Legend
< From Across the Ocean (continued from page 4-38) >
“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,”[1] 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.”[2]
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. . .”[3]
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. Martin Haug, the Sanskrit scholar, asserts that the Vedas were already in existence 2,000 B.C.”
Further, Mme. Blavatsky proves that materialists have no grounds to charge them, Spiritists, with “false pretences” and portray them as being “lost to reason.” As for their “false pretences,” she mentions one of their fellows, medium Slade, who was arrested at the complaint of Duke Lancaster for cheating him and taking $5 for a sole séance, and she asks whether he is more guilty of false pretences than Huxley himself, a soulless person who wheedled not 5 but 5,000 dollars out of credulous New York residents for imparting them a very old hypothesis that man descended from an antediluvian four-toed horse?
“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? . . ”[4] What grounds do we have to believe such bold assumptions, undemonstrated by anything but the lecturer's authority,
From Across the Ocean
...
more than numerous eye-witnesses of spirit phenomena? Of course, hypothesis, whether of positive sciences or of the realm of psychology, is no false pretence; but an unsupported assertion. However, as soon as it crosses the line, as soon as it is offered as a fact or enforced as a faith, such a hypothesis and its proponents can be charged with false pretences, especially when people are charged money (and a great amount at that!) for it.
If, satisfied with the osseous fragments, rather incomplete and scattered, of various antediluvian creatures, materialists assume the right (without taking the risk of being branded as people lost to reason) to build a complicated theory of self-generation and origin of species passing it off as the scientific truth, if Cuvier, grants rights of citizenship in natural history to the image of a whole mammoth based upon a small bone, a small osseous fragment of the antediluvian giant, why should Spiritualists be branded as those lost to reason (asks Mme. Blavatsky) when they base their conclusions on far more definite principles? In support of their theory of afterdeath life, they do not exhibit just small bones but, rather, entire hands, feet and even human bodies that appear during their séances in which they frequently recognize their departed relatives and acquaintances.
Mme. Blavatsky closes her article by comparing the damage caused by the “system” of materialists, such as one propounded by the lecturer, with the evil presumably caused by Spiritists in promoting their highly (as she believes) moral theories of Spiritism. I need not say that she arrives at the conclusion that if the English found it possible to sentence medium Slade to three months in prison for extortion of five dollars, the Americans should have jailed materialist Huxley, at least, for three years – in proportion with the amount he was paid in New York for his false pretence!
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;”[6] while what they recognize as contrary to the order of nature, they “incontinently reject as mythical . . .” “They adopt the contrary course to 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.’ ”[7] 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 . . .”
That's how the Russian Theosophist vigorously stood up for her brothers venturing to deal with the London scientist.
Original text in Old Russian
„Послҍ всҍхъ громкихъ обьявленiй объ ожидаемыхъ съ такимъ волненiемъ лекцияхъ, послҍ опасенiй церкви и заранняго торжества гг. матерьялистовъ, что дали намъ эти лекции?...“ вопрошаетъ статья; „что новаго или особенно замҍчательнаго сказалъ намъ Т.Гексли? Ничего, положительно ничего! О немъ, по истинҍ, можно замҍтить, что все что онъ сказалъ не лживаго, было далеко не ново; а все новое имъ высказанное, было совершенно ложно“.
Здҍсь, чтобъ доказать справедливость своего мнҍнiя о лживости доводовъ лектора, г-жа Блаватская, вдается в крайнюю ученость. Она обращается къ древнейшимъ языческимъ легендамъ о сотворении мiра; ссылается на вҍрованiя индусовъ и браминовъ, на ихъ священныя книги и доказываетъ, что логика „этихъ непросвященныхъ свҍтомъ истины язычниковъ, все же превосходитъ логику современныхъ ученыхъ, хотя-бы тҍмъ, что сознаетъ верховное начало, – первую, причину – причинуъ всего мирозданiя...“
Въ этихъ-же древнейшихъ созданiяхъ мысли человҍческой она находитъ подтвержденiе крайней устарҍлости идей, выдаваемыхъ матерьялистами за новҍйшiя открытiя науки: „Индусскiя священныя книги, Веды, проповҍдовали ученiе самозарожденiя болҍе нежели за 2000 лҍтъ до Р.Х. (по указанiямъ ученаго изслҍдователя санскритской древности, Мартина Гауджъ)“
Далҍе г-жа Блаватская доказываетъ, что напрасно матерьялисты укоряютъ ихъ, спиритовъ, въ безумiи и корыстолюбiи. Что касается до корыстолюбiя, то неужели ихъ товарищъ, медиумъ Слэдъ, недавно арестованный въ Лондонҍ по жалобе герцога Ланкастера за то что, взявъ пять долларовъ за сеансъ, яко-бы хотҍлъ обмануть его, более повиненъ в корысти нежели самъ Гексли?... Бездушный выманившiй у легковҍрныхъ Нью-Iоркцев не 5 а 5000 дол. за сообщенiе ... весьма стараго предположенiя о происхожденiи человҍка отъ четырехпалой, допотопной лошади.
Чтобы быть послҍдовательнымъ, Гекслей долженъ былъ-бы наглядно показать намъ, что въ то время какъ эта баснословная лошадь постепенно съ каждымъ перiодомъ, теряла по пальцу; человекъ, напротив, при каждой новой трансформацiи прiобрҍталъ по одному лишнему. Ибо, если намъ не по ... ископаемыхъ остатковъ человека различныхъ перiодовъ, въ ...хъ одно-палаго, двухъ-палаго (...) состоянiй – состоянiй несо... ...ыхъ, предшествовавшихъ на... ...у совершенному его виду, – ...-же поведетъ насъ многоум... ...iя Гексли?..» Какое основа... ...мъ мы вҍрить такого рода, ... ничҍмъ кромҍ авторитета ...
Editor's notes
- ↑ Huxley and Slade: Who is More Guilty of “False Pretences”? Vide: H. P. Blavatsky, BCW, p. 226.
- ↑ Ditto. The quotation is not quite accurate. The correct text is as follows: “. . . what he said that was new was not true; and that which was true was not new.”
- ↑ Ditto, pp. 226-227.
- ↑ Ditto, p. 229.
- ↑ From Across the Ocean by Zhelikhovsky V.P., Tiflis herald, No.49-50. Original title in Old Russian: "Изъ-за Океана. Похороны өеозофа"
- ↑ Op. cit., p. 232.
- ↑ Op. cit., pp. 233.