Blavatsky H.P. - Have Animals Souls: Difference between revisions

1. The Christian world postulates its right over animal life: (a) on the afore-quoted Biblical texts and the later scholastic interpretations; (b) on the assumed absence of anything like divine or human soul in animals. Man survives death, the brute does not.

As already stated, the Church exacts belief in the miracles performed by her great Saints. Among the various prodigies accomplished we shall choose for the present only those that bear directly upon our subject—namely, the miraculous resurrections of dead animals. Now one who credits man with an immortal soul independent of the body it animates can easily believe that by some divine miracle the soul can be recalled and forced back into the tabernacle it deserts apparently forever. But how can one accept the same possibility in the case of an animal, since his faith teaches him that the animal has no independent soul, since it is annihilated with the body? For over two hundred years, ever since Thomas of Aquinas, the Church has authoritatively taught that the soul of the brute dies with its organism. What then is recalled back into the clay to reanimate it? It is at this juncture that scholasticism steps in, and—taking the difficulty in hand—reconciles the irreconcilable.

It premises by saying that the miracles of the Resurrection of animals are numberless and as well authenticated as “the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.”<ref>De Beatificatione, etc., by Pope Benedict XIV.<br>

{{HPB-CW-comment|[Vide Bio-Bibliogr. Index, s.v. BENEDICT.—Comp.]}}</ref> The Bollandists give instances without number. As Father Burigny, a hagiographer of the 17th century, pleasantly remarks concerning the bustards resuscitated by St. Remi—

I may be told, no doubt, that I am a goose myself to give credence to such “blue bird “ tales. . . . I shall answer the joker, in such a case, by saying that, if he disputes this point, then must he also strike out from the life of St. Isidore of Spain<ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[Most likely Isidore of Seville, known also as Isidorus Hispalensis (ca. 570-636), renowned Spanish encyclopaedist and historian, and Archbishop of Seville.—Compiler.]}}</ref> the statement that he resuscitated from death his master’s horse; from the biography of St. Nicholas of Tolentino––that he brought back to life a partridge, instead of eating it; from that of St. Francis—that he recovered from the blazing coals of an oven, where it was baking, the body of a lamb, which he forthwith resurrected; and that he also made boiled fishes, which he resuscitated, swim in their sauce. . . . . Above all he [the sceptic] will have to charge more than one hundred thousand eye-witnesses—among whom at least a few ought to be allowed some common sense—with being either liars or dupes.<ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[Quoted by de Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., Vol. VI, Appendix G, pp. 150-51.]}}</ref>

. . . . .that, as resurrection, however, to deserve the name requires the identical and numerical reproduction of the form,<ref>In scholastic philosophy, the word “ form” applies to the immaterial principle which informs or animates the body.</ref> as much as of the material of the dead creature; and as that form (or soul) of the brute is always annihilated with its body according to St. Thomas’ doctrine, God, in every such case finds himself obliged to create for the purpose of the miracle a new form for the resurrected animal; {{Page aside|27}}from which it follows that the resurrected brute was not altogether identical with what it had been before its death (non idem omnino esse).<ref>De Beatificatione, etc., lib. IV, chap. xxi, art. 6. [quoted by de Mirville, ibid.]</ref>

Now this looks terribly like one of the mayas of magic. However, although the difficulty is not absolutely explained, the following is made clear: the principle, that animated the animal during its life, and which is termed soul, being dead or dissipated after the death of the body, another soul—“a kind of an informal soul”—as the Pope and the Cardinal tell us—is created for the purpose of miracle by God; a soul, moreover, which is distinct from that of man, which is “an independent, ethereal and everlasting entity.”

If the soul of the animal is distinct from its body (and is therefore immaterial), we believe it hardly possible not to recognize it as spiritual, and therefore intelligent.<ref>[Quoted by de Mirville, op. cit., Vol. VI, App. G, p. 152.]</ref>

But what does St. Thomas say to this? Allowing a soul (anima) to the brute, and declaring it immaterial, he refuses it at the same time the qualification of spiritual. Because he says: “it would in such case imply intelligence, a virtue and a special operation reserved only for the human soul.” <ref>[Quoted in de Mirville, op. cit., Vol. VI, App. G, p. 153; no ref. to the writings of St. Thomas is given.]</ref> But as at the fourth Council of Lateran it had been decided that

{{Style P-Quote|. . . . God had created two distinct substances, the corporeal (mundanam) and the spiritual (spiritualem), and that something incorporeal must be of necessity spiritual. . .}}<ref>{{HPB-CW-comment| [This refers to the First Capitulum of the Fourth Lateran Council (Twelfth General Council) held in 1215 A.D., in which occurs the following passage:<br>

