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{{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued|Theosophic Teachings.|14-138}} | {{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued|Theosophic Teachings.|14-138}} | ||
... | {{Style P-No indent|(shrouded in mystery, only a glimpse of their glory can be vouchsafed to us—herein again unlike Christ—“''omne ignotum,''” &c.), they would surely feel themselves under a real obligation to him for thus forcibly representing and defending their views. All the opening sentences I agree with, I feel the value of, down to the words, “we moderns take for reason.” ''I'' should have drawn the inference from them that ''we'' are immortal. But “C. C. M.” proceeds to shew the utter fallacy of such an innocent, and unphilosophical assumption. For, says he, our personality is a phenomenal experience, and depends on external conditions. Let them pass, and it must pass too. I suppose here we come to a distinct, and very palpable issue. My answer is, as before, it does no such thing. All particular experiences have particular causes, or special individual energies of the substantial noumenon as basis of them; else they remain unaccounted for. And Being would be Being, with a big B, to all eternity, with nothing coming out of it, simply because there is nothing in it, all alone in the solitary glory of its abstraction. It was well said of Spinoza’s substance that it was a lion’s den with many footprints turned towards it, but none returning; indeed, there would be no footprints even approaching, and the all-devouring Lion would himself perish of inanition—or rather, he could never himself be. Even poor Being would find itself in a bad case, for all the sublimity of its too simple and vacuous content. Our Supreme Lord, Zero!—“These be thy gods,” O Occultism! And how does this explain God’s rich world around us, so prodigal of life and beauty, and all infinite variety? It is a vain, dissolving dream, answers the recluse. Nay, it is life we want—“Of life—more life—our nerves are scant.” Which is the very reprehensible state of mind characteristic of the wicked, according to the Eastern hermits, by the way (see last ''Theosophist'' for November). The truth is, that the passive, and the active temperaments will not easily be reconciled! And temperaments are the framers of systems, East, West, North, and South.}} | ||
These systems provide no link between the One and the Many. But without such a link neither is possible. And as to the worldly conditions perishing, if they are modes of consciousness, as “C. C. M.” admits, they cannot; they only seem to do so because they fulfill themselves in “the other;” but all that can only take place by virtue of their integration, differentiation, and identification in a subject, and subjects. The conditions are the result of our limitations. But we make them, though not alone. They do not make us. They dominate us, but not for ever. But “C. C. M.” proceeds to the proper topic he set himself to discuss. And he positively tries to convince me that there are other phenomenal worlds besides that of our five senses! Why, if he had attentively read the book of mine he was so kind as to review in “{{Style S-Small capitals|Light}},” he would find that I believe in as many kinds of phenomenal worlds as there are diversities of subjective intelligence—and I know not how many there may be of these. Nor ever in my life have I objected to the astral light and the pictures in it as a phenomenon, if it can be scientifically proved, though the position of the authors of the “Unseen Universe” is seriously objected to by scientific men. Still it is quite possible that the Brothers may be competent to assert this as a fact. | |||
But alas! how impossible it seems for philosophical controversialists to understand each other! This, then, is what “C. C. M.” has all along been supposing me to object to, on the ground of my idealism! Of course, his answer is perfectly crushing to any one so objecting. If there is a world of physical law, the domain of physical science, there may be a domain of “astral” law, the domain of occult science, and idealism has nothing whatever to do with it. Why of course—of course—“what fool,” as Mr. Swinburne says to somebody, “is foolish enough” to deny it? It is a question of ''evidence'' only. But does not “C. C. M.” see that these theories of shells, &c., are ''metaphysical'' theories? Shells are bodies—all right; as much as ever you please. That is what “C. C. M.’s” friend says in this last number of “{{Style S-Small capitals|Light}}.” But they are also ''thinking'' bodies! Well—here we are pulled up. That is a metaphysical theory—it is not a question of evidence for phenomena at all. A shell is a body able to give tests of personal identity, and with no personal identity, or synthetic principle of thought and sense differentiation behind it. Well, there I demur. Because even infallible “Mahatmas” may not assert a contradiction in terms. If it were a person, it might see pictures in the astral light. But if it is not one, it can do no such thing. And it is not one; therefore it cannot. Q. E. D. “G. C.” says it has “a species of personality.” Now what is that? It is either a person, or it is not. Choose. Personality is not a sort of wash or paint, of which you may give a thin coating to something else, which is not personal. “C. C. M.” compares these astral light representations to statues. With all my heart. He argues irrefragably that, though idealism be true, yet there are statues. They must be in some consciousness, but there they are, and the Adepts are not necessarily ignorant of the fact, because they do not refer to it. Is “C. C. M.” sure that they would admit the fact? I should imagine from the words of their disciples that they would not. However, the general principle of “C. C. M.” is indisputable. But what “C. C. M.” and his friends argue, is that these shells are animated, thinking statues, giving tests of human identity, and yet with no human individuality, which alone, by “synthetic unity of apperception,” makes human thinking possible. | |||
