meanings. Whilst the soul is embodied and limited by the senses she
cannot ordinarily or easily get these meanings direct. They have
to be clothed or bodied in those masses of units and ratios that
are color, sound, and form. She touches these ordered aggregations
(numbers them, understands them) on three planes: first as sensation;
then as aesthetic feeling; then, perhaps, in their spiritual meaning.
The musician, as he composes, does receive direct a bit of nature's
spiritual meaning and then aggregates such numbers and ratios of
vibration as will express it. And if his music, carrying this meaning,
be so sounded as to affect plates of sand or other fine powder, forms
will result such as nature herself makes--perhaps in the same way,
though we cannot hear the sound for its subtlety--forms of flowers,
trees, groves, and what not. For any of nature's meanings may get out
along the ways of sound, color, or form. We can conceive that the whole
of evolution is guided by number, ordered number, ratio. The electrons
in an atom and the atoms in a molecule and the molecules in a cell or
crystal are not only so many in number but definite in arrangement,
in form. They _mean_ something; they express in arrangement and in
successive changes in arrangement a unitary spiritual idea of nature's,
and in that is the force of evolution. If the units disintegrate and
scatter so that we speak of death, the idea, the real life, remains
and embodies again in a new harmonized mass of units. The idea is the
magnet that attracts and arranges them and incarnates among them. It
is their spiritual number, the cause of their countable number and
scientifically ascertainable arrangement.
Number, therefore, in the highest sense, is not the same as a heap, a
mass, an anyhowness; it is an order expressive of a spiritual meaning.
In the highest sense it is that spiritual meaning itself even before
expression in an ordered mass of items or vibrations. And in this sense
the soul is a number and nature the synthesis of numbers; both finding
expression, the one in the soul's several garments (one only known to
science) and works; the other in what we call "nature." Pythagoras will
yet find his full vindication in philosophy. He is of the future, not
the past.
DOES NIRVÂNA MEAN ANNIHILATION? by T. H.
It is sometimes said by superficial students that Nirvâna means total
annihilation; while more accurate scholars point out that it means the
extinction of the impermanent part of our nature, whereby the permanent
prevails. This is well brought out in the following quotation from _The
Kashf al-Mahjûb_, the oldest Persian treatise on Sûfiism, translated by
Reynold A. Nicholson.
Annihilation is the annihilation of one attribute through the
subsistence of another attribute.... Whoever is annihilated from his
own will subsists in the will of God, as the power of fire transmutes
to its own quality anything that falls into it ... but fire affects
only the quality of iron without changing its substance.
It is evident that what is annihilated is the _personality_, which,
according to the teachings, is an erroneous conception preventing the
manifestation of the real Self. Thus the doctrine of annihilation
is seen to be a consistent part of a logical teaching and not the
untenable idea which some critics have represented it to be. The
fact that most of us in our present state of development look with
reluctance at the idea of losing our transitory personality does not
invalidate the truth of the teaching; for the teaching relates to the
destinies of the permanent Spirit, in which the wishes of our erring,
transitory personality play but little part. Were we washed clean,
standing forth in robes of light, as most religious believers hope to
be at some time or other, we might consent in will and understanding to
this teaching; seeing then that the personality is indeed a delusion
and a source of woe, whose annihilation is even to be desired.
In the meantime, and for immediate practical purposes, we can
consider annihilation as a process applicable to the development
of our character; substituting, however, a less harsh word--say
neutralization. There are in our character many elements which we
should wish to reduce to nothing; there are many false selves which
obtrude themselves on us, claiming a share of our life and crowding
out the better phases of our character. The elimination of these, in
order that the better elements may shine forth unobscured, is a process
of purification. Why, then, may not Nirvâna be so considered? To what
extent have our prejudices on the subject been aroused by the mere use
of an inadequate word in translation? Nirvâna is extinction of the
_false_. "Ring out the false, ring in the true!"
CATHEDRALS IN ANCIENT CRETE: by a Student
Great as is the reverence which we have for our religion, we scarcely
realize how much more ancient and venerable it is than is usually
supposed. But archaeology is doing much to enlighten opinion on that
point. For instance, we read in _The Discoveries in Crete_, by Ronald
M. Burrows, that
It was long ago suggested that the Roman Basilica, which formed the
earliest type of Christian church, was derived both in structure and
in name from the "Stoa Basilike" or King's Colonnade at Athens.
