Wilder - Collected Articles

SOME COLLECTED ARTICLES OF ALEXANDER WILDER [Compiled by M.R.J.] CONTENTS - Hypatia: A Tragedy of Lent - Philosophy After the Death of Hypatia - The Eclectic Philosophy - The Teachings of Plotinos - The Teachings of Plato - The Parable of Atlantis - The Wisdom Religion of Zoroaster - Zoroaster, The Father of Philosophy - Iamblichos and Theurgy: The Reply to Porphyry - Seership - Porphyry and His Teachings - The Children of Cain - The Apostle Paul - Philosophic Morality - The Problem and Providence of Evil - Concerning Pleasure - Philebos - The American Socrates - Henry Clay - H.P.B. - A Profile of Those Days - The Key of the Universe - Lucky and Unlucky Days - The New Order of the Ages ---------------HYPATIA: A TRAGEDY OF LENT by Alexander Wilder "THIS was done during Lent, " says the historian Sokrates. "There is as a woman in Alexandreia named Hypatia, a daughter of Theon the philosopher, so learned that she surpassed all the savants of the time. She therefore succeeded to the Chair of Philosophy in that branch of the Platonic School which follows Plotinos, and gave public lectures on all the doctrines of that school.

Students resorted to her from all parts, for her deep learning made her both serious and fearless in speech, while she bore herself composedly, even before the magistrates, and mixed among men in public without misgiving. Her exceeding modesty was extolled and praised by all. So, then, wrath and envy were kindled against this woman." Little record has been preserved of Hypatia beyond the mention by her contemporaries of her learning, her personal beauty and her tragic fate. That little, however, possesses a peculiar significance, setting forth as it does, the history of the period, and the great changes which the world was then undergoing. Since the time of Augustus Caesar, Alexandreia had ranked as one of the Imperial cities of the Roman world. It excelled other capitals in the magnificence of its buildings, and in its wealth, created and sustained by an extensive commerce. Its former rulers had been liberal and even lavish in every expenditure that might add to its greatness. The advantages of the place had been noted by the Macedonian Conqueror, when on his way to the oasis of Amun, and afterward, acting under the direction of a dream, he fixed upon it for the site of a new city to perpetuate his own name. He personally planned the circuit of the walls and the directions of the principal streets, and selected sites for temples to the gods of Egypt and Greece. The architect Deinokrates was then commissioned to superintend the work, he had already distinguished himself as the builder of the temple of the Great Goddess of Ephesus, whom "all Asia and the world worshiped," and had actually offered to carve Mount Athos into a statue of his royal master, holding a city in its right hand. Under Ptolemy, the royal scholar, the new Capital had been completed by him, and became the chief city of a new Egypt, the seat of commerce between India and the West, and the intellectual metropolis of the occidental world. Its celebrity, however, was due, not so much to its grand buildings or even to its magnificent lighthouse, the Pharos, justly considered as one of the Seven Wonders of the Earth, as to its famous School of Learning, and to its library of seven hundred thousand scrolls, the destruction of which is still deplored by lovers of knowledge. The temples of Memphis, Sais and Heliopolis had been so many universities, depositories of religious, philosophic and scientific literature, and distinguished foreigners like Solon, Thales, Plato, Eudoxos and Pythagoras had been admitted to them; but now

they were cast into the shade by the new metropolis with its cosmopolitan liberality. The Alexandreian School included among its teachers and lecturers, not only Egyptian priests and learned Greeks, but sages and philosophers from other countries. The wall of exclusiveness that had before separated individuals of different race and nation, was in a great measure, broken down. Religious worship heretofore circumscribed in isolated forms to distinctive peoples, tribes and family groups, became correspondingly catholic and its rites accessible to all. The mystery-god of Egypt, bearing the ineffable name of Osiris or Hyasir, was now Serapis, in whom the personality and attributes of the other divinities of the pantheons were merged. * "There is but one sole God for them all," the Emperor Hadrian wrote to his friend Servianus: "him do the Christians, him do the Jews, him do all the Gentiles also worship." Philosophy likewise appeared in new phases. Missionaries from Buddhistic India,** Jaina*** sages, Magian and Chaldean teachers and Hebrew Rabbis came -----------* The great image of King Nebuchadnezzar, which is described in the book of Daniel, was evidently a simulacrum of this divinity; and the Rev. C. W. King further declares in so many words that "there can be no doubt that the head supplied the first idea of the conventional portraits of the Saviour." - Gnostics and their Remains. ** "The Grecian King besides, by whom the Egyptian Kings, Ptolemaios and Antigonos (Gangakenos or Gonatos) and Magas have been induced to allow both here and in foreign countries everywhere, that the people may follow the doctrine of the religion of Devananpiga, wheresoever it reacheth." - Edict of Asoka, King of India. *** This term is derived from the Sanskrit jna to know; and signifies well-knowing, profoundly intelligent. The designation of the new doctrine of that period, the Gnosis, was from this origin. ------------to Alexandreia and discoursed acceptably with philosophers from Asia, Greece and Italy. From these sources there came into existence an Eclectic philosophy, in which were combined the metaphysic of the West and the recondite speculation of the East.

The various religious beliefs took other shapes accordingly, and expounders of the Gnosis, or profounder esoteric knowledge abounded alike with native Egyptians, Jews and Christians. In the earlier years of the third century of the present era there arose a School of philosophic speculation which brought together in closer harmony the principal dogmas which were then current. Its founder, Ammonios Sakkas, was, according to his own profession, a lover and seeker for the truth. He was in no way a critic hunting for flaws in the teaching of others, but one who believed that the genuine knowledge might exist in a diffused form, partly here and partly there, among the various systems. He sought accordingly to bring the parts together by joining in harmonious union the doctrines of Plato and Pythagoras with the Ethics of Zeno and the reasonings of Aristotle, and perfecting it with what is sometimes termed the Wisdom of the East. His disciples were obligated to secrecy, but the restriction was afterward set aside. Plotinos and Porphyry extended the sphere of his teachings, giving them more completely the character of a religion. Iamblichos went further, adding the arcane doctrine and the mystic worship of Egypt and Assyria.* The Alexandreian School of Philosophy, thus established, included within its purview the esoteric dogmas of all the Sacred Rites in the several countries. A new Route came into existence on the banks of the Bosphoros, and a new religion was proclaimed for the Roman world. The changes, however, were far from radical. The earlier Byzantine Emperors were too sagacious politicians -----------* Reply of Abammon to Porphyry. -----------to permit revolutionary innovations. Religion and civil administration were interwoven in the same web and the subversion of either would be fatal to the other. Constantine himself was a "soldier'' or initiated worshiper of Mithras as well as a servant of Christ.* His successors encouraged an extensive intermingling which should render Christianity more catholic and thus more acceptable to all classes of the population. Meanwhile there arose other diversities of religious belief, violent disputes in regard to ecclesiastical rank and verbal orthodoxy, often culminating in bloody conflicts. The older

worship was finally prohibited under capital penalties. Persecution became general. Nowhere, perhaps, was it more cruel and vindictive than at Alexandreia. The modern city of Paris horrified the world with its populace overawing the Government, destroying, public buildings, desecrating cemeteries and religious shrines, and murdering without mercy or scruple. Similar scenes became common in the capital of the Ptolemies. The dissenters from the later orthodoxy, followers of Clement and Origen were driven from the city; the Catechetic School which they had maintained was closed, the occult worship of the Cave of Mithras was forcibly suspended, the temple of Serapis sacked, the statues broken to pieces, the Great Library, the glory of Alexandreia, scattered and destroyed. With these violent procedures there came also a wonderful transformation. The temples were consecrated anew as churches, and the rites of the former worship were adopted, together with the symbols and legends, under other forms, as Christian, Catholic and orthodox. Even mummies were carried from Egypt as relics of martyrs. Learning, however, was still in the -----------* Sopater, who succeeded lamblichos as head of the School at Alexandreia, had been employed by Constantine to perform the rites of consecration for the new capital; but the Emperor afterward quarreled with him, and sentenced him to death. ----------hands of the adherents of the old religion. They continued their labors faithfully, giving as little offense as they were able. Theon, Pappos and Diophantos taught mathematical science at the Serapeion; and some of their writings are yet remaining to attest the extent of their studies and observations. Hypatia, the daughter of Theon, was worthy of her name* and parentage. Her father had made her from early years his pupil and companion, and she profited richly from his teaching. She wrote several mathematical works of great merit, which have perished with the other literature of that period. She was also diligent in the study of law, and became an effective and successful pleader in the courts, for which she was admirably qualified by her learning and fascinating

eloquence. She was not content, however, with these acquirements, but devoted herself likewise, with ardent enthusiasm, to the study of philosophy. She was her own preceptor, and set apart to these pursuits the entire daytime and a great part of the night. Though by no means ascetic in her notions, she adhered persistently to the celibate life, in order that there might be no hindrance to her purposes. It was an ancient fashion of philosophers to travel for a season for the sake of acquaintance with the greater world, and to become more thorough and practical in mental attainments. Hypatia accordingly followed this example. On coming to Athens, she remained there and attended the lectures of the ablest instructors. Thus she now gained a reputation for scholarship which extended as far as the Greek language was spoken, Upon her return to Alexandreia, the magistrates invited her to become a lee------------* The same Hypatia [script] signifies highest, most exalted, best. In this instance it would not be difficult to suppose that it had been conferred posthumously, or at best as a title of distinction. This, in fact, was an Egyptian custom, as in the case of the native kings, and now of the Roman pontiffs. ------------turer on philosophy. The teachers who had preceded her had made the school celebrated throughout the world, but their glory was exceeded by the discourses of the daughter of Theon. She was ambitious to reinstate the Platonic doctrines in their ancient form, in preference to the Aristotelian dogma and the looser methods which had become common. She was the first to introduce a rigorous procedure into philosophic teaching. She made the exact sciences the basis of her instructions, and applied their demonstration to the principles of speculative knowledge. Thus she became the recognized head of the Platonic School. Among her disciples were many persons of distinction. Of this number was Synesios, of Cyrene, to whom we are indebted for the principal memorials of her that we now possess. He was of Spartan descent, a little younger than his teacher, and deeply imbued with her sentiments. He remained more than a year at Alexandreia, attending her lectures on philosophy, mathematics and the art of oratory. He

afterward visited Athens, but formed a low estimate of what was to be learned there. "I shall no longer be abashed at the erudition of those who have been there," he writes. "It is not because they seem to know much more than the rest of us mortals about Plato and Aristotle, but because they have seen the places, the Akademeia, and the Lykeion, and the Stoa where Zeno used to lecture, they behave themselves among us like demigods among donkeys." He could find nothing worthy of notice in Athens, except the names of her famous localities. "It is Egypt in our day," he declares, "that cultivates the seeds of wisdom gathered by Hypatia. Athens was once the very hearth and home of learning; but now it is the emporium of the trade in honey!" Mr. Kingsley has set forth in his usual impressive style, the teaching and character of this incomparable woman.* He depicts her cruel fate in vivid colors. He represents her as being some twentyfive years of age; she must have been some years older at the period which he has indicated. Synesios, her friend, had now been for some years the bishop of Ptolemais in Cyrenaica. This dignity, however, he had accepted only after much persuasion. He was of amiable disposition, versatile, and of changeable moods. He had consented to profess the Christian religion, and the prelate, Theophilus, persuaded him to wed a Christian wife, perhaps to divert him from his devoted regard for his former teacher. He refused, however, to discard his philosophic beliefs. He had been living in retirement at his country home, when he was chosen by acclamation, by the church in Ptolemais, to the episcopal office. He was barely persuaded to accept upon his own terms. He pleaded his fondness for diversion and amusement, and refused inflexibly to put away his wife or play the part of a hypocrite in the matter. He explained his position in a letter to his brother. "It is difficult, I may say that it is impossible, that a truth which has been scientifically demonstrated and once accepted by the understanding, should ever be eradicated from the mind. Much of what is held by the mass of men is utterly repugnant to philosophy. It is absolutely impossible for me to believe either that the soul is created subsequently to the body, or that this material universe will ever perish. As for that doctrine of the Resurrection which they bruit about, it is to me a sacred mystery, but I am far enough from sharing the popular view..... As to preaching doctrines which I do not hold, I call God and man to witness that this I will not do. Truth is of the

essence of God, before whom I desire to stand blameless, and the one thing that I can not undertake is to dissimulate." ----------* HYPATIA, or New Foes with an Old Face ----------Singular and incredible as it may appear, this disavowal of doctrines generally regarded as essential and distinctive, was not considered an obstacle that might not be surmounted. The patriarch of Alexandreia had been extreme and unrelenting in his violent procedures against the ancient religion. He was, however, politic in his action, and knew well the character of the man whose case he had in hand. Synesios had as a layman, exhibited his ability in diplomatic service, his efficiency in the transacting of public business, and his utter unselfishness in matters relating to personal advantage. Such a man in a province like Cyrenaica, was invaluable. It would be more difficult, therefore, for a person who had been reared and schooled in the ways of modern times to apprehend intelligently the motives of Synesios himself. He certainly found it almost impossible to overcome his reluctance. Seven months of preparation were allotted to him previous to engaging in the new duties. He prayed often for death and even thought seriously of leaving the country. He was permitted to retain his family circle, and to hold his philosophic beliefs, but only required to give a formal acquiescence to what he considered mythologic fables. Under these conditions he consented to receive baptism and consecration to the episcopal office. Yet in an address to his new associates he expressed the hope that by the mercy of God he might find the priesthood a help rather than a hindrance to philosophy. He did not, however, break off correspondence with Hypatia. He had been in the habit of sending to her his scientific works for her judgment, and he continued in great emergencies to write to her for sympathy and counsel. His brief term of office was full of anxiety and trouble. He administered his duties with energy and rare fidelity, not shrinking from an encounter with the Roman prefect of the province. But misfortune came and he found himself ill able to meet it. A pestilence ravaged Libya, and his family were among the victims. He himself succumbed to sickness. In his last letter to her whom he calls his "sister, mother, teacher and benefactor," he describes his sad

condition of mind and body. "My bodily infirmity comes of the sickness of my soul. The memory of my dear children overpowers me. Synesios ought never to have survived his good days. Like a torrent long dammed up, calamity has burst upon me and the savor of life is gone. If you care for me it is well; if not, this, too, I can understand." It is supposed by historians, that his death took place not long afterward. He was spared, then, from a terrible grief, which he might have considered the most appalling of all. For it was not many months after that his venerated teacher herself fell a victim, under the most revolting circumstances, to the mob in Alexandreia. We are told that Hypatia taught the Platonic Philosophy in a purer form than any of her later predecessors. Her eloquence made its abstruse features attractive, and her method of scientific demonstration rendered these clearer to the common understanding. Like Plotinos, she insisted strenuously upon the absolute Oneness of the Divine Essence. From this radiates the Creative Principle, the Divine Mind as a second energy, yet it is one with the First. In this Mind are the forms, ideals or models of all things that exist in the world of sense.* From it, in due order, proceeded a lesser divinity, the Spirit of Nature, or Soul of the World, from which all things are developed. In abstract terms these may be represented as Goodness, Wisdom and Energy. In regard to hu-----------* Reply of Abammon to Porphyry, VIII, ii. "For the Father perfected all things and delivered them to the Second Mind, which the whole race of men denominate the First. Chaldean Oracles -----------man beings it was taught that they are held fast by an environment of material quality, from which it is the province of the philosophic discipline to extricate them. This is substantially the same doctrine as is propounded in the Vedanta and the Upanishads. Plotinos tells us of a superior form of knowing, illumination through intuition. It is possible for us, he declared, to become free from the bondage and limitations of time and sense, and to receive from the Divine Mind direct communication of the truth. This state of mental exaltation was denominated ecstasy, a withdrawing of the

soul from the distractions of external objects to the contemplation of the Divine Presence which is immanent within - the fleeing of the spirit, the lone one, to the Alone. In the present lifetime, Plotinos taught that this may take place at occasional periods only, and for brief spaces of time; but in the life of the world that is beyond time and sense, it can be permanent.* Synesios makes a declaration of the same tenor. "The power to do good," he writes to Aurelian, "is all that human beings possess in common with God; and imitation is identification, and unites the follower to him whom he follows." Much of this philosophy, however, had been already accepted, though perhaps in grosser form, as Christian experience. The legends of that period, abound with descriptions of ecstatic vision and intimate communion with Deity. The philosophers taught that the Divinity was threefold in substance, the Triad, or Third, proceeding from the Duad or Divine Mind, and ruled by the ineffable One. Clement, of the Gnostic school, deduced from a letter of Plato that the great philosopher held that there are three persons, or personations -----------* I sent my soul through the Invisible Some letter of that After-Life to spell: And by and by my soul returned to me, And answered: "I myself am Heaven and Hell" - Omar Khayam -----------in the Godhead, and now in a cruder shape, it became an article of faith. To this the Egyptian Christians added the veneration of the Holy Mother, and various symbols and observances which belonged to the worship that had been suppressed. This was the state of affairs when Cyril became patriarch of Alexandreia. Hypatia was at the height of her fame and influence. Not only the adherents of the old religion, but Jews and even Christians were among her disciples. The most wealthy and influential of the inhabitants thronged her lecture-room. They came day after day to hear her explain the literature of Greece and Asia, the theorems of mathematicians and geometers and the doctrines of sages and philosophers. The prefect of Egypt, himself a professed

