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{{Style P-Title|SECTION II<br>

{{Style P-Title|SECTION II}}

Modern Criticism and the Ancients}}

{{Style P-Title|Modern Criticism and the Ancients}}

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{{Style S-Small capitals|The}} Secret Doctrine of the Aryan East is found repeated under Egyptian symbolism and phraseology in the Book of Hermes. At, or near, the beginning of the present century, all the books called Hermetic were, in the opinion of the average man of Science unworthy of serious attention. They were set down and loudly proclaimed as simply a collection of tales, of fraudulent pretences and most absurd claims. They "never existed before the Christian era," it was said: "they were all written with the triple object of speculation, deceiving and pious fraud;" they were all, even the best of them, silly apocrypha.&nbsp;* In this respect the nineteenth century proved a most worthy scion of the eighteenth, for, in the age of Voltaire as well as in this century, everything, save what emanated direct from the Royal Academy, was false, superstitious, foolish. Belief in the wisdom of the Ancients was laughed to scorn, perhaps more so even than it is now. The very thought of accepting as authentic the works and vagaries of "a false Hermes, a false Orpheus, a false Zoroaster," of false Oracles, false Sibyls, and a thrice false Mesmer and his absurd fluid, was tabooed all along the line. Thus all that had its genesis outside the learned and dogmatic precincts of Oxford and Cambridge,&nbsp;† or the Academy of France, was  

{{Style S-Small capitals|The}} Secret Doctrine of the Aryan East is found repeated under Egyptian symbolism and phraseology in the Book of Hermes. At, or near, the beginning of the present century, all the books called Hermetic were, in the opinion of the average man of Science unworthy of serious attention. They were set down and loudly proclaimed as simply a collection of tales, of fraudulent pretences and most absurd claims. They "never existed before the Christian era," it was said: "they were all written with the triple object of speculation, deceiving and pious fraud;" they were all, even the best of them, silly apocrypha.&nbsp;* In this respect the nineteenth century proved a most worthy scion of the eighteenth, for, in the age of Voltaire as well as in this century, everything, save what emanated direct from the Royal Academy, was false, superstitious, foolish. Belief in the wisdom of the Ancients was laughed to scorn, perhaps more so even than it is now. The very thought of accepting as authentic the works and vagaries of "a false Hermes, a false Orpheus, a false Zoroaster," of false Oracles, false Sibyls, and a thrice false Mesmer and his absurd fluid, was tabooed all along the line. Thus all that had its genesis outside the learned and dogmatic precincts of Oxford and Cambridge,&nbsp;† or the Academy of France, was  

That which is to be deplored, however, in respect to Modern Science, is in itself an evil manifestation of the excessive caution which in its most favourable aspect protects Science from over-hasty conclusions:  

That which is to be deplored, however, in respect to Modern Science, is in itself an evil manifestation of the excessive caution which in its most favourable aspect protects Science from over-hasty conclusions:  

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{{Page|32|the secret doctrine.}}

{{Style P-No indent|namely, the tardiness of Scientists to recognise that other instruments of research may be applicable to the mysteries of Nature besides those of the physical plane, and that it may consequently be impossible to appreciate the phenomena of any one plane correctly without observing them as well from the points of view afforded by others. In so far then as they wilfully shut their eyes to evidence which ought to have shown them clearly that Nature is more complex than physical phenomena alone would suggest, that there are means by which the faculties of human perception can pass sometimes from one plane to the other, and that their energy is being misdirected while they turn it exclusively on the minutiae of physical structure or force, they are less entitled to sympathy than to blame.}}

{{Style P-No indent|namely, the tardiness of Scientists to recognise that other instruments of research may be applicable to the mysteries of Nature besides those of the physical plane, and that it may consequently be impossible to appreciate the phenomena of any one plane correctly without observing them as well from the points of view afforded by others. In so far then as they wilfully shut their eyes to evidence which ought to have shown them clearly that Nature is more complex than physical phenomena alone would suggest, that there are means by which the faculties of human perception can pass sometimes from one plane to the other, and that their energy is being misdirected while they turn it exclusively on the minutiae of physical structure or force, they are less entitled to sympathy than to blame.}}

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{{Page|34|the secret doctrine.}}

Roman Catholics, who are guilty of precisely the same worship, and to the very letter – having borrowed it from the later Chaldaeans, the Lebanon Nabathaeans, and the baptized Sabaeans,&nbsp;* and not from the learned Astronomers and Initiates of the days of old – would now, by anathematizing it, hide the source from which it came. Theology and Churchianism would fain trouble the clear fountain that fed them from the first, to prevent posterity from looking into it, and thus seeing their original prototype. The Occultists, however, believe the time has come to give everyone his due. As to our other opponents – the modern sceptic and the Epicurean, the cynic and the Sadducee – they may find an answer to their denials in our earlier volumes. As to many unjust aspersions on the ancient doctrines, the reason for them is given in these words in ''Isis Unveiled'':

Roman Catholics, who are guilty of precisely the same worship, and to the very letter – having borrowed it from the later Chaldaeans, the Lebanon Nabathaeans, and the baptized Sabaeans,&nbsp;* and not from the learned Astronomers and Initiates of the days of old – would now, by anathematizing it, hide the source from which it came. Theology and Churchianism would fain trouble the clear fountain that fed them from the first, to prevent posterity from looking into it, and thus seeing their original prototype. The Occultists, however, believe the time has come to give everyone his due. As to our other opponents – the modern sceptic and the Epicurean, the cynic and the Sadducee – they may find an answer to their denials in our earlier volumes. As to many unjust aspersions on the ancient doctrines, the reason for them is given in these words in ''Isis Unveiled'':