The Theosophical Society,
A Review of The Secret
Doctrine
By
William Q. Judge
First Published in the
The
Secret Doctrine, by Blavatsky, is a work whose aim is stated as follows:
"To
show that Nature is not a fortuitous concurrence of atoms, and to assign to man
his rightful place in the scheme of the Universe; to rescue from degradation
the archaic truths which are the basis of all religions; and to uncover, to
some
extent, the fundamental unity from which they all
spring; finally, to show that the occult side of Nature has never been
approached by the Science of modern
civilization."
This
is a high aim, a great claim to advance. Whether both are fully sustained
must be left, not alone to the judgment of
individual readers, but to that large
verdict of "humanity and the future
generations," to which the author appeals.
Meantime,
the just critic recognizes that these claims are ably put forth, in a work of
great erudition and power. The publication of a book like this has, in itself,
an emphatic significance. The attention of thinkers has in late years been
directed to the evolution of thought, its laws and its results. Of these last
The Secret
Doctrine
is a tremendous one. It marks the acme of the theosophical movement; that
movement which urges a search after truth in every department of life, while
predicting the final and essential unity of the whole.
It
shows the most advanced phase of religious development and points out its
future course; not alone concerned with the beliefs of
the present; refusing
indeed to recognize that present as a separate fact,
but showing past and future
interwoven into one eternal now, and all religions,
all sciences, proceeding from one primeval belief, which afterwards became
differentiated, along the path of evolutionary progress, into forms which are
various facets of the one truth.
The
writing of this work is sufficient evidence for a demand for it, and however
we may take issue with some of its teachings, we
must recognize the breadth and
beauty of its aim; also three facts concerning it:
First,
it is a great event in literature per se.
Second,
it is not the outcome of the mental or other experience of any one person. No
human brain could singly conceive a scheme so vast, so complex in details, so
simple of base. It is evidently an aggregation beginning far back in archaic
times.
Third,
it is thrown into the arena where science and religion, where matter versus
spirit, are warring, as the sceptre of the king was
thrown into the lists to bid contention cease. It logically reconciles the
combatants in proving their basic unity, in saying to the materialist: All
issues from the one substance which is eternal, -- and to the [believers in]
spirit: That one substance is vivified by the co-eternal undetermined potency
called Spirit, of which our word "will" is
the nearest expression.
A
work which can do us this service in a rational manner, while bringing the
testimony of all recorded time to sustain its teachings,
certainly deserves careful attention. The need of unity is the great tendency
of our time. It is displayed in art, literature, religion, mechanics,
industrial enterprise and international law, by efforts towards co-operation,
arbitration, in a word -- unity.
To
find this need met in the religious field without empiricism or dogmatism,
without attempt at scientific limitations or theological form, attacks our
innate sense of justice, and inclines us to weigh before we reject.
The
basis of this remarkable work is the "Book of Dzyan," an archaic Ms. unknown to the western world and secretly preserved in the
conveys the aroma of the orientalist,
to the student, from their own inherent
literary quality, quite apart from that deeper
interest with which their teachings invest them for the bold explorer into the
mysteries of Being.
Altogether
the book is a fascinating one. The style is abrupt and full of
variations which show the work of different minds
and sustain the author's claim
to the aid of Tibetan adepts. For all these
reasons it is sure to be much read,
much abused and hotly defended.
The Theosophical Society,