This was the place where the King Archon, the particular member of
the board of nine annual magistrates who inherited the sacred and
judicial functions of the old kings, tried cases of impiety. It had
further seemed possible that the building as well as the title was a
survival from some earlier stage, when a king was a king in more than
name. What we have found at Knossos seems curiously to confirm this
suggested chain of inheritance.
At one end of a pillared hall, about thirty-seven feet long by fifteen
wide there is a narrow raised dais, separated from the rest of the
hall by stone balustrades, with an opening between them in which three
steps give access to the center of the dais. At this center point,
immediately in front of the steps, a square niche is set back in the
wall, and in this niche are the remains of a gypsum throne.... We
seem to have here ... a pillar hall with a raised "Tribunal" or dais
bounded by "Cancelli" or balustrades, and with an "Exedra" or seated
central niche which was the place of honor. Even the elements of a
triple longitudinal division are indicated by the two rows of columns
that run down the Hall. Is the Priest-King of Knossos, who here gave
his judgments, a direct ancestor of Praetor and Bishop seated in the
Apse within the Chancel, speaking to the people that stood below in
Nave and Aisles?
The antiquity and universality of the doctrinal basis of Christianity
forms the subject of frequent remarks in Theosophical writings, as it
is a topic much to the fore in religious circles just now. But here the
question is of ecclesiastical architecture; and that too, as we see,
is ancient and pre-Christian. Little do many people seem to suspect
that the grand cathedral, with its nave and aisles, its transept, its
chancel, and its altar, are founded on such ancient models. While
such facts are for the most part unknown or deliberately ignored,
there are some Christian writers who admit them, but are disposed to
regard Christianity as a capstone to the entire edifice of ancient
wisdom, a final and complete revelation. Whether or not Christianity
really occupies or can occupy such a commanding position is of course
a question of fact; the proofs must be practical; by results we must
judge.
Mere claims will not replace actualities, nor would claims be needed
where actualities were present. If Christianity can maintain such a
position, it will doubtless win the respect it so yearns for.
THE WORLD OF WOMANHOOD: by Grace Knoche
There are subjects which even thought floats round and round, as a
bird above her nestlings or incense over the flame which gave it
birth--subjects which the brain-mind hesitates to touch directly,
so reverential is the appeal they make to the inner and the best in
heart-life. Words seem out of place. Even reason before them pauses,
makes obeisance, and dowered with glamor, passes on, as one might
pass who stands for a moment in the presence of a new light. There
are events, though they are few, that so enshrine within themselves
the deeper sacredness of soul-life that words seem poor and mean as
carriers of their _largess_. The heart feels intuitively that silence,
"the great Empire of Silence," alone could hope to attune human lives
to the voice of them.
Deep answereth unto deep, but sometimes not by the Marconi messages of
the soul. There are times when from deep to deep the mystic, intangible
bridge that is to be builded must use living words for its piers and
masonry. But they must be _living_ words, golden-tongued words, words
glowing with the lambent touch of flame rekindling flame. They must
be vital, electric, surcharged with the mighty currents of compassion
and that love that layeth down its life for a friend; heart-messengers
of Wisdom herself they must be, and even then can build no bridge
royal enough for Wisdom's whole mighty _entourage_ to pass over when
the Event is such as recent days have brought forth in the world of
womanhood--the _world of womanhood_, bear in mind, which is a larger,
more soulful realm than the _world of women_, merely.
Yet words are the only masonry-stuff at hand, and so build we must with
them. Hearts that respond to the finer harmonies of life and nature,
and minds that have touched understandingly to a degree the great
problem of woman's work and woman's true place in life, will quicken
and respond.
At Isis Theater, San Diego, on the evening of Monday, February 19, and
again on February 27, _Anno Fraternitatis Universalis XIV_, Katherine
Tingley looked into the eager, upturned faces of more than a thousand
women, respectful, waiting, aspiring, dead-in-earnest women. Both
meetings had been called for women only. As I glanced over pit and
gallery while the strains of music announced that the meeting was
about to begin, the words which Mr. Judge once used in reference to
right action and the altruistic life, seemed to sing out in tones of
unmistakable triumph from the very bosom of the air: "It is better than
philosophy, _for it enables us to know philosophy_."