The Latin text of the entire Capitulum can be consulted in Carl Joseph von Hefele’s Conciliengeschichte (7 Vols. Freiburg i. Breisgau, 1855-74; 2nd ed., 1886. Engl. transl. as A History of Church Councils, Edinb., 1871, etc.), where it is to be found in Vol. 5, p. 879 of 2nd cd. Consult also G. D. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, 1759, etc., Vol. XXII, p. 982, or the new ed. of Paris, 1901, etc.<br>

The Teaching of the Catholic Church, ed. by George Duncan Smith, (New York: Macmillan & Co., 1949), translates a portion of the above passage thus:<br>

{{Style P-Quote|This soul of the brute is neither spirit, nor body; it is of a middle nature.}} <ref>Quoted by Cardinal de Ventura in his Philosophie Chrétienne, Vol. II, p. 386; see also de Mirville, op. cit., Vol. VI, App. G, p. 153.</ref>

{{Style P-Quote|. . . . . all the souls—even those of plants—have the substantial form of their bodies. . .}} <ref>[Quoted by de Mirville, ibid., where ref. is made to p. 139 of de Ventura’s work.]</ref>

and if this is true of plants, why not of animals? It is certainly neither “spirit” nor pure matter, but of that essence which St. Thomas calls a “middle nature.” But why, once on the right path, deny its survivance—let alone immortality? The contradiction is so flagrant that de Mirville in despair exclaims,

Here we are, in the presence of three substances, instead of the two, as decreed by the Lateran Council! <ref>[de Mirville, op. cit., p. 153.]</ref>

and proceeds forthwith to contradict, as much as he dares, the “Angelic Doctor.”

The great Bossuet in his Traité de la connaissance de Dieu et de soi-même analyses and compares the system of Descartes with that of St. Thomas. No one can find fault with him for giving the preference in the matter of logic to Descartes. He finds the Cartesian “invention”—that of the automaton—as “getting better out of the {{Page aside|30}}difficulty” than that of St. Thomas, accepted fully by the Catholic Church; for which Father Ventura feels indignant against Bossuet for accepting “such a miserable and perilous error.” <ref>[ibid., where ref. is given to Ventura’s Phil. Chrét., II, 394.]</ref> And, though allowing the animals a soul with all its qualities of affection and sense, true to his master St. Thomas, he too refuses them intelligence and reasoning powers.

{{Style P-Quote|Bossuet, adds the Father, is the more to be blamed, since he himself has said: “I foresee that a great war is being prepared against the Church under the name of Cartesian philosophy.”}} <ref>[ibid., p. 154; and Ventura, op. cit., II, 406.]</ref>

He is right there, for out of the “sentient matter” of the brain of the brute animal comes out quite naturally Locke’s thinking matter, and out of the latter all the materialistic schools of our century. But when he fails, it is through supporting St. Thomas’ doctrine, which is full of flaws and evident contradictions. For, if the soul of the animal is, as the Roman Church teaches, an informal, immaterial principle, then it becomes evident that, being independent of physical organism, it cannot “die with the animal” any more than in the case of man. If we admit that it subsists and survives, in what respect does it differ from the soul of man? And that it is eternal—once we accept St. Thomas’ authority on any subject—though he contradicts himself elsewhere.

{{Style P-No indent|he says (Summa, Vol. V, p. 164)—this, after having queried in Vol. II of the same grand work (p. 256)}}

and answered himself:

{{Style P-Quote|No, for in the Ecclesiastes (iii, 14) it is said: “Whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever.” With God there “is no variableness.”(James, i, 17)}}  

{{Style P-Quote|neither in the natural order of things, nor by means of miracles, is there any creature that re-emerges into nothingness [is annihilated]; there is naught in the creature that is annihilated, for that which shows with the greatest radiance divine goodness is the perpetual conservation of the creatures.}}<ref>Summa—Drioux edition in 8 vols.<br>

{{HPB-CW-comment|[These passages from St. Thomas are quoted by de Mirville, op.cit., p. 158. It is probable that he used the French translation of the Abbé Claude-Josèphe Drioux entitled La Somme Théologique de Saint Thomas, containing both the Latin and French texts. Two editions are known of this work, both in eight vols; the one is dated Paris, 1851-54, and the other, Barri-Ducis, 1864-65.––Comp.]}}</ref>

{{Style P-Quote|. . . nothing is annihilated; it is a principle that has become with modern science a kind of axiom. . . .}} <ref>[de Mirville, op. cit., p. 158.]</ref>

