THEOSOPHICAL PHILOSOPHYkrishnamurti.abundanthope.org/index_htm_files/TheosPhilos.pdf · one of H. P. Blavatsky’s most important articles, which she published in Lucifer fox February,

THEOSOPHICALPHILOSOPHY

H. P. BLAVATSKY SERIES • NO. 30

THEOSOPHY COMPANY (MYSORE) PRIVATE LTD.

BANGALORE 560 00

Articles by H. P. Rlavatsky“WHAT IS TRUTH?”

OLD PHILOSOPHERS AND MODERN CRITICS

1

FOREWORD

THE philosophical question, “What is Truth?”, became the title ofone of H. P. Blavatsky’s most important articles, which she publishedin Lucifer fox February, 1888. The answer she gave is crucial to otherquestions, such as the issue of “author ity”in philosophy and Theosophy,and she also provided an illustration of how that answer might bepractically applied—in this case by describing the editorial policy ofher Magazine.

While never equivocating in respect to the contrast between modernscientific or theological opinion and the tenets of the Wisdom-Religion,HP B. was at the same time eager to recognize truth wherever found,even if it were no more than a “particle of gold lost in a ton of rubbish.”And she is meticulous in giving full credit to scientists and scholars fortheir conscientious labors,even when, in certain of their conclusions,she finds them utterly wrong.

There is in this article also a valuable expression concerningTheosophical teachings which “transcend a certain limit ofspeculation”—consisting of ideas which could only be withered by theharsh atmosphere of controversy. Of his “deeper spiritual, and onemay almost say religious,beliefs,”she wrote, “no true Theoso-phist oughtto degrade these by subjecting them to public discussion, but oughtrather to treasure and hide them deep within the sanctuary of hisinnermost soul.” And in Theosophical publications, she said, when suchideas are dealt with, they ought to be embodied”as hypotheses offeredto the consideration of the thinking portion of the public.” This view,like the general statement about the policy of Lucifer, flows directlyfrom the considerations developed in this article concerning relativeand absolute truth.

THEOSOPHICAL PHILOSOPHY 32

The second article printed here, “Old Philosophers and ModernCritics,” was posthumously published in Lucifer for July and August,1892. It is obviously an expansion of material which appeared in thefirst volume of Is is Unveiled (1877), in the section, “Before theVeil.” The importance of Plato, during previous European history, asthe link between Eastern and Western thought is made even clearerin this article, through further explanations of the Greek philosopher’smeanings, which are now interpreted in the vocabulary of the sevenfoldnature of man and by the concepts provided in The Secret Doctrine(1888) and The Key to Theosophy (1889). Plato and his followers,including theNeoplatonists, are shown to have been thoroughly familiarwith the Theosophical teachings of the after-death states and thedoctrines of Karma and Reincarnation.

The student of this article will again recognize why MadameBlavatsky, in the Introductory to The Secret Doctrine (i, xl, xlv), invitesher reader”togive all hisattention to that millennium which divided thepre-Christian and the /^/-Christian periods, by the year ONE of theNativity”—the period which,”beginningwith Buddha and Pythagorasat the one end and the Neo-Platonists at the other, is the only focusleft in history wherein converge for the last time the bright rays oflight streaming from the aeons of time gone by, unobscured by thehand of bigotry and fanaticism.”

“WHAT IS TRUTH?”

Truth is the Voice of Nature and of Time—Truth is the startling monitor within us—Naught is without it, it comes from the stars,The golden sun, and every breeze that blows. . . .

—W. THOMPSON BACON

. . . Fair Truth’s immortal sunIs sometimes hid in clouds; not that her lightIs in itself defective, but obscuredBy my weak prejudice, imperfect faithAnd all the thousand causes which obstructThe growth of goodness ....

—HANNAH MORE

WHAT is Truth?” asked Pilate of one who, if the claimsof the Christian Church are even approximatelycorrect, must have known it. But He kept silent. And

the truth which He did not divulge, remained unrevealed, for his laterfollowers as much as for the Roman Governor. The silence of Jesus,however, on this and other occasions, does not prevent his presentfollowers from acting as though they had received theultimate andabsolute Truth itself; and from ignoring the fact that only such Wordsof Wisdom had been given to them as contained a share of the truth,itself concealed in parables and dark, though beautiful, sayings.1

This policy led gradually to dogmatism and assertion. Dogmatismin churches, dogmatism in science, dogmatism everywhere. Thepossible truths, hazily perceived in the world of abstraction, like thoseinferred from observation and experiment in the world of matter, areforced upon the profane multitudes, too busy to think for themselves,

Lucifer, February 1888

1 Jesus says to the “Twelve”—Unto you is given the mystery of the Kingdom of God: but unto themthat are without, all things are done in parables,” etc. (Mark iv II.)


under the form of Divine revelation and Scientific authority. Butthe same question stands open from the days of Socrates and Pilatedown to our own age of wholesale negation: is there such a thing asabsolute truth in the hands of any one party or man? Reason answers,“there cannot be.” There is no roomfor absolute truth upon any subjectwhatsoever, in a world as finite and conditioned as man is himself.But there are relative truths, and we have to make the best we can ofthem.

In every age there have been Sages whohad mastered the absoluteand yet could teach but relative truths. For none yet, born of mortalwoman in our race, has, or could have given out, the whole and thefinal truth to another man, for every one of us has to find that (to him)final knowledge in himself. As no two minds can be absolutely alike,each has to receive the supreme illumination through itself, accordingto its capacity, and from no human light. The greatest adept livingcan reveal of the Universal Truth only so much as the mind he isimpressing it upon can assimilate, and no more. Tot homines, quotsententiae—is an immortal truism. The sun is one, but its beams arenumberless; and the effects produced are beneficent or maleficent,according to the nature and constitution of the objects they shine upon.Polarity is universal, but the polariser lies in our own consciousness.In proportion as our consciousness is elevated towards absolute truth,sodo we men assimilate it more or less absolutely. But man’sconsciousness again, is only the sunflower of the earth. Longing forthe warm ray, the plant can only turn to the sun,and move round andround in following the course of the unreachable luminary: its rootskeep it fast to the soil, and half its life is passed in the shadow. . . .

Still each of us can relatively reach the Sun of Truth even on thisearth,and assimilate its warmest and most direct rays,howeverdifferentiated they may become after their long journey through thephysical particles in space. To achieve this, there are two methods.On the physical plane we may use our mental polari-scope: and,analyzing the properties of each ray, choose the purest. On the planeof spirituality, to reach the Sun of Truth we must work in dead earnestfor the development of our higher nature. We know that by paralyzinggradually within ourselves the appetites of the lower personality, and

thereby deadening the voice of the purely physiological mind—thatmind which depends upon, and is inseparable from,its medium orvehicle, the organic brain— the animal man in us may make roomfor the spiritual; and once aroused from its latent state, the highestspiritual senses and perceptions grow in us in proportion, and developpari passu with the “divine man.” This is what the great adepts, theYogis in the East and the Mystics in theWest,have always done andare still doing.

But we also know, that with a few exceptions, no man of theworld, no materialist, will ever believe in the existence of such adepts,or even in the possibility of such a spiritual or psychic development.“The (ancient) fool hath said in his heart, There is no God”; the modernsays, “There are no adepts on earth,they are figments of your diseasedfancy.” Knowing this we hasten to reassure our readers of the ThomasDidymus type. We beg them to turn in this magazine to reading morecongenial to them; say to the miscellaneous papers on Hylo-Idealism,by various writers.2

For LUCIFER tries to satisfy its readers of whatever “school ofthought,”and shows itself equally impartially toTheist and AtheistMystic and Agnostic, Christian and Gentile. Such articles as oureditorials, the Comments on “Lightonthe Path,”etc.,etc —are notintended for Materialists. They are addressed to Theosophists, orreaders who know in their hearts that Masters of Wisdom do exist:and, though absolute truth is not on earth and has to be searched forin higher regions, that there still are, even on this silly, ever-whirlinglittle globe of ours, some things that are not even dreamt of in Westernphilosophy.

To return to our subject. It thus follows that, though “generalabstract truth is the most precious of all blessings” for many of us, asit was for Rousseau, we have, meanwhile, to be satisfied with relative

2 e.g., to the little article “Autocentricism”— on the same “philosophy,” or apain, to the apex of theHylo-idealist pyramid in this Number. It is a letter of protest by the learned Founder of the School inquestion, against a mistake of ours. He complains of our “coupling” his name with those of Mr. HerbertSpencer Darwin, Huxley, and others on the question of atheism and materialism, as the said lights in thepsychological and physical sciences are considered by Dr. Lewins too flickering, too “compromising” andweak, to deserve the honourable appellation of Atheists or even Agnostics. See/Correspondence” in DoubleColumn, and the reply by “The Adversary.”

“WHAT IS TRUE?”


truths. In sober fact, we are a poor set of mortals at best, ever indread before the face of even a relative truth, lest it should devourourselves and our petty little preconceptions along with us. As for anabsolute truth, most of us are as incapable of seeing it as of reachingthe moon on a bicycle. Firstly, because absolute truth is as immovableas the mountain of Mahomet, which refused to disturb itself for theprophet, so that he had to go to it himself And we have to follow hisexample if he would approach it even at a distance Secondly, becausethe kingdom of absolute truth is not of this world, while we are toomuch of it. And thirdly, because notwithstanding that in the poet’sfancy man is

. . . . . . . . .The abstractOf all perfection,which the workmanshipOf heaven hath modelled. . . . . . .

in reality he is a sorry bundle of anomalies and paradoxes, anempty wind bag inflated with his own importance, with contradictoryand easily influenced opinions. He is at once an arrogant and a weakcreature, which though in constant dread of some authority, terrestrialor celestial, will yet—

. . . . . . . . .like an angry ape,Play such fantastic tricks before high HeavenAs make the angels weep.