Christian, resorted to her for counsel and instruction. Cyril was endowed with a full measure of the ambition which characterized the prelates of that time. He was not a man to scruple at measures that he might rely upon to accomplish his ends. Like Oriental monarchs, he was ready with pretexts and instruments for the removal of all who might stand in his way. He was not willing to divide power, whether ecclesiastic or secular. A course of persecution was begun at once. The Novatians or Puritans, a dissenting sect of anabaptists, were expelled from the city, their churches closed and their property confiscated. The prefect strove in vain to check the summary procedure; the mob at the command of the prelate was beyond his authority. The Jews were next to suffer. "Cyril headed the mob in their attacks upon the Jewish synagogues; they broke them open and plundered them, and in one day drove every Jew out of the city." The efforts of the prefect in their behalf only served to turn the current of fanatic fury upon him. Five hundred monks hastened from their retreats to fight for the patriarch. Meeting the prefect in the street in his open chariot, they taunted him with being an idolater and a Greek, and one of them hurled a stone, which wounded him in the head. They were speedily dispersed by his guards, and the offending monk was put to death with tortures. Cyril at once declared the man a martyr and a saint, but the ridicule which followed upon this proceeding, soon induced him to recall his action. We have read the story of Haman at the court of the king of Persia. He was advanced above all princes and received homage, except from Mordecai the Jew. Recounting to his wife the distinction to which he had been promoted, he said: "Yet all this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king's gate." The patriarch of Alexandreia appears to have cherished similar sentiments. He was a prince in the Church, with power exceeding that of any official south of the Mediterranean. He had but to give the signal and an army of monks would hurry to his call, ready to do or die. But all this did not avail, while the long train of chariots continued to assemble daily before the door of Hypatia's lecture-room. Like Haman, he resolved to put an end to his mortification. He had not been able to close the Academy, but he could make an end of her who was its chief attraction, and the principal obstacle to his ambition. "The thing was done during Lent," says Sokrates. At this period the city of Alexandreia was crowded by multitudes from other places, desirous to participate in the religious services. Cyril had been

zealous to substitute Christian observances for similar customs of the old worship, and this was one of them. Alexandreia was for the time at his mercy. He was thoroughly skilled in the art of exciting the passions, and he was surrounded by men who knew well his bent and how to do what he wished without a suggestion from him to involve him directly in the responsibility. He needed only to indicate the School and its teacher as the great obstacle to the triumph of the Church. They were then ready to carry into effect what he purposed. Mr. Kingsley has described the occurrence in dramatic style. "I heard Peter (the reader) say: 'She that hindereth will hinder till she be taken out of the way.' And when he went into the passage, I heard him say to another: 'That thou doest, do quickly.'" It was on the morning of the fifteenth of March, 415, - the fatal Ides, the anniversary of the murder of the greatest of the Caesars. Hypatia set out as usual in her chariot to drive to the lecture-room. She had not gone far when the mob stopped the way. On every side were men howling with all the ferocity of hungry wolves. She was forced out of the vehicle and dragged along the ground to the nearest church. This was the ancient Caesar's temple, which had been dedicated anew to the worship of the Christian Trinity. Here she had been denounced by Cyril and her doom determined by his servitors. Her dress was now torn in shreds by their ruffianly violence. She stood by the high altar, beneath the statue of Christ. "She shook herself free from her tormentors," says Kingsley, "and, springing back, rose for one moment to her full height, naked, snow-white against the dusky mass around - shame and indignation in those wide, clear eyes, but not a stain of fear. With one hand she clasped her golden locks around her; the other long, white arm was stretched upward toward the great still Christ, appealing - and who dare say in vain? - from man to God. Her lips were open to speak; but the words that should have come from them reached God's ear alone; for in an instant Peter struck her down, the dark mass closed over her again, . . . and then wail on wail, long, wild, ear-piercing, rang along the vaulted roofs, and thrilled like the trumpet of avenging angels through Philammon's ears." While yet breathing, the assailants in a mad fury tore her body like tigers, limb from limb and after that, bringing oyster-shells from the market, they scraped the flesh from the bones. Then gathering up the bleeding remains they ran with them through the streets to the

place of burning, and having consumed them, threw the ashes into the sea. "The thing was done during Lent." (Un. Brotherhood, April, 1898) ------------PHILOSOPHY AFTER THE DEATH OF HYPATIA by Alexander Wilder, M.D. HISTORIANS seem to have regarded the murder of Hypatia as the death-blow to Philosophy at Alexandreia. Professor Draper characterizes it as a warning to all who would cultivate profane knowledge. "Henceforth," he adds, "there was to be no freedom for human thought. Every one must think as the ecclesiastical authority bade him." Certainly the Patriarchs at the Egyptian metropolis had spared no endeavor, however arbitrary, to engraft their notions upon the Roman world, and to bring about uniformity of religious belief. The doctrine of the Trinity had been officially promulgated by the Council at Nikaia. The orthodox Homoousians had been engaged for a century in a mortal struggle for supremacy with the heretic Homooisians. Men murdered one another upon the religions issue of homoian and tauto. The nitre-fields abounded with monks as numerous as frogs, and ready at summons to seize their weapons and do any violence to promote the cause of the Prince of Peace. Theodosios the Emperor had proclaimed Christianity as the religion of the Court and Empire, and made Sunday the sacred day of the newer faith. Egypt surpassed all other countries in religious fanaticism, and Gregory of Nazianzen praised it as the most Christian of all, and teaching the doctrine of the Trinity in its truest form. The former worship was forcibly suppressed. The patriarch Theophilus closed the Cave of Mithras, desecrated the temple of Serapis and destroyed its magnificent library of seven hundred thousand scrolls. The Egyptian learning was denounced and interdicted, but such Egyptian customs and notions as had been deeply infixed in the regard of the illiterate commonalty, were transferred with the necessary modifications into the creed and liturgy of the church. The

attempt was made to substitute burial as a Christian usage for the ancient practice of mummying the bodies of the dead. The goddess Isis, the "Great Mother" of the former faiths, became Mariam Theotokos, Mary the Mother of God, and her worship established beside that of the Trinity. The distinction of clergy and laity which was before unknown, was now introduced. Such Egyptian customs were also adopted by the priests as the shaving of the head, the celebration of Twelfth Night, the burning of candles around the altars and robing in white surplices. Relics of saints were exhumed with which to work miracles. The break with "paganism" was thus made less marked. Another dogma was hatched from the slime of the Nile. Setting aside the spiritual conception of the Supreme Being, it was taught that God was anthropomorphic, a person in shape like a man. The patriarch adopted the new doctrine, and seems to have enforced its general acceptance by the aid of an army of soldiers and monks, who drove the other party from the country. The Catechetic School, which had been established and sustained by Clement, Origen and others of superior scholastic attainment was in the way of the new form of religious progress. The ignorance and fanaticism that reigned in Upper Egypt and Mount Nitria, repudiated utterly the learning of the teachers at Alexandreia. The patriarch took sides with the larger party, which was sure to be better fitted to his purposes, the Catechetic school was closed, and the Arian church-buildings were seized by the partisans of the patriarch. Cyril succeeded to Theophilus and maintained the same policy. He had no sooner seated himself in the archi-episcopal chair than he set himself at the suppressing of rival religious beliefs. The Novatians were first assailed, and after that the Jews were driven from Alexandreia. The learning of the city was now in the hands of the adherents of the former worship, and Hypatia was teaching in the School of Philosophy. The next step to be taken was to put her out of the way, and her murder was the one infamous act which placed a lasting stigma upon the reputation of the unscrupulous ecclesiastic. His whole career was characterized by kindred enormities. In the French Revolution of 1793, one faction had been no sooner exterminated than another as formidable appeared in the ranks of the victorious party. The course of affairs in Egypt at this period was in strict analogy. The Arians who were suppressed at

Alexandreia, found protection in the camp of the army, and flourished for many years. They dedicated a church at Babylon to their murdered bishop, now St. George of England, and the country abounded with pictures on the walls of the churches representing him as slaying the Dragon of Athanasian error. About this time Eutyches, of Constantinople, a partisan of Cyril, was excommunicated by a Council for teaching that Jesus Christ had only one nature, that of the Logos incarnate, aid therefore his body was not like that of other men. The Egyptian church took up the controversy and was condemned by the Council of Chalkedon. This separated Egypt from the Catholic Church, and brought the religious war into geographic lines. While these things were going on, the Nubians overran Upper Egypt. It had been confidently affirmed that under the forceful measures that had been employed, the old worship had been effectually suppressed. Now, however, it sprang up anew. Large numbers of monks, and others who had professed Christianity, now took part at the rites of lsis and Serapis. This was all within seventy years after the decree of Theodosius, and less than forty years after the death of Hypatia. There were troublous times over the whole Roman world. The change of religion had by no means strengthened the Empire, either politically or morally. It had been followed instead, by incessant rivalries of the clergy, and innumerable religious broils, all of which tended to weaken the imperial authority. The ill-governed provinces revolted, and the various peoples and tribes from Northern Europe swarmed over the Southern countries, and even into Africa. After Vandals, Goths and Allemans, came the Huns, most terrible of all. Attila carried devastation close to the walls of Constantinople and then into the heart of Italy. There he died in the year 453. The School of Philosophy at Alexandreia had still continued its work. Like the flexible reed, it had bent as the storm passed over it, and then risen from the earth erect as ever. The extinguishing of one luminary had not utterly darkened its sky, but only served to reveal the presence of other stars that had not been observed before. Severe as was the shock from the murder of the daughter of Theon, there were others to occupy the place acceptably in the lecture-room. Syrianus was the principal teacher. He was learned and profound; and his lectures were frequented from all regions of Western Asia. He was an indefatigable writer, and produced

extensive expositions and commentaries upon the doctrines of Plato and Pythagoras. His works, however, have been left untranslated. He wrote a commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, of which there is a Latin version, and controverts the objections of that philosopher. He was a zealous Platonist, and at the same time he regarded the writings of Plotinus and Porphyry with a veneration similar to that which he entertained for Plato himself. Among the students who attended his lectures were Moses, of Chorene, and two others from Armenia. Isaac, the patriarch of that country and Mesrobes, a statesman of great learning, had planned the forming of an Armenian alphabet after the plan of the Greek. Heretofore, writing had been done sometimes with Greek letters, sometimes with Persian, and sometimes with Aramaic or Chaldean. Under such conditions a high degree of enlightenment was not easy to maintain. The Alexandreian text of the Bible was regarded by them as the authentic version. The translation in their possession had been made from the Hebrew or Aramaic, and was written in Aramaic letters. They resolved to have a new Armenian version from the text which they regarded as the genuine original. Moses and his companions were accordingly sent by them to Alexandreia, as being the first school of learning in the Roman world. The young men, of course, were Christians, and likewise admirers of the Patriarch. They were too sagacious, however, not to be aware that the knowledge of the Greek language in its purity was not to be had from Cyril and his ill-taught associates. They accordingly joined the Platonic School and became pupils of Syrianus. Under his tuition they made remarkable proficiency in the several departments of Greek literature. Not only were they able to make the desired new translation of the Bible, but they extended their labors to the writings of different classic authors. As a result of this, Armenia became a seat of learning. It held this distinction until the next conquest. The history of Armenia which was written by Moses of Chorene is a monument of learning and accuracy. Shortly after this, Syrianus left Alexandreia. The Platonic School at Athens, at which Hypatia and Synesios had been students, was now enjoying a fair degree of prosperity. Its conductors extended an invitation to Syrianus to remove to that city and become its leader. Alexandreia was fast losing its reputation as a literary metropolis. The invitation was accepted, and from this time the later Platonism made its home in the city of the former Akademeia.

In the meanwhile a vigorous attempt was made to establish a Peripatetic School of Philosophy at Alexandreia. Olympiodoros, a native of Upper Egypt, was the founder. He possessed excellent literary ability and composed several works; among them commentaries upon the writings of Aristotle, a treatise upon the Sacred Art of Alchemy, a history, and several other works that are now lost. His endeavors to establish a new Lyceum, however, were not very successful. It was true that after the closing of the Catechetic School, there had been a turning of attention to the doctrines of Aristotle; and these have since been in high favor it the Roman Church. But there had been set up partisan lines at Alexandreia between adherents of the old worship and the new, and Alexandreian Christians were hardly willing to sit at the feet of a teacher, however excellent, who did not subscribe to the formulas of doctrine promulgated by the Council of Nikaia. Very little of the literature of that period has been preserved to the present time. One cause, doubtless, was the bigotry and intolerance of Emperors and prelates, who required all books to be destroyed which they did not approve. Another was the increasing indifference to classic learning and literary attainment. This certainly was the fact in Egypt. The arts in which that country had formerly excelled were now passing utterly out of knowledge. The skill in preparing of papyrus was almost wholly lost. There were eight different kinds of this article. The hieratic was the best, and was used for the sacred books at the Temples, and for the scrolls in the Great Library. Two more kinds, equal to it in value, were devised in the reign of the Emperor Octavianus; and there were two cheaper kinds sold in Rome. The Saitic papyrus was of inferior quality and was sold by weight. There were now other kinds made at Alexandreia after what were considered improved methods, which, nevertheless, like the cheap paper of our modern time, soon fell to pieces. Every book written upon it has perished. No book which was written between the third and eleventh centuries of the present era has remained, except those which were written upon vellum or parchment. Hence we know little more of the philosophers of Egypt. A literature which cannot be preserved becomes speedily a dead literature, and a people without a literature is barbarous. There was, however, one distinguished pupil in the School of Olympiodoros who was destined to outshine those who had gone before him. Proklos, the son of an Asian of the city of Xanthos, in