And, if so, why should there be an exception made to this invariable rule in nature, recognized both by science and theology––only in the case of the soul of the animal? Even though it had no intelligence, an assumption from which every impartial thinker will ever and very strongly demur.

wrote Cicero, nearly two millenniums ago.<ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[This passage is from Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations, I, xxvii (66),<br>

the original Latin text being:<br>

The words vivit and viget, however, mean rather lives and has vigor, and the expression sentit means also to feel or to have the faculty of sensation.––Compiler.]}}</ref> We should understand well, Mr. Huxley contradicting the conclusion, St. Thomas of Aquinas, the “king of the {{Page aside|32}}metaphysicians,” firmly believed in the miracles of resurrection performed by St. Patrick.<ref>St. Patrick, it is claimed, has Christianized “the most Satanized country of the globe—Ireland, ignorant in all save magic”—into the “Island of Saints,” by resurrecting “sixty men dead years before.” Suscitavit sexaginta mortuos (Lectio I and II from the Roman Breviary, 1520). In the MS held to be the famous confession of that saint, preserved in the Salisbury Cathedral (De Script. Hibern., lib. II, cap. i), St. Patrick writes in an autograph letter: “To me the last of men, and the greatest sinner, God has, nevertheless, given, against the magical practices of this barbarous people the gift of miracles, such as had not been given to the greatest of our apostles—since he [God] permitted that among other things (such as the resurrection of animals and creeping things) I should resuscitate dead bodies reduced to ashes since many years.” Indeed, before such a prodigy, the resurrection of Lazarus appears a very insignificant incident.<br>

{{HPB-CW-comment|[The facts related above are taken by H.P.B. from de Mirville’s Pneumatologie des Esprits, etc., Vol. VI, pp. 333-36, and p. 341. The work entitled De Scriptoribus Hiberniae exists in translation, under the title: The History of the Writers of Ireland. In Two Books. Written in Latin by Sir James Ware, Knight; newly translated into English, revised and improved, with many material additions, and continued down to the beginning of the present century, by Walter Harries, Esq. Dublin: Printed for Robert Bell, and John Fleming, 1764. f. 363 pp.<br>

“Confessionem suam (called by some Itinerarium Confessionis, Lib. I) which is extant in Manuscript in the Library of the Cathedral Church of Salisbury in England, beginning thus: Ego Patricius Peccator.<br>

“Epistolam [Jocel. vit. Patr. cap. 150.<br>

The Latin sentence in H.P.B.’s footnote is from a Roman Breviary which could not be traced, and we have to trust in this matter to the erudition of de Mirville.] commonitoriam ad Corticum (alias) Cereticum which is extant in Manuscript in the same Place (and is published by Ware).”<br>

The information concerning the MS. supposedly preserved in the Salisbury Cathedral seems to be of doubtful authenticity, as direct inquiry to the Chief Librarian, Rev. Chancellor C. T. Dimont, brought a negative reply. Further inquiry ascertained the fact that the earliest manuscript of St. Patrick’s Confession is contained in The Book of Armagh, at present in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, though this MS. is not the most complete. The best edition of the Confessio and the Epistola which often accompanies it, was done by N. J. D. White in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy (1904-05), Vol. XXV, pp. 201-326, under the title “ The Latin Writings of St. Patrick.” This edition contains no mention at all of the legend that St. Patrick raised sixty men from the dead. “The Tripartite Life of St. Patrick” edited by Whitley Stokes in the Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland Series, of 1887 (2 vols.), contains numerous legends connected with the Saint which had sprung up during the years following his death, though no mention of the miracle above referred to can be found therein. However, the Harleian MS. 3859 (in the British Museum), folio 186a, makes the statement that St. Patrick “ mortuos numero usque ad novem suscitavit.”<br>

Thus, this entire subject-matter remains somewhat confused and uncertain, and is hard to verify.—Compiler.]}}</ref>

Both Frédéric and Georges Cuvier have discussed amply, however, on the intelligence and the instinct in animals.<ref>More recently Dr. Romanes and Dr. Butler have thrown great light upon the subject.</ref> Their ideas upon the subject have been collected and edited by Flourens, the learned Secretary of the Academy of Sciences. This is what Frédéric Cuvier, for thirty {{Page aside|34}} years the Director of the Zoological Department and the Museum of Natural History at the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, wrote upon the subject.