Now, since truth is a multifaced jewel, the facets of which it isimpossible to perceive all at once; and since, again, no two men,however anxious to discern truth, can see even one of those facetsalike, what can be done to help them to perceive it? As physical man,limited and trammeled from every side by illusions, cannot reach truthby the light of his terrestrial perceptions, we say— develop in you theinner knowledge. From the time when the Delphic oracle saidtotheenquirer”Man,knowthyself”, no greater or moreimportant truthwas ever taught. Without such perception, man will remain ever blindto even many a relative, let alone absolute, truth. Man has to knowhimself i.e., acquire the inner perceptions which never deceive,before he can master any absolute truth. Absolute truth is the symbolof Eternity, and no finite mind can ever grasp the eternal, hence, notruth in its fulness can ever dawn upon it. To reach the state duringwhich man sees and senses it, we have to paralyze the senses of the

external man of clay. This is a difficult task, we may be told, andmostpeople will, at this rate, prefer to remain satisfied with relative truths,nodoubt. But to approach even terrestrial truths requires, first of all,love of truth for its own sake, for otherwise no recognition of it willfollow. And who loves truth in this age for its own sake? How manyof us are prepared to search for, accept, and carry it out, in the midstof a society in which anything that would achievesuccess has to bebuilt on appearances, not on reality, on self-assertion, not onintrinsic value? We are fully aware of the difficulties in the way ofreceiving truth. The fair heavenly maiden descends only on a (to her)congenial soil—thesoilofan impartial, unprejudiced mind,illuminated bypure SpiritualConsciousness; and both are truly rare dwellers incivilized lands. In our century of steam and electricity, when manlives atamaddeningspeedthat leaveshim barely time for reflection, heallows himself usually to be drifted down from cradle to grave, nailedto the Procrustean bed of custom and conventionality. Nowconventionality—pure and simple—is a congenital LIE, as it is in everycase a “simulation of feelings according to a received standard”(F.W Robertson’s definition); and where there is any simulation therecannot be any truth. How profound the remark made by Byron, that“truth is a gem that is found at a great depth; whilst on the surface ofthis world all things are weighed by the false scales of custom” isbest known to those who are forced to live in the stifling atmosphereof such social conventionalism, and who,even when willing and anxiousto learn, dare not accept the truth they long for, for fear of the ferociousMoloch called Society.

Look around you, reader; study the accounts given by world-knowntravellers, recall the joint observations of literary thinkers, the data ofscience and of statistics. Draw the picture of modern society, ofmodern politics, of modern religion and modern life in general beforeyour mind’s eye Remember the ways and customs of every culturedrace and nation under the sun Observe the doings and the moral attitudeof people in the civilized centres of Europe, America, and even of thefar East and the colonies, everywhere where the white man has carriedthe “benefits” of so-called civilization. And now, having passed inreview all this, pause and reflect, and then name, if you can, that

“WHAT IS TRUE?”


blessed Eldorado, that exceptional spot on the globe, where TRUTH

is the honoured guest, and LIE and SHAM the ostracised outcasts?You CANNOT. Nor can any one else, unless he is prepared anddetermined to add his mite to the mass of falsehood that reigns supremein every department of national and social life. “Truth!” cried Carlyle,“truth, thoughtheheavenscrushme for following her,no falsehood,though a whole celestial Lubberland were the prize of Apostasy “Noble words, these.But how many think,and how many will dare tospeak as Carlyle did,in our nineteenth century day? Does not thegigantic appalling majority prefer to a man the “paradise of Do-nothings,” the pays de Cocagne of heartless selfishness? It is thismajority that recoils terror-stricken beforethe mostshadowyoutlineofevery new and unpopular truth, out of mere cowardly fear, lest Mrs.Harris should denounce, and Mrs. Grundy condemn, its converts tothe torture of being rent piecemeal by her murderous tongue.

SELFISHNESS, the first-born of Ignorance, and the fruit of theteaching which asserts that for every newly-born infant a new soul,separate and distinct from the Universal Soul, is “created”—thisSelfishness is the impassable wall between the personal Self andTruth. It is the prolific mother of all human vices, Lie being born outof the necessity for dissembling,and Hypocrisy out of the desire tomask Lie. It is the fungus growing and strengthening with age inevery human heart in which it has devoured ail better feelings.Selfishness kills every noble impulse in our natures, and is the onedeity,fearing no faithlessness or desertion from its votaries.Hence,we see it reign supreme in the world and in so-called fashionablesociety. As a result, we live, and move, and have our being in this godof darkness under his trinitarian aspect of Sham,Humbug,andFalsehood, called RESPECTABILITY.

Is this Truth and Fact, or is it slander? Turn whichever way youwill, and you find, from the top of the social ladder to the bottom,deceit and hypocrisy at work for dear Self’s sake, in every nation asin every individual. But nations, by tacit agreement, have decided thatselfish motives in politics shall be called “noble national aspiration,patriotism,” etc ; and the citizen views it in his family circle as“domestic virtue.” Nevertheless, Selfishness, whether it breeds desire

for aggrandizement of territory, or competition in commerce at theexpense of one’s neighbour,can never be regarded as a virtue. Wesee smooth-tongued DECEIT and BRUTE FORCE— the Jachin and Boazof every International Temple of Solomon-called Diplomacy, and wecall it by its right name. Because the diplomat bows low before thesetwo pillars of national glory and politics, and puts their masonicsymbolism “in (cunning) strength shall this my house be established”into daily practice; / e.

9 gets by deceit what he cannot obtain by

force—shall we applaud him? A diplomat’squalification—”dexterityor skillinsecuringad vantages’ —for one’s own countryatthe expenseofothercountries,canhardly be achieved by speaking truth, but verilyby a wily and deceitful tongue; and, therefore,LuciFER calls suchaction—a living, and an evident LIE.

But it is not in politics alone that custom and selfishness haveagreed to call deceit and lie virtue, and to reward him who lies bestwith public statues. Every class of Society lives on LIE, and would fallto pieces without it Cultured, God-and-law-fearing aristocracy, beingas fond of the forbidden fruit as any plebeian, is forced to lie frommorn to noon in order to cover what it is pleased to term its “littlepeccadillos,” but which TRUTH regards as gross immorality.Society ofthe middleclasses ishoneycombed withfalse smiles, false talk, andmutual treachery. For the majority religion has become a thin tinselveil thrown over the corpse of spiritual faith. The master goes tochurch to deceive his servants; the starving curate—preaching whathe has ceased to believe in—hoodwinks his bishop;the bishop—hisGod. Dailies,political and social, might adopt with advantage for theirmotto Georges Dandin’s immortal query—”Lequel de nous deuxtrompe-t-on ici?—Even Science, once the anchor of the salvation ofTruth,hasceased to be the temple of naked Fact Almost to a man theScientists strive now only to force upon their colleagues and the publicthe acceptance of some personal hobby, of some new-fangled theory,which will shed lustre on their name and fame A Scientist is as readyto suppress damaging evidenceagainst a current scientific hypothesisinourtimes,asa missionary in heathen-land,or a preacher at home,topersuadehis congregation that modern geology is alie,andevolu-tionbut vanity and vexation of spirit.

“WHAT IS TRUE?”


Such is the actual state of things in 1888 A D., and yet we aretaken to task by certain papers for seeing this year in more thangloomy colours!

Lie has spread to such extent—supported as it is by custom andconventionalities—that even chronology forces people to lie Thesuffixes A.D. and B c. used alter the dates of the year by Jew andHeathen, in European and even Asiatic lands, by the Materialist andthe Agnostic as much as by the Christian, at home, are—a lie used tosanction another LIE.

Where then is even relative truth to be found? If, so far back asthe century of Democritus, she appeared to him under the form of agoddess lying at the very bottom of a well, so deep that it gave butlittle hope for her release; under the present circumstances we havea certain right to believe her hidden, at least, as far off as the everinvisible dark side of the moon. This is why, perhaps, all the votariesof hidden truths are forthwith set down as lunatics. However it maybe, in no case and under no threat shall LUCIFER be ever forced intopandering to any universallyandtacitly recognised and as universallypractised lie, but will hold to fact, pure and simple, trying to proclaimtruth whensoever found, and under no cowardly mask. Bigotry andintolerance mayberegarded as orthodox and sound policy,and theencouraging of social prejudices and personal hobbies at the cost oftruth, as a wise course to pursue in order to secure success for apublication. Let it be so. The Editors of LUCIFER are Theosophists,and their motto is chosen: Vera pro gratiis.

They arequiteawarethat LUCIFER’S libationsandsacrifices to thegoddessTruth donot senda sweetsavoury smoke into theno&es of thelords of the press, nor does the bright “Son of the Morning” smellsweet in their nostrils. He is ignored when not abused as— Veritasodium paret. Even his friends are beginning to find fault with him.They cannot see why it should not be a purely Theosophicalmagazine, in other words, why it refuses to be dogmatic and bigoted.Instead ofdevotingevery inch ofspaceto theosophical and occultteachings, it opens its pages “to the publication of the most grotesquelyheterogeneous elements and conflicting doctrines.” This is the chief

accusation, to which we answer—why not? The-osophy is divineknowledge, and knowledge is truth: every true fact, every sincereword are thus part and parcel of Theosophy One who is skilled indivinealchemy, or even approximately blessed with the gift of the perceptionof truth, will findand extract it from an erroneous as much as from acorrect statement However small the particle of gold lost in a ton ofrubbish, it is the noble metal still, and worthy of being dug out even atthe price of someextra trouble. As has been said, it is often as usefulto know what a thing is not, as to learn what it is. The averagereader can hardly hope to find any fact in a sectarian publicationunder all its aspects,pro and con, for either one way or the other itspresentation is sure to be biassed, and the scales helped to incline tothat side to which its editor’s special policy is directed. A Theosophicalmagazine is thus, perhaps, the only publication whereone may hope tofind, at any rate, the unbiassed, if still only approximate truth and factNakedtruth is reflected in LUCIFER under its many aspects, for nophilosophical or religious views are excluded from its pages. And, asevery philosophy and religion, however incomplete, unsatisfactory,and even foolish some may be occasionally, must be based on a truthand fact of some kind, the reader has thus theopportunity of comparing,analysing, and choosing from theseveral philosophiesdis-cussedtherein.LUCIFER offers as many facets of the One universal jewel as its limitedspace will permit, and says to its readers: “Choose you this day whomye will serve: whether the gods that were on the other side of theflood which submerged man’s reasoning powers and divine knowledge,or the gods of the Amorites of custom and social falsehood, oragain, the Lord of (the highest) Self—the bright destroyer of the darkpower of illusion?” Surely it is that philosophy that tends to diminish,instead of adding to, the sum of human misery, which is the best.

At all events, the choice is there, and for this purpose only havewe opened our pages to every kind of contributors. Therefore do youfind in them the views of a Christian clergyman who believes in hisGod and Christ, but rejectsthewicked interpretationsandthe enforceddogmasof hisambitious proud Church,alongwiththedoc-trines of theHylo-Idealist, who denies God,soul,and immortality, and believes innought save himself. The rankest Materialists will find hospitality in

“WHAT IS TRUE?”


our journal;aye,even those whohave not scrupled to fill pages of itwith sneers and personal remarks upon ourselves, and abuse of thedoctrines of Theosophy, so dear to us. When a journal of free thought,conducted by an Atheist, inserts an article by a Mystic or Theosophistin praise of his occult views and the mystery of Parabrahmam, andpasses on it only a few casual remarks, then shall we say LUCIFER hasfound a rival. When a Christian periodical or missionary organ acceptsan article from the pen of a free-thinker deriding belief in Adam andhis rib, and passes criticism on Christianity—its editor’s faith—in meeksilence,then it will have become worthy of LUCIFER, and may be saidtruly to have reached that degree of tolerance when it may be placedon a level with any Theosophical publication.

