Page 30 (part 3)

Paganism preached a dual and simultaneous evolution: "creation" -- " spiritualem ac mundanum ," as the Roman Church has it -- ages before the advent of that Roman Church. Exoteric phraseology has changed little with respect to divine hierarchies since the most palmy days of Paganism, or "Idolatry." Names alone have changed, [[Vol. 1, Page]] 465 A CONFESSION OF SCIENCE. along with claims which have now become false pretences. For when Plato put in the mouth of the Highest Principle -- "Father AEther" or Jupiter -- these words, for instance: "The gods of the gods of whom I am the maker ( opifex ) as I am the father of all their works ( operumque parens )"; he knew the spirit of this sentence as fully, we suspect, as St. Paul did, when saying: "For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, as there be gods many and lords many," . . . . etc. (1 Cor. viii. 5.)* Both knew the sense and the meaning of what they put forward in such guarded terms. Says Sir W. Grove, F.R.S ., speaking of the correlation of forces, "The ancients when they witnessed a natural phenomenon, removed from ordinary analogies, and unexplained by any mechanical action known to them, referred it to a soul, a spiritual or preternatural power. . . . Air and gases were also at first deemed spiritual, but subsequently they became invested with a more material character; and the same words [[ pneuma ]], spirit, etc., were used to signify the soul or a gas; the very word gas, from geist , a ghost or spirit, affords us an instance of the gradual transmutation of a spiritual into a physical conception . . . . . ." (P. 89.) This, the great man of science (in his preface to the fifth edition of "Correlation of Physical Forces") considers as the only concern of exact science, which has no business to meddle with the CAUSES. "Cause and effect," he explains, "are therefore, in their abstract relation to these forces, words solely of convenience. We are totally unacquainted with the ultimate generating power of each and all of them, and probably shall ever remain so; we can only ascertain the norma of their actions; we must humbly refer their causation to one omnipresent influence, and content ourselves with studying their effects and developing, by experiment, their mutual relations" (p. xiv.). This policy once accepted, and the system virtually admitted in the above-quoted words, namely, the spirituality of the "ultimate generating power," it would be more than illogical to refuse to recognise this quality which is inherent in the material elements , or rather, in their com- [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * We cannot be taken to task by the Protestants for interpreting the verse from the Corinthians as we do; for, if the translation in the English Bible is made ambiguous, it is not so in the original texts, and the Roman Catholic Church accepts the words of the Apostle in their true sense. For a proof see the Commentaries on St. Paul ' s Epistles , by St. John Chrysostom " directly inspired by the Apostle," and "who wrote under his dictation," as we are assured by the Marquis de Mirville, whose works are approved by Rome. And St. Chrysostom says, commenting on that special verse, "And, though there are (in fact) they who are called gods . . . . -- for it seems, there are really several gods -- withal, and for all that, the God- principle and the Superior God ceasing to remain essentially one and indivisible." . . . Thus spoke the old Initiates also, knowing that the worship of minor gods could never affect the "God Principle " (See de Mirville, " Des Esprits ," vol. ii., 322) . [[Vol. 1, Page]] 466 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. pounds -- as present in the fire, air, water or earth. The ancients knew these powers so well, that, while concealing their true nature under various allegories, for the benefit (or to the detriment) of the uneducated rabble, they never departed from the multiple object in view, while inverting them. They contrived to throw a thick veil over the nucleus of truth concealed by the symbol, but they ever tried to preserve the latter as a record for future generations, sufficiently transparent to allow their wise men to discern that truth behind the fabulous form of the glyph or allegory. They are accused of superstition and credulity , those ancient sages; and this by those very nations, which, learned in all the modern arts and sciences, cultured and wise in their generation, accept to this day as their one living and infinite God, the anthropomorphic "Jehovah" of the Jews. What were some of the alleged "superstitions"? Hesiod believed, for instance, that "the winds were the sons of the giant Typhoeus," who were chained and unchained at will by AEolus, and the polytheistic Greeks accepted it along with Hesiod. Why should not they, since the monotheistic Jews had the same beliefs, with other names for their dramatis personae , and since Christians believe in the same to this day? The Hesiodic AEolus, Boreas, etc., etc., were named Kadim , Tzaphon , Daren , and Ruach Hajan by the "chosen people" of Israel. What is, then, the fundamental difference? While the Hellenes were taught that AEolus tied and untied the winds, the Jews believed as fervently that their Lord God, " with smoke coming out of his nostrils and fire out of his mouth , rode upon a cherub and did fly; and was seen upon the wings of the wind " ( II. Sam. , xxii. 9 and 11). The expressions of the two nations are either both figures of speech, or both superstitions. We think they are neither; but only arise from a keen sense of oneness with nature, and a perception of the mysterious and the intelligent behind every natural phenomenon, which the moderns no longer possess. Nor was it "superstitious" in the Greek pagans to listen to the oracle of Delphi, when, at the approach of the fleet of Xerxes, that oracle advised them to "sacrifice to the Winds," if the same has to be regarded as Divine Worship in the Israelites, who sacrificed as often to the wind and fire -- especially to the latter element. Do they not say that their "God is a consuming fire" ( Deut. iv. , 24), who appeared generally as Fire and "encompassed by fire"? and did not Elijah seek for him (the Lord) in the "great strong wind, and in the earthquake"? Do not the Christians repeat the same after them?