{{Style P-Quote|Descartes’ mistake, or rather the general mistake, lies in that no sufficient distinction was ever made between intelligence and instinct. Buffon himself had fallen into such an omission, and owing to it everything in his zoological philosophy was contradictory. Recognizing in the animal a feeling superior to our own, as well as the consciousness of its actual existence, he denied it at the same time thought, refection, and memory, consequently every possibility of having thoughts (Buffon, Discours sur la nature des animaux, Vol. VII, p. 57, édit. in-12°).}}<ref>{{HPB-CW-comment| [Quoted in de Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., Vol. VI, App. G, p. 155. While Flourens’ work is not specifically mentioned, it may be the one entitled: De l’instinct et de l’intelligence des animaux. Résumé des observations de F. Cuvier. 2nd enlarged ed. Paris, 1845. 12°. ––Comp.]}}</ref>

But, as he could hardly stop there, he admitted that the brute had a kind of memory, active, extensive and more faithful than our (human) memory (Id., ibid., p. 77). Then, after having refused it any intelligence, he nevertheless admitted that the animal “consulted its master, interrogated him, and understood perfectly every sign of his will.” (Id., ibid., Vol. X, Histoire du chien, p. 2.) <ref>[de Mirville, ibid]</ref>

{{Style P-Quote|. . . . this new mechanism of Buffon is still less intelligible than Descartes’ automaton.}}<ref>Biographie Universelle, etc., 1847. Article by F. Cuvier on Buffon’s life, p. 119.</ref>

My footstool earth, my canopy the skies.<ref>[An Essay on Man, Epistle I, lines 131-140.]</ref>}}

And it is the same unconscious pride that made Buffon utter his paradoxical remarks with reference to the difference between man and animal. That difference consisted in the “absence of reflection, for the animal,” he says, “does not feel that he feels.” How does Buffon know? “It does not think that it thinks,” he adds, after having told the audience that the animal remembered, often deliberated, compared and chose!* Whoever pretended that a cow or a dog could be an ideologist? But the animal may think and know it thinks, the more keenly that it cannot speak, and express its thoughts. How can Buffon or anyone else know? One thing is shown however by the exact observations of naturalists and that is, that the animal is endowed with intelligence; and once this is settled, we have but to repeat Thomas Aquinas’ definition of intelligence—the prerogative of man’s immortal soul—to see that the same is due to the animal

 

<center>'''III'''</center>

<center>[The Theosophist, Vol. VII, No. 78, March, 1886, pp. 348-354]</center>

{{Style P-Align right|O Philosophy, thou guide of life, and discoverer of virtue!

 

{{Style P-Signature|—Cicero.}}}}

 

{{Style P-Signature|—Pliny.}}}}

The destiny of man—of the most brutal, animal-like, as well as of the most saintly—being immortality, according to theological teaching; what is the future destiny of the <ref>Discours sur la nature des animaux.</ref> {{Page aside|37}}countless hosts of the animal kingdom? We are told by various Roman Catholic writers—Cardinal de Ventura, Count de Maistre and many others—that “animal soul is a Force.”

{{Style P-Quote|. . . . was produced by the earth, for this is Biblical. All the living and moving souls [nephesh or life principle] come from the earth; but, let me be understood, not solely from the dust, of which their bodies as well as our own were made, but from the potency of theearth; i.e., from its immaterial force, as all forces are . . . . . . . in conjunction with those of the sea, of the air, etc., all of which are those Elementary Principalities (principautés élémentaires) of which we have spoken elsewhere (namely, in Des Esprits, etc., 2nd Mémoire, chap. xii, Cosmolâtrie).}}<ref>Des Esprits, Vol. VI, Appendix G, p. 158.</ref>

He too rebels against the decision of St. Thomas who teaches that the animal soul is destroyed with the body. “It is a force”—he says—that “we are asked to annihilate, the most substantial force on earth, called animal soul,” which, according to the Reverend Father Ventura, is “ the most respectable soul after that of man.”

He had just called it an immaterial force, and now it is named by him “the most substantial thing on earth.” <ref>Ibid.</ref>

The form or the force of the bodies [form means soul in this case, let us remember], the former writes, is far more essential to them than {{Page aside|38}}matter is, as (without being destroyed) the latter changes constantly, whereas the form PREVAILS. To this Flourens, from whom we quote above, observes: “In everything that has life, the form is more persistent than matter . . . . . for that which constitutes the BEING of the living body, its identity and its sameness, is its form.” <ref>De la Longévité humaine et de la Quantité de Vie sur le Globe, pp. 50, 49 and 53 resp.<br>