Lykia, came to Alexandreia to pursue his studies. He omitted no opportunity to perfect himself in liberal knowledge. Besides attending at the lectures of Olympiodoros, he also received instruction in mathematics from Hero, rhetoric from Leonas, general knowledge from Orion, a native Egyptian of sacerdotal lineage, and in the Latin language at the Roman College. He was also in familiar relations with the principal men of learning at Alexandreia. He appears to have been unfavorably impressed by what he witnessed of the social and religious influences prevalent in the city. He removed to Athens, and became the pupil of Syrianus and Asklepigenia, the daughter of Plutarch. So broad and profound was his learning that Syrianus named him as his own successor in the School of Philosophy. At the age of twenty-eight he produced his masterpiece, the Commentary on the Timaios of Plato. Only five books of this work remain; the others are lost. He also wrote a Commentary on the First Alkibiades, a treatise on the Platonic Theology, Theologic Institutes, a Grammatic Chrestomathy, and Eighteen Arguments against the Christians; also Hymns to the Sun, to the Muses, two to Aphrodite, one to Hekate and Janus, and one to Athena. Proklos was thoroughly proficient in the Oriental Theosophy. He considered the Orphic Hymns and the Chaldaean Oracles as divine revelations. He had the deepest confidence in his own sacred calling and office. He regarded himself as the last link in the Hermaic chain, the latest of the men set apart by Hermes, through whom, by perpetual revelation, was preserved the occult knowledge signified in the Mysteries. He could not conceive of the Creation of the Universe by arbitrary fiat, and excepted to Christianity because it was unphilosophic in respect to this subject. He believed the utterance of the Chaldean Oracles in the matter: That prior to all things is the One, the Monad, immovable in ever-being. By projecting his own essence, he manifests himself as Two - the Duad - the Active and Passive, the Positive and Negative, the essence of Mind and the principle of Matter. By the conjoining of these two the cosmos or universe emanates with all things that pertain to it. Proklos, however, did not teach that evil was of or from matter, but consisted in an arresting or constraining of energy in its legitimate action. He inculcated the harmony of all truth, and endeavored accordingly to show that there was a direct and vital connection

between every teacher, however much they might seem to differ. There was really an agreement, he affirmed, between the Dialectic of Plato and the Reasonings of Aristotle, between the Chaldaean Oracles and the Western Philosophy. The following summary, made by the writer from his treatise entitled The Later Platonists, presents a fair delineation of his views. "He [Proklos] elaborated the entire Theosophy and Theurgy of his predecessors into a complete system. Like the Rabbis and Gnostics, he cherished a profound reverence for the Abraxas, the 'Word' or 'Venerable Name,' and he believed with lamblichos in the attaining of a divine or magic power, which, overcoming the mundane life, rendered the individual an organ of the Divinity, speaking a wisdom that he did not comprehend, and becoming the utterance of a Superior Will. He even taught that there were symbols or tokens that would enable a person to pass from one order of spiritual beings to another, higher and higher, till he arrived at the absolute Divine. Faith, he inculcated, would make one the possessor of this talisman. "His Theology was like that of the others. 'There are many inferior divinities' he reiterated from Aristotle, but only one Mover. All that is said concerning the human shape and attributes of these divinities is mere fiction, invented to instruct the common people and secure their obedience to wholesome laws. The First Principle, however, is neither Fire nor Earth, nor Water, nor anything that is the object of sense. A spiritual substance [Mind] is the Cause of the Universe and the source of all order and excellence, all the activity and all the forms that are so much admired in it. All must be led up to this Primal Substance which governs in subordination to the FIRST. "This is the general doctrine of the Ancients, which has happily escaped the wreck of Truth amid the rocks of popular error and poetic fables." "The state after death, the metempsychosis or superior life is thus explained by him: 'After death the soul continues in the aerial till it is entirely purified from all angry and voluptuous passions; them it doth put off by a second dying of the aerial body, as it did of the earthly one. Wherefore, the ancients say that there is a celestial body always joined with the soul, which is immortal, luminous, and star-like.'" Perhaps no philosopher of the ancient period was more broad, more catholic and liberal in his views, and yet so comprehensive. Proklos comprises in a single concept, the "good law" of Zoroaster,

the dharma of India, the oracular wisdom of the Chaldean sages, the gnosis and intuition of Western mystics. We are forcibly reminded of the confession of the audience on the day of Pentecost, that everyone however remote and alien in personal affiliations, heard alike the utterance of the apostle in his own language. (Un. Brotherhood, Aug., 1898) -------------THE ECLECTIC PHILOSOPHY - Alexander Wilder Dr. Alexander Wilder was born May 14, 1823, in Verona, Oneida County, New York, and died in Newark, New Jersey, September 8, 1908. Theosophists will recall H.P. Blavatsky's reference to him and the "Eclectic Theosophical system" in her Key to Theosophy, Chapter 1, and that he contributed to material composing the section "Before the Veil" in Isis Unveiled. The following are extracts from Wilder's New Platonism and Alchemy, one of the valuable Secret Doctrine Reference Series published by Wizards Bookshelf, Box 6600, San Diego, California. The full title reads: "New Platonism and Alchemy: a Sketch of the Doctrines and Principal Teachers of the Eclectic or Alexandrian School; also An Outline of the Interior Doctrines of the Alchemists of the Middle Ages" by Alexander Wilder, Albany, N.Y., 1869. Wizards Bookshelf also gives a brief sketch of his life. - Eds. ---------The name by which Ammonias Saccas, designated himself and his disciples, was that of Philaletheians, or lovers of the truth. They were also sometimes denominated Analogeticists, because of their practice of interpreting all sacred legends and narratives, myths and mysteries, by a rule or principle of analogy and correspondence, so that events which were related as having occurred in the external world were regarded as expressing operations and experiences of the human soul. It has, however, been usual to speak of them by the designation of Neoplatonists or New Platonists, and, indeed, by this name they are generally known.

Writers have generally fixed the time of the development of the Eclectic theosophical system during the third century of the Christian era. It appears to have had a beginning much earlier, and, indeed, is traced by Diogenes Laertius to an Egyptian prophet or priest named Pot-Amun,* who flourished in the earlier years of the dynasty of the Ptolemies. ---------* This name is Coptic, and signifies one consecrated to Amun, the god or genius of Wisdom. ---------The establishment of the Macedonian kingdom in Egypt had been followed by the opening of schools of science and philosophy at the new capitol. Alexandria soon became celebrated as the metropolis of literature; every faith and sect had representatives there. There had always been communication between the sages of Bactria and upper India and the philosophers of the West. The conquests of Alexander, Selencus and the Romans had increased the acquaintance. The learned men now thronged Alexandria. The Platonists seem to have been most numerous and to have held their ground the longest. Under Philadelphus, Judaism was also planted there, and the Hellenic teachers became rivals of the College of Rabbis of Babylon. The Buddhistic, Vedantic and Magian systems were expounded along with the philosophies of Greece. It was not wonderful that thoughtful men supposed that the strife of words ought to cease, and considered it possible to extract one harmonious system from the various teachings.... Ammonius Saccas, the great teacher, who would seem to have been raised up for the work of reconciling the different systems, was a native of Alexandria, and the son of Christian parents, although associating much with those who adhered to the established religion of the empire. He was a man of rare learning and endowments, of blameless life and amiable disposition. His almost superhuman ken and many excellencies won for him the title of theodidaktos, or Godtaught; but he followed the modest example of Pythagoras, and only assumed the title of philaletheian, or love of the truth .... ... Under the noble designation of Wisdom, the ancient teachers, the sages of India, the magians of Persia and Babylon, the seers and prophets of Israel, the hierophants of Egypt and Arabia,

and the philosophers of Greece and the West, included all knowledge which they considered as essentially divine; classifying a part as esoteric and the remainder as exterior. The Hebrew Rabbis called the exterior and secular series the Mercavah, as being the body or vehicle which contained the higher knowledges. Theology, worship, vaticination, music, astronomy, the healing art, morals and statesmanship were all thus comprised. Thus Ammonius found his work ready to his hand. His deep spiritual intuition, his extensive learning, his familiarity with the Christian fathers, Pantaenus, Clement and Athenagoras, and with the most erudite philosophers of the time, all fitted him for the labor which he performed so thoroughly. He was successful in drawing to his views the greatest scholars and public men of the Roman Empire, who had little taste for wasting time in dialectic pursuits or superstitious observances. The results of his ministration are perceptible at the present day in every country of the Christian world; every prominent system of doctrine now bearing the marks of his plastic hand. Every ancient philosophy has had its votaries among the moderns; and even Judaism, oldest of them all, has taken upon itself changes which were suggested by the 'God-taught' Alexandrian. Like Orpheus, Pythagoras, Confucius, Socrates, and Jesus himself, Ammonius committed nothing to writing. Instead, he only inculcated moral truths upon his auditors, while he communicated his more important doctrines to persons duly instructed and disciplined, imposing on them the obligations of secrecy, as was done before him by Zoroaster and Pythagoras, and in the Mysteries. Except a few treatises of his disciples, we have only the declarations of his adversaries from which to ascertain what he actually taught. This was, however, no exception to the common rule. The older worship, which was preserved in a certain degree in the Mysteries, required on oath from the neophytes or catechumens not to divulge what they had learned. The great Pythagoras divided his teachings into exoteric and esoteric. (Eclectic Theosophist, No. 75) ---------------THE TEACHINGS OF PLOTINOS - Professor Alexander Wilder, M.D.

Augustin, the celebrated bishop of Hippo in Northern Africa, described Plotinos as "Plato risen from the dead." The singular probity of his character, his profound knowledge, his intuitive perception which often seemed like omniscience, his ecstatic vision of Divinity, joined with extraordinary sagacity in worldly matters, seemed to warrant such a declaration. The little that is known of his personal history has been given by his more distinguished disciple, Porphyry, who considered him divinely inspired. The Platonic philosophy had been preserved by the Older Akademe approximating somewhat toward the Pythagorean principles and then returning to the doctrines of the great philosopher. There were also other schools, more or less amplifying his teachings in the way down to the close of the Macedonian period. The establishment or the famous Museum and Library at Alexandreia was the occasion for a new departure. The representatives of every school of thought were invited thither, Wise Men of the Far East, together with the Sages of the regions then known as the West. There had occurred a great upheaval in philosophic and religious thought, which added importance to the undertaking. Asoka, a Piyadarsi of India, having abandoned Jainism for Buddhism, had engaged in the most extensive work of propaganda ever known, and sent eighty thousand missionaries, Southward, Eastward, Northward, and even to the Greek-speaking countries. The Jews had their Temple in Egypt, erected by their legitimate High Priest, and not inferior to the sanctuary at Jerusalem, or its rival on Mount Gerizim. There were also Therapeutae, and sects of philosophy not necessary to enumerate. All were welcomed by the Ptolemies to the Lecture Rooms at their capital, and their books were eagerly procured for the Great Library. There was also a purpose to surpass the similar enterprise then in active operation at Pergamos. Under these auspices there was developed a disposition to reconcile the conflicting sentiments, and harmonize as far as might be, the several schools of belief. As the Platonic philosophy was most complete of all and included the higher speculation, metaphysical mid ethical idealism, it was best suited for the foundation of an eclectic effort. Contiguity with the East and the general adoption of the occult Mithraic Rites over the Roman world operated powerfully to mitigate the hostilities incident to the various national and tribal religions. There arose at one time and another

men of ability to prepare the way for a harmony of philosophic systems. Phila, Appolonios of Tyana, Alexander the Aphrodisian and others may be named in the number. Ammonios Sakkas of Alexandreia, however is generally accredited as the first teacher of what is distinctly recognized as NeoPlatonism. Like other great leaders, little is recorded of him personally. An Indian orator once addressed a missionary: "The Great Spirit speaks: we hear his voice in the winds, in the rustling of the trees, and the purling of the streams of water; but he does not write!'' The great teachers seem to have been equally silent with pen and stylus. Konfusi, Gautama, Zoroaster, Sokrates, Jesus are known only through their professed disciples. It was more common to publish recondite doctrines under another name as Hermes Trismegistos, to which we may add the Sokrates of Plato's Dialogues, Zarathustra of the Vendidad, Dionysios the Areopagite, Christian Rosenkreutz, and others with which we are more familiar. The entire dogmas of Pythagoras were inculcated with the prefix of "Ipse dixit"; and Plato it was affirmed, taught a doctrine orally which his disciples promulgated in like manner, but which was not preserved in writing. Ammonios Sakkas taught at Alexandreia in the earlier years of the Third Century of the present era. It was his belief that true doctrines were contained in every faith and philosophic system, and he proposed to winnow them out for an Eclectic Scheme. The name selected for himself and followers was that of Philaletheans, or lovers of the truth. A Zoroastrian tendency may be perceived; the Eranian doctrines were designated as truth; all divergent systems, as "the Lie," He had a select body of disciples whom he obligated to secrecy, considering that the "Wisdom of the Ancients" was too holy to be confided to profane persons. This obligation, however, was set aside by Hercunius after his death. Plotinos, however, became the representative and chief apostle of the new Eclectic Philosophy. He was a native of Lykopolis or Siut in Upper Egypt, and was born in the year 205. He became a student at Alexandreia in 233, but was about to leave in disappointment when he was introduced by a friend to Ammonios Sakkas. He at once in a transport devoted himself to the new philosophy, remaining with the school eleven years. At this time the amiable youth Gordian (Marcus Antoninus Pius Gordianus) had become Emperor, and now set out on an expedition into the Parthian dominions. Plotinos accompanied the army with the purpose "to study the philosophy of the Parthians and

the Wisdom particularly cultivated by the Indian Sages." His expectation, however, was not realized, the Emperor being assassinated by a rival. He now came to Rome, where he engaged zealously in his esoteric studies. It was his aim to restore the philosophy of Plato in its essential character, and in short to live the life of the disembodied while yet in the body, as is set forth in the Phaedo. He had many disciples, many of them senators, physicians, and others of philosophic tastes. Among them was Porphyrios, a native of Tyre, who at his request afterward edited and revised his work. Though he lived a celibate and carefully abstained from public affairs, he was often made a trustee and guardian of orphan children, particularly fatherless girls, and their estates, and also an arbiter of disputes, and he always discharged these trusts with absolute fidelity. The Roman Emperor Gallienus, who greatly admired him, bestowed upon him a deserted city in Campania, to which was given the name of Platonopolis, and he made an endeavor to establish there a Platonic Politeia, but without success. The courtiers hindered his efforts. In many respects he resembled the Yogis of India. He was ascetic in his habits, abstaining from animal food, and he is described as "ashamed that his soul was in a body." He would not let his picture be painted, or tell the name of his parents or the race to which he belonged, or even discourse about his native country. Though often dyspeptic and subject to colic, he refused medical treatment, as unfit for a man of adult years. He never bathed, but made daily use of massage. A pestilence raged at Rome with such violence that five thousand persons are said to have perished in a single day. Plotinos was one of the victims. His servants had died from the epidemic, leaving none to care for him, and he suffered terribly. His voice was lost, his eyes blinded, and offensive ulcers covered him to his hands and even his feet. He lingered in this condition till the year 270. In this condition he was carried to Campania, where friends ministered to him. Here he was visited by Eustochius from Putechi. "I have expected you," said the dying man. "I am now endeavoring that my divine part may return to that divine essence that pervades the universe." He was sixty-four years old at the time of his death. The veneration which the disciples of Plotinos entertained for him was almost a worship. He was reputed to possess superhuman powers. Those who became familiar with him, like those associating with Sokrates, passed thenceforward a better life. A lady named