But so long as none of these organs do somethingof thekind,theyare all sectarian, bigoted, intolerant, and can never have an idea oftruth and justice. They may throw innuendoes against LUCIFER and itseditors, they cannot affect either. In fact, the editors of that magazinefeel proud of such criticism and accusations, as they are witnesses tothe absolute absence of bigotry, or arrogance of any kind in theosophy,the result of the divine beauty of the doctrines it preaches. For, assaid, Theosophy allows a hearing and a fair chance to all. It deems noviews—if sincere—entirely destitute of truth. It respects thinking men,to whatever class of thought they may belong. Ever ready to opposeideas and views which can only create confusion without benefitingphilosophy, it leaves their expounders personally to believe in whateverthey please, and does justice to their ideas when they are good. Indeed,the conclusions or deductions of a philosophic writer may be entirelyopposed to our views and the teachings we expound;yet his premisesand statements of facts may bequite correct, and other people mayprofit by the adverse philosophy, even if we ourselves reject it, believingwe have something higher and still nearer to the truth. In any case,our profession of faithisnowmade plain,and all that is said in theforegoing pages both justifies and explains our editorial policy.

To sum up the idea, with regard to absolute and relative truth, wecan only repeat what we said before. Outside a certain highlyspiritual and elevated state of mind, during which Man is at onewith the UNIVERSAL MIND—he can get nought on earth but relative

truth, or truths, from whatsoever philosophy or religion. Wereeven the goddess who dwells at the bottom of the well to issue fromher place of confinement, she could give man no more than he canassimilate. Meanwhile, every one can sit near that well—the name ofwhich is KNOWLEDGE—and gaze into its depths in the hope of seeingTruth’s fair image reflected, at least, on the dark waters. This, however,as remarked by Richter, presents a certain danger. Some truth, to besure, may be occasionally reflected as in a mirror on the spot we gazeupon, and thus reward the patient student.But, adds the German thinker,“I have heard that some philosophers in seeking for Truth, to payhomage to her,have seen their own image in the water and adored itinstead.” ....

It is toavoidsuchacalamity—one thathasbefallen every founderof areligiousorphilosophical school—thattheeditorsarestudiously carefulnot to offer the reader only those truths which they find reflected intheir own personal brains.They offer the public a wide choice, andrefuse to show bigotry and intolerance, which are the chief landmarkson the path of Sectarianism. But, while leaving the widest marginpossible for comparison, our opponents cannot hope to find theirfacesre&ected on the clear waters of OUILUCIFER^ withoutremarksorjust criticism uponthemostprominent features thereof, if incontrast with theosophical views.

This, however, only within the cover of the public magazine,andso far as regards the merely intellectual aspect of philosophical truths.Concerning the deeper spiritual, and one may almost say religious,beliefs, no true Theosophist ought to degrade these by subjecting themto public discussion, but ought rather to treasure and hide them deepwithin the sanctuary of his innermost soul. Such beliefs and doctrinesshould never be rashly given out, as they risk unavoidable profanationby the rough handling of the indifferent and the critical. Nor oughtthey to be embodied in any publication except as hypotheses offeredto the consideration of the thinking portion of the public. Theosophicaltruths, when they transcend a certain limit of speculation, had betterremain concealed from public view, for the “evidence of things notseen” is no evidence save to him who sees, hears, and senses it. It isnot to be dragged outside the “Holy of Holies,” the temple of the

“WHAT IS TRUE?”


impersonal divine Ego, or the indwelling SELF. For, while every factoutside its perception can, as we have shown, be, at best, only arelative truth, a ray from the absolute truth can reflect itself only inthe pure mirror of its own flame—our highest SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS.And how can the darkness (of illusion) comprehend the LIGHT thatshineth in it?


IN one of the oldest philosophies and religious systems ofprehistoric times, we read that at the end of a Maha-Pralaya(gen-eral dissolution)the greatSou1,Param-

Atma,theSelf-Existent, that which can be “apprehended only by thesuprasensual,” becomes “manifest of itself “x

The Hindus give this “Existence” various names, one of which isSvayambhu, or Self-existent. This Svayambhu emanates from itselfthe creative faculty, or Svayambhuva—the “Son of the Self-Existent”—and the One becomes Two; this in its turn evolves a third principlewith the potentiality of becoming Matter which the orthodox call Viraj,or the Universe.2 This incomprehensible Trinity became lateranthropomorphized into the Trimurti, known as Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva,the symbols of the creative, the preservative, and the destructive powersin Nature—and at the same time of the transforming or regeneratingforces, or rather of the three aspects of the one Universal Force. It isthe Tridanda, the triply manifested Unity, which gave rise to the orthodoxAUM, which with them is but the abbreviated Trimurti. It is only underthis triple aspect that the profane masses can comprehend the greatmystery. When the triple God becomes Sharira,or puts on a visibleform, he typifies all the principles of Matter, all the germs of life, he isthe God of the three visages, or triple power, the essence of the VedicTriad “Let the Brahmans know the Sacred Syllable [Aum], the threewords of the Savitri, and read the Vedas daily.”3

Lucifer, July & August 1892

1 See Manava Dharma Shastra (Laws of Manu), i, 5, 6, 7, 8, et seq.2 Every student of Theosophy will recognize in these three consecutive emanations the three Logoi

of the Secret Doctrine and the Theosophical Scheme.3 Compare Manu, iv. 125.


After having produced the universe, He whose power isincomprehensible vanished again, absorbed in the Supreme Soul. . . . Havingretired into the primitive darkness, the Great Soul remains within theunknown, and is void of all form. . . .

When having again reunited the subtile elementary principles, itintroduces itself into either a vegetable or animal seed, it assumes at each anew form.

It is thus that, by an alternative waking and rest, the Immutable Beingcauses to revive and die eternally all the existing creatures, active and inert.4

He who has studied thespeculations ofPythagoras on theMonad,which, after emanating the Duad, retires into silence and darknessand thus creates the Triad,can realize whence came the Philosophyof the great Samian Sage, and after him that of Socrates and Plato.The mystic Decad (1+2+3 + 4=10) is a way of expressing this idea.The One is God; the Two, matter; the three, combining Monad andDuad and partaking of the nature of both, is the phenomenal World;the Tetrad, or form of perfection, expresses the emptiness of all; andthe Decad, or sum of all, involves the entire Kosmos.

Let us see howtheBrahmanical ideas tally withthe pre-ChristianPagan Philosophies and with Christianity itself. It is with the PlatonicPhilosophy, the most elaborate compend of the abstruse systems ofancient India, that we had better begin.

Although twenty-two and a half centuries have elapsed since thedeath of Plato, the great minds of the world are still occupied with hiswriting. He was, in the fullest sense of the word, the world’s interpreter.And the greatest Philosopher of the pre-Christian era faithfully mirroredin his works the spiritualism of the Vedic Philosophers, who livedthousands of years before himself, with its metaphysical expression.Vyasa, Jaimini, Kapila, Patanjali, and may others, will be found tohave transmitted their indelible imprint through the interveningcenturies, by means of Pythagoras, upon Plato and his school. Thus iswarranted the inference that to Plato and the ancient Hindu Sagesthe same wisdom was alike revealed. And so surviving the shock oftime, what can this wisdom be but divine and eternal?

Plato taught of justice as subsisting in the soul and as being the

greatest good of its possessor. “Men, in proportion to their intellect,have admitted his transcendent claims”;yet his commentators, almostwith one consent, shrink from every passage which implies that hisMetaphysics are based on a solid foundation, and not on idealconceptions.

But Plato could not accept a Philosophy destitute of spiritualaspirations;with him the two were at one. For the Old Grecian Sagethere was a single object of attainment: REAL KNOWLEDGE. He consideredthose only to be genuine Philosophers, or students of truth, who possessthe knowledge of the really-existing, in opposition fo mere objects ofperception; of the always-existing, in opposition to the transitory; andof that which exists permanently,in opposition to that whichwaxes,wanes,and is alternately developed and destroyed.

Beyond all finite existences and secondary causes, all laws, ideas,and principles, there is an INTELLIGENCE or MIND [Novs Nous, the Spirit] thefirst principle of all principles, the Supreme Idea on which all other ideasare grounded; the ultimate substance from which all things derive theirbeing and essence, the first and efficient Cause of all the order, andharmony, and beauty, and excellency, and goodness, which pervade theuniverse—who is called, by way of preeminence and excellence, theSupreme Good, the God (6 0£o<?), “the God over all” (6 liri Tract, Mo* ,)5.

It is not difficult for a Theosophist to recognize in this “God” (a)the UNIVERSAL MIND in its cosmic aspect; and (b) the Higher Eg& inman in its microcosmic. For, as Plato says, He is not the truth nor theintelligence; “but the Father of it”; i.e.,the “Father” of the LowerManas, our personal “brain-mind, which depends for its manifestationson the organs of sense. Though this eternal essence of things maynot beperceptible by our physical senses, it may be apprehended bythe mind of those who are not wilfully obtuse.6 We find Plato statingdistinctly that everything visible was created or evolved out of theinvisible and eternal WILL, and after its fashion. Our Heaven—hesays—was produced according to the eternal pattern of the “IdealWorld,” contained, like everything else,in the dodecahedron,thegeometrical model used by theDeity.7 With Plato, the Primal Being is

4 Compare Manu, i, 50, and other shlokas.

5 Cocker, Christianity and Greek Philosophy, xi. 377.6 This “God” is the Universal Mind, Alaya the source from which the “God” in each one of us has

emanated.7 Compare Timaeus Locrius, p. 97.



an emanation of the Demiurgic Mind (Nous),which contains withinitself from eternity the”Idea” of the “to-be-created world,”and thisldeait producesoutofitself.8 The laws of Nature are the established relationsof this Idea to the forms of its manifestations. Two thousand yearslater, we find the greatGerman philosopher Schopenhauerborrowingthis conception when stating that:

These forms are time, space and causality. Through time and space theidea varies in its numberless manifestations.

