HPB-SB-4-39: Difference between revisions

“After all the flourish which attended his coming, all the expectations that had been aroused, all the secret apprehensions of the church and the anticipated triumph of the materialists, what did he teach us that was really new or so extremely suggestive? Nothing, positively nothing,”<ref>{{Style S-HPB SB. Editors note|''Huxley and Slade: Who is More Guilty of “False Pretences”?'' ''Vide'': H.&nbsp;P.&nbsp;Blavatsky, ''BCW'', p. 226.}}</ref> the article states. “Of him it may be said, . . that what he said that was ''not false was by far not new''; and that which ''was new was absolutely false''.”<ref>{{Style S-HPB SB. Editors note|''Ditto''. The quotation is not quite accurate. The correct text is as follows: “.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. what he said that was new was not true; and that which was true was not new.”}}</ref>  

Here, to prove her opinion about the false arguments cited by the lecturer, Mme. Blavatsky displays her extreme erudition. She turns to ancient heathen accounts of creation, refers to the Hindu and Brahmin faiths, their sacred books, and she proves that “the benighted Hindus, it seems, made the trifling improvement over modern science, of hooking a ''First Cause'' on the further end of the chain of evolution. . .”<ref>{{Style S-HPB SB. Editors note|''Ditto'', pp. 226-227.}}</ref>  

In those ancient fruits of human thought she finds confirmation of the utter triviality of ideas passed off by materialists as the latest scientific discoveries: “. . . the ancient Hindus many centuries before the Christian era taught the doctrine of evolution. {{From ETG|text=Martin Haug}}, the Sanskrit scholar, asserts that the ''Vedas'' were already in existence 2,000 B.C.”

“To be consistent he must show that while the horse was losing at each successive period a toe, man has in reversed order acquired an additional one at each new formation; and, unless we are shown the fossilized remains of man in a series of one-, two-, three-, and four-toed anthropoid apelike beings antecedent to the present perfected Homo, what does Huxley’s theory amount to? . . ”<ref>{{Style S-HPB SB. Editors note|''Ditto'', p. 229.}}</ref> What grounds do we have to believe such bold assumptions, undemonstrated by anything but the lecturer's authority,

Of all the sad things to be seen in this era of “shams”, our ardent Spiritist concludes, none is more deplorable – though its futility is often ludicrous – than the conspiracy of materialists to stamp out the multitude of facts corroborating the philosophy of Spiritists from history. What the ancient and modern authors narrate, “that can be used to bolster up the physical part of science, scientists accept and sometimes cooly ''appropriate'' without credit;”<ref>{{Style S-HPB SB. Editors note|''Op. cit.'', p. 232.}}</ref> while what they recognize as ''contrary to the order of nature'', ''they'' “incontinently reject as ''mythical ''. . .” “They adopt the contrary course to {{From ETG|text=Lord Verulam}}, who, arguing on the properties of amulets and charms, remarks that, ‘we should not reject all this kind, because it is not known how far those contributing to superstition depend on natural causes.’ ”<ref>{{Style S-HPB SB. Editors note|''Op. cit.'', pp. 233.}}</ref> Clearly, humankind will never get to the truth as long as the freedom of thought and truthful exposition of scientific discoveries remains suppressed by preconceived opinions. More than that, “there can be no real enfranchisement of human thought, nor expansion of scientific discovery, until the existence of spirit is recognized, and the double evolution accepted as a fact. Until then, false theories will always find favour with those who, having forsaken ‘the God of their fathers,’ vainly strive to find substitutes in nucleated masses of matter . . .”  

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