that moment planted knowingly by her fell into a rich soil--today there is hardly a country where an attempt has not been made to present ancient life by representations in the open air.

This year, in Lomaland, another note has been struck, a new impulse given by the presentation of _The Aroma of Athens_ in the open-air Greek Theater. More plays are to follow, of different lands and times, opening up limitless opportunities for all who are in earnest and have the welfare of the nations at heart. Ancient life is here given in unstained purity, suffused with the inspiring splendor of soul-life. Here all the rays come from within, from above; the false glamor from below has no place.

Elsewhere efforts have not always been successful, and we need not wonder at that. Where do we find knowledge of ancient times except in regard to scattered details of superficial life? Modern plays are few which can withstand the silent environment of nature, for there the conflict of human passions are out of place, as also much of the modern way of acting, dissecting emotions and sensations. Nature demands sincerity, and requires that a rôle should not only be _acted_, but actually _lived_, supported by a worthy life. Then only will nature help in many a hidden way; then only shall we have before our eyes the drama of all ages: Man learning to use his own powers wisely and to work in harmony with Nature.

One of the happier attempts outside Lomaland seems to have been that made in Sweden this summer by a band of young and enthusiastic actors. Their success may be due to the fact that they started out with the sincere wish to give the people out in the country who never had seen a play, and especially the young, an opportunity to obtain a glimpse of their ancient life. Refreshing simplicity and heart-feeling characterized their whole work, going around, as they did, from place to place where the young usually meet in summertime, selecting a fit place on a mountain, at a lake, in a grove, or whatever they could find, the audience having to resort to the flower-sprinkled grassy slope of a hill. Over one hundred representations were given in this way, most of them far away from cities.

Even as a string vibrates when its note is sounded from a distance, so the deeper heart-strings vibrate when their note is struck; and it seems as if a new means of reaching the people has been found in such representations.

If only the highest and purest notes be sounded, as was the case in Lomaland, new and helpful forces are called into play in human life.

INTRA-ATOMIC ENERGY: by H. Coryn, M. D., M. R. C. S.

Will the turn of Keeley (of motor fame) come for vindication? The turn of the Keeley _principle_, the disintegration of atoms by sound, and the consequent liberation of their stored energy, undoubtedly will.

In his recent address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science Sir William Ramsay dealt with the _self_-disintegration of atoms, especially radium atoms, and then went on:

This leads to the speculation whether, if elements are capable of disintegration, the world may not have at its disposal a hitherto unsuspected source of energy. If radium were to evolve its stored-up energy at the same rate that gun-cotton does, we should have an undreamed of explosive; could we control the rate we should have a useful and potent source of energy.... If some form of catalyser [promotor of atomic change] could be discovered which would usefully increase their [such elements as radium] almost inconceivably slow rate of change, then it is not too much to say that the whole future of our race would be altered.

A _Scientific American_ writer follows on naturally:

Iodide of nitrogen, a black powder, is one of the most dangerous of all explosives. When dry, the slightest touch will often cause it to explode with great violence. There appears to be a certain rate of vibration which this compound cannot resist. Some of it in the damp state was rubbed on the strings of a bass viol. It is known that the strings of such an instrument will vibrate when those of a similar instrument, having an equal tension, are played upon. In the present case, after the explosive had become thoroughly dry upon the strings, another bass viol was brought near and its strings sounded. At a certain note the iodide exploded. It was found that the explosion occurred only when a rate of vibration of sixty per second was communicated to the prepared strings. The note G caused an explosion while E had no effect.

The writer goes on to state that damage to stone and brick walls has been traced to long continued violin playing.

It follows, of course, that there must have been continuous playing for years to cause the loosening of masonry or to make iron brittle, but it will do so in time.

The point of interest is _the special rate of vibration_ required to set free the energy locked up in the iodide of nitrogen. It was intra-_molecular_ energy. Sir William Ramsay was referring to the far greater stores of intra-_atomic_ energy, energy _within_ the atoms, holding each one together. The other ties them one to another within the molecule, i. e., holds the molecule together.

But may not the atom too respond to some special rate of vibration producible by sound, lying far among the upper harmonics of any audible tone? This at any rate was Keeley's statement and claim. The causes of his equally unquestionable successes and failure may be worth looking into once more now that a certain high temperature surrounding the subject has died down. _Sound_ may be Sir William Ramsay's "catalyser."

A JAPANESE WRITER'S VIEWS ON MODERN CIVILIZATION: Contributed by E. S. (Tokyo, Japan)

In an essay on the future of civilization in Japan, quoted in the _Japan Chronicle_, Dr. Otsuki says:

There can be little doubt that Western civilization and Japanese civilization will eventually be united.... The harmonizing of the two can be brought about only by mutual concessions; but it seems to me it would be a calamity if we were to concede too much. There are times when one feels as Dr. Nitobe felt when he wrote his _Soul of Japan_, and as Lafcadio Hearn felt when he described the moral beauty of old Japan; one fears that in their conflict with European civilization our Japanese ideals will be gradually wiped out, that the good and the beautiful as we have known it and loved it, will be sacrificed to the coarser forms of modern utilitarianism....

The blending of the two civilizations

leads us to inquire what is likely to be the future of Western civilization. On this subject there is a great variety of opinion in the West; but of one thing deep thinkers seem sure: the present system of material civilization can only escape from ending in a terrible cataclysm by the addition to it of spiritual and moral elements that will guide, control, and conserve its energy.... Is it not possible that Japan may be able to take a prominent part in this work? Can she not save Europe and America from the dangers that now beset them? If by blending her civilization with theirs she can supply the elements of strength and permanence which are now lacking, then her future as well as that of Western nations will be one of increasing prosperity. But if, while receiving from Europe and America much that is good, she takes also much that is distinctly bad, and in addition to this, she allows her own fine old system of civilization to be blotted out of existence--then her future destiny cannot be contemplated by any patriotic Japanese with anything but grave misgiving and profound grief.

COPAN, AND ITS POSITION IN AMERICAN HISTORY: by William E. Gates

No place among all the sites of ancient ruins on the continent of America, arouses a livelier interest in both the observer and the student, than does Copan. Other remains, in Peru, and even in Mexico, are of vaster bulk; but the ensemble of Copan produces upon the mind an effect comparable in Egypt only by that of Thebes. And this evidence grows and is supported at every step by the evidence of such researches and excavations as it has been so far possible to carry on.

All would seem to indicate a gradual addition of new features accompanied by abandonment of older parts. It can readily be seen how a process of this kind carried on for centuries, without any well designed plan to adhere to or any definite idea to carry out, would result in a great complex mass of structures like that of Copan to puzzle and perplex the explorer.