Thus, if Theology has often disfigured ancient Theosophy, ModernPsychology and Modern Science have disfigured Ancient PhilosophyBoth borrowedwithout any acknowledgement fromthe Ancient Wisdomand reviled and belittled it whenever they could. But, for lack ofcomprehension of the great philosophical and theo-sophicalprinciples,the methods of Modern Science,however exact, must endin nullity. In no one branch can it demonstrate the origin and ultimateof things. Instead of tracing the effect from its primal source, itsprogress is the reverse. Its higher types, it teaches, are all evolvedfrom antecedent lower ones, ft starts from the bottom of the cycle,led on step by step in the great labyrinth of Nature, by a thread ofMatter. As soon as this breaks, the clue is lost, and it recoils in affrightfrom the Incomprehensible, and confesses itself powerless. Not sodid Plato and his disciples. With them, as with us, the lower typeswere but the concrete images of the higher abstract types. TheSpirit, which is immortal, has an arithmetical, as the body has ageometrical, beginning. This beginning, as the reflection of the greatuniversal Archaeus. is self-moving, and from the centre diffuses itselfover the whole body of the microcosm.

Is it the sad perception of this truth, the recognition and the adoptionof which byany man of Science would now provesuicidal, that makesso many Scientists and famous scholars confess how powerless isPhysical Science, even over the world of Matter?

Almost a century separated Plato fromPythagoras.9 so that theycould not have been acquainted with each other. But both wereInitiates, and therefore it is not surprising to find that both teach

thesamedoctrineconcerningtheUniversalSoui. Pythagorastaught hisdisciples that God is the Universal Mind diffused through all things,and that this Mind by the sole virtue of its universal sameness couldbe communicated from one object to another, and be made to createall things by the sole will-power of man. With the ancient Greeks, too,Kurios was the God-Mind (Nous). “Now, Koros (Kurios) signifiesthe pure and unmixed nature of intellect —wisdom,” says Plato in thecratylus. Thus we find all the great philosophers,fromPythagorasthroughTimaeus ofLocris and Plato down to the Neo-Platonists, deriving the Mind-Soul of man from the Universal Mind-Soul.

Of myths and symbols, the despair of modern Orientalism,Platodeclares, in the Gorgias and Phoedo, that they were the vehicles ofgreat truths well worth seeking. But commentators are so little enrapport with the great Philosopher as to be compelled to acknowl-edgethattheyare ignorant where”the doctrinal ends,and the mythicalbegins.’Tlato put to flight the popular superstitionsconcerning magicand daemons, and developed the exaggerated notions of the time intorational theories and metaphysical conceptions. Perhaps these wouldnot quite stand the inductive method of reasoning established byAristotle; nevertheless they are satisfactory in the highest degree tothose who apprehend the existence of the higher faculty of insight orintuition, as affordingacriterion for ascertaining truth. For there arefew myths in any religious system but have an historical as well as ascientific foundation. Myths, as Pococke ably expresses it,

Are now proved to be fables, just in proportion as we misunderstandthem; truths, in proportion as they were once understood. Our ignorance itis which has made a myth of history; and OUT ignorance is an Hellenicinheritance, much of it the result of Hellenic vanity.10

Basing all his doctrines upon the presence of the Supreme Mind,Plato taught that the Nous, Spirit, or Rational Soul of man, being“generated by the Divine Father,” possessed a nature kindred to, oreven homogeneous with, the Divinity, and capable of beholdingtheeternalrealities This faculty of contemplatingrealityina direct andimmediate manner belongs to God alone; the aspiration for this

8 See Movers’ Explanations, p. 268.9 Pythagoras was born in 580 and Plato in 430 B.C.

10 India in Greece, Preface, p. ix.



knowledge constitutes what is really meantbyPhilosophy—the loveof wisdom. The love of truth is inherently the love of good; andpredominating over every desire of the soul, purifying it and assimilatingit to the divine, thus governing every act of the indi-yidual,it raisesmanto a participation and communion withDivinity, and restores himtothelikenessofGod.Says Platointhe Theoetetus:

This flight consists in becoming like God, and this assimilation is thebecoming just and holy with wisdom.

The basis of this assimilation is always asserted to be the pre-existence of the Spirit or Nous. In the allegory of the chariot andwinged steeds, given in the Phcedrus, he represents the psychicalnature as composite or two-fold; the thumos, or epithumetic part,formed from the substances of the world of phenomena; and thethumoeides(Qv fioZHts),the essence of which is linked to the eternalworld. The present earth-life is a fall and a punishment. The Souldwells in “the grave which we call the body,” and in its incorporatestate,and previous to the disciplineof education,the noeticor spiritualelement is “asleep.” Life is thus a dream, rather than a reality. Likethe captives in the subterranean cave, described in the Repub-//c,ourbacksbeingturned tothe light, we perceive only the shadows ofobjects, and think them the actual realities. Is not this the idea ofMaya, or the illusion of the senses in physical life, which is so markeda feature in the Hindu Philosophy? But these shadows, if we have notgiven ourselves up absolutely to the sensuous nature, arouse in us thereminiscence of that higher world that we once inhabited.

The interior spirit has some dim and shadowy recollection of itsantenatal state of bliss, and some instinctive and proleptic yearnings for itsreturn.

It is the province of the discipline of Philosophy to disenthral theSoul from thebondageof sense,and to raise it into the empyrean ofpure thought,to the vision of eternal truth,goodness,and beauty, thusuniting it to Spirit.

The soul cannot come into the form of a man if it has never seen thetruth. This is a recollection of those things which our soul formerly sawwhen journeying with Deity, despising the things which we now say are,and looking upto that which really is. Wherefore the nous, or spirit, of thePhilosopher [or student of the higher truth] alone is furnished with wings;

because he, to the best of his ability, keeps these things in mind, of whichthe contemplation renders even Deity itself divine. By making the right useof these things remembered from the former life, by constantly perfectinghimself in the perfect mysteries, a man becomes truly perfect—an initiateinto the diviner wisdom.

The Philosophy of Plato, we are assured by Porphyry of theNeo-platonic School, was taught and illustrated in the MYSTERIES.11 Manyhave questioned and even denied this; and Lobeck,in hisAglaophomus, has gone to the extreme of representing the sacredfestivals as little more than an empty show to captivate the imagination.As though Athens and Greece would for twenty centuries and morehave repaired every fifth year to Eleusis to witness a solemn religiousfarce! Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo, has exploded such assertions.He declares that the doctrines of the Alexandrian Platonists were theoriginal Esoteric doctrines of the first followers of Plato, and describesPlotinus as a Plato reincarnated. He also explains the motives of thegreat Philosopher for veiling the interior sense of what he taught.

Hence we may understand why the sublimer scenes in theMysteries were always in the night. The life of the interior Spirit isthe death of the external nature; and the night of the physical worlddenotes the day of the spiritual. Dionysus, the night-sun, is, therefore,worshipped rather than Helios, orb of day. In the Mysteries weresymbolized thepreexistent condition of the Spirit and Soul, and thelapse of the latter into earth-life and Hades, the miseries of that life,thepurification of the Soul,and its restoration to divine bliss, or reunionwith Spirit. Theon, of Smyrna, aptly compares the philosophicaldiscipline to the mystic rites, and his views may be summarized fromTaylor as follows:

11 “The accusations of atheism, the introducing of foreign deities, and corrupting of the Athenianyouth, which were made against bocrates, afforded ample justification for Plato to conceal the arcanepreach/ng of his doctrines. Doubtless the peculiar diction or jargon’ of the alchemists was employed for alike purpose. The dungeon, the rack, and the faggot were employed without scruple by Christians of everyshade, the Roman Catholics especially, against all who taught even natural science contrary to the theoriesentertained by the Church. Pope Gregory the Great even inhibited the grammatical use of Latin asheathenish. The offence of Socrates consisted in unfolding to his disciples the arcane doctrine concerning thegods, which was taught in the Mysteries and was a capital crime. He was also charged by Aristoohanes withintroducing the new god Dinos into the republic as the demiurgos or artificer, and the lord of the solaruniverse. The Heliocentric system was also a doctrine of the Mysteries; and hence, when Aristarchus.thePythagorean taught it openly, Cleanthes declared that the Greeks ought to have called him to accountand condemned him for blasphemy against the gods.” But Socrates had never been initiated, and hencedivulged nothing which had ever been imparted to him.



Philosophy may be called the initiation into the true arcana, and theinstruction in the genuine Mysteries. There are five parts of this initiation:I. the previous purification; II. the admission to participation in the arcanerites; III. the epoptic revelation; IV. the investiture or enthroning; V.—thefifth, which is produced from all these, is friendship and interior communionwith God, and the enjoyment of that felicity which arises from intimateconverse with divine beings. . . . Plato denominates the epopteia, or personalview, the perfect contemplation of things which are apprehended intuitively,absolute truths and ideas. He also considers the binding of the head andcrowning as analogous to the authority which anyone receives from hisinstructors, of leading others into the same contemplation. The fifth gradationis the most perfect felicity arising from hence, and, according to Plato, anassimilation to divinity as far as is possible to human beings.12

Such is Platonism. “Out of Plato,” says Ralph Waldo Emerson,“come all things that are still written and debated among men ofthought/’ He absorbed the learning of his time—that of Greece fromPhilolaus to Socrates; then that of Pythagoras in Italy; then what hecould procure from Egypt and the East. He was so broad that allPhilosophy, European and Asiatic, was in the doctrines; and to cultureand contemplation he added the natureandqualities of the poet.

The followers of Plato generally adhered strictly to hispsychological theories. Several, however, like Xenocrates, venturedinto bolder speculations Speusippus, the nephew and successor of thegreat Philosopher, was the author of the Numerical Analysis, a treatiseon the Pythagorean Numbers. Some of his speculations are not foundin the written Dialogues’, but as he was a listener to the unwrittenlectures of Plato,the judgment of Enfield is doubtless correct, that hedid not differ from his Master. Though not named, he was evidentlythe antagonist whom Aristotle criticized, when professing to cite theargument of Plato against the doctrine of Pythagoras, that all thingswere in themselves numbers, or rather, inseparable from the idea ofnumbers. He especially endeavoured to show that the Platonic doctrineof ideas differed essentially from the Pythagorean,in that it presupposednumbers and magnitude to exist apart from things. He also assertedthat Plato taught that there could be no real knowledge, if the objectof that knowledge was not carried beyond or above the sensible.