Khion with her daughters living in his house, lost a valuable necklace, and Plotinos, looking among the servants, picked out the thief. Polemo, a young man of his acquaintance, was told that he would have a loose life, and die early. Porphyry himself construed too literally the notion of hating the body, and was contemplating suicide. Plotinos perceived this, and pronouncing it the effect of disease, sent him to Sicily, where he recovered, but never saw his preceptor again. An Egyptian priest at Rome employed a theurgic test in order to discover the guardian demon of Plotinos. It was done in the temple of Isis, but one of the higher order appeared. "Thou hast a God for a guardian," he declared. On another occasion, one Olympius attempted to bring upon him by magic art the baneful influence of the stars, but the malignant defluxion was reflected upon himself. "Pius endeavor was several times repeated, but always with a similar result. The soul of Plotinos repelled every evil assault. It was always tending to Divinity'' says Porphyry. The oracle was consulted. and described him as blessed of the Muses and possessing endless bliss. "By the assistance of this Divine Light,'' says Porphyry, he had frequently raised himself by his conceptions to the First God who is beyond, and by employing for this purpose the Paths narrated by Plato in The Banquet, there appeared to him the Supreme Divinity who has neither form nor ideal, but is established above mind and everything spiritual - to whom also, I, Porphyry, say that I was approached and was united when I was sixty-eight years of age..... The gods frequently directed him into the right path by benignantly extending to him abundant rays of divine light: so that he may be said to have composed his works from the contemplation and intuition of Divinity." Plotinos did not readily compose books. Not till Porphyry became his disciple did he begin, and he gave his compositions to Porphyry to revise. He prepared some fifty-four treatises which were comprehended in the six Enneads of nine parts each. We may surmise his estimate of his redactor by his praise of a poem, The Sacred Marriage, composed by the latter. "You have thus yourself at the same time a poet, a philosopher, and an hierophant." It was the purpose of Plotinos to combine and systematize the various religious and philosophic theories, by exalting them to the higher concept. He taught the fact of three hypostases or foundation principles - the Absolute Good, Mind and Soul. "For," says Taylor, "according to Plato, the Good is superessential; Intellect is an

impartible, immovable essence, and Soul is a self-motive essence, and subsists as a medium between Intellect and the nature which is distributed about bodies." The Divine Being is accordingly designated by Plotinos, "The Good," "The One," "The First," "The First Cause." In essence he is absolutely one and unchangeable; but plurality and changeableness pertain to his workings. He is the Light shining into the darkness or chaos. The first sphere of his activity is Mind or Intellect, in which he differentiates himself into consciousness and its objects. In this Mind are the Ideas or idealities, which are at once the archetypes and moving forces of the universe. From it all things proceed. Thus, the Divine Spirit is the self-active, creating principle, and from spirit all matter is derived. The world and the universe are the product of spirit: as also Paul declared: "All things are out from God.'' The most immediate product of Spirit, as Plotinos taught, is Soul, which in its turn shapes matter into corporeal conditions. Receiving from the Spirit the world of ideas and the image or archetype, it forms and fashions the world of Sense. All existence, therefore, is an emanation and projection from the Divine One - not in time, however, but in Eternity. There is also, he inculcated, a returning impulse attracting all again to the centre and source. Hence he made less account of external knowledges, but regarded the real truth as to be apprehended by an immediate divine illumination. He held revelation to be a perception the individual attains, by coming in touch with the Deity. This is Ecstasy an absence and separation of the spirit or superior intellect from the sensation and consciousness of the body and from the external memory, being rapt in contemplation of the Absolute Good. Sokrates himself was frequently in this enthusiastic condition. Alkibiades describes him in the Banquet as one day during the Athenian expedition to Potides, standing by himself in contemplation, from early dawn till mid-day and on through the night till next morning, when he performed an invocation to the Sun and went away. Xenokrates was also thus absent from the body. Paul describes a similar rapture when he was himself in the third heaven or paradise hearing things unspeakable. In the initiations at the ancient mysteries, particularly at Eleusinia, it was attempted to produce or develop an analogous condition. Sokrates in the Phaedo describes the philosophic soul as

retiring within itself, pushing aside the body as far as possible, having no communication with it, and so aiming at the discovery of that which is. Plotinos also teaches that the wise one cognizes the ideal of the Divine Good within him by withdrawing into the Sanctuary of his own soul. Others seek to realize it, as in the Theurgic Rites, by laborious effort of an external character. The true aim is to concentrate and simplify. Instead of going out into the manifold, the true way is to forsake it for the One, and so to float upward toward the Divine fountain of being which flows in each of us. He declares we cannot attain to this knowing of the Infinite by the exercising of the reasoning faculty. It is the province of that faculty to distinguish and define; and the infinite may not be thus brought within limitations. Only by a faculty superior to the understanding can we apprehend the Infinite; and this may be done by entering into a state in which the individual is no longer his finite self, and in which the Divine Essence is communicated to him. This is Ecstasy - the liberating of the mind from the finite consciousness. Like can only apprehend like; thus ceasing to be finite we become one with the Infinite. In the reducing of the Soul to this simple condition, its divine essence, this union or identity is realized. The mind is thus illumined with divine light. The person cannot tell whence it comes or whither it goes.* It is he, rather, who approaches to it or withdraws. One must not pursue it, but abide waiting for it patiently, as if looking for the sun to rise above the ocean. The soul, blind to all beside, gazes intently on the ideal vision of the Beautiful, and is glorified as it contemplates it. ----------* Jesus says to Nicodemus: "The pneuma or spirit moves whither it will, and thou canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth: So is every one that is born of the Spirit." -----------This condition, Plotinos says, is not one that endures permanently. Our common human nature is not sufficient for it. It may be enjoyed now and then. All that tends to purify the mind will assist in the attainment, and facilitate the approach and recurring of these felicitous experiences. There are different paths to the Sublime Height. Every one may take the one that is best suited to him. There is the love of beauty

and excellence which inspires the poet; the devotion to the Supreme One and the pursuit of the Superior Knowledge which impel the philosopher; the piety and love which characterize the ardent soul. These are so many paths conducting to the heights above the actual and the particular; and then we stand in the immediate presence of the Infinite, who shines out as from the deeps of the soul. It will be perceived that Plotinos extends human consciousness from the physical and psychic, of which we all know, to a supraconsciousness or apperception in which the higher intellect or spirit is brought into communion with its like, and to the realization of being one with Divinity itself. This is the acme of Neo-Platonism. The Mysticism of later centuries which Dionysius, Eckart, Boehmen, and Malinos inculcated, and which Sa'adi and others diffused in the Moslem body, took from this an inspiration. The Apostle Paul himself recognized the doctrine. He describes the entirety of man as "spirit and soul and body," and "delights in the law of God after the inner man." He also treats of the "psychic man" that does not receive the things of the spirit, and ''one that is spirited, who knoweth the All, but is not himself known by any." lamblichos of Coelosyria mingled with these doctrines a Theurgic Initiation after the manner of the Egyptian priests and Theosophers and was followed by Proklos and others. But in its simplicity as taught by Plotinos and Porphyry, there were no such secret observances, but only a general conforming to the customs instituted for the general public. It was enough for the philosopher to contemplate excellence and by a pure and true life realize it in himself. Such are they of whom the world is not worthy. - Alexander Wilder (Theosophy, Sept., 1897) ---------------THE TEACHINGS OF PLATO by Professor Alexander Wilder, M.D. "' Eagle! why soarest thou above that tomb? To what sublime and starry-paven home

Floatest thou?' 'I am the image of great Plato's sprit Ascending heaven; Athens doth inherit His corpse below.'" "Out of Plato" says Ralph Waldo Emerson, "come all things that are still written and debated among men of thought." All else seems ephemeral, perishing with the day. The science and mechanic arts of the present time, which are prosecuted with so much assiduity, are superficial and short-lived. When Doctor James Simpson succeeded his distinguished uncle at the University of Edinburgh, he directed the librarian to remove the textbooks which were more than ten years old, as obsolete. The skilled inventions and processes in mechanism have hardly a longer duration. Those which were exhibited at the first World's Fair in 1851 are now generally gone out of use, and those displayed at the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876 are fast giving place to newer ones that serve the purposes better. All the science which is comprised within the purview of the senses, is in like manner, unstable and subject to transmutation. What appears today to be fundamental fact is very certain to be found, tomorrow, to be dependent upon something beyond. It is like the rustic's hypothesis that the earth stands upon a rock, and that upon another rock, and so on; there being rocks all the way down. But Philosophy, penetrating to the profounder truth and including the Over-Knowledge in its field, never grows old, never becomes out of date, but abides through the ages in perennial freshness. The style and even the tenor of the Dialogues have been criticised, either from misapprehension of their purport or from a desire to disparage Plato himself. There is a vanity for being regarded as original, or as first to open the way into a new field of thought and investigation, which is sometimes as deep-seated as a cancer and about as difficult to eradicate. From this, however, Plato was entirely free. His personality is everywhere veiled by his philosophy. At the time when Plato flourished, the Grecian world had undergone great revolutions. The former times had passed away. Herakles and Theseus, the heroes of the Myths, were said to have vanquished the man-slaying monsters of the worship of Hippa and Poseidon, or in other words supplanting the Pelasgian period by the

Hellenic and Ionian. The arcane rites of Demeter had been softened and made to represent a drama of soul-history. The Tragedians had also modified and popularized the worship of Dionysos at the Theatre-Temple of Athens. Philosophy, first appearing in Ionia had come forth into bolder view, and planted itself upon the firm foundation of psychologic truth. Plato succeeded to all, to the Synthetists of the Mysteries, the Dramatists of the Stage, to Sokrates and those who had been philosophers before him. Great as he was, he was the outcome of the best thought of his time. In a certain sense there has been no new religion. Every world-faith has come from older ones as the result of new inspiration, and Philosophy has its source in religious veneration. Plato himself recognized the archaic Wisdom-Religion as "the most unalloyed form of worship, to the Philosophy of which, in primitive ages, Zoroaster made many additions drawn from the Mysteries of the Chaldeans." When the Persian influence extended into Asia Minor, there sprung up philosophers in Ionia and Greece. The further progress of the religion of Mazda was arrested at Salamis, but the evangel of the Pure Thought, Pure Word, and Pure Deed was destined to permeate the Western World during the succeeding ages. Plato gave voice to it, and we find the marrow of the Oriental Wisdom in his dialectic. He seems to have joined the occult lore of the East, the conceptions of other teachers, and the under-meaning of the arcane rites, the physical and metaphysical learning of India and Asia, and wrought the whole into forms adapted to European comprehension. His leading discourses, those which are most certainly genuine, are characterized by the inductive method. He displays a multitude of particulars for the purpose of inferring a general truth. He does not endeavor so much to implant his own conviction as to enable the hearer and reader to attain one intelligently, for themselves. He is in quest of principles, and leading the argument to that goal. Some of the Dialogues are described as after the manner of the Bacchic dithyrambic, spoken or chanted at the Theatre; others are transcripts of Philosophic conversations. Plato was not so much teaching as showing others how to learn. His aim was to set forth the nature of man and the end of his being. The great questions of who, whence and whither, comprise what he endeavored to illustrate. Instead of dogmatic affirmation, the arbitrary ipse dixit of Pythagoras and his oath of secrecy, we have a friend, one like ourselves, familiarly and patiently leading us on to

investigation as though we were doing it of our own accord. Arrogance and pedantic assumption were out of place in the Akademe. The whole Platonic teaching is based upon the concept of Absolute Goodness. Plato was vividly conscious of the immense profundity of the subject. "To discover the Creator and Father of this universe, as well as his operation, is indeed difficult; and when discovered it is impossible to reveal him." In him Truth, Justice and the Beautiful are eternally one. Hence the idea of the Good is the highest branch of study. There is a criterion by which to know the truth, and Plato sought it out. The perceptions of sense fail utterly to furnish it. The law of right for example, is not the law of the strongest, but what is always expedient for the strongest. The criterion is therefore no less than the conceptions innate in every human soul. These relate to that which is true, because it is ever-abiding. What is true is always right - right and therefore supreme; eternal and therefore always good. In its inmost essence it is Being itself; in its form by which we are able to contemplate it, it is justice and virtue in the concepts of essence, power and energy. These concepts are in every human soul and determine all forms of our thought. We encounter them in our most common experiences and recognize them as universal principles, infinite and absolute. However latent and dormant they may seem, they are ready to be aroused, and they enable us to distinguish spontaneously the wrong from the right. They are memories, we are assured, that belong to our inmost being, and to the eternal world. They accompanied the soul into this region of time, of ever-becoming and of sense. The soul, therefore, or rather its inmost spirit or intellect,* is of and from eternity. It is not so much an inhabitant of the world of nature as a sojourner from the eternal region. Its trend and ulterior destination are accordingly toward the beginning from which it originally set out. ------------* Plato taught that the amative or passional soul was not immortal. ------------The Vision of Eros in the tenth book of the Republic suggests

the archaic conception generally entertained that human beings dying from the earth are presently born into new forms of existence, till the three Weird Sisters shall have finished their task and the circle of Necessity is completed. The events of each succeeding term of life take a direction from what has occurred before. Much may be imputed to heredity, but not all. This is implied in the question of the disciples to Jesus: "Which sinned, this person or his parents, that he should be born blind." We all are conscious of some occurrence or experience that seems to pertain to a former term of life. It appears to us as if we had witnessed scenes before, which must be some recollection, except it be a remembrance inherited from ancestors, or some spiritual essence has transferred it as from a camera obscura into our consciousness. We may account it certain, at any rate, that we are inhabitants of eternity, and of that eternity Time is as a colonial possession and distinct allotment. Every thing pertaining to this world of time and sense, is constantly changing, and whatever it discloses to us is illusive. The laws and reasons of things must be found out elsewhere. We must search in the world which is beyond appearances, beyond sensation and its illusions. There are in all minds certain qualities or principles which underlie our faculty of knowing. These principles are older than experience, for they govern it; and while they combine more or less with our observations, they are superior and universal, and they are apprehended by us as infinite and absolute. They are our memories of the life of the eternal world, and it is the province of the philosophic discipline to call them into activity as the ideals of goodness and truth and beauty, and thus awaken the soul to the cognizing of God. This doctrine of ideas or idealities lies at the foundation of the Platonic teachings. It assumes first of all, the presence and operation of the Supreme Intelligence, an essence which transcends and contains the principles of goodness, truth, and order. Every form or ideal, every relation and every principle of right must be ever present to the Divine Thought. Creation in all its details is necessarily the image and manifestation of these ideas. "That which imparts truth to knowable things," says Plato, "that which gives to the knower the power of knowing the truth, is the Idea of the Good, and you are to conceive of this as the Source of knowledge and truth." A cognition of the phenomena of the universe may not be considered as a real knowing. We must perceive that which is stable

and unchanging, - that which really is. It is not enough to be able to regard what is beautiful and contemplate right conduct. The philosopher, the lover of wisdom, looks beyond these to the Actual Beauty, - to righteousness itself. This is the episteme of Plato, the superior, transcendent knowing. This knowledge is actual participating in the eternal principles themselves - the possessing of them as elements of our own being. Upon this, Plato bases the doctrine of our immortality. These principles, the ideals of truth, beauty and goodness are eternal, and those who possess them are ever-living. The learning of them is simply the bringing of them into conscious remembrance.* ------------* Professor Cocker has given a classification of the Platonic Scheme of Ideas, of which this is an abridgment. I. The Idea of Absolute Truth. This is developed in the human intelligence in its relation with the phenomenal world, as 1, the Idea of Substance; 2, the Idea of Cause; 3, the Idea of Identity; 4, the Idea of Unity; 5, the Idea of the Infinite. II. The Idea of Absolute Beauty or Excellence. This is developed in the human intelligence in its relation to the organic world, as 1, the Idea of Proportion or Symmetry; 2, the Idea of Determinate Form; 3, the Idea of Rhythm; 4, the Idea of Fitness or Adaptation; 5, the Idea of Perfection. III. The Idea of Absolute Good - the first cause or reason of all existence, the sun of the invisible world that pours upon all things the revealing light of truth. This idea is developed in the human intelligence in its relation to the world of moral order, as 1, the Idea of Wisdom or prudence; 2, the Idea of Courage or Fortitude; 3, the Idea of Self-Control or Temperance; 4, the Idea of Justice. Under the head of justice is included equity, veracity, faithfulness, usefulness, benevolence and holiness. ------------In regard to Evil, Plato did not consider it as inherent in human nature. "Nobody is willingly evil," he declares; "but when any one does evil it is only as the imagined means to some good end. But in the nature of things, there must always be a something contrary to good. It cannot have its seat with the gods, being utterly opposed to them, and so of necessity hovers round this finite mortal nature, and this region of time and ever-changing. Wherefore," he declares, "we

ought to fly hence." He does not mean that we ought to hasten to die, for he taught that nobody could escape from evil or eliminate it from himself by dying. This flight is effected by resembling God as much as is possible; "and this resemblance consists in becoming just and holy through wisdom." There is no divine anger or favor to be propitiated; nothing else than a becoming like the One, absolutely good. When Eutyphron explained that whatever is pleasing to the gods is holy, and that that which is hateful to them is impious, Sokrates appealed to the statements of the Poets, that there were angry differences between the gods, so that the things and persons that were acceptable to some of them were hateful to the others. Everything holy and sacred must also be just. Thus he suggested a criterion to determine the matter, to which every god in the Pantheon must be subject. They were subordinate beings, and as is elsewhere taught, are younger than the Demiurgus. No survey of the teachings of the Akademe, though only intended to be partial, will be satisfactory which omits a mention of the Platonic Love. Yet it is essential to regard the subject philosophically. For various reasons our philosopher speaks much in metaphor, and they who construe his language in literal senses will often err. His Banquet is a symposium of thought, and in no proper sense a drinking bout. He is always moral, and when in his discourse he begins familiarly with things as they existed around him, it was with a direct purpose to lead up to what they are when absolutely right. Love, therefore, which is recognized as a complacency and attraction between human beings, he declares to be unprolific of higher intellect. It is his aim to exalt it to an aspiration for the higher and better. The mania or inspiration of Love is the greatest of Heaven's blessings, he declares, and it is given for the sake of producing the greatest blessedness. "What is Love?" asked Sokrates of the God-honored Mantineke. "He is a great daemon," she replies, "and, like all daemons, is intermediate between Divinity and mortal. He interprets between gods and men, conveying to the gods the prayers and sacrifices of men, and to men the commands and replies of the gods. He is the mediator who spans the chasm that divides them; in him all is bound together and through him the arts of the prophet and priest, their sacrifices and initiations and charms, and all prophecy and incantation find their way. For God mingles not with men, but through Love all the intercourse and speech of God with