{{HPB-CW-comment|[This is a work by Marie Jean Pierre Flourens. Paris, 1854. 12-vo. 3rd ed., 1856. 4th ed., 1860. English transl. by C. Martel (pseud. of T. Delf), entitled On Human Longevity. London, 1855. 12-vo.<br>

“. . . . . Ce qui constitue l’être du corps vivant, et par suite son identité, sa mêmeté, est précisément ce qui ne change pas, c’est-à-dire sa forme, sa force. . . . . “ (p. 53).<br>

H. P. B. uses the quotation as it appears in de Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., Vol. VI, App. G, p. 158.––Compiler.]}}</ref>

“Being,” as de Mirville remarks in his turn, “a magisterial principle, a philosophical pledge of our immortality,” <ref>Des Esprits, etc., Vol. VI, Appendix G, p. 158.</ref> it must be inferred that soul—human and animal—is meant under this misleading term. It is rather what we call the ONE LIFE, I suspect.

However this may be, philosophy, both profane and religious, corroborates this statement that the two “souls” are identical in man and beast. Leibnitz, the philosopher beloved by Bossuet, appeared to credit “Animal Resurrection” to a certain extent. Death being for him “simply the temporary enveloping of the personality,” he likens it to the preservation of ideas in sleep, or to the butterfly within its caterpillar. For him, says de Mirville,

{{Style P-Quote|. . . . resurrection <ref>The occultists call it “transformation” during a series of lives and the final nirvanic Resurrection.</ref> is a general law in nature, which becomes one of the greatest of miracles, when performed by a thaumaturgist, only in virtue of its prematurity, of the surrounding circumstances, and of the mode in which he operates.}}<ref>[Op. cit., p. 163.]</ref> {{Page aside|39}}In this Leibnitz is a true Occultist without suspecting it. The growth and blossoming of a flower or a plant in five minutes instead of several days and weeks, the forced germination and development of plant, animal or man, are facts preserved in the records of the Occultists. They are only seeming miracles; the natural productive forces hurried and a thousand-fold intensified by the induced conditions under occult laws known to the Initiate. The abnormally rapid growth is effected by the forces of nature whether blind or attached to minor intelligences subjected to man’s occult power, being brought to bear collectively on the development of the thing to be called forth out of its chaotic elements. But why call one a divine miracle, the other a satanic subterfuge or simply a fraudulent performance?

{{Style P-Quote|I believe that the souls of the animals are imperishable . . . . and I find that nothing is better fitted to prove our own immortal nature.}}<ref>Leibnitz, Opera philos.</ref>

{{Style P-Quote|. . . . . the holy scriptures hint in various passages that the brutes shall live in a future life. This doctrine has been supported by several Fathers of the Church. Reason, teaching us that the animals have a soul, teaches us at the same time that they shall exist in a future state. The system of those who believe that God annihilates the soul of the animal is nowhere supported and has no solid foundation to it,” etc., etc.}}<ref>See Vol. XXIX of the Bibliothèque des sciences, 1st Trimester of the year 1768.<br>

{{HPB-CW-comment|[The reference to the French periodical could not be traced. H. P. B. translates from de Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., Vol. VI, App. G, pp. 163-64. However, in Richard Dean’s work entitled, An Essay on the Future Life of Brutes (Manchester, 1767. British Museum, 8425. a. 9.), several propositions are outlined in Vol. II, in which the following sentences occur:<br>

{{Style P-Align right|––Compiler.]}}}}</ref>

Many of the men of science of the last century defended Dean’s hypothesis, declaring it extremely probable, one of them especially—the learned Protestant theologian Charles Bonnet of Geneva. Now, this theologian was the author of an extremely curious work called by him Palingenesis <ref>From two Greek words: ''γείνομαι'', to be born, and ''πάλιν'', again.</ref> or the “New Birth,” which takes place, as he seeks to prove, owing to an invisible germ that exists in everybody, and no more than Leibnitz can he understand that animals should be excluded from a system, which, in their absence, would not be a unity, since system means “a collection of laws.” <ref>See Vol. II of La Palingénesie philosophique. Also de Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., Vol. VI, App. G, p. 164.</ref>

The animals [he writes] are admirable books, in which the creator gathered the most striking features of his sovereign intelligence. The anatomist has to study them with respect, and, if in the least endowed with that delicate and reasoning feeling that characterises the moral man, he will never imagine, while turning over the pages, that he is handling slates or breaking pebbles. He will never forget that all that lives and feels is entitled to his mercy and pity. Man should run the risk of compromising his ethical feeling were he to become too familiarised with the suffering and the blood of animals. This truth is so evident that Governments should never lose sight of it . . . . . as to the hypothesis of automatism I should feel inclined to regard it as a philosophical heresy, very dangerous for society, if it did not so strongly violate good sense and feeling as to become harmless, for it can never be generally adopted.