But Aristotle was no trustworthy witness. He misrepresentedPlato,andhe almost caricatured the doctrines ofPythagoras. There isa canon of interpretation, which should guide us in our examination ofevery philosophical opinion: “The human mind has, under the necessaryoperation of its own laws,beencompelied to entertain the samefundamental ideas, and the human heart to cherish the same feelingsin all ages.” It is certain that Pythagoras awakened the deepestintellectual sympathy of his age, and that his doctrines exerted apowerful influence upon the mind of Plato. His cardinal idea was thatthere existed a permanent principle of unity beneath the forms,changes,and other phenomena of the universe. Aristotle asserted thathe taught that “numbers are the first principles of all entities “ Ritterhas expressed the opinion that the formula of Pythagoras should betaken symbolically,which is entirely correct. Aristotle goes on toassociate these numbers with the “forms” and “ideas”ofPlato. Heeven declares that Plato said:”forms are numbers,”and that”ideasaresubstantial existences—real beings.” Yet Plato did not so teach.He declared that the final cause was the Supreme Goodness—TO a*i aQbv.

“Ideas are objects of pure conception for the human reason, andthey are attributes of the Divine Reason.”13Nor did he ever say that“forms are numbers.” What he did say may be found in the Tim&us:“God [the Universal Nous or Mind]formed things as they first aroseaccording to forms and numbers.”

It is recognized by Modern Science that all the higher laws ofNature assume the form of quantitative statement. What is this but afuller elaboration or more explicit affirmation of the Pythagoreandoctrine? Numbers were regarded as the best representations of thelaws of harmony which pervade the Kosmos. In Chemistrythedoctrineofatomsandthe laws of combination are actually, and, as itwere, arbitrarily defined by numbers. As Mr W. Archer Butler hasexpressed it:

The world is, then, through all its departments, a living arithmetic inits development, a realized geometry in its repose.

12 Thomas Taylor, Elcusinian and Bacchic Mysteries, p. 47. 13 History of Philosophy, by Cousin, i p. ix.



The key to the Pythagorean dogmas is the general formula ofunity in multiplicity, the One evolving the many and pervadingthe many. This is the ancient doctrine of emanation In a few words.Even the apostle Paul accepted it as true. “E| aurou, kai hi atirou,kai £ is atirdv rd nawa”—Out of him and through him and forhim all things are—though the pronoun “him” could hardly havebeen used with regard to the Universal Mind by an Initiate—a “MasterBuilder.”

The greatest ancient Philosophers are accused of shallownessand superficiality of knowledge as to those details in exact Science ofwhich the moderns boast so much; and Plato cannot escape thecommon fate. Yet, once more his modern critics ought to bear inmind, that the Sodalian Oath of the Initiate into the Mysteries preventedhis imparting his knowledge to the world, in so many plain words.As Champollion writes:

It was the dream of his [Plato’s] life to write a work and record in it, infull, the doctrines taught by the Egyptian hierophants; he often talked of it,but found himself compelled to abstain on account of the solemn oath.

Plato isdeclaredby his various commentatorstohavebeenutterlyignorant of the anatomy and functions of the human body; to haveknown nothing of the uses of the nerves for conveying sensations;and to have had nothing better to offer than vain speculationsconcerning physiological questions. He has simply generalized thedivisions of the human body,they say,and given nothing reminding usof anatomical facts As to his own views on the human frame, theMicrocosmos being, in his mind, the image in miniature of theMacrocosmos, they are much too transcendental to obtain theleastattention from our exact and materialistic sceptics. Theidea of thisframe being formed out of triangles, like the universe, seemspreposterously ridiculous to several of his translators. Alone of thelatter, Professor Jowett,in his introduction to the 77maet/s,honestlyremarks that the modern Physical Philosopher

hardly allows to his notions the merit of being “the dead men’s bones”out of which he has himself risen to a higher knowledge;14

forgetting how much the Metaphysics of golden times have helpedthe “physical” Sciences of the present day. If, instead of quarrellingwith the insufficiency and at times the absence of strictly scientificterms and definitions in Plato’s works, we analyze them carefully, theTimoeus alone will be found to contain within its limited space ofgerms of every new discovery. The circulation of the blood and thelaw of gravitation are clearly mentioned,though the former fact, itmay be, is not so clearly defined as to withstand the reiterated attacksofModernScience;for, according toProf.Jowett, the specific discoverythat the blood flows out from one side of the heartthroughthearteries,and returnstotheother through theveins, wasunknown to him, thoughPlato was perfectly aware”that blood is afluid in constant motion.”

Plato’s method, like that of Geometry, was to descend fromuniversals to particulars. Modern Science vainly seeks a First Causeamong the permutations of molecules; but Plato sought and found itamid the majestic sweep of worlds. For him it was enough to knowthe great scheme of creation and to be able to trace the mightiestmovements of the Universe through their changestotheir ultimates.The petty details, the observation and classification of which have sotaxed and demonstrated the patience of modern Scientists,occupiedbut littleoftheattention oftheold Philosophers. Hence, while a fifth-form boy of an English school can prate more learnedly about thelittle things of Physical Science thanPlato himself, yet, on the otherhand,the dullest of Plato’sdisciplescouldtell more about great cosmiclaws and their mutual relations,and could demonstrate a greaterfamiliarity with and control over the Occult Forces which lie behindthem, than the most learned profess6r in the most distinguishedAcademy of our day.

This fact, so little appreciated and never dwelt upon by Plato’stranslators, accounts for the self-laudation in which we modernsindulge at the expense of that Philosopher and his compeers. Theiralleged mistakes in Anatomy and Physiology are magnified to aninordinate extent in order to gratify our self-love,until,inacquir-ingtheidea of our own superior learning, we lose sight of the intellectualsplendour which adorns the ages of the past; it is as if one should, in14 Jowett, The Dialogues of Plato, ii. 508.



fancy, magnify the solar spots until he should believe the bright luminaryto be totally eclipsed.

The wholesale accusation that the ancient Philosophers merelygeneralized andthat they practically systematizednothing,doesnot provetheir “ignorance,” and further it is untrue. Every Science having beenrevealed in the beginning of time by a divine Instructor, became therebysacred, and capable of being imparted only during the Mysteries ofInitiation. No initiated Philosopher,there fore—such as Plato—hadthe right to reveal it. Once postulate this fact, and the alleged“ignorance” of the ancient Sages and of some initiated classic authors,is explained. At any rate, even a correct generalization is more usefulthan any system of exact Science, which only becomes rounded andcompleted by virtue of a number of “working hypotheses” andconjectures. The relative practical unprofitableness of most modernscientific research is evinced in the fact that while our Scientists havea name for the most trivial particle of mineral, plant, animal, and man,the wisest of themareunabletotellusanything definite about the VitalForce which producesthechangesinthese severalkingdoms. Itisunneces-sary to seek further thanthe works of our highest scientificauthorities themselves for corroboration of this statement.

It requires no little moral courage in a man of eminent professionalposition to do justice to the acquirements of the Ancients, in the faceof a public sentiment which is content with nothing less than theirabasement. When we meet with a case of the kind we gladly give thebold and honest scholar his due. Such a scholar is Professor Jowett,Master of Baliol College, and Regius Professor of Greek in theUniversity of Oxford, who, in his translation of Plato’s works, speakingof “the physical philosophy of the ancients as a whole,” gives themthe following credit: 1. “That the nebular theory was the receivedbelief of the early physicists.”Therefore it could not have rested, asDraper asserts,15 upon the telescopic discovery made by Herschel 2.“That the development of animals out of frogs who came to land, andof man out of animals, was held by Anaximenes in the sixth centurybefore Christ “ Professor Jowett might have added that this theory

antedated Anaximenes by many thousands of years, as it was anaccepted doctrine among the Chaldeans, who taught it exoterically,as on their cylinders and tablets, and esoterically in the temples ofEa and Nebo—the God, and prophet or revealer of the SecretDoctrine.16 But in both cases the statements are blinds. That whichAnaximanes—the pupil of Anaximander, who was himself the friendand disciple of Thales of Miletus,the chief of the”Seven Sages,”andtherefore an Initiate as were these two Masters—that whichAnaximanes meant by “animals” was something different from theanimals of the modern Darwinian theory. Indeed the eagle-headedmen, and the animals of various kinds with human heads,may pointtwo ways: to the descent of man from animals,and tothedescentofanimalsfromman, as in the Esoteric Doctrine. At allevents, even the most important of the present-day theories is thusshown to be not entirely original with Darwin. Professor Jo,wett goeson to show “that, even by Philolaus and the early Pythagoreans, theearth was held tobea body like the other stars revolving in space.”Thus Galileo—studying some Pythagorean fragments,which areshown by Reuchlinto have still existed in the days of the Florentinemathematician,17 being moreover,familiar with the doctrines of theold Philosophers—but reasserted an astronomical doctrine whichprevailed inlndia inthe remotest antiquity 4. The Ancients “thoughtthat there was a sex in plants as well as in animals.” Thus our modernNaturalists had but to follow in the steps of their predecessors. 5.“That musical notes depended on the relative length or tension of thestrings from which they were emitted,and were measured by ratiosof number.”

6. “That mathematicallawspervaded the world and even qualitativedifferences weresupposedtohavetheirorigininnumber.” 7. “That the

15 Conflict between Religion and Science, p. 240.

16 “The Wisdom of Nebo, of the God my instructor, all-delightful,” says verse 7 on the ffrst tablet,which gives the description of the generation of the Gods and creation.

17 Some Kabalistic scholars assert that the original Greek Pythagoric sentences of Sextus, which arenow said to be lost, existed at the time in a convent at Florence, and that Galileo was acquainted with thesewritings. They add, moreover that a treatise on Astronomy, a manuscript by Archytas, a direct disciple ofPythagoras, in which were noted all the most important doctrines of their school, was in the possession ofGalileo. Had some Rufinus got hold of it, he would no doubt have perverted it, as Presbyter Rufinus hasperverted the above-mentioned sentences of Sextus, replacing them with a fraudulent version, the authorshipof which he sought to ascribe to a certain Bishop Sextus. See Taylor’s Introduction to lamblichus’ Life ofPythagoras, p. xvii.



annihilation of matter was denied by them, and held to be atransformation only.” “Although one of these discoveries might havebeen supposed to be a happy guess,” adds Prof. Jowett, “we canhardly attribute them to all to mere coincidences.” We should thinknot; for, from what he says elsewhere, Prof. Jowett gives us a fullright to believe that Plato indicates (as he really does) in Timceus, hisknowledge of the indestructibility of Matter, of the conservation ofenergy, and the correlation of forces. Says Dr. Jowett:

The latest word of modern philosophy is continuity and development,but to Plato this is the beginning and foundation of Science.18

In short, the Platonic Philosophy was one of order, system, andproportion; it embraced the evolution of worlds and species, thecorrelation and conservation of energy ,the transmutation of materialform,the indestructibility of Matter and of Spirit. The position of thePlatonists in the latter respect was far in advance of Modern Science,and bound the arch of their philosophical system with a keystone atonce perfect and immovable.

