Blavatsky H.P. - Correspondence: Difference between revisions

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<center>[Lucifer, Vol. I, No. 6, February, 1888, pp. 507-512]</center>

The editors have received the two following letters—one from the learned Founder of Hylo-Idealism, the other from a gentleman, a casual correspondent, of whom they know absolutely nothing except his most extraordinary way of expressing his thoughts in words and terms hitherto unheard by ordinary mortals. Both take the editors to task for using their undeniable right of criticism and editorial judgment. As Lucifer, however, is a magazine sui generis, and as its policy is the greatest possible tolerance and fairness to all parties concerned, it will abstain from its legal prerogative of leaving the letters without reply or notice. Lucifer hands them over, therefore, to the “ADVERSARY,” to be dealt with according to their respective merits. The editors have never pretended to an “understanding of Hylo-Idealism” nor do they entertain any such rash hope for the future. They belong to that humble class of mortals who labour to their dying day under the belief that 2 x 2 = 4, and can by no means, even hylo-idealistic, make 5. “C. N.” ’s letter placed-the new “philosophy” in an entirely different light; firstly, because it is written in good English, and because the style of the writer is extremely attractive; and secondly, because at least one point has now been made clear to the editors: “Hylo-Idealism” is, like modern spiritualism, the essence of transcendental materialism. If in Mr. Huxley’s opinion Comte’s Positivism is, in practice, “Catholicism minus Christianity,” in the views of the editors of Lucifer Hylo-Idealism is “Metaphysics minus psychology and—physics.” Let its apostles explain away its flagrant contradictions, and then Lucifer will be the first to render justice to it as a philosophy. Meanwhile, it can only acknowledge a number of remarkably profound thoughts that are to be found scattered in independent solitude throughout the letters of Dr. Lewins (Humanism versus Theism) and others, and—no more.

<center>'''RE HYLO-IDEALISM'''</center>

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<center>To the Editors of Lucifer.</center>

Perhaps space may be found in the February or other early issue of your interesting and suggestive serial for the present curt communication. In a footnote of your January number I am coupled with Mr. H. Spencer as being more Atheist than Moleschott and Büchner—to say nothing of such compromising and irresolute scientists as Darwin, Huxley, and Co. Now, that atheistic or non-animist standpoint is the pivot on which my whole synthesis revolves; and is, I contend, the burning problem at this epoch—ethical and intellectual—of the human mind—thoroughly to establish on certain concrete, rational and scientific data, that is to say—not on the Utopias of Speculation and Metaphysics. My principle is exactly that of Kant (inter alia) when he formulates the “Thing in Itself.” But we have only to study the short and handy A Critique of Kant, referred to in your columns—by Kuno Fischer, translated by Dr. Hough, to see how fast and loose that “all-shattering” metaphysician played with his all-destructive theme. Not only does he entirely reverse it and its corollaries in his critique of the “Practical Reason,” and of “Judgment,” but also in the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason itself, in which originally, as its corollary, or rather concomitant, he, like myself, only on less sure premises, disposes of God, the Soul (Anima or Vital Principle), and Immortality—that is of another “personal” life after death. I hold with Lucretius, Epicurus, and others in ancient and modern times, of whom Shelley is a typical case, that no greater benefit can be bestowed on humanity than the elimination from sane thought of this ghastly and maddening Triune Spectre. God alone is quite “l’infâme” Voltaire dubs the Catholic Church. Looking through Nature “ red in tooth and claws “ to its pseudo-Author, we must expect to find a Pandemon. For any omnipotent Being who, unconditioned and unfettered in all respects, “willed” such a world of pain and anguish for sentient creatures, must be a Demon worse than mythology has fabled of Satan, Moloch, Mammon, or other fiends. It must be noted that in the classic Pantheon, the Fates, or Fatal Sisters, are “above” all the Immortals of Olympus, including Jove himself—a saving provision quite inadmissible in modern Monotheism, which endows its Divinity<ref>Deuce, i.e., Devil, is the synonym of Deus.</ref> with absolute omnipotence and fore-knowledge.

{{Style P-Signature|ROBERT LEWINS, M.D.}}