As to the destiny of the animal, if my hypothesis be right, Providence holds in reserve for them the greatest compensations in future states <ref>We too believe in “future states” for the animal from the highest down to the infusoria—but in a series of rebirths, each in a higher form, up to man and then beyond—in short, we believe in evolution in the fullest sense of the word.</ref>. . . . And for me, their resurrection is the consequence of that soul or form we are necessarily obliged to allow them, for a soul being a simple substance, can neither be divided, nor decomposed, nor yet annihilated. One cannot escape such an inference without falling back into Descartes’ automatism; and then from animal automatism one would soon and forcibly arrive at that of man. . . . . <ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[de Mirville, op. cit., p. 164. This passage from Charles Bonnet’s work, La Palingénésie Philosophique; ou, Idées sur l’état passé et sur l’état future des êtres vivans (Genève: Claude Philibert et Barthelemi Chirol, 1769. 2 vols. 8-vo), is translated from its original French in a rather free manner, and cannot be considered to be more than a summary of Bonnet’s views. We append herewith the original French text, with its old-fashioned spelling, to be found in Volume II, on pp. 122-23,125-26, and 77-78, respectively.<br>

“Les Animaux font des Livres admirables où le GRAND ÊTRE a raffemblé les Traits les plus frappans de sa SOUVERAINE INTELLIGENCE. L’Anatomifte doit ouvrir ces Livres pour les étudier & connoitre mieux fa propre Structure: mais; s’il eft doué de cette senfibilité délicate & raifonnée qui caractérife l’Homme moral, il ne s’imaginera point en les feuilletant qu’il feuillette une Ardoife. Jamais il ne multipliera les Victimes malheureufes de fon inftruction & ne prolongera leurs fouffrances au-delà du But le plus raifonnable de fes Recherches. Jamais il n’oubliera un inftant, que tout ce qui eft doué de Vie & de Senfibilité a droit à fa commiferation.<br>

 

“L’Homme rifqueroit de corrompre bientôt fes Moeurs, s’il fe familiarifoit trop avec les Souffrances & le Sang des Animaux. Cette Vérité morale eft fi faillante, qu’il feroit fuperflu de la développer: ceux qui font chargés par état de diriger les Hommes ne la perdront jamais de vuë. Je regarderois l’Opinion de l’Automatifme des Bêtes, comme une forte d’Héréfie philofophique, qui deviendroit dangereufe pour la Société, fi tous fes Membres en étoient fortement imbus. Mais, il n’eft pas à craindre, qu’une Opinion, qui fait violence au Sentiment, & qui contredit fans ceffe la Voix de la Nature, puiffe etre généralement adoptée. . ..<br>

 

“Si mon Hypothèfe eft vraye, la SOUVERAINE BONTÉ auroit beaucoup plus fait encore pour ces innocentes Victimes des Befoins toujours renaiffans d’un Maître fouvent dur & ingrat. ELLE leur auroit réfervé les plus grands dédommagemens dans cet Etat Futur. . . . . . .<br>

“Si les Bêtes ont une Ame, cette Ame eft auffi indivifible, auffi indeftructible par les Caufes fecondes que celle de l’Homme: c’eft qu’une Subftance fimple ne peut etre ni divifée ni décompofée. L’Ame des Bêtes ne peut donc périr que par l’anéantiffement; & je ne vois pas, que la RELIGION annonce en termes exprès cet anéantiffement. . . . . .  

“Les Philofophes, qui par des motifs louables, ont foutenu l’Automatifme des Brutes, n’avoient-ils point à craindre qu’on ne fe fervit de leurs argumens fubtils pour défendre l’Automatifme de l’Homme?”

 

{{Style P-Align right|––Compiler.}}}}</ref>

Our modern school of biologists has arrived at the theory of “automaton-man,” but its disciples may be left to their own devices and conclusions. That with which I am at present concerned, is the final and absolute proof that neither the Bible, nor its most philosophical interpreters—however much they may have lacked a clearer insight into other questions—have ever denied, on Biblical authority, an immortal soul to any animal, more than they have found in it conclusive evidence as to the existence of such a soul in man—in the old Testament. One has but to read certain verses in Job, and the Ecclesiastes (iii, 17-22) to arrive at this conclusion. The truth of the matter is, that the future state of neither of the two is therein referred to by one single word. But if, on the other hand, only negative evidence is found in the Old Testament concerning the immortal soul in animals, in the New it is as plainly asserted as that of man himself, and it is for the benefit of those who deride Hindu philozoism, who assert their right to kill animals at their will and pleasure, and deny them an immortal soul, that a final and definite proof is now being given.