Finally few will deny the enormous influence that Plato’s viewshave exercised on the formation and acceptance of the dogmas ofChristianity. But Plato’s views were those of the Mysteries. Thephilosophical doctrines taught therein are the prolific source from whichsprang all the old exoteric religions, the OWand partially the NewTestament included, belonging to the most advanced notions of morality,and religious “revelations.” While the literal meaning was abandonedto the fanaticism oftheunreasoning lower classes ofsociety,thehigherclasses,themajority of which consisted of Initiates,pursued their studies in the solemn silence of the temples, and alsotheir worship of the One God of Heaven.

The speculations of Plato, in the Banquet, on the creation of theprimordial men, and the essay on Cosmogony in the Timoeus, mustbe taken allegorically, if we accept them at all. It is this hiddenPythagorean meaning in Timoeus, Cratylus and Parmenides, andother trilogies and dialogues, that the Neo-Platonists ventured toexpound,as far as the theurgical vow of secrecy would allow them.

The Pythagorean doctrine thatGW is the Universal Minddiffused through all things, and the dogma of the soul’simmortality,are the leading features in these apparently incongruousteachings.Plato’s piety and the great venerationhe felt fortheMysteries,are sufficient warrant that he would not allow hisindiscretion to get the better of the deep sense of responsibility whichis felt by every Adept. “Constantly perfecting himself in perfectMysteries, a man in them alone becomes truly perfect,” says he inthe Phosdrus 19

He took no pains to conceal his displeasure that the Mysterieshad become less secret than they were in earlier times. Instead ofprofaning them by putting them within the reach of themultitude, hewould have guarded them with jealous care against all but the mostearnest and worthy of his disciples.20 While mentioning the Gods onevery page, his “Pantheistic monism” is unquestionable, for the wholethread of his discourse indicates that by the term “Gods”he means aclass of beings far lowerinthescalethantheOne Deity, and but one gradehigher than external man Even Josephus perceived and acknowledgedthis fact,despite the natural prejudice ofhisrace. In his famous onslaughtupon Apion,this historian says:

Those, however, among the Greeks who philosophized in accordancewith truth, were not ignorant of anything . . . nor did they fail to perceivethe chilling superficialities of the mythical allegories, on which accountthey justly despised them. ... By which thing Plato, being moved, says it isnot necessary to admit anyone of the other poets into the “Commonwealth,”and he dismisses Homer blandly, after having crowned him and pouringunguent upon him, in order that indeed he should not destroy, by hismyths, the orthodox belief respecting the One [Deity].21

Those, therefore, who can discern the true spirit of Plato’sPhilosophy, will hardly be satisfied with the estimate which Prof. Jowett,in another part of his work, lays before his readers. He tells us thatthe influence exercised upon posterity by the Timseus is partly due to

18 Introduction to Timaeus, Dialogues of Plato, i, 590

19 Cory, Phaedrus, i. 328.20 This assertion is clearly corroborated by Plato himself, who says; “You say that in my former

discourse, I have not sufficiently explained to you the nature of the First. I purposely spoke enigmatically, thatin case the tablet should have happened with any accident, either by land or sea, a person without someprevious knowledge of the subject, might not be able to understand its contents” (Plato, Ep. ii. p. 312; Cory,Ancient Fragments, p. 304).

21 Josephus, Against Apion, ii. p. 1079.



a misunderstanding of the doctrine of its author by theNeo-Platonists.He would have us believe that the hidden meanings whichthey found in this Dialogue, are “quite at variance with the Spirit ofPlato.” This is equivalent to the assumption that Prof. Jowettunderstandswhat thisspiritreally was;whereas his criticism uponthisparticulartopicrather indicates that he doesnotpenetrate it at all. It, ashe tells us, the Christians seem to find in his work their Trinity, theWord, the Church, and the creation of the World, in a Jewish sense, itis because all this is there, and therefore it is but natural that theyshould have found it. The outward building is the same; but the spiritwhich animated the dead letter of the Philosopher’s teaching has fled,and we would seek for it in vain through the arid dogmas of Christiantheology. The Sphinx is the same now, as it was four centuries beforethe Christian era; but the (Edipus is no more. He is slain because hehas given to the world that which the world was not ripe enough toreceive. He was the embodiment of truth, and he had to die, as everygrand truth must, before, like the Phoenix of old, it revives from itsown ashes Every translatorof Plato’s workshasremarked thestrangesimilarity between the Philosophy of the Esoteric andtheChristian doctrines, and each of themhastriedto interpretit inaccordance with his own religious feelings. So Cory, in his AncientFragments, tries to prove that it is but an outward resemblance; anddoes his best to lower the Pythagorean Monad in the public estimationand exalt upon its ruins the later anthropomorphic deity. Taylor,advocating the former,acts as unceremoniously with the Mosaic God.Zeller boldly laughs at the pretensions of the Fathers of the Church,who, notwithstanding history and chronology,and whether people willhave it or not, insist that Plato and his school have robbed Christianityof its leading features. It is as fortunate for us as it is unfortunate forthe Roman Church that such clever sleight-of-hand as that resortedto by Eusebius is rather difficult in our century. It was easier to pervertchronology, “for the sake of making synchronisms,” in the days of theBishop of Caesarea, than it is now,and while history exists, no onecan help people knowing that Plato lived six hundred years beforeIrenaeus took it into his head to establish a new doctrine from theruins of Plato’s older Academy.

* * *

This doctrine of the Universal Mind diffused through all thingsunderlies all ancients Philosophies. The tenets of Bodhism, or Wisdom,which can never be better comprehended than when studying thePythagorean Philosophy—its faithful reflection—are derived from thissource,as are the exoteric Hindu religion and earlyChristianity. Thepurifying process of reincarnations—metempsychoses —howevergrossly anthropomorphized at a later period, must only be regarded asa supplementary doctrine, disfigured by theological sophistry, with theobject of getting a firmer hold upon believers through a popularsuperstition. Neither Gautama Buddha nor Pythagoras,not yet Plato,intended to teach this purely metaphysical allegory literally. None ofthem addressed himself to the profane, but only to their own followersand disciples, who knew too much of the symboligical element usedeven during public instruction to fail to understand the meaning oftheir respective Masters.Thus they were awarethatthewordsmetempsychosis and transmigration meant simply reincarnation fromone human body toanother,when this teaching concerned a humanbeing; and that every allusion of this or another sage, like Pythagoras,to having been in a previous birth a beast, or of transmigrating afterdeath into an animal,was allegorical and related to the spiritual statesof the human soul. It is not in the dead letter of the mystic sacredliterature that scholars may hope to find thetruesolutionofitsmetaphysical subtleties.The latter weary thepower of thought by theinconceivable profundity of their ratiocination; and the student is neverfarther from truth than when he believes himself nearest its discovery.The mastery of every doctrine of the perplexing Buddhist andBrahmanical systems can be attained only by proceeding strictlyaccording to the Pythagorean and Platonic method;from universalsdown to particulars. The key to them lies in the refined and mysticaltenets of the spiritual influx of divine life. “Whoever is unacquaintedwith my law,” says Buddha,”and dies in that state,must return to theearth till he becomes a perfect Samanean. To achieve this object,hemust destroy within himself the trinity of Maya. He must extinguishhis passions, unite and identify himself with the law [the teaching ofthe Secret Doctrine], and comprehend the religion of annihilation,”i e., the laws of Matter, and those of Karma and Reincarnation.



Plato acknowledges man to be the toy of the element ofnecessity—which is Karma under another name—in appearing inthis world of matter. Man is influenced by external causes, and thesecauses are daimonia, like that of Socrates. Happy is the man physicallypure, for if his external soul (astral body, the image of the body) ispure, it will strengthen the second (the lower Manas), or the soulwhich is termed by him the higher mortal soul, which though liable toerr from its own motives, will always side with reason against theanimal proclivities of the body. In other words, the ray of our HigherEgo, the lower Manas; has its higher light, the reason or rational powersof the Nous, to help it in the struggle with Kamic desires. The lusts ofman arise in consequence of his perishable material body, so do otherdiseases, says Plato; but though he regards crimes as involuntarysometimes,for they result, like bodily disease,from external causes,Platoclearly makes a wide distinction between these causes. The Karmicfatalism which he concedes to humanity does not preclude thepossibility of avoiding them, for though pain, fear, anger, and otherfeelings are given to men by necessity,

If they conquered these they would live righteously, and if they wereconquered by them, unrighteously.22

Thedualman—i.e., one from whom the divine immortal Spirit hasdeparted, leaving but the animal form and the sidereal, Plato’s highermortal soul—is left merely to his instincts, for he has been conqueredby all the evils entailed on matter,23 hence,he becomes a docile tool inthe hands of the Invisibles—beings of sublimated matter,hovering inour atmosphere,and ever ready to inspire those who are deservedlydeserted by their immortal counsellor, the Divine Spirit, called by Plato“genius.”24 According to this great Philosopher and Initiate, one

Who lived well during his appointed time would return to thehabitation of his star, and there have a blessed and suitable existence.But if he failed in attaining this in the second generation he wouldpass into a woman [become helpless and weak as a woman], andshould he not cease from evil in that condition he would be changed

into some brute, which resembled him in his evil ways, and would notcease from his toils and transformation [i.e., rebirths ortransmigrations], until he followed the original principle of samenessand likeness within him, and overcame, by the help of reason, thelatter secretions of turbulent and irrational elements [elementarydaemons] composed of fire and air, and water and earth, and returnedto the form of his first and better nature25

These are the teachings of the Secret Doctrine, of the OccultPhilosophy. The possibility of man losing, through depravity, his HigherEgo was taught in antiquity,and is still taught inthe centres of EasternOccultism And the above shows quite plainly that Plato believed inReincarnationand inKarma just as we do,though his utterances inrespect to the subject were in a mythical form.