men, whether awake or asleep, is carried on. The wisdom which understands this is spiritual; all other wisdom, such as that of arts or handicrafts, is mean and vulgar. Now these spiritual essences or intermediaries are many and diverse, and one of them is Love." It is manifest then, that Plato emulates no mere physical attraction, no passionless friendship, but an ardent, amorous quest of the Soul for the Good and the True. It surpasses the former as the sky exceeds the earth. Plato describes it in glowing terms: "We, having been initiated and admitted to the beatific vision, journeyed with the chorus of heaven; beholding ravishing beauties ineffable and possessing transcendent knowledge; for we were freed from the contamination of that earth to which we are bound here, as an oyster to his shell." In short, goodness was the foundation of his ethics, and a divine intuition the core of all his doctrines. When, however, we seek after detail and formula for a religious or philosophic system, Plato fails us. Herein each must minister to himself. The Akademe comprised method rather than system; how to know the truth, what fields to explore, what tortuous paths and pitfalls to shun. Every one is left free in heart and mind to deduce his own conclusions. It is the Truth, and not Plato or any other teacher, that makes us free. And we are free only in so far as we perceive the Supernal Beauty and apprehend the Good. - Alexander Wilder (Theosophy, July, 1897) ---------------THE PARABLE OF ATLANTIS - KEITIAS-TIMAIOS by Alexander Wilder, M.D. THE name of Kritias, which Plato prefixed to the last of the Dialogues, was by no means popular in Athens. Belonging to one of the most honored families, his career had not been worthy, or of benefit to his country. For a time Kritias had been one of the followers of Socrates, but upon being remonstrated with for his gross

misconduct, he turned from his teacher, and even became a bitter enemy. Taking part in some of the revolutions after the death of Pericles, Kritias was banished from Athens. He returned, however, some years afterward, at the time that Lysander entered the city, and was appointed a member of the Council of Thirty, which had been created to frame a new constitution for the city. His ascendancy was characterized by the capital execution of several thousand individuals. He issued an edict forbidding lectures and discourse upon philosophy and liberal learning. At the end of four months the Athenians regained the control of public affairs and Kritias was slain in a partisan conflict. Despite the apparent incongruity of representing him as sustaining friendly relations with Socrates, whom he actually had endeavored to involve in serious difficulty and peril, it was evidently in the mind of Plato to leave a remembrance of him which would be more favorable, showing characteristics of real merit, and perhaps to relieve his name from somewhat of the obloquy resting upon it. He was an uncle of the philosopher and had endeavored to introduce his nephew into the public service and otherwise promote his welfare. Possibly one of the reasons for his hostility to Socrates had been for his influence in attracting the young man from politics to philosophy; and it may be that Plato himself, though he had refused to enter public life under the conditions then prevailing, nevertheless cherished gratitude for the efforts in his behalf; and perhaps there were also considerations of family affection, which, indeed, in those days were regarded as of transcendent importance. Socrates had been represented in The Republic as having described the commonwealth as it should be constituted, how its citizens should be reared and instructed, and what is required for the public defense and for the permanency and welfare of the entire community. Kritias, who has been a silent listener, is now mentioned by him as being thoroughly informed in these matters, and begins to tell of an Athens of many thousand years before, that had been established on such principles, and had maintained them successfully and alone, in a war between the peoples of Greece and Atlantis. He gives way, however, to the philosopher Timaios, whose extended account of the origin of the universe, the human race and other inhabitants, has already been noticed. He then follows in his turn with a record which had been preserved in the family of Solon, and declared to be in every respect true. When Solon had completed the

remodeling of the government of Athens and observed the effect of his changes, he made a journey to Egypt. The former restrictions upon foreigners had been relaxed, and at the order of the king, Amosis II, who lived at Sais, he was admitted to the instructions which were given at the temple of the goddess Neith.* Endeavoring to draw them out in relation to matters of antiquity he affected to boast of the progenitors of the Hellenic peoples. "Ah, Solon, Solon," responded the oldest priest of the group, "you Greeks are nothing but boys, and there is not a Greek of any age really mature. You have no traditions, no learning that is of any great antiquity." Then the old man went on to tell of many great deluges, many devastations by catastrophe and volcanic action, remarkable changes in the configuration of the sky and other wonderful events. ----------* The names, "Sais" and "Neith," are words of two syllables, the vowels not being diphthonged, are to be pronounced separately. ----------Then, he adds, there was an Athens, which had been founded nine thousand years before and a thousand years before Sais itself. It was a model city, and its customs had been such as the Saites themselves had been eager to copy. The goddess herself, NeithAthena, the tutelary alike of each of the cities, had established them. There were the sacred class devoted to religion and learning; the craftsmen of different kinds, who meddled with none outside their guild; the shepherds, huntsmen and tillers of the soil. There were also the soldiers who followed no other calling. Likewise, in regard to the superior knowledge, the law took cognizance of it from the beginning, not only in respect to all the universe, but even to divination and the medical art with regard to hygiene, and hence from these divine subjects to human affairs generally and the branches of learning connected with them. The goddess of wisdom selected the site of Athens because she foresaw that its wholesome climate would favor the growth of a superior race of men, wise like herself. Then under these auspices, and what is better, under a good government,* there sprang up a people surpassing all others in every thing meritorious, as became those who were the offspring and under the tutelage of the gods. Nine thousand years before, says the Egyptian priest, there

existed a state of war over the known world. Beyond the Pillars of Heracles the ocean was at that time open and navigable for galleys, and there existed fronting the continent an island larger than Libya and Asia Minor together. There were likewise other islands which were in alliance with it, and they were subject to a powerful confederation of kings, who also held the western regions of Europe and Africa under their dominion. At that period Athens was foremost among the commonwealths of Greece. It was distinguished for the superiority of its population in moral stamina, in the arts, and in war. At first that city was leader of the Greek peoples, but finally they all stood aloof, leaving Athens to maintain alone the conflict with the kings of Atlantis. The invaders were routed, and independence was thus preserved for the free states, and won for all others within the pillars of Heracles. Afterward there came a succession of violent earthquakes and floods. In a single day and night the people of Athens were buried beneath the earth, and the island of Atlantis was engulfed in the waters. Hence only mud remains where that region once existed, and the ocean where it existed formerly is neither navigable nor even accessible. -----------* Konfucius was journeying with his disciples through a distant region. Meeting a woman by a well, he questioned her of her husband, her father and other kindred. They had all been killed by a tiger, she replied. "Why," demanded the sage, "why do you not remove from a region that is infested by such a ferocious beast." "Because," replied she, "we have a good government." Turning to his disciples, the sage remarked: "See, a bad government is more feared than a ravenous tiger." -----------According to the ancient legends the whole earth was originally apportioned among the gods. There was no contest among them in order that one might seize the domain of the other. But each one occupied the portion allotted, peopled it, and attended to the welfare of those under his charge. The gods did not coerce their subjects arbitrarily, but, like skillful pilots, led them by persuasions. The domain of each was assigned according to his peculiar character. As Hephaestos and Athena, having the same father and disposition,

were also alike in the love of wisdom and liberal art, Athens was assigned jointly to them as being adapted naturally to superior excellence and intelligence. Here they planted the antochthones, natives of the soil, making the men good and orderly. Owing to the devastations of the floods the records of these times were lost. The survivors could not read, and hence only names were preserved. These included women as well as men, because both sexes engaged alike in the pursuits of war. In accordance with that usage they dedicated a statue of the goddess armed as a soldier, in recognition of the fact that all living beings associating together, female, as well as male, have the natural ability common to each race to follow every meritorious pursuit. The dominion of Athens, as the priest declared, then extended over all the territory of Attika. The region was much larger than in later periods, for floods had not then washed away the earth, and the soil was very productive. The population was composed of craftsmen in the various callings, and of those who labored at agriculture. There was also the noble caste of warriors, twenty thousand in number, who had been set apart originally by the divine founders of the Commonwealth. Its members lived apart from the others, on the higher ground around the temples. They held their possessions in common, eating at a common table, and sustaining no familiar relations with the other citizens in the lower districts, except as was necessary to procure food and other matters of necessity. From this caste were taken the guardians of the commonwealth, the defenders of the country, the rulers and magistrates. Such being their quality, and their administration of affairs, both in their own community and in the rest of Greece being just, they were distinguished over Europe and Asia, both for personal beauty and moral excellence. Kritias insists accordingly that the Athens of that far-off time was like the commonwealth which had been described in the philosophical dialogue. When at the beginning the whole earth was apportioned among the gods to assure their worship and sacrifices, the Atlantic island was in the allotment of Poseidon.* Among the natives of Atlantis was Evenor, whose daughter, Kleito, won the regard of the divine overlord. Poseidon accordingly constructed a residence for her on the island, surrounding it with high belts of land alternating with other zones of sea. For at that time ships and navigation were not known. She became the mother of ten sons, in five pairs, on whom Poseidon

bestowed dominion. The oldest was placed over his mother's home and the region about it, which was the largest and most desirable in the island. He was also made king over the whole territory. The other brothers also received rich allotments and were appointed to sovereignty in subordination to the eldest. He also gave them names, which Kritias explains as having been translated into Greek. The designation of the oldest brother, Atlas, may evoke some question. Not only is it the name of a range of mountains in Africa, but the term Atlan is also used for titles of places in America. ----------* Mr. Robert Brown, Jr., of Barton-on-Humber, England, has given in his little treatise, "Poseidon," a very full account of the parts of the globe anciently regarded as subject to this divinity and not to Zeus. He was regarded as overlord in the countries of the Mediterranean and Archipelago, except in Egypt and parts of Greece. The voyages of Ulysses or Odysseus were supposed to have taken place in the region allotted to him. Hence the defiance of Polyphomos, the Kyklops, to the authority of Zeus. The voyages of Aeneas were in that region, and it is noteworthy that the principal personages and monsters which were fabled to have been slain by Theseus and Herakles were connected with him, indicating by allegory a change in religion as well as in civil government. ----------These princes and their descendants, we are told, dwelt for many generations as rulers in the "Sea of Islands," and extended their dominion to the Continent, including in it all Libya as far as Egypt and Europe clear to Italy. The family of Atlas surpassed all the others. The oldest son succeeded the father, and they all possessed wealth beyond the power of computing. Much of this was procured from foreign countries, but their principal riches was obtained in the island itself. Atlantis abounded in rich ores. One of these, orichalkon, or mountain copper, was next in value to gold itself. Kritias declares that only the name was known; nevertheless one may ask whether platinum was meant. There was also wood produced in abundance suitable for building and other purposes; and also grass and other plants for the food of animals, both wild and tame. There was even a profusion of food for elephants, of which there were great numbers. Nature, with the aid of human ingenuity thus supplied in plenty

whatever would excite the palate, please the sick or gratify the fancy. The enterprise and industry of the population are glowingly described. Atlantis abounded in temples, magnificent houses, and in ports and docks for commerce. The belts of water with which Poseidon had surrounded the metropolis were bridged over, thus giving access to the royal residence. A canal was likewise constructed, three hundred feet wide and a hundred feet deep, extending from the ocean to the outermost zone of water. Tunnels were also made through the belts of land so that the zone of water became a harbor for vessels. A high wall of stone was erected at the outermost belt of land which surrounded the metropolis, and other walls of similar structure were built at the interior circuits. The outer wall was covered with a coating of copper; the next wall was coated with silver, and the innermost wall with orichalkon, which shone with a ruddy glow. The stone with which these walls were built had been quarried on the central island, and there were three kinds, white, red and black. Many of the buildings were in plain style, but in others the three kinds of stone were ingeniously combined so as to produce an agreeable effect. At the beginning a magnificent building was erected as a dwelling for the divinity and for the ancestors. Each monarch as he came to power added to its embellishments, endeavoring to excel those who had preceded him, till it became wonderful for size and the beauty of the works. Kritias proceeds now to describe the wealth and luxury of the people of Atlantis. Inside the citadel was the temple dedicated to Kleito and Poseidon. It was surrounded by an enclosure of gold. There were brought to it every year contributions from the ten principalities, and sacrifices were presented to each of the divinities. There was also a temple to Poseidon himself, over six hundred feet long and three hundred wide, built and adorned with Oriental splendor. The body of the edifice was coated with silver, and the pinnacles with gold. Inside of the building, the roof was of ivory; and it was adorned everywhere with gold, silver and orichalkon. All the other parts of the wall and floor were lined with orichalkon. There were numerous statues of gold. The god himself was represented standing upon a car attached to which were six winged horses, his head touching the roof, as he stood. A hundred Nereids riding on dolphins were by him, indicating that he was the tutelary of the ocean

as well as of the seismic territories. Other statutes likewise, some the gift of private individuals and others presented from the subordinate princedoms were placed there, part of them inside and part outside the building. In short, the whole was of a style and magnificence corresponding with the government and the splendor which attended the public worship. The principal island abounded with springs, both cold and hot, which the inhabitants employed for their private fountains. They built their houses around them, placing tanks in them, some for cold water to use in summer and others for hot water in winter. The baths for the royal family were apart from the others, and those for the women separate from those of the men. There were also baths for the horses and cattle, all of which were kept scrupulously clean. The stream of water which flowed from this region, was conducted to the Grove of Poseidon, a sacred domain, where were trees of every kind, growing to prodigious size and height. The water was carried thence by aqueducts to the circles outside. On the island were many temples dedicated to different divinities, and likewise public gardens and places of exercise, some for men and some for horses. There was a race-course in the largest island, over a furlong wide and extending the whole way around the circumference for contests of speed between the horses. There were barracks for the troops; part in the belt of land next the citadel, and part inside, near the royal quarters. The docks were filled with triremes and naval stores. Such were the conditions about the royal residence. Crossing the three harbors, one came to a wall which went completely around, beginning from the sea and fifty furlongs from the outermost harbor near the metropolis. This enclosed both the entrance of the canal and the entrance to the ocean. This area was covered with buildings densely crowded together. The canal and harbor were always full of vessels, and thus there was an incessant din kept up day and night. The rest of the country differed in many particulars. The whole region had a high elevation above the level of the sea. There was an extensive plain immediately surrounding the city, which was encircled by a range of mountains sloping toward the sea. The country was of oblong shape extending over three thousand stadia (or about forty miles) and about two thousand directly across. It lay toward the south, and so was sheltered from the north. The mountains were numerous and beautiful, and there were many villages, rivers, lakes,

and meadows, which supplied food in abundance, and likewise wood suitable for all kinds of work. A deep canal extended around the plain, ten thousand furlongs in length. It received the water from the mountains, and winding round the plain, discharged it into the ocean. Other canals were also constructed for transportation of wood and commercial products and likewise for irrigation in summer. The public defense was provided by a militia system carefully arranged. The plain on the island was divided into sixty thousand lots of the dimension of a stadium (or 660 feet) each way. Then it was ordered that of the men fit for service each individual commander should have an allotment, a hundred stadia in extent. In the mountainous districts and the rest of the country was also a large population, and to every man was assigned a lot by the commander. Each of these commanders was required to furnish the sixth part of a war-car, two horses, a two-horse car without a seat, a car-driver with a fighting man, also two armed soldiers, two archers, two stingers, besides light-armed men, stone-shooters and javelin-hurlers, with four sailors so as to man twelve hundred vessels. The other nine sovereignties had arrangements that were somewhat different. The institutions of government continued as they had been arranged from the beginning. Each of the ten kings ruled individually in his own district and commonwealth. All was conducted according to the ordinances of Poseidon. The first kings had also recorded their ordinances on a tablet of orichalkon which was deposited in the temple of that divinity. Every fifth or sixth year they assembled there in council, in which each took an equal part for the general welfare. They made investigation into the procedures of each in his own dominion, and judged them accordingly. In order to assure the faithful submission of each they sacrificed a bull beside the inscribed regulations. Then was an oath written there denouncing execrations on the disobedient. Making each a libation of the blood of the animal, they renewed the oath to do justice, to punish offenders rigidly, never to transgress the laws, and never to rule or obey any ruler except according to the laws. Then having partaken of supper together, they dressed themselves in robes of dark blue color, and proceeded to scrutinize each other's procedures of administration. Their decisions in each case were inscribed on a golden tablet, which was deposited in the temple together with their robes of office.