St. Paul was mentioned at the end of Part I as the defender of the immortality of all the brute creation. Fortunately this statement is not one of those that can be pooh-poohed by the Christians as “the blasphemous and heretical interpretations of the holy writ, by a group of {{Page aside|43}}atheists and free-thinkers.” Would that every one of the profoundly wise words of the Apostle Paul—an Initiate whatever else he might have been—was as clearly understood as those passages that relate to the animals. For then, as will be shown, the indestructibility of matter taught by materialistic science; the law of eternal evolution, so bitterly denied by the Church; the omnipresence of the ONE LIFE, or the unity of the ONE ELEMENT and its presence throughout the whole of nature as preached by esoteric philosophy, and the secret sense of St. Paul’s remarks to the Romans (viii, 18-23), would be demonstrated beyond doubt or cavil to be obviously one and the same thing. Indeed, what else can that great historical personage, so evidently imbued with neo-Platonic Alexandrian philosophy, mean by the following, which I transcribe with comments in the light of occultism, to give a clearer comprehension of my meaning?

The Apostle premises by saying (Rom., viii, 16-17) that “The Spirit itself” (Paramatma) “beareth witness with our spirit” (atman) “that we are the children of God,” and “if children, then heirs”—heirs of course to the eternity and indestructibility of the eternal or divine essence in us. Then he tells us that:

The “glory” we maintain, is no “new Jerusalem,” the symbolical representation of the future in St. John’s kabalistical Revelations—but the Devachanic periods and the series of births in the succeeding races when, after every new incarnation we shall find ourselves higher and more perfect, physically as well as spiritually; and when finally we shall all become truly the “sons” and “the children of God” at the “last Resurrection”—whether people call it Christian, Nirvanic or Parabrahmic; as all these are one and the same. For truly—

By creature, animal is here meant, as will be shown further on upon the authority of St. John Chrysostom. But who are the “sons of God,” for the manifestation of whom the whole creation longs? Are they the “sons of God” with whom “satan came also” (See Job, i, 6; ii, 1), or the “seven angels” of Revelation? Have they reference to Christians only or to the “sons of God” all over the world? <ref>See Isis Unveiled, Vol. I.</ref> Such “manifestation” is promised at the end of every Manvantara <ref>What was really meant by the “sons of God” in antiquity is now demonstrated fully in The Secret Doctrine, in its Part I (on the Archaic Period)—now nearly ready.<br>

{{HPB-CW-comment|[H. P. B. probably means in this connection the First Draft of Part I, then almost completed.––Comp.]}}</ref> or world-period by the scriptures of every great Religion, and save in the Esoteric interpretation of all these, in none so clearly as in the Vedas. For there it is said that at the end of each Manvantara comes the pralaya, or the destruction of the world––only one of which is known to, and expected by, the Christians—when there will be left the Sishtas, or remnants, seven Rishis and one warrior, and all the seeds, for the next human “tide-wave of the following Round.”<ref>This is the orthodox Hindu as much as the esoteric version. In his Bangalore Picture, What is Hindu Religion?—Dewan Bahadur Raghunath Rao, of Madras, says: “At the end of each Manvantara, annihilation of the world takes place; but one warrior, seven Rishis, and the seeds are saved from destruction. To them God (or Brahm) communicates the Statute law or the Vedas . . . . as soon as a Manvantara commences these laws are promulgated . . . . and become binding . . . . to the end of that Manvantara. These eight persons are called Sishtas, or remnants, because they alone remain after the destruction of all the others. Their acts and precepts are, therefore, known as Sishtachara. They are also designated ‘Sadachara’ because such acts and precepts are only what always existed.”<br>

This is the orthodox version. The secret one speaks of seven Initiates having attained Dhyanchohanship toward the end of the seventh Race on this earth, who are left on earth during its “obscuration” with the seed of every mineral, plant, and animal that had not time to evolute into man for the next Round or world-period. See Esoteric Buddhism, by A. P. Sinnett, Fifth Edition, Annotations, pp. 146, 147.</ref> But the main question with which we are {{Page aside|45}}concerned is not at present, whether the Christian or the Hindu theory is the more correct; but to show that the Brahmins—in teaching that the seeds of all the creatures are left over, out of the total periodical and temporary destruction of all visible things, together with the “sons of God” or the Rishis, who shall manifest themselves to future humanity––say neither more nor less than what St. Paul himself preaches. Both include all animal life in the hope of a new birth and renovation in a more perfect state when every creature that now “waiteth” shall rejoice in the “manifestation of the sons of God.” Because, as St. Paul explains:

{{Style P-Quote|The creature itself (ipsa) also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption,}}

And this “glorious liberty” can be reached only through the evolution or the Karmic progress of all creatures. The dumb brute having evoluted from the half sentient plant, is itself transformed by degrees into man, spirit, God—et seq. and ad infinitum! For says St. Paul:

We know [“we,” the Initiates] that the whole creation [omnis creatura or creature, in the Vulgate] groaneth and travaileth [in childbirth] in pain together until now. (viii, 22.)<ref> “omnis creatura ingemiscit, et parturit usque adhuc,” in the original Latin translation.</ref>

Nothing could be clearer—even to a profane, non-initiated critic—than those words of the great Apostle, whether we interpret them by the light of esoteric philosophy, or that of mediaeval scholasticism. The hope of redemption, or, of the survival of the spiritual entity delivered “from the bondage of corruption,” or the series of temporary material forms, is for all living creatures, not for man alone.

But the “paragon” of animals, proverbially unfair even to his fellow-beings, could not be expected to give easy consent to sharing his expectations with his cattle and domestic poultry. The famous Bible commentator, Cornelius a Lapide, was the first to point out and charge his predecessors with the conscious and deliberate intention of doing all they could to avoid the application of the word creatura to the inferior creatures of this world. We learn from him that St. Gregory Nazianzen, Origen and St. Cyril (the one, most likely, who refused to see a human creature in Hypatia, and dealt with her as though she were a wild animal) insisted that the word creatura, in the verses above quoted, was applied by the Apostle simply to the angels! But, as remarks Cornelius, who appeals to St. Thomas for corroboration,

{{Style P-Quote|. . . . . this opinion is too distorted and violent (distorta et violenta), it is moreover invalidated by the fact that the angels, as such, are already delivered from the bonds of corruption.}}

{{Style P-Quote|. . . . . in the text quoted the creatures spoken of by the Apostle are evidently creatures distinct from men:—not only they but ourselves also; and then, that which is meant is not deliverance from sin, but from death to come.}}<ref>Cornelius, edit. Pélagaud, Vol. IX, p. 114.<br>

[Also de Mirville, Des Esprits, etc., Vol. VI, App. G, pp. 166-67.]</ref>

But even the brave Cornelius finally gets scared by the general opposition and decides that under the term creatures St. Paul may have meant—as St. Ambrosius, St. Hilarius (Hilaire) and others insisted––elements (!!), i.e., the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, etc., etc.

Unfortunately for the holy speculators and scholastics, and very fortunately for the animals—if these are ever to profit by polemics—they are over-ruled by a still greater authority than themselves. It is St. John Chrysostom, already mentioned, whom the Roman Catholic Church, on the testimony given by Bishop Proclus, at one time his secretary, holds in the highest veneration. In fact St. John Chrysostom was, if such a profane (in our days) term can be applied to a saint, the “medium” of the Apostle to the Gentiles. In the matter of his Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistles, St. John is held as directly inspired by that Apostle himself, in other words as having written his comments at St. Paul’s dictation. This is what we read in those comments on the 8th Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans.

We must always groan about the delay made for our emigration [death]; for if, as saith the Apostle, the creature deprived of reason [mente, not anima, “Soul”] and speech (nam si hoc creatura mente et verbo carens) groans and expects, the more the shame that we ourselves should fail to do so. <ref>Homélie XIV, 6, Sur l’Épître aux Romains.<br>

{{HPB-CW-comment|[H.P.B. translates this passage from de Mirville’s French text, in Des Esprits, etc., Vol. VI, App. G, p. 168. It is rather a summary than a verbatim rendering. The Latin text is as follows (J. P. Migne, Patrol. Curs. Compl., Ser. Graeca Prior, Vol. XXXII. Joannis Chrysostomi, Commentarius in Epistolam ad Romanos, COI. 531):<br>

In The Homelies of S. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, on the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Romans (translated with notes and indices in A Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, anterior to the division of the East and West, Oxford: John Henry Parker; London: F. and J. Rivington, 1848), the following is given as the English rendering of the above Latin text (p. 247):<br>

The translator remarks in a footnote that in some MSS. the term logos, in the sense of “words,” occurs at the place where he has used “reason.”

{{Style P-Align right|––Compiler.]}}}}</ref>

{{Style P-Signature|H. P. Blavatsky.}}