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vol. title: Vol Four of The Theosophical Society of The Arya Samaj of Arya-wart vol. period: Sept 1878 – Sept 1879 pages in vol.: 350 |
The Theosophical Society established at Bombay are going to publish a monthly journal “devoted to Science, Oriental Philosophy, History, Psychology, Literature and Art.” In the prospectus the society explains that there is “secret wisdom concealed under the popular and often repulsive myths of the nations of antiquity,” that too great a tendency has been shown by European students of oriental literature to “disparage the knowledge of modern educated natives of their ancestral history and beliefs, and to deny their capability to assist in the labours of science.” The organization of the Theosophical Society, we are told, was a protest against this spirit, and “the founders of the present journal declare their veneration for the sages of all religions.” In reference to this prospectus we cannot but repeat a remark made in these columns, some months back, in reference to one of Colonel Olcott’s earlier addresses. “To seek for improvement in the speculations of a past unacquainted with physical truth has been the besetting weakness that has kept back the Chinese.”
In the interests of philosophical thought and religious development, the Theosophical Society seems to us pursuing a chimerical idea. It is improbable in the last degree, for example, that the “very retired and secluded class of Brahmans,” the Namburis of Malabar, will have thought out any views concerning the origin and government of the universe, which can possibly deserve the attention of cultivated thinkers of the Western world, in the “foremost files of time.” The religions of Europe may be still but too deeply tinged with foolish superstition, but they are not likely to be helped free of these by Brahmans, secluded or otherwise.
The only direction in which, it seems to us, the efforts of the Theosophists in India might possibly be useful would be one towards which their published prospectus does not point. Running parallel with high intellectual speculation on religious subjects, there is a current of feeling among advanced thinkers to the effect that a more direct contact between humanity and the intangible life of the future towards which humanity is possibly bound, may be found possible. Intent on physical discovery for some generations, men of intelligence have been too prone to neglect super-physical investigation. This neglect has led to a long established conviction in the mind of the Nineteenth Century that alleged supernatural phenomena in the past have never really taken place. Latterly a new wave of doubt has disturbed this conviction. To a large number of persons, including many of high culture and intelligence, the supernatural has again asserted itself as a fit subject of inquiry and research. And there are plausible hypotheses in favour of the idea that among the “sages” of the East, children though they are in philosophy, there may be found in a higher degree than among the more modernised inhabitants of the West traces of those personal peculiarities, whatever they may be, which are required as a condition precedent to the occurrence of supernatural phenomena, assuming such phenomena ever to have taken place. To seek for new ideas in India in connection with pure theological speculation seems, in short, if we may speak quite frankly without being rude to the enthusiastic society under notice,—and this at any rate is very far from our intention,—simply absurd. But as a field for experimental research into occult phenomena—a kind of research which can only stumble about in an uncertain manner at present—India is perhaps not to be despised. The leading members of the Theosophical Society in India are known to be very advanced students of occult phenomena already, and we cannot but hope that their professions of interest in Oriental philosophy, a very worthless subject per se, but one which may at least be taken up without offence to a pig-headed world, may cover a reserved intention of carrying out explorations of the kind we indicate.
Edisoniana
As an infant, it is now distinctly remembered by his old nurse, and by “his sisters, and his cousins, and his aunts,” that lights, whether in the nursery or the parlour, the ship’s gloomy cabin or the lonely beacon far away on a ledge of rock in the solitary ocean, had an irresistible attraction for the youthful Edison; and it is related by his biographers that once when his Mother undertook a long railway expedition in the depth of winter, and took her baby-boy with her, he never once removed his gaze from the lamp in the carriage, and was “good” from the beginning of the journey to the end. The germ of some great discovery in the future may have been latent in that prolonged stare.
As he grew older, his favourite toys were miniature lamps and candlesticks, and little speaking-trumpets, and tiny telescopes, and he was never tired of playing at telegraphs with his brothers and sisters and their young companions.
“The child is father of the man”—so before he was eight, the future inventor of the phonograph, the micro-tasimeter, the megaphone, and the aërophone, had devised considerable improvements in the ordinary pea-shooter, whereby its range was greatly extended and its momentum increased, and had added more than one note to the compass of the Jew’s harp.
At the age of fourteen he took out a patent for an ingenious contrivance to enable persons of an obese habit to pick up things from the floor without undergoing the inconvenience of stooping. His instantaneous hat-peg was also widely adopted, and universally appreciated throughout the Western States before he left off jackets.
The Great Wall of China will probably be the scene of Mr. Edison’s first public display of the Electric Light on any extensive scale.
A plan for the illumination of the Great Desert has also been under consideration, but some difficulty having arisen with the Government about the lamp-posts, this project is for the present abandoned.
A Submarine Tunnel between Liverpool and New York, as light as day and as warm as summer, is now regarded as an unquestioned certainty, only awaiting Mr. Edison’s leisure to attend to the details.
His ordinary dinner hour is six, but as it is his inflexible rule never to sit down to table until he has produced some new invention or improvement, however small, for the benefit of his contemporaries and the advantage of posterity, it frequently happens that it is midnight before he can partake of the family meal.
Some of the greatest men have set a different estimate on their productions from that entertained by the outside world.—Milton, for example, it is said, thought more highly of his Paradise Regained than his Paradise Lost—and in Mr. Edison’s case it is well understood that his most cherished invention, and the one on which he rests his surest claim to fame and fortune and the future Presidency of the United States, is his Electric Pen-wiper.
Thomas Alva Edison is a young man, but little over thirty, and a great future lies before him, in which he may be expected to electrify both the Old and New World with his inventions.
Editor's notes
- ↑ The Theosophical Society... by unknown author, Pioneer, The, August 11, 1879
- ↑ In the interests... by unknown author, Pioneer, The, August 11, 1879
- ↑ Uncaptioned illustration of two figures in Chinese dress by unknown author
- ↑ Edisoniana by unknown author
- ↑ Uncaptioned silhouette illustration by unknown author
- ↑ Thomas Alva Edison by unknown author