Certainly the pictures might be understood and translated by persons; but if my body without myself behind it walked into the Royal Academy, what does “C. C. M.” imagine ''it'' would make of the pictures there? Yet these are equally products of human thought, and expressive of it. Statues—yes; but the animated statue of Pygmalion, with no living woman behind it! We read in Dante that trees bled, and spoke; but then they had individual lost souls within them. “G. C.” puts the thing very plainly, and surely the result is simply grotesque. He says the converted man drops his bad habits with his astral body—or some other body, I really don’t know which—“Kama-Rupa”—it does not much signify. Well, if one leaves off one’s bad habits, how very obvious that one must leave them ''somewhere!'' If I change my old coat (or habit), ''there it is'', and another man may see it lying on the chair. So of my old ''habits!!'' Surely they must be floating about somewhere, if I have dropped them? Only my old coat cannot give tests of identity, and my old habits can. This is really the funniest doctrine for philosophers of supernatural pretensions to preach. To the uninitiatedit might even appear to issue from a far different and nearer place than the Himalayas, a place I will not name in such a connection, as it might sound profane! A more general sense of humour would surely have secured us immunity from many a strange system of philosophy. | |||
The simple question is—''Can bodies think?'' Yes, says “C. C. M.” This is not a materialistic assertion at all, though it might seem so. Your idealism should be above taking alarm at it. If it does, it is a very crude idealism. Bodies ''can'' think, for bodies are themselves phenomena of consciousness—objects of thought—in thought. Well, this argument would prove a good deal. It would prove that a carpet can think, that a tea-caddy can think. And that, I suppose, ''is'' the doctrine of Occultism, which seems identical with the animism of savages. The elements, they say, think. Hydrogen thinks. To most of us, however, that seems nonsense. To say the brain, or the tea-caddy, is necessarily an object of, and in thought is ''not'' the same as to say, the brain or the tea-caddy think—thought is an energy of brain, or tea-caddy. But thought may be concocted there, says my honourable opponent. Now just examine what this really means. The brain is not a witches’ cauldron, or a stewpan, and thought a broth of any kind, hellish, or heavenly. Granted; we both know that; we are both idealists—(much to the bewilderment of the good readers of “{{Style S-Small capitals|Light}},” by the way! So much the worse for them—they must wish us anywhere!) Brain, then, is—and astral body also is—a complex phenomenon ''constructed by'' thought; in this, says “C. C. M.,” thought may arise, be concocted. Now that cannot mean, I presume, that thought arises in a confined space (brain), for space is a thought, and presupposes it. It must mean ''particular'' thoughts of ours arise ''in connection'' with other thoughts we call “brain.” When I feel hot, or see a colour, I might (''though I don’t'') also see a vibration of certain nerve-ganglia, and nerve-fibrils. It can mean no more than that to an idealist, whether crude like myself, or advanced like “C. C. M.” and the Occultists. And I ''might'' perhaps conceivably on such occasions also perceive an ethereal—or astral light—vibration. If that is all you mean, I agree with you, but then you seem to palter with words in a double sense, because what modern thinkers in general mean by such a phrase is that brain (or astral body) is the substance, or noumenon, and thought is the quality, or function thereof. You, if an idealist, mean just the reverse; therefore you should not use your adversary’s pet chosen phraseology. But, “C.C.M.” urges upon me, that we individuals are not alone, and do not think alone—a curious lesson to read one who has written the book “C. C. M.” has so kindly reviewed, and one who on that subject agrees with Fechner. “We think into the World-Soul,” and are supported by it. Our thoughts, therefore, go out of ourselves, and may be percepts to others—precisely the doctrine of my own book! But what is the inference? That they go out of us—''into no other intelligence—but gad about all by themselves?'' Why is it to be charged on them that they are likely to behave in so lunatic, indecent, and utterly unconscionable a way? They being essentially thoughts ''constructed'' by thinkers, and being impossible out of thinkers, cannot possibly do anything of the kind, and if “C. C. M.” thinks otherwise, there is no more to be said; his idealism and mine are utterly incapable of ever meeting and coinciding—though whether his or mine be the crudest I will not presume to determine. Our thoughts may go into the World-Soul (mind you, a highly personal Soul, far more so than ourselves); then the thoughts of the World-Soul—and inconceivably many others besides—may come into us (the brain, and astral body are thoughts of others, or of ours), but they all ''go from'' and ''come into'' synthetic unities of apperception, which is what I mean by persons, or individuals, or Egos, or selves; for them to be in another position, and hang about between, is as impossible as for two and two to make five; simply because the very differentia of thought is that it belongs to a thinker. | |||
But though we “think into a world-consciousness,” and into other minds, our thoughts still belong to us, and will come home to roost,—will return to their parent, when he, and others are more perfect, more at one in the Universal. | |||
{{Style S-Small capitals|Erratum.}}—In my last article on p. 575, for “a ''cluster'' of memories” read “a ''bevy'' of ''memories.''”—R. W. | |||