There was not a Philosopher of any notoriety who did not hold tothis doctrine of metempsychosis, as taught by the Brahmans, Buddhists,and later by the Pythagoreans, in its Esoteric sense, whether heexpressed it more or less intelligibly. Origen and ClemensAlexandrinus, Synesius and Chalcidius, all believed in it; and theGnostics, who are unhesitatingly proclaimed by history as a body ofthe most refined, learned,and enlightened men,26 were all believersinmetempsychosis. Socrates entertained opinions identical with thoseof Pythagoras; and, as the penalty of his divine Philosophy, was put toa violent death. The rabble has been the same in all ages. These mentaught that men have two souls, of separate andquite differentnatures:the one perishable—the Astral SouLor the inner, fluidicbody—which must not be confused with the Astral ZW>>or”double”; theother incorruptible and immortal —the Augoeides, or portion of theDivine Spirit—Atma-Buddhi; that the mortal or Astral Soul perishesat each gradual change at the threshold of every new sphere,becoming with every transmigration more purified. The Astral Man,intangible and invisible as he may be to our mortal, earthly senses, isstill constituted of matter, though sublimated.

Now, if the latter means anything at all, it means that the aboveteaching about the “two souls” is exactly that of the Esoteric, and of

25 Plato’s Timaeus.See Gibbons’ Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

22 Timaeus. See Prof. Jowett’s work.23 This is the teaching of Esoteric Philosophy and this tenet was faintly outlined in Isis Unveiled. With

Plato the triple man alone is perfect, i.e., one whose Body, Soul, and Spirit are in close affinity.24 And by Theosophists the Higher Ego or Buddhi-Manas.



many exoteric. Theosophists. The twosouls are thedual Manas:thelower, personal “Astral Soul,” and theHigherEgo. The former —aRay of the latter falling into Matter, that is to say animating man andmaking of him a thinking, rational being on this plane— havingassimilated its most spiritual elements in the divine essence of thereincarnating Ego, perishes in its personal, material form at eachgradual change, as Kama Rupa, at the threshold of every new sphere,or Devachan, followed by a new reincarnation It perishes, because itfades out in time, all but its intangible,evanes-cent photography on theastral waves, burnt out by the fierce light which ever changes butnever dies; while the incorruptible and the immortal “Spiritual Soul,”that which we call Buddhi-Manas and theindividual SELF,becomes morepurified with every new incarnation.Laden with all IT could save fromthe personal soul, it carries it into Devachan, to reward it with ages ofpeace and bliss. This is no new teaching, no “fresh development,” assome of our opponents have tried to prove; and even in his Unveiled,the earliest, hence the most cautious of all the modern works onTheos-ophy, the fact is distinctly stated (Vol. i, p. 432 and elsewhere). TheSecret Doctrine does not concede immortality to all men alike. Itdeclares with Porphyry that only

Through the highest purity and chastity we shall approach nearer to[our] God, and receive, in the contemplation of Him, the true knowledgeand insight.

If the human soul has neglected during its life-time to receive itsillumination from its Divine Spirit, our personal God, then it becomesdifficult for the gross and sensual man to survive his physical deathfor a great length of time. No more than the misshapen monster canlive long after its physical birth, can the soul, once that it has becometoo material, exist after its birth into the spiritual world. The viabilityof the astral form is so feeble, that the particles cannot cohere firmlywhen once it is slipped out of the unyielding capsule of the externalbody. Its particles, gradually obeying the disorganizing attraction ofuniversal space, finally fly asunder beyond the possibility ofreaggregation. Upon the occurrence of such a catastrophe,the personalindividual ceases to exist; his glorious Augoeides, the immortal SELF,has left him for Devachan, whither the Kama Rupa cannot follow.

During the intermediary period between bodily death and thedisintegration of the astral form, the latter, bound by magnetic attractionto its ghastly corpse, prowls about, and sucks vitality from susceptiblevictims. The man having shut out of himself every ray of the divinelight, islostindarkness,and,therefore, clings to the earth and the earthy.

No Astral Soul, even that of a pure, good and virtuous man, isimmortal in the strictest sense; “from elements it was formed— toelements it must return.” Only, while the soul of the wicked vanishes,and is absorbed without redemption—i.e., the dead man has impressednothing of himself on the Spirit-Ego—that of every other person, evenmoderately pure, simply changes its ethereal particles for still moreethereal ones. While there remains in it a spark of the Divine, thepersonal Ego cannot die entirely, as his most spiritual thoughts andaspirations, his “good deeds,” the efflorescence of his “I-am-ship,”soto speak, is now at one with his immortal Parent. Says Proclus:

After death the soul [the spirit] continueth to linger in the aerial body[astral form], till it is entirely purified from all angry and voluptuous passions. . .then doth it put off by a second dying the aerial body as it did the earthlyone. Whereupon, the ancients say that there is a celestial body alwaysjoined with the soul, which is immortal, luminous, and star-like.

Between Pantheism andFetichism,wehave been repeatedly told,there is but an insignificant step. Plato was a Monotheist, it is asserted.In one sense, he was that, most assuredly; but his Monotheism neverled him to the worship of one personal God, but to that of a UniversalPrinciple and to the fundamental idea that the absolutely immutableor unchangeable Existence alone, really is, all the finite existencesand change being only appearance, i.e., Maya.27 His Being wasnoumenal, not phenomenal. If Heracleitus postulates a World-Consciousness, or Universal Mind; and Par-menides an unchangeableBeing, in the identity oftheuniversaland individual thought; and thePythagoreans, along with Philolaus, discover true Knowledge (whichis Wisdom or Deity) in our consciousness of the unchangeable relationsbetween number and measure—an idea disfigured later by theSophists—it is Plato who expresses this idea the most intelligibly. Whilethe vague definition of some philosophers about the Ever-Becoming

27 Sophistes, p. 249



is but too apt to lead one inclined to argumentation into hopelessMaterialism, the divine Being of some others suggests asunphilosophicalan anthropomorphism. Instead of separating the two,Plato shows us the logical necessity of accepting both,viewed froman Esoteric aspect. That which he calls the “Unchangeable Existence”or “Being” is named Be-ness in Esoteric Philosophy. It is SAT, whichbecomes at stated periods the cause of the Becoming, which lattercannot, therefore, be regarded as existing,but only as something evertending—in its cyclic progress toward the One Absolute Existence—to exist, in the “Good,” and at one with Absoluteness. The “DivineCausality” cannot be a personal, therefore finite and conditioned,Godhead,any more with Plato than with the Vedantins,as he treats hissubject teleologically, and in his search for final causes often goesbeyond the Universal Mind,even when viewed as a noumenon.Modern commentators have attempted on different occasions to provefallacious the Neo-Platonic claim of a secret meaning underlying Plato’steachings. They deny the presence of “any definite trace of a secretdoctrine” in his Dialogues;

Not even the passages brought forward out of the insititiousPlatonic letters (VII. p. 34\e, II. p. 314c) containing any evidence.28

As, however, no one would deny that Plato had been initiated intothe MYSTERIES, there is an end to the other denials. There are hundredsof expressions and hints in the Dialogues which no moderntranslatororcommentator—saveone,ThomasTaylor—has ever correctlyunderstood. The presence, moreover, of the Pythagorean number-doctrine and the sacred numerals in Plato’s lectures settles the questionconclusively.

He who has studied Pythagoras and his speculations on the Monad,which,afterhaving emanated the Duad, retires into silence anddarkness, and thus creates the Triad, can realize whence came thePhilosophy of the great Samian Sage, and after him that of Socratesand Plato.

Speusippus seems to have taught that the psychical or thumeticsoul was immortal as well as the Spirit or rational soul, and every

Theosophist will understand his reasons for it.Unless a personality isentirely annihilated,which is extremely rare,the”thumeticsoul,” burlowerManas,isin one sense and portion of itself immortal—i.e., the portionthat follows the Ego into Devachan. He also—like Philolaus andAristotle, in his disquisitions upon the soul—makes of Ether an element;so that there were five principal elements to correspond with the fiveregular figures in Geometry. This became also a doctrine of theAlexandrian school.29 Indeed,there was much in the doctrines of thePhilaletheans which did not appear in the works of the olderPlatonists,but was doubtless taughtin substance by the Philosopherhimself, though, with his usual reticence,he did not commit it towriting,as being too arcane for promiscuous publication. Speusippusand Xenocrates after him, held, like their great Master, that the AnimaMundi, or World-Soul, was not the Deity, but a manifestation. ThosePhilosophers never conceived oftheOne as ananimateNature.30 Theoriginal One did not exist, as we understand the term. Not till he hadunited with the many—emanated existence (the Monad and Duad)—was a Being produced. The Tfc’/tov, honoured—the somethingmanifested—dwells in the center as in the circumference, but it isonly the reflection of the Deity, the World-Soul.31 In this doctrine wefind all the spirit of Esoteric Bodhism, or Secret Wisdom.

Though somehave considered Speusippusas inferiorto Aristotle,the worldisnevertheless indebted to himfor defining and expoundingmany things that Plato had left obscure in his doctrine of the Sensibleand Ideal. His maxim was “The Immaterial is known by means ofscientificthought,the Material by scientific perception.”32

Xenocrates expounded many of the unwritten theories andteachings of his master. He, too, held the Pythagorean doctrine, withits system of numerals and mathematics, in the highest estimation.Recognizing but three degrees of knowledge—Thought, Perception,and Envisagewent (or knowledge by Intuition), he made Thoughtbusy itself with all that which isbeyondtheheavens; Perception withthings in the heavens; Intuition with the heavens themselves. The

28 Vide Hermann, I, pp. 544. 744, note 755.

29 Theo. Arith., p. 62; on Pythag. Numbers.30 Plato: Parmenid., 141 E.31 See Stobaeus’ Eel., i. 862.32 Sextus: Math., vii, 145.



source of thesethreequalities isfoundin the Hindu Manava DharmaShastra, speaking of the formation (creation, in vulgar parlance) ofman. Brahma—whoisMahat,or the Universal Soul—draws from itsown essence the Spirit, the immortal breath which perisheth not inthe human being, while to the (lower) soul of that being, Brahmagives the Ahankara, consciousness of the Ego. Thenisaddedtoit”theintellectformed of the three qualities”

These three qualities are Intelligence, Conscience and Will;answering to the Thought, Perception and Envisagement (Intuition)of Xenocrates,who seems tohave been less reticent than Plato andSpeusippus in his exposition of soul. After his master’s deathXenocrates travelled with Aristotle, and then became ambassador toPhilip of Macedonia. But twenty-five years later he is found takingcharge of the Old Academy, and becoming its President as successorof Speusippus, who had occupied the post for over a quarter of acentury, anddevotinghis life tothe most abstruse philosophical subjects.He is thought more dogmatic than Plato, and therefore must havebeen more dangerous to the schools which opposed him. His threedegrees of knowledge, or three divisions of Philosophy, the separationand connection of the three modes of cognition and comprehension/are more definitely worked out than by Speusippus. With him, Scienceis referred to “that essence which is the object of pure thought, and isnot included in the phenomenal world”—which is in direct oppositionto theAristotelian-Baconian ideas;sensuous perception is referred tothat which passes intotheworldof phenomena;and conception,to thatessence”which is at once the object of sensuous perceptionand,mathematically, of pure reason—the essence of heaven and thestars.” All his admiration notwithstanding, Aristotle never did justiceto the Philosophy of his friend and co-disciple. This is evident fromhis works. Wheneverhe is referring to the three modesofapprehensionas explained by Xenocrates, he abstains from any mention of themethod bywhichthe latterprovesthatscientificperceptionpartakes oftruth. The reason for this becomes apparent when we find the followingin a biography of Xenocrates:

It is probable that what was peculiar to the Aristotelian logic did notremain unnoticed by him (Xenocrates); for it can hardly be doubted that the

division of the existent into the absolutely existent and the relatively existent,attributed to Xenocrates, was opposed to the Aristotelian table of categories.