The ten kings were obligated not to make war on one another, but to give their aid in case of any movement to exterminate any royal family. The supreme dominion over the whole was thus assigned to the Atlantic family, but a king was not permitted to put any of them to death without approval of half the others. For many generations, so long as the inherited nature of the god their ancestor remained to aid them, they continued obedient to the laws and held in affectionate regard their kindred divine parentage. For they were possessed of a genuine high-mindedness and noble principles, and also combined mildness with discretion in incidental matters and in their relations with one another. They held everything in low esteem except it was meritorious; thought lightly of riches, and were not intoxicated by luxury. Being thus circumspect in conduct, they were quick to perceive that all these benefits are increased by friendship combined with virtue; but that when too eagerly sought after and overvalued, they became corrupt and worthless. To such consideration as this, and to the divine nature which continued inherent in them, was due their great prosperity. But eventually the divine quality which was hereditary in them was effaced by much and frequent intermingling in nuptial union with the mortal element; and so the moral character common to other men became ascendant. They became unable to cope with events, and began also to behave unbecomingly. To those who could discern, they appeared to have parted with their most excellent qualities, and to have become ignoble and base. Yet though they were greedy and oppressive, they seemed to those who were unable to appreciate true blessedness, to be in the highest degree happy and fortunate. It was then that Zeus, the supreme God who rules by laws, and is able to descry these things, perceived a noble race involved in wretched conditions. He resolved to call it to account, in order that its members might again be made watchful and return to the sense of what is right. Accordingly he assembled all the gods in council in their most holy habitation. This being at the centre of the universe, commands a view of everything belonging to the region of change below. Having collected them together he proceeded to announce his purpose. Here the story of Kritias abruptly concludes and a sentence is left unfinished. There is a tradition that Plato's death took place while engaged in writing; and as the trilogy is unfinished, it would appear

as though this was the point at which his work was interrupted. Perhaps, however, he was in the habit of writing his composition as he had matter and opportunity, and was awaiting the moment at which to resume. Modern critics are generally agreed in declaring the story a myth. Yet it was anciently believed by many to be substantially the record of actual fact. The present condition of the Atlantic ocean at a distance beyond the Strait of Gibraltar, seems to indicate that the tale of the submergence of large islands at that region is not without plausibility. Other ancient writers have accepted the belief of a populous country, somewhere in that direction; and Mr. J. D. Baldwin in his treatise on "Prehistoric Nations," cites from Pere de Bourbourg, to show the existence of a dominion in Central America greatly resembling that of Atlantis. There may be as much unwisdom in the ignotum pro absurdo as in ignotum pro magnifica. Parables are not altogether fictitious narratives. Occult symbolism often employs peculiar names, historic occurrences, and analogous matters for its purposes, and even intermingles its problems with them. It is not at all necessary in ascribing a figurative character to the story of Atlantis, to doubt the genuineness of the legend respecting it. That may be left wisely to future exploration. In this dialogue, the former Athens is indicated as a model government where the best of the citizens, the aristoi, managed all the public affairs. Kritias accordingly declares it to be such a commonwealth as had been depicted in The Republic. He intermingles allusions incident to its history, such as the leading of the other cities of Greece, and sometimes as fighting alone, as was the case in the long conflict with Persia. Atlantis is described as a confederation of kingdoms, such as Greece may have been in the early periods. It has Poseidon for its overlord, as did most of the Grecian states, and the monarchies which deteriorated to corrupt and unendurable despotisms. The overthrow of these is represented in legends by the exploits of Theseus and Herakles; and the story of Atlantis seems to have been brought to an analogous period of such a character. In the rival nations, Athens and Atlantis, are likewise symbolic representations of man in his moral and spiritual conditions. In the Athenian commonwealth he is faultless, his tastes and talent are kept employed and his several relations personal and social, are observed after the most exemplary manner. For the ideal state has its

correspondent likeness in the ideal man; and the influence of that man and the ideal extend over the whole earth. Atlantis in like manner represents man in the other phase of character. We have the spectacle of ten kings, sons of Poseidon, ten being the number denoting completeness. As Poseidon ruled his domain by arbitrary law, so the dominion is strictly arranged. All that is needed is provided and arranged. Every want is met, every desire anticipated. So long as the hereditary divine quality and its influence are dominant all goes on well. But as with man when developing into adult life, there comes admixture from without. There are lapses from primitive integrity. As flatterers and time servers do not take notice of this in a monarch, so the individual is apt not to be conscious of serious dereliction in himself. Only those capable of discerning the spirit, the divinely illuminated, perceive the fall and its accompaniments. There are both an Athens of unblemished fame and an enfeebled, demoralized Atlantis in every human being. "So," says Paul, "with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." To this point, the speaker draws our attention. What is beyond is left for conjecture. The catastrophe of Atlantis has been told, but only as a physical occurrence. It is also added that Zeus himself, the supreme Arbiter, is about to take in hand the correcting of the unrighteous conditions and restoration to primeval order. Thus we have the problem; it is ours individually to solve. (The Word, May, 1906) ------------------THE WISDOM RELIGION OF ZOROASTER by Alexander Wilder, M.D. "THE primeval religion of Iran," says Sir William Jones, "if we rely on the authorities adduced by Mohsan Fani* was that which Newton calls the oldest (and it may justly be called the noblest) of all religions: - 'a firm belief that one Supreme God made the world by his power and continually governed it by his providence; a pious fear, love and adoration of him; a due reverence for parents and aged

persons; a fraternal affection for the whole human species, and a compassionate tenderness even for the brute creation.'" The believers in a Golden Age preceding the ruder and unhappier periods of human history readily trace in this a confirmation of their cherished sentiment. Those who contemplate religions as substantially the same in their essential principles, can subscribe heartily to the statement. Even they who ignore and repudiate the past as solely bestial and barbarous, and place everything in the future as a goal of effort and expectation, will not hesitate to accept the proposition as an ultimate attainment. Yet that which is to be must be to a large degree something that has been, ------------* Mohsan who is here cited was a native of Kashmir, and a Sufi. He insisted that there was an Eranian monarchy the oldest in the world, and that the religion of Hushan, which is here described, was its prevailing faith. ------------and a rehabilitation of the old. It must have existed in idea, or it would not be evolved in manifested existence. Religions may have their Apostles, but Apostles are not the first creators of religions. For religion has its inception not from the logical reason, but in the human heart, in the passionate desire for the better and more true, for that which is superior to the present selfhood. It comes into existence as an infant child, and grows gradually, taking form and shape according to the genius of those by whom it is adopted and cherished. When the first Zarathustra was born, Mazdaism was already divergent not only from Turanian Shamanism but likewise from the Aryan Deva-worship of archaic India. The pioneers of Eran were tillers of the soil and dwellers in ceiled houses and walled villages, while the followers of Indra and Saurva were still nomadic shepherds and fed their flocks wherever pasture was afforded, little regardful even of any respect for the enclosed and cultivated fields of their brethren. Yet at that period the two had not become distinct communities. "Hard by the believers in Ahura live the worshipers of the devas," says Zoroaster. Much curious speculation has been bestowed in regard to the identity of the Great Sage and Prophet of archaic Eran. Some

modern writers have even suggested that he was simply a mythic or ideal personage described in ancient hyperbole as a Son or Avatar of Divinity, because of representing the religious system of which he was the recognized expositor. Plato more rationally styles him "the Oro-Mazdean,'' who promulgated the learning of the Magi, by which was meant the worship of the Gods, and being true and truthful in words and deeds through the whole of one's life. "By means of the splendor and glory of the Frohars or guardian spirits," says the Fravardin-Yasht, "that man obtained revelations who spoke good words, who was the Source of Wisdom, who was born before Gotama had such intercourse with God." We find him accordingly set forth in the Gathas, the most ancient literature of his people, as an historic person of the lineage of Spitama, with a father, remoter ancestors, kinsmen, a wife, and sons and daughters.* The Yasna, or Book of Worship, declares the following: "Then answered me Homa the righteous: 'Pourushaspa has prepared me as the fourth man in the corporeal world; this blessing was bestowed upon him that thou wast born to him - thou, the righteous Zarathustra, of the house of Pourushaspa, who opposest the devas, who art devoted to the Ahura religion and famous in Airyana-Vaejo, the Aryan Fatherland.'" He seems to have begun his career as an humble student and reciter of the chants and prayers in the presence of the Sacred Fire, but to have been developed in maturer years into an apostle and speaker of oracles which should impart the true wisdom to all who heard. He gave a rational form to the religious thought of his countrymen, elaborated ----------* The father of the first Zoroaster was named Pourushaspa, his great grandfather, Haekatashaspa, his wife Hvovi, his daughters, Freni, Thriti, Pourushist. The daughters were married according to archaic Aryan custom to near kindrid. -----------it into a philosophy, and began for it the preparation of a literature by which it should be perpetuated. Nevertheless we May not accept for him much that has been published under the name or title by which he is commonly known. Whether he actually wrote much we do not know. Generally, the

disciples, and not the Masters, are the ones most prolific in literary productions. Besides, there have been many Zoroasters, or spiritual superiors, who succeeded to the rank and honors of Zarathustra Spitaman. All these who made contributions to the Sacred Oracles, appear to have received acceptance like that awarded to the Mazdean Apostle. Nor does the distinction seem to have been confined to the Eranian country, nor even to the collections of the Avesta. When conquest extended the Persian authority to other regions, it was followed by religious propagandism. In this way the Zoroastrian faith burst through the limitations of a single people and country, and for a period of centuries appeared likely to become the principal religion of the world. It was supreme in the Parthian dominion clear to Kabul* or further, and it extended over the Roman Empire as far as Germany and Scotland. As conquest removed the lines of partition between peoples, religion and philosophy met fewer obstacles. The "pure thought" and doctrine may have been greatly changed by the commingling with the notions of the newer receivers, as we observe in the Mithra-worship and the various forms of Gnosticism. We also find men in different countries of the East who, for their apperception and superior intelligence bore the same honorary designation as the Sage of the Avesta, which has created some uncertainty in later times in distinguishing the individual who was actually first to bear the title. ------------* The Afghan language appears to have been derived from that of the Avesta. Perhaps the book was written there. ------------The Mazdean faith has left a vivid impress upon the doctrine and literature of other religions. The Hebrew Sacred Writings of later periods treat of the "God of Heaven," and the "God of Truth,"* and contain other references significant of acquaintance with the Persian theosophy. The New Testament is by no means free from this influence; the Gnosis or superior wisdom is repeatedly mentioned; also guardian angels, and various spiritual essences. The reference in the Apocalypse to the tree of life, the second death, the white pebble inscribed with an occult name, the procession in white robes, and the enthronement, are taken from the Mithraic worship.

The pioneers of the later Platonic School distinctly named Mithras as the central divinity. He had to a great degree displaced Apollo and Bacchus in the West, and ranked with Serapis in Egypt. Porphyry treats of the worship of the Cave, the constructing of a Cave by Zoroaster with figures of the planets and constellations overhead, and declares that Mithras was born in a petra or grotto-shrine.** He describes the Mith------------* The name Mithras signifies truth. Falsehood was regarded as obnoxious to this divinity, and as punished with leprosy. (Kings II, v. 27.) ** That ingenious writer "Mark Twain" calls attention to the fact that all the sacred places connected with the Holy Family in Palestine are grottoes. "It is exceedingly strange," says he, "that these tremendous events all happened in grottoes," and he does not hesitate to pronounce "this grotto-stuff as important." We may look further, however. The ancient mystic rites were celebrated in petras, or grotto-shrines, and the temples of Mithras bore that designation. The Semitic term PTR or peter signifies to lay open, to interpret, and hence an interpreter, a hierophant. It was probably applied to the officiating priests at the initiations, in the "barbarous" or "sacred" language used on such occasions. There was such an official at the Cave or Shrine of Mithras at Rome, till the worship was interdicted. In the Eleusinian Rites, the hierophant read to the candidates from the Petroma or two tablets of stone. The servants of the Pharaoh in the book of Genesis were sad at having dreamed when there was no peter to give a petrun or explanation. Petra in Idumea probably was named from the profusion of its petrea or shrines, and the country was famed for "wisdom." (Jeremiah xlix, 7). Apollo the god of oracles was called Patereus, and his priests paterae. Places having oracles or prophets were sometimes so named, as Pethor the abode of Balaam, Patara, Patras, etc. ------------ras-worship as being in touch with the Esoteric philosophy, and his famous Letter to Anebo, the Egyptian prophet, appears to have been called forth by the apprehension of an endeavor to qualify or supersede it by a theurgy which was chiefly deduced from the occult Rites of Serapis and the Assyrian theology.

In connection with their expositions of the Later Platonism, the various philosophic writers, as for example Synesios, Proklos, and Damaskios, quoted selections from the Oriental literature. These have come to us under the general name of "Chaldean Oracles," but later redactors have styled them [greek] - the Memorable Sayings of the Zoroaster.* They exhibit a remarkable similarity to the NeoPlatonic teachings, and we have the assurance of a distinguished Parsee gentlemen famous alike for his profound attainments and his extensive liberality,** that they are genuine. He declares that there is no reason to doubt that the Persian doctrine was based upon that of the Chaldeans and was in close affinity with it, and he adds that the Chaldean doctrine and philosophy may be taken as a true exposition of the Persian. We may remark that much of the religious symbolism employed by the Persians was identical with that of the Assyrians, and the explanations given by M. Lajard in his work, La Culte de Mithra, plainly accepts rites and divinities from the Chaldean worship. Many of the Maxims attributed to the Eranian Zarathustra, as well as the Memorable Sayings of the Chaldean Zoroaster are replete with suggestions in regard to ------------* An edition published at Paris in 1563 had the title of "The Magical Oracles of the Magi descended from the Zoroaster." By magical is only meant gnostic or wise. ** Sir Dhunjibhoy Jamsetjee Medhora, of the Presidency of Bombay who has written ably on Zoroastrianism. ------------the true life of fraternity and neighborly charity, as well as information upon recondite and philosophic subjects. They are inspired by a profound veneration as well as intuition. Every family was part of a Brotherhood, and the districts were constituted of these fraternities. The Zoroastrian designation of the Supreme Being was Ahura and Mazda, the Lord, the All-Wise, Mazdaism or the Mazdayasna is therefore the Wisdom-Religion. The Divinity is also honored as the Divine Fire or inmost energy of life - in his body resembling light; in his essence, truth. Mithras was the God of Truth. The Zoroastrian religion was an apotheosis of Truth. Evil was hateful as being the lie. Trade was

discouraged as tending to make men untruthful. "The wretch who belies Mithras," who falsifies his word, neglecting to pay his debts, it is said, "is destructive to the whole country. Never break a promise neither that which was contracted with a fellow-religionist, nor with an unbeliever." As Ahur' Mazda is first of the seven Amshaspands, or archangels, so Mithras is chief of the Yazatas or subordinate angels. "I created him," says Ahur' Mazda, "to be of the same rank and honor as myself." Mithras precedes the Sun in the morning, he protects the Earth with unsleeping vigilance, he drives away lying and wicked spirits, and rewards those who follow the truth. Those who speak lies, who fail to keep their word, who love evil better than good, he leaves to their own courses; and so they are certain to perish. His dominion is geographically described in the Mihir-Yasht as extending from Eastern India and the Seven Rivers to Western India, and from the Steppes of the North to the Indian Ocean. Although much is said about ''dualism" and the corporeal resurrection, it is apparent that it is principally "read into'' the Zoroastrian writings rather than properly deduced from them. Opportunity for this is afforded by the fact that the vocabulary of the different languages was very limited, and single words were necessarily used to do duty for a multitude of ideas. We notice this fact, by comparing them, that no two translators of passages in the Avesta give the same sense or even general tenor. We are often obliged to form a judgment from what is apparent. This text from Dr. Haug's translation seems explicit: "Ahura Mazda by his holy spirit, through good thought, good word and good deed, gives health and immortality to the world." Two ideas are distinct: that all real good is of and from Divinity; 2, that intrinsic goodness on the part of the individual, makes him recipient of its benefits. It seems plain, also, that in the mind of Zoroaster, as of other great thinkers, life is sempersistent. The Yasna and Hadokht-Yasht, both "older Scriptures," declare this plainly. They recite the particulars of the journey of the soul, the real self, from the forsaken body to the future home. It waits three days by the body, as if not ready to depart forever. The righteous soul, then setting out, presently meets a divine maiden, its higher law and interior selfhood, who gives the joyful assurance: "Thou art like me even as I appear to

thee. I was beloved, beautiful, desirable and exalted; and thou, by the good thought, good speech, and good action, hast made me more beloved, more beautiful, more desirable, and exalted still higher." So the righteous soul having taken these three steps, now takes the fourth, which brings it to the Everlasting Lights. Here is no talk about the resuscitating of anything that had really died. There is recognized a continuing to live, and for the worthy one, this life is eternal, or what is the same thing, divine. For the others, there is the counterpart, a meeting with an impure maiden figure, a falling under the sway of the Evil Mind with the probations which this entails. Nevertheless we may not consider this Evil Mind as sempiternal, or all-powerful; else there would be two Intelligences in conflict for dominion over the universe, and so the shifting scenes of human life could be only an absurd, pitiful farce. In the nature of things, evil must exist as the correlative of good; but it is never an essence or a principle. It is always self-destroying and never permanent in any form. In most old copies of the HadokhtYasht, we notice that no fourth step is mentioned, in the case of the wicked soul; though far from righteousness, it is not consigned to perpetual hell. The primitive Mazdean doctrine was philosophic on these subjects as well as moral, "All good has sprung from Ahur' Mazda's holy spirit," the Yasna declares and he who in his wisdom created both the Good and the Negative Mind, rewards those who are obedient. In him the last cause of both minds lies hidden." Further we are told of the real origin of devas or devils, that those who do not perform good works actually themselves "produce the devas by means of their pernicious thoughts." In the end, however, the Savior is to make the whole world immortal. Then the Truth will smite and destroy the lie, and Anhra Manyas, the Evil Mind, will part with his rule. By this we are not to understand any coming crisis of the external world, but a palingenesis or restitution and regeneration in each person individually. It was a true saying in the Gospel: "This is the crisis or judging: that the Light comes into the world, and men love the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil." Both the Memorable Sayings, and the recorded utterances of the Avesta which are still preserved, abound with philosophic and theurgic utterances. Many of them are very recondite, others excel in sublimity. The following selections are examples.

"The Paternal Monad (or Divine Fire) is: It is extended and generates the Twin. For the Dual sitteth close beside the One, and flashes forth mental promptings which are both for the direction of all things and the arranging of every thing that is not in order." "The Paternal Mind commanded that all things should be divided into Threes, all of them to be directed by Intelligence." "In all the cosmic universe the Triad shines, which the Monad rules." "Understand that all things are subservient to the Three Beginnings. The first of these is the Sacred Course; then in the midst is the region of Air; the third, the other, is that which cherishes the Earth with fire - the fountain of fountains and Source of all fountains, the womb containing all; from hence at once proceeds the genesis of matter in its many shapes." "The Father takes himself away from sight; not shutting his own Fire in his own spiritual power. For from the Paternal Beginning nothing that is imperfect gyrates forth. For the Father made all things complete and delivered them to the Second Intelligence which the race of men call the First." "He holds fast in the Mind the matters of mind, but sensibility he supplies to the worlds. He holds fast in the Mind the things of mind, but supplies soul to the worlds," "The Soul being a radiant fire by the power of the Father, not only remains immortal and is absolute ruler of the life, but also holds in possession the many perfections of the bosoms of the world; for it becomes a copy of the Mind, but that which is born is somewhat corporeal." "Let the immortal depth of the soul lead and all the views expand on high. Do not incline to the dark-gleaming world. Beneath is always spread out a faithless deep and Hades dark all around, perturbed, delighting in senseless phantasms, abounding with precipices, craggy, always whirling round a miserable deep, perpetually wedded to an ignoble, idle, spiritless body." "Extend the fiery mind to work of piety and you will preserve ever changing body." "The mortal approaching the Fire will be illuminated from God. " "Let alone the hastening of the Moon in her monthly course, and the goings forward of stars; the moon is always moved on by the work of necessity, and the progress of the stars was not produced for thy sake. Neither the bold flight of birds through the ether, nor the

dissection of the entrails of sacrificed animals is a source to learn the truth; they are all playthings, supports for gainful deceptions; fly them all, if thou art going to open the sacred paradise of piety, where virtue, wisdom, and justice are assembled.'' Despite all these mentions of the Father and the Paternal Monad, no reference is made in the Avesta to God as a father. Nevertheless he exhibits all the qualities of a parent and protector; he gives happiness, rewards goodness, creates beneficent light and darkness, and loves all his creation. Many of the Avestan utterances are sublime. "My light is hidden under all that shines," says Ahur' Mazda. "My name is: He who may be questioned; the Gatherer of the People; the Most Pure; He who takes account of the actions of men. My name is Ahura, the Living One; my name is Mazda, the All-Wise. I am the All-Beholding, the Desirer of good for my creatures, the Protector, the Creator of all." The Yasna abounds with expressive sayings, somewhat of the character of proverbs. "He first created, by means of his own fire, the multitude of celestial bodies, and through his Intelligence, the good creatures governed by the inborn good mind." "When my eyes behold thee, the Essence of truth, the Creator of life who manifests his life in his works, then I know thee to be the Primeval Spirit, thee the All-Wise, so high in mind as to create the world, and the Father of the Good Mind." "I praise the Mazdayasnian religion, and the righteous brotherhood which it establishes and defends." In the Zoroastrian religion a man might not live for himself or even die for himself. Individual virtue is not the gain of only the soul that practices it, but an actual addition to the whole power of good in the universe. The good of one is the good of all; the sin of one is a fountain of evil to all. The aim of the Mazdean discipline is to keep pure the thought, speech, action, memory, reason and understanding. Zoroaster asks of Ahur' Mazda, what prayer excels everything else? "That prayer," is the reply, "when a man renounces all evil thoughts, words and works." Fasting and ascetic practices are disapproved as a culpable weakening of "the powers entrusted to a person for the service of Ahur' Mazda." The sins of the Zoroastrian category include everything that burdens the conscience, seeing evil and not warning

him who is doing it, lying, doubting the good, withholding alms, afflicting a good man, denying that there is a God, - also pride, coveting of goods, the coveting of the wife of another, speaking ill of the dead, anger, envy, discontent with the arrangements of God, sloth, scorn, false witness. The soul of man is a ray from the Great Soul, by the Father of Light. It is matter of regret that so much of the Zoroastrian literature has been lost. It is more to be regretted that it has not been better translated. Yet books do not create a faith, but are only aids. Men are infinitely more precious than books. The essence of the WisdomReligion was not lost when the Nasks perished. "The Zoroastrian ideal of Brotherhood is founded on a recognition of the Divine Unity, and does not represent an association of men united by a common belief or common interests." There is no distinction of class or race. In the Zoroastrian writings the Frohars or protecting geniuses of all good men and women are invoked and praised, as well as those of Zoroastrians. Any one whose aspirations are spiritual and his life beneficent, is accepted, though not professedly of the Mazdean fellowship. So much of the literature has an esoteric meaning that superficial students lose sight of, that the genuine Wisdom-Religion is not discerned. There are eyes needed that can see and apperceive. Then the symbols which materialists blunder over will be unveiled in their true meaning and there will be witnessed a revival of a religion devoid of elaborate ceremony, but replete with justice, serene peacefulness and goodwill to men. (Un. Brotherhood, Oct., 1898) --------------ZOROASTER, THE FATHER OF PHILOSOPHY. by Alexander Wilder, M. D. SEVEN cities are named as claiming to have been the birthplace of Homer. His great poem is the classic above other literary productions, but the personality of the man, as well as the period and place in which he lived, is veiled in uncertainty.

A similar curious indefiniteness exists in regard to the great Oriental sage and teacher of a pure faith, Zoroaster. There have been credited to him not only the sacred compositions known as the Venidad and Yasna, the remains of which sadly interpolated, are preserved by the Parsis of India, but a large number of Logia or oracular utterances which have been transmitted to us by writers upon ancient Grecian philosophy and mythology. Mr. Marion Crawford has presented him to us in the character of a young Persian Prince, a pupil of the prophet Daniel, who had been made governor of Media by Nebuchadnezzar. He is described as learned in all the wisdom of the prophet himself, and the learning of the wise men of Assyria. Dareios Hystaspis having become the "Great King," Zoroaster is compelled by him to forego the warmest wishes of his heart, and becomes an ascetic. Having retired to a Cave, he performs the various rites of religion, and passes into trances. His body appears as dead, but the spirit is set free, and goes to and fro returning to its place again. Thus he attains the intuitive comprehension of knowledge, to the understanding of natural laws not perceptible by the corporeal senses alone, and to the merging of the soul and higher intelligence in the one universal and divine essence. The late Dean Prideaux propounded somewhat of a similar statement many years ago. He did not scruple, however, to represent this Apostle of the Pure Law as a religious impostor and made much account of the theory of Two Principles, as evidence of his perversion of the true doctrine. The conjecture that Zoroaster flourished in the reign of Dareios Hystaspis, is chiefly based upon two ancient memorials. The Eranian monarch Vistaspa is several times named in the Yasna and other writings, and many identify him with the Persian King. Ammianus the historian declares that Hystaspis, the father of Dareios, a most learned prince, penetrating into Upper India, came upon a retreat of the Brachmans, by whom he was instructed in physical and astronomic science, and in pure religious rites. These he transferred into the creed of the Magi. Some countenance for this conjecture appears from a reading of the famous trilingual inscription at Behistun. This place is situated just within the border of Media on the thoroughfare from Babylon to Ekbatana. The rock is seventeen hundred feet high, and belongs to the Zagros* range of mountains. This was

-------------* Occult symbolism, says Mr. Brown in Poseidon, has frequently availed itself of two words of similar sound or of one word of manifold meaning. We notice many examples of this in the old classics and in the Hebrew text of the Bible. This name Zagros is strikingly like Zagreus, the Bacchus or Dionysus of the Mysteries, and his worship was carried from this part of Asia. In an inscription of Nebuchadnezzar, we find the name "Shamas Diannisi," or Shamas (the sun-god) judge of mankind. Osiris, the Egyptian Bacchus, had also the title, apparently a translation, Ro-t-Amenti, the judge of the West. The Kretan Rhadamanthus, doubtless here got his name. The Zagros mountains were inhabited by the Nimri and Kossaeans, which reminds us of the text: "And Cush begat Nimrod." For the ancient Susiana is now called Khusistan, and was the former Aethiopia. Assyria was called the "land of Nimrod," and Bab-el or Babylon was his metropolis. (Genesis x - 8, 10, 11, and Micah v - 4.) The term nimr signifies spotted, a leopard; and it is a significant fact that in the Rites of Bacchus, the leopard skin or spotted robe was worn. ----------engraved about three hundred feet from the foot, and was in three languages, the Skythic or Median, the Persian and the Assyrian. Sir Henry C. Rawlinson first deciphered it, and found it to be a record of Dareios. The monarch proclaims his pure royal origin, and then describes the conquest of Persia by Gaumata the Magian, the suicide of Kambyses, and the recovering of the throne by himself. He distinctly intimates that he was first to promulgate the Mazdean religion in the Persian Empire. The Kings before him, he declares, did not so honor Ahur'-Mazda. "I rebuilt the temples," he affirms; "I restored the Gathas or hymns of praise, and the worship." Doctor Oppert, who read the Medic inscription, asserted that it contains the statement that Dareios caused the Avesta and the Zendic Commentary to be published through the Persian dominion. On the tomb of this king he is styled the teacher of the Magians. In his reign the temple at Jerusalem was built and dedicated to the worship of the "God of heaven," thus indicating the Mazdean influence. Dareios extended his dominion over Asia Minor and into Europe, and from this period the era of philosophy took its beginning

in Ionia and Greece. Porphyry the philosopher also entertained the belief that Zoroaster flourished about this period, and Apuleius mentions the report that Pythagoras had for teachers the Persian Magi, and especially Zoroaster, the adept in every divine mystery. So far, therefore, the guess of Crawford and Dean Prideaux appears plausible. It should be remembered, however, that other writers give the Eranian teacher a far greater antiquity. Aristotle assigns him a period more than six thousand years before the present era. Hermippos of Alexandreia, who had read his writings, gives him a similar period. Berossos reduces it to two thousand years, Plutarch to seventeen hundred, Ktesias to twelve hundred. These dates, however, have little significance. A little examination of ancient literature will be sufficient to show that Zoroaster or Zarathustra was not so much the name of a man as the title of an office. It may be that the first who bore it, had it as his own, but like the name Caesar, it became the official designation of all who succeeded him. Very properly, therefore, the Parsi sacred books while recognizing a Zarathustra* in every district or province of the Eranian dominion, place above them as noblest of all, the Zarathustrema, or chief Zoroaster, or as the Parsis now style him in Persian form, Dastur of dasturs. We may bear in mind accordingly that there have been many Zoroasters, and infer safely that the Avesta was a collection of their productions, ascribed as to one for the sake of enhancing their authority. That fact as well as the occurrence that the present volume is simply a transcript of sixteen centuries ago, taken from men's memories and made sacred by decree of a Sassanian king, indicates the need of intuitive intelligence, to discern the really valuable matter. Zoroaster Spitaman himself belongs to a period older than "Ancient History." The Yasna describes him as famous in the primitive Aryan Homestead - "Airyana-Vaejo of the good creation." Once Indians and Eranians dwelt together as a single people. But polarity is characteristic of all thinking. Indeed, the positive necessarily requires the negative, or it cannot itself exist. Thus the Aryans became a people apart ----------* It is not quite easy to translate this term. The name Zoroaster,

with which we are familiar, seems really to be Semitic, from zoro, the seed or son, and Istar, or Astarte, the Assyrian Venus. Some write it Zaratas, from nazar, to set apart. Gen. Forlong translates Zarathustra as "golden-handed," which has a high symbolic import. Intelligent Parsis consider it to mean elder, superior, chief. ----------from the Skyths and Aethiopic races, and again the agricultural and gregarious Eranians divided from the nomadic worshipers of Indra.* The resemblances of language and the similarities and dissimilarities exhibited in the respective religious rites and traditions are monuments of this schism of archaic time.** How long this division had existed before the rise of the Great Teacher, we have no data for guessing intelligently. It may be here remarked that the world-religions are not really originated by individual leaders. Buddhism was prior to Gautama, Islam to Muhamed, and we have the declaration of Augustin of Hippo that Christianity existed thousands of years before the present era. There were those, however, who gave form and coherence to the beliefs, before vague and indeterminate, and made a literature by which to extend and perpetuate them. This was done by Zoroaster. Hence the whole religion of the Avesta revolves round his personality. Where he flourished, or whether the several places named were his abodes at one time or another, or were the homes of other Zoroasters, is by no means clear. One tradition makes him a resident of Bakhdi or Balkh, where is now Bamyan with its thousands of artificial caves. The Yasna seems to place him at Ragha or Rai in Media, not far from the modern city of Tehran. We must be content, however, to know him as the accredited Apostle of the Eranian peoples. Emanuel Kant affirms positively that -----------*The name of this divinity curiously illustrates the sinuosities of etymology. It is from the Aryan root-word id, to glow or shine, which in Sanskrit becomes inda, from which conies indra, the burning or shining one. The same radical becomes in another dialect aith, from which comes aether, the supernal atmosphere, and the compounded taame Aithiopia. It is therefore no matter of wonder that all Southern Asia, from the Punjab to Arabia has borne that designation.

** Ernest de Bunsen suggests that this schism is signified by the legend of Cain and Abel. The agriculturist roots out the shepherd. ----------there was not the slightest trace of a philosophic idea in the Avesta from beginning to end. Professor William D. Whitney adds that if we were to study the records of primeval thought and culture, to learn religion or philosophy, we should find little in the Avesta to meet our purpose. I am reluctant, however, to circumscribe philosophy to the narrow definition that many schoohnen give it. I believe, instead, with Aristotle, that God is the ground of all existence, and therefore that theology, the wisdom and learning which relate to God and existence, constitute philosophy in the truest sense of the term. All that really is religion, pertains to life, and as Swedenborg aptly declares, the life of religion is the doing of good. Measured by such standards, the sayings of the prophet of Eran are permeated through and through with philosophy. Zoroaster appears to have been a priest and to have delivered his discourses at the temple in the presence of the sacred Fire. At least the translations by Dr. Haug so describe the matter. He styles himself a reciter of the mantras, a duta or apostle, and a maretan or listener and expounder of revelation. The Gathas or hymns are said to contain all that we possess of what was revealed to him. He learned them, we are told, from the seven Amshaspands or archangels. His personal condition is described to us as a state of ecstasy, with the mind exalted, the bodily senses closed, and the mental ears open. This would be a fair representation of the visions of Emanuel Swedenborg himself. I have always been strongly attracted to the Zoroastrian doctrine. It sets aside the cumbrous and often objectionable forms with which the ceremonial religions are overloaded, puts away entirely the sensualism characteristic of the left-hand Sakteyan and Astartean worships, and sets forth prominently the simple veneration for the Good, and a life of fraternalism, good neighborhood and usefulness. "Every Mazdean was required to follow a useful calling. The most meritorious was the subduing and tilling of the soil. The man must marry, but only a single wife; and by preference she must be of kindred blood. It was regarded as impious to foul a stream of water. It was a cardinal doctrine of the Zoroastrian religion that individual worthiness is not the gain and advantage of the person

possessing it, but an addition to the whole power and volume of goodness in the universe. With Zoroaster prayer was a hearty renouncing of evil and a coming into harmony with the Divine Mind. It was in no sense a histrionic affair, but a recognition of goodness and Supreme Power. The Ahuna-Vairya, the prayer of prayers, delineates the most perfect completeness of the philosophic life. The latest translation which I have seen exemplifies this. "As is the will of the Eternal Existence, so energy through the harmony of the Perfect Mind is the producer of the manifestations of the Universe, and is to Ahur' Mazda the power which gives sustenance to the revolving systems." With this manthra is coupled the Ashem-Vohu: "Purity is the best good; a blessing it is - a blessing to him who practices purity for the sake of the Highest Purity." But for the defeat of the Persians at Salamis it is probable that the Zoroastrian religion would have superseded the other worships of Europe. After the conquest of Pontos and the Pirates the secret worship of Mithras was extended over the Roman world. A conspicuous symbolic representation was common, the slaying of the Bull. When the vernal equinox was at the period of the sign Taurus, the earth was joyous and became prolific. The picture represented the period of the sun in Libra, the sign of Mithras. Then the Bull was slain, the blighting scorpion and the reversed torch denoted winter approaching to desolate the earth. With the ensuing spring the bull revives, and the whole is enacted anew. It is a significant fact that many religious legends and ceremonies are allied to this symbolic figure. It was, however, a degradation of the Zoroastrian system. It is a favorite notion of many that Zoroaster taught "dualism" that there is an eternal God and an eternal Devil contending for the supreme control of the Universe. I do not question that the Anhramainyas or Evil Mind mentioned in the Avesta was the original from which many of the Devils of the various Creeds were shaped. The Seth or Typhon of Egypt, the Baal Zebul of Palestine, the Diabolos and Satan of Christendom, the Sheitan of the Yazidis and the Eblis of the Muslim world are of this character. Yet we shall find as a general fact that these personages were once worshiped as gods till conquest and change of creed dethroned them. This is forcibly illustrated by the devas, that are deities in India and devils with the Parsis. Whether, however, the Eranian "liar from the beginning and the father

of lying," was ever regarded as a Being of Light and Truth may be questioned. Yet there was a god Aramannu in Aethiopic Susiana before the conquest by the Persians. Zoroaster, nevertheless, taught pure monotheism. "I beheld thee to be the universal cause of life in the Creation," he says in the Yasna. The concept of a separate Evil Genius equal in power to Ahur' Mazda is foreign to his theology. But the human mind cannot contemplate a positive thought without a contrast. The existence of a north pole presupposes a south pole. Hence in the Yasna, in Dr. Haug's version we find mention of "the more beneficent of my two spirits," which is paralleled by the sentence in the book of Isaiah: "I make peace and create evil." Significantly, however, the Gathas, which are the most unequivocally Zoroastrian, never mention Auhra-mainyas as being in constant hostility to Ahur' Mazda. Nor does Dareios in the inscriptions name Auhra-mainyas at all. The druksh or "lie" is the odious object denounced. But evil as a negative principle is not essentially wicked. In this sense it is necessary, as shade to light, as night to day always opposing yet always succumbing. Even the body, when by decay or disease it becomes useless and an enthraller of the soul, is separated from it by the beneficent destroyer. "In his wisdom," says the Yasna, "he produced the Good and the Negative Mind. . . . Thou art he, O Mazda, in whom the last cause of these is hidden." In his great speech before the altar, Zoroaster cries: "Let every one, both man and woman, this day choose his faith. In the beginning there were two - the Good and the Base in thought, word and deed. Choose one of these two: be good, not base. You cannot belong to both. You must choose the originator of the worst actions, or the true holy spirit. Some may choose the worst allotment; others adore the Most High by means of faithful action." The religion of Zoroaster was essentially a Wisdom-Religion. It made everything subjective and spiritual. In the early Gathas he made no mention of personified archangels or Amshaspands, but names them as moral endowments. "He gives us by his most holy spirit," says he, "the good mind from which spring good thoughts, words and deeds - also fullness, long life, prosperity and understanding." In like manner the evil spirits or devas were chiefly regarded as moral qualities or conditions, though mentioned as individuated existences. Their origin was in the errant thoughts of men. "These bad men," the Yasna declares, "produce the devas by

their pernicious thoughts." The upright, on the other hand destroy them by good actions. In the Zoroastrian purview, there is a spiritual and invisible world which preceded, and remains about this material world as its origin, prototype and upholder. Innumerable myriads of spiritual essences are distributed through the universe. These are the Frohars, or fravashis, the ideal forms of all living things in heaven and earth. Through the Frohars, says the hymn, the Divine Being upholds the sky, supports the earth, and keeps pure and vivific the waters of preexistent life. They are the energies in all things, and each of them, led by Mithras, is associated in its time and order with a human body. Every being, therefore, which is created or will be created, has its Frohar, which contains the cause and reason of its existence. They are stationed everywhere to keep the universe in order and protect it against evil. Thus they are allied to everything in nature; they are ancestral spirits and guardian angels, attracting human beings to the right and seeking to avert from them every deadly peril. They are the immortal souls, living before our birth and surviving after death. Truly, in the words of the hymn, the light of Ahur Mazda is hidden under all that shines. Every world-religion seems to have been a recipient. Grecian philosophy obtained here an inspiration. Thales inculcated the doctrine of a Supreme Intelligence which produced all things; Herakleitos described the Everlasting Fire as an incorporeal soul from which all emanate and to which all return. Plato tells Alkibiades of the magic or wisdom taught by Zoroaster, the apostle of Oromasdes, which charges all to be just in conduct, and true in word and deed. Here is presented a religion that is personal and subjective, rather than formal and histrionic. No wonder that a faith so noble has maintained its existence through all the centuries, passing the barriers of race and creed, to permeate the later beliefs. Though so ancient that we only guess its antiquity, we find it comes up afresh in modern creeds. It is found everywhere, retaining the essential flavor of its primitive origin. It has nobly fulfilled its mission. "I march over the countries," says the Gatha, "triumphing over the hateful and striking down the cruel." It has survived the torch of Alexander and the cimiter of the Moslem. Millions upon millions have been massacred for adhering to it, yet it survives as the wisdom which is justified by her children. The Dialectic of Plato has been the textbook of scholars in the Western

World, and the dialogues of Zoroaster with Ahnr' Mazda constitute the sacred literature of wise men of the far East. "The few philosophic ideas which may be discovered in his sayings," says Dr. Haug, "show that he was a great and deep thinker, who stood above his contemporaries, and even above the most enlightened men of many subsequent centuries." (Un. Brotherhood, Sept., 1898) -----------IAMBLICHOS AND THEURGY: THE REPLY TO PORPHYRY by Alexander Wilder In the Lexicon of Suidas we find the following brief sketch of the subject of this paper: "Iamblichos* the philosopher, a native of Chalkis in Syria, disciple of Porphyry who was himself the pupil of Plotinos, flourished about the time of Constantine the Emperor (basileus) and was the author of many philosophic treatises." He belonged to a noble family, and received the most liberal education that could be obtained. He pursued the study of mathematics and philosophy under Anatolios, probably the bishop of that name who had himself delivered philosophic lectures at Alexandreia as a follower of Aristotle. After this Iamblichos became a disciple of Porphyry, and succeeded to his place in the School. He is described as scholarly, but not original in his views. His manner of life was exemplary, and he was frugal in his habits. He lacked the eloquence of Plotinos, yet excelled him in popularity. Students thronged from Greece and Syria to hear him in such numbers that it was hardly possible for one man to attend to them all. They sat with him at the table, followed him wherever he went, and listened to him with profound veneration. It is said that he probably resided in his native city. This may have been the case, as the affairs of the Roman world were then greatly disturbed. The philosophers, ------------* There are several persons of this name mentioned by ancient

writers. One was a king of Arabia to whom Cicero referred. A second was a philosopher who was educated at Babylon and flourished under the reign of the Antonines. The original term is Malech or Moloch, signifying king. It was applied by all the various Semitic peoples as a title of honor to their chief divinity. The subject of this article employed simply the Greek form to his name, but Longinus translated the designation of his own famous pupil, Porphyrios, wearer of the purple. ------------however, were not circumscribed to one region, and there were schools where they lectured in Athens, Pergamos and other places, as well as at Alexandreia. Plotinos spent his last years at Rome and contemplated the founding of a Platonic commune in Italy; and Porphyry was with him there, with other pupils and associates, afterward marrying and living in Sicily. Alypios the friend and colleague of Iamblichos remained at Alexandreia. Many of the works of Iamblichos are now lost. He wrote Expositions of the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle, a treatise on the Soul, and another to demonstrate the virtues and potencies existing in the statues and symbols of the gods. Another work treated of the Chaldean Theology. The loss of this is much to be regretted. The religion of the Chaldaeans was largely astronomic as well as mystical, and its creed could be read in the heavens. Late researches indicate that the Egyptian, with all its antiquity, was derived from it in the remote periods. The science denominated Mathematics, including geometry and astronomy, was a part of the system, and all problems of genesis and evolution were wrought out by it. The philosophy of Pythagoras was modeled from it, and the Rabbinic learning was Chaldaean in its origin. It has been repeatedly suggested that the Mosaic book of Genesis was a compilation from the same literature, and capable of being interpreted accordingly. lamblichos also wrote a Life of Pythagoras which was translated into English by the late Thomas Taylor, and published in London in 1818. Part of a treatise on the Pythagoric Life is also yet ------------extant. It contains an account of the Pythagorean Sect, explanations of the Pythagorean doctrines, the Profounder Mathematics, the Arithmetical Science of Nikomachos, and Theological Discourses

respecting Numbers, besides other divisions which have not been preserved. The most celebrated work ascribed to him, however, is the Logos, a Discourse upon the Mysteries. It is prefaced by a "Letter of Porphyry to Anebo, the Egyptian Priest," and is itself described as "the Reply of Abammon, the Teacher, to the Letter of Porphyry to Anebo,, and Solutions of Questions therein contained." This work was also translated by Mr. Taylor and published in 1821. The translation was thorough and faithful, but unfortunately, it is difficult for a novice to understand. He would need to know the Greek text itself. There is a profusion of unusual terms, and the book abounds with allusions to occurrences, and spectacles in the Initiatory Rites which are nowhere explained, leaving the whole meaning more or less vague and uncertain. It has been said in explanation of this that Mr. Taylor desired the sense to be obscure, so that it would be difficult for all general readers to understand it, as truth is only for those who are worthy and capable.* The genuiness of the authorship has been strenuously disputed by Meiners, and defended with apparent conclusiveness by Tennemann. It is certainly somewhat different in style from the other works, and as is well-known, it was a common practice at that period, not only for copyists to add or omit words and sentences in manuscripts, but for authors themselves to give the name of -----------* The writer himself prepared a translation several years ago which was published in The Platonist. It is now undergoing revision with a view to make the author's meaning more intelligible to the novitiate reader, and notes are added to explain the frequent references to scenes and phenomena witnessed in the Autopsias and arcane ceremonies; which, however plain to the expert and initiated, are almost hopelessly difficult for others to understand. -----------some more distinguished person as the actual writer. But there is said to he a scholium or annotation in several manuscripts in which Proklos declares that this treatise on the Mysteries was written by Iamblichos, and that he had merely disguised himself under the name of Abammon. Iamblichos was greatly esteemed by his contemporaries, and

those who lived in the ensuing centuries. Eunapios, his biographer, styled him Thaumasios, or the Admirable. Proklos habitually designated him the God-like, and others actually credited him with powers superior to common men. Julian the Emperor considered him as in no way second to Plato, and reverenced him as one of the greatest among mankind. Iamblichos made a new departure in the teaching of philosophy. He exhibits a comparative indifference to the contemplative discipline, and has introduced procedures which pertained to Magic Rites and the Egyptian Theurgy.* It was natural therefore that Porphyry, his friend and former teacher, who taught the other doctrine, should desire to know the nature and extent of this apparent deviation from the accepted philosophic procedures. Uncertain whether his questions would otherwise reach the Master, perhaps then absent front Egypt, he addressed them to Anebo, his disciple, who held the office of prophet or interpreter in the sacerdotal order. He did not assume to blame or even criticise, but asked as a friend what these Theosophers and theurgic priests believed and were teaching in respect to the several orders of superior and intelligent beings, oracles and divination, the efficacy of sacrifices, and evocations, the reason for employing foreign terms at the Mystic Rites, the Egyptian belief in respect to the First Cause, concluding with enquiries and a -----------* "Theurgy. ....The art of securing divine or supernatural intervention in human affairs; especially the magical science practiced by those Neo-Platonists who employed invocations, sacrifices, diagrams, talismans, etc." ..... Standard Dictionary -----------discussion in regard to guardian demons, the casting of nativities, and finally asks whether there may not be after all a path to eudaimonia, or the true felicity other than by sacrifices and the technique of Theurgy. The reply of Abammon is explicit and admirable, as affording a key to the whole system. To us, perhaps, who have grown up in another age and received a training in other modes of thinking, his statements and descriptions may appear visionary and even absurd. We may, however, bear in mind that they did not appear so to those for whom he wrote; and should respect the convictions which others

reverently and conscientiously entertain. In the work under notice, the author plainly endeavored to show that a common idea pervaded the several ancient religions. He did this so successfully that Samuel Sharpe did not hesitate to declare that by the explanation given of them the outward and visible symbols employed in the Arcane Worship became emblems of divine truth; that the Egyptian religion becomes a part of Platonism, and the gods are so many agents or intermediate beings only worshiped as servants of the Divine Creator. With this conception in mind, this work may be read with fair apprehending of the meaning of the author. He proposes to base the classification of Spiritual Essences upon the doctrines of the Assyrians, but modifies it by the views better understood by the Greeks. For example, he enumerates the four genera of gods, demons, heroes or demigods, and souls, and explains some of their distinctions. Before concluding he introduces three other orders from the Assyrian category, making seven in all, occupying distinct grades in the scale of being. In defining their peculiarities, he begins with "the Good - both the good that is superior to Essence and that which is with Essence," the Monad and Duad of the philosophers; in other words the Essential Good and that Absolute Good that is prior to it. The gods are supreme, the causes of things, and are circumscribed by no specific distinction. The archangels not carefully described. This may be because they belong to the Assyrian and not to the Egyptian category. They are there enumerated as seven, like the Amshaspands in the Zoroastrian system. They are very similar to the higher gods, but are subordinate to them, and indeed seem to denote qualities rather than personalities. After them come the angels. These are likewise of the East, and doubtless the same as the Yazadas of the Avesta, of whom Mithras was chief. The Seven