Nothing in this world of unity can be rightly judged if conceived of
as an isolated something, just a fragment. "A primrose by the river's
brim" is far other than "a yellow primrose ... and nothing more" to the
rational, open mind. It is a part of all the rich nature-environment
which, when we think of it _in_ parts, as some mosaicist might think of
his design, we call river and bank and forest-wildness and sedge and
shimmer and sky. The distant mountain is no mountain, merely, but part
of a noble panorama, its base melting into gentler slope and foreground
at just what point no living soul can say, its heights suffused in
sunshine, its edges softened and purpled and cooled and warmed in the
shimmering atmosphere, its stature rising grandly undefined against
the misty, illimitable Beyond of azure or gold or gray. No more can
the artist in color say "Here, definitely _here_, the foreground or
distance end and the mountain begins," than the artist in life can
say, "Here we will mark off and limit _truthfulness_, and next to it,
_virtue_, and beyond the next hard dividing-line, _compassion_, and a
goodly collection of such separate items we will call _character_." Ah
no, life is no rag-bag of scraps and shreds and patches, nor is nature.
It is one grand whole and no part can be understood, or even seen _as
it is_, unless looked at and studied in its relation to all the other
parts which with it constitute the whole.
So also with historic truth. The mountain-peaks of history, rising as
they do above the plain and level of general human action, never rise
separate to the philosopher's vision from all that lies behind them,
nor are they ever wholly unsuffused by the glow or the dimness that
speaks to the prescient mind of glories or of disillusionments ahead.
There could be no question, in the minds of those whose duties led
them both before and behind the scenes of action at the two meetings
referred to, that the twentieth century call for women had come.
Katherine Tingley, in inaugurating this work, issued a challenge to
all the nobler possibilities of womanhood. Those who could look beyond
the present into the dim aerial distance and adown the vistas of the
past, knew the Event for what it was and made no mistake in prophesying
wonderful things for the future from the glow of promise which fell
upon it. It was part of the past, yes, but a nobler than the common
part; one felt that it had somehow swung out from old limitations, as
some great glorious member of a star group might be conceived of as
swinging out into space, into a greater orbit and an orbit of its own.
It was as a new note sounded in the long, ascending gamut of woman's
evolution, a gamut in which there are, here and there, glorious notes,
royal notes, with echoing overtones of soulfulness and strength, but
which has, alas! its burden of discord to carry, as well.
There has been no unity of soul in past efforts, as a whole, and the
keynote struck by Katherine Tingley had a ring of newness, somehow,
on very real lines. Which does not mean that women have not worked
together, often in large bodies, as we see them doing today. But both
their aims and the quality of result that grew from these showed that
real unity on lines of soul-strength and soul-effort has been lacking.
For example, we have today the apparently united body of women who
are storming council-chambers and invoking hand-to-hand battles with
policemen; and yesterday we had their prototypes in old Rome, excited
groups of fad-ridden women who even barred the approaches to the Forum
as an argument in support of their demands for political equality--and
Roman homes going to pieces by the hundred for lack of true womanhood
at the helm. Oh, if women would read history _in a new way_!
Efforts characterized by a certain outer binding-together, while of
real inner unity there was none, there have been in all ages. But,
strange to say, until the inauguration of Theosophical work for women
in this year of the twentieth century, the true note has been sounded,
in most cases, by some one woman who was more or less _un_helped
by the women about her. History inspires us with the virtues of
Alcestis, that peerless wife; of Antigone; of that perfect exemplar of
motherhood, Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi; of the queenly Thusnelda;
of Cleopatra, Semiramis, and Zenobia; and let us not forget the peasant
girl of Domremy, whose simple purity and absolute self-forgetfulness
did more for the "woman movement" of the ages than even her generalship
did for France.
Yet these are isolated types. Barring Sappho and her woman pupils,
Birgitta of Sweden and her wonderful work for and with the women who
flocked to the home centers that ecclesiastical enemies fortunately
did not prevent her from establishing, history has little to say as to
women who have _worked together_ for some truly spiritual cause, in
which the noblest they had was placed on Humanity's altar.
