New Thought Difficult to Define--"The Rediscovery
of the Inner Life"--Spinoza's Quest--Kant
Reaffirms the Creative Power of Mind--Utilitarianism,
Deism and Individualism--The
Reactions Against Them--New England
Transcendentalism--New Thought Takes
Form--Its Creeds--The Range of the Movement--The
Key-Words of New Thought--Its
Field of Real Usefulness--Its Gospel of Getting
On--The Limitations and Dangers of Its
Positions--Tends to Become a Universal and
Loosely-Defined Religion.
IX. THE RETURN OF THE EAST UPON WEST.
THEOSOPHY AND KINDRED CULTS 245
Historic Forces Carried Early Christianity
West and Not East--The West Rediscovers
the East; the East Returns Upon the West--Chesterton's
Two Saints--Why the West
Questions the East--Pantheism and Its Problems--How
the One Becomes the Many--Evolution
and Involution--Theosophy Undertakes
to Offer Deliverance--But Becomes
Deeply Entangled Itself--The West Looks to
Personal Immortality--The East Balances the
Accounts of Life in a Series of Reincarnations--Theosophy
Produces a Distinct Type of Character--A "Tour de Force"
of the Imagination--A Bridge of Clouds--The Difficulties
of Reincarnation--Immortality Nobler, Juster and
Simpler--Pantheism at Its Best--and Its Worst.