This shows that Aristotle was no better than certain of our modernScientists, who suppress facts and truth in order that these may notclash with their own private hobbies and “working hypotheses.”

The relation of numbers to Ideas was developed by Xenocratesfurther than by Speusippus,and he surpassed Plato in his definition ofthe doctrine of Invisible Magnitudes. Reducing them to their idealprimary elements,he demonstrated that every figure and formoriginated out of the smallest indivisible line ThatXenocratesheld thesame theories as Plato in relation to the human soul (supposed to be anumber) is evident, though Aristotle contradicts this,like every otherteaching of this philosopher.33 This is conclusive evidence that manyof Plato’s doctrines were delivered orally, even were it shown thatXenocrates and not Plato was thefirst to originate the theory ofindivisible magnitudes. He derives the Soul from the first Duad, andcalls it a self-moving number.34 Theophrastus remarks that he enteredinto and elaborated this Soul-theory more than any otherPlatonists.Forheregardedintuition and innate ideas h’6£a, in a highersense than any, and made mathematics mediate betweenknowledgeandsensuous perception.35 Hence he built upon thisSoul-theorythecosmologicaldoctrine,and proved the necessary existence in everypart of universal Space of a successive and progressive series ofanimated and thinking though spiritual beings.36 TheHumanSoulwithhimis a compound of the most spiritual properties of the Monadand the Duad, possessing the highest principles of both. Thus he callsUnity and Duality (Monas and Duas) Deities, showingtheformerasa maleExistence,ruling in Heaven as “Father Spirit”and an unevennumber;and the latter, as a female Existence, Mother Soul, the Motherof the Gods (Aditi?), for she is the Soul of the Universe.37 But if likePlato and Prodicus, he refers to the Elements as to Divine Powers,and calls themGods,neither himself nor others connected any

33 Metaph., 407. a. 3.34 Appendix to Timaeus.35 Aristot., De Interp.. p. 29736 Stob., Eel., i. 62.37 Stob., Ibid.



anthropomorphic idea with the appellation. Krische remarks that hecalled them Gods only that these elementary powers should not beconfounded with the daemons of the nether world38 (the ElementarySpirits). As the Soul of the World permeates the whole Cosmos,evenbeasts must have in them something divine 39This,also, is the doctrineof Buddhists and Her-metists, and Manuendows with a living souleven the plants and the tiniest blade of grass—an absolutely Esotericdoctrine.

The daemons, according to this theory, are intermediate beingsbetween the divine perfection and human sinfulness,40 and he dividesthem into classes, each subdivided into many others. But he statesexpressly that the individual or personal soul is the leading guardiandaemon of every man,and that no daemon has more power over usthan our own. Thus theDaimonion of Socrates is the God orDivineEntity which inspired him all his life. It depends on man either to openor close his perceptions to the Divine voice. Like Speusippus, heascribed immortality to the psychical body,orirra-tional soul. But someHermetic philosophers have taught that the soul has a separatecontinued existence only so longasinitspassage through the spheresany material or earthly particles remain incorporated in it; and thatwhen absolutely purified, the latter are annihilated,and the quintessenceofthesoul alone becomes blended with itsdivineSpirit,theRational, andthe two are thenceforth one,

It is difficult to fail to see in the above teachings a direct echo ofthe far older Indiandoctrines,nowembodied in the so-called “Theo-sophical” teachings, concerning the dual Manas. The World-Soul, thatwhich is called by the Esoteric Yogacharyas “Father-Mother,”41

Xenocrates referred to as a male-female Principle, the male elementof which, the Father, he designated as the last Zeus, the last divineactivity, just as the students of the Secret Doctrine designate it thethird and last Logos, Brahma or Mahat. To this World-Soul is entrusteddominion over all that which is subject to change and motion. Thedivine essence, he said infused its own Fire, or Soul, into the Sun and

Moon and all the Planets, in a pure form, in the shape of OlympicGods. As a sublunary power the World-Soul dwells in the Elements,producing Daimonical(spirit-ual) powers and beings, who are aconnecting link between Gods and men, being related to them “as theisosceles triangle is to the equilateral and the scalene.”42

Zeller states that Xenocrates forbade the eating of animal food,notbecausehe saw in beasts something akin to man,as he ascribed tothem a dim consciousness of God, but

For the opposite reason, lest the irrationality of animal souls mightthereby obtain a certain influence over us.43

But we believe that it was rather because, like Pythagoras, hehad had the Hindu Sages for his Masters and Models. Cicero depictsXenocrates as utterly despising everything except the highest virtue;44

and describes the stainlessness and severe austerity of his character.To free ourselves from the subjection of sensuous existence, to conquer

the Titanic elements in our terrestrial nature through the Divine, is ourproblem.45

Zeller makes him say:Purity, even in the secret longings of our heart, is the greatest duty, and

only Philosophy and Initiation into the Mysteries help toward theattainment of this object.46

This must be so, since we find men like Cicero and Panaetius,and before them, Aristotle andTheophrastus his disciple,expressedthe highest regard for Xenocrates. His writings—treatises on Sci-ence,on Metaphysics,Cosmology and Philosophy—must havebeenlegion. He wrote on Physics and the Gods;on theExistent,the Oneand the Indefinite; on Affections and Memory; on Happiness andVirtue; four books on Royalty, and numberless treatises on the State;on the Power of Law; on Geometry, Arithmetic, and finally onAstrology. Dozens of renowned classical writers mention and quotefrom him

Crantor, another philosopher associated with the earliest days of

38 Krische: Forsch., p. 322, etc.39 Clem: Stro. Alex., v. 590.40 Plutarch: De Isid., ch. 25, p. 360.41 See The Secret Doctrine. Stanzas, Vol. I.

42 Cicero, De Nature Deorum, i. 13. Strob., or Plut., DeOroc. Defect., p. 416. c.43 Plato und die Alte Akademie.44 Tusc. v. 18, 51.45 Ibid. Cf. p. 559.46 Plato und die Alte Akademie.



Plato’s Academy, conceived the human soul as formed out of theprimary substance of all things, the Monad or the One, and the Duador the Two. Plutarch speaks at length of this Philosopher, who, like hisMaster, believed in souls being distributed in earthly bodies as an exileand punishment.

Herakleides, though some critics do not believe him to have strictlyadhered to Plato’s primal philosophy,47 taught the same ethics. Zellerpresents him to us as imparting, like Hicetas and Ecphantus, thePythagorean doctrine of the diurnal rotation of the earth and theimmobility of the fixed stars, but adds that he was ignorant of theannual revolution of the earth around the sun, and of the heliocentricsystem.48 But we have good evidence that the latter system wastaught in the Mysteries, and that Socrates died for”atheism,”i.e., fordivulging this sacred knowledge. Herakleides adoptedfully thePythagorean and Platonic views of the human soul, its faculties andits capabilities. He describes it as a luminous,highly ethereal essence.He affirms that souls inhabit the milky way before descending into“generation” or sublunary existence. His daemons, or spirits, are airyand vapourous bodies.

In the Epinomis is fully stated the doctrine of the Pythagoreannumbersin relation to created things Asa true Platonist, its authormaintains that wisdom can only be attained by a thorough enquiry intothe Occult nature of the creation; it alone assures us an existence ofbliss after death. The immortality of the soul is greatly speculatedupon in this treatise; but its author adds that we can attain to thisknowledge only through a complete comprehension of numbers;forthemanunableto distinguish the straight line from the curved willnever have wisdom enoughto securea mathematical demonstrationof the invisible, i.e.,we must assure ourselves of the objective existenceof our soul beforewe learn that we are in possession of a divine andimmortal Spirit.Iamblichus says the samething; adding, moreover, thatit is a secret belonging to the highest Initiation. The Divine Power, hesays, always felt indignant with those “who rendered manifest the

composition of theicostagonus” viz.,who delivered the method ofinscribing in a sphere the dodecahedron.

The idea that “numbers”possessing the greatest virtue producealways what is good and never what is evil, refers to justice, equanimityof temper, and everything that is harmonious. When the author speaksof every star as an individual soul, he only means what the HinduInitiates and Hermetists taught before and after him* viz., that everystar is an independent planet, which, like our earth, has a soul of itsown, every atom of Matter being impregnated with the divine influxof the Soul of the World. It breathes ‘arid lives; it feels and suffers aswell as enjoys life in its way. ̂ Vhait naturalist is prepared to dispute iton good evidence? Therefore, we must consider the celestial bodiesas the images of Gods; tt& partakifig of the divine powers in theirsubstance; and though they dre liot immortal in their soul-entity,theiragency in the economy of the universe is entitled to divine honours,such as we pay to minor Gods. The idea is plain, and one must bemalevolent indeed to misrepresent it. If the author of Epinomis placesthese fiery Gods higher than the animals, plants, and even mankind,all of which, as earthly creatures, are assigned by him a lower place,whocan prove him wholly wrong? One must needs go deep indeed intothe profundity of the abstract metaphysics of the old Philosophies,who would understand that their various embodiments of theirconceptions are, after all, based upon an identical apprehension of thenature of the First Cause, its attributes and method.

When the author of Epinomis, along with so many otherPhilosophers,locatesbetweenthehighest andthe lowest Gods threeclasses of Daimons, and peoples the Universe with hosts of sublimatedBeings,he is more rational than the modern Materialist.The latter,making between the two extremes—the unknown and the invisible,hence, according to his logic, the non-existent, and the objective andthe sensuous—one vast hiatus of being and the playground of blindforces, may seek to explain his attitude on the grounds of “scientificAgnosticism”; yet he will never succeed in proving that the latter isconsistent with logic,or even with simple commonsense.

47 Ed. Zeller : Philos. der Griechen.

48 Plato und die Alte Akademie.


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