[Illustration: Copyright by Katherine Tingley, 1911 Lomaland Photo. and
Engraving Dept. PHEIDIAS "THE AROMA OF ATHENS"]
[Illustration: Copyright by Katherine Tingley, 1911 KRATINOS IN CENTER,
EURIPIDES TO LEFT, ATTENDANT AT RIGHT "THE AROMA OF ATHENS"]
"MAGNETONS," FORCE AND MATTER: by H. Travers
A man of science has presented to the Paris Academy of Sciences a paper
in which he attempts to prove from the results of certain experiments
that the atoms of magnetic bodies, such as iron and manganese, contain
definite quantities of an elementary magnetic _substance_, which he
proposes to call "magneton." This is regarded as a sequel to the new
way of regarding electricity; for in the electrons we now seem to
find a means of defining electricity in terms of a unit of substance.
Electricity, light, and other physical forces, have at different times
been defined either as kinds of matter or as modes of motion. At the
present moment, many people think, we are passing from the kinetic to
the corpuscular view again. But it is more likely that our present
studies will end by giving us a more accurate and adequate notion of
the nature of force on the one hand and matter on the other. We shall
see more clearly that force and matter are inseparable, and that in
our use of these words we are merely making mental abstractions for
the purpose of calculation. What was at one time considered to be
inert matter was later found to be teeming with energy; so that this
kind of matter, instead of being inert substance, was found to be the
result of forces acting in some finer kind of matter. This finer kind
of matter--hypothetical so far--was denominated "ether"; and should
we succeed in examining this ether, we should probably find that it
too is the result of forces acting in a still more recondite form of
matter--a sub-ether, as it were. At all events we should have no choice
but to describe it in that way. In the same way force must always be
inseparably associated with mass, for the quantity denoted by the
term "mass" is included in the definition of force. Thus the question
whether electricity, magnetism, etc., are "forces" or "forms of matter"
loses its meaning, since (strictly speaking) they cannot be either but
must be both.
The experiments mentioned seem to have shown that there is a definite
physical unit of quantity for magnetism, just as the negative electron
is said to be a definite unit of quantity for negative electricity.
In this case we should have arrived at the conclusion that magnetic
substances are those to whose atoms or molecules are attached these
magnetic atoms.
As to the kinetic theory of electricity, light, and other physical
forces, we certainly know that kinetic effects attend the
manifestation of these forces; and where there is no physical matter
present we have predicated an ether to serve as a substratum for these
kinetic effects. But is that the same as saying that electricity and
light are modes of energy or forms of motion? Later research has
shown us that these physical forces are attended, not only by kinetic
effects, but also by those other effects which we denote by such terms
as "mass," "inertia," or "substance." Again, are we entitled to say
that electricity, light, etc., _are_ substances, or forms of matter? It
would seem more reasonable to say that both energy and mass are to be
classed among the effects or accompaniments of electricity and light,
electricity and light themselves being something that is neither energy
nor mass but parent to both.
In brief, the life or _vis viva_ of the physical universe escapes
observation and analysis, while its various effects, appearing in the
forms which we describe as light, heat, electricity, etc., are defined
by us in terms of our two mental concepts "mass" and "energy." The
farthest limit to which physical observation has reached, or seems
likely to reach, is that of minute and extremely active particles,
whose motions are attended with luminous, thermal, and electric
phenomena. To put the matter in a nutshell: we find that the so-called
inert matter of the universe is composed of what are to all intents and
purposes small beings, very much alive and endowed with proclivities.
Given our electron or magneton, we are obliged to take for granted its
innate properties of energy, etc., for we have no means of explaining
them except by reducing them to smaller factors of precisely the
same kind--and this is no explanation. That is, we have to assume
the universal presence of active and purposeful life--for that is
what it amounts to, whatever names we may give. And behind all this
manifestation of life there of course lies _mind_; otherwise we must
suppose the existence of causeless and purposeless life--a conception
which is highly arbitrary and unnecessary.
Science has a great future before it, but at present it is laboring
under limitations due to the restriction of its sphere. A large portion
of its proper domain having been usurped by theology and wild deductive
philosophy, science has confined itself to such limits as give it a
free field. But if the careful and logical methods of true science
could be applied to all departments of investigation, knowledge would
take a great leap. Of late years we have seen many foolish attempts to
establish a "higher science," many of them associated with "psychism"
and similar eccentricities. All this naturally arouses the antagonism
of true men of science and causes them to shun the possibility of
association with such movements. Take the psychical research movements,
for example; is it not evident that in many cases these are destined
to achieve delusion rather than any useful truth? Or take hypnotism:
how can such a dangerous pseudo-science be adequately studied without
the grave risks which its knowledge brings upon society in the shape of
credulous folly and a cover for cowardly vice?
It seems evident that science is too unorganized and indiscriminate
at present, and that when it extends its boundaries so as to include
the larger fields it will also have to raise its standards. Scientific
work, if valuable, should be treated like other valuables--that
is, protected. This can only be done by intrusting it to worthy
and competent people; from which we see that the character of the
professors becomes an important matter. This principle is recognized
in many of our departments; for we do not intrust the performing of
surgical operations nor the care of lunatics to all and sundry. Why
then should other departments be thrown open, allowing dangerous drugs
and dynamite to pass into the hands of weaklings and criminals? Above
all, why should the far more dangerous powers of hypnotism and so forth
be made thus free to all?
In brief, knowledge is as inseparably connected with conduct as
force is with matter. He who attempts to separate them and to pursue
knowledge independently of duty and conduct, does not achieve
knowledge; he achieves only partial knowledge or harmful knowledge.
The fair bride is won only by the pure and valiant knight. One of the
most important adjustments which our views have to undergo is that of
recognizing the proper relative positions of religion and science. They
should be one and not separate. But before this can be done there is
much rubbish to be cleared away from the foundations.
THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON, LONDON
The British Museum was completed as recently as 1847, yet hardly
thirty years elapsed before it was found to be too small to hold the
continually accumulating specimens, and an enlargement had to be made.
To preserve and properly exhibit the enormous collection of natural
history objects a commodious building was erected at South Kensington,
near the well-known Museum of Science and Art. It was finished in 1880
and stocked with the old specimens from the British Museum and many
new ones; the crowded rooms from which the old specimens were taken
being immediately filled with other objects which had been waiting for
exhibition.
The Natural History Museum was designed by Waterhouse, and there has
always been a strong difference of opinion as to its architectural
beauty, at least externally. The interior design and decoration is
generally approved. The large towers are 192 feet high, and the length
of the building is 675 feet. The ornamental decoration is composed of
terra cotta, and consists of bands and dressings of animals and other
natural objects.
The interior consists of a great central hall with long side galleries
and basement. The eastern galleries are devoted to the geological,
mineralogical, and botanical collections; the western to the zoological
collections. The great hall is an index or typical museum, arranged
with such specimens as to give a general idea of the scope of the
subject of natural history. The historical development of those species
of whose past there is definite knowledge, the effect of seasonal
changes upon the colors of certain animals and birds, protective
resemblances and mimicry, etc., are here displayed. Among the most
interesting and rare fossils are the gigantic kangaroo of Australia
(six times larger than the present representative, which is placed near
it), the gigantic armadillo of Buenos Aires and its modern dwarfed
descendant, the huge megatherium from Buenos Aires compared with the
sloth of today, etc. The collection of stuffed birds shown in natural
positions and with the correct surroundings always attracts admiring
attention from the general public. In a commanding position on the
first landing of the main staircase there is a fine statue by Böhm of
the great naturalist, Charles Darwin. The Natural History Museum faces
Cromwell road, a street of palatial residences, called after one of
Oliver Cromwell's sons, who lived in a house once existing there.
[Illustration: Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept. NATURAL HISTORY
MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON, LONDON]
[Illustration: Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept. A BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF
PART OF GENEVA, SWITZERLAND SHOWING THE END OF THE LAKE OF GENEVA, THE
RIVER RHÔNE, AND "OLD GENEVA" IN THE CENTER]
[Illustration: Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept. NEAR CHAMPÉRY
(VALAIS), SWITZERLAND THE ROUTE DU COL DE COUX; AND LA DENT DU MIDI]
WAS H. P. BLAVATSKY A PLAGIARIST? by Henry T. Edge, B. A. (Cantab.), a
Pupil under H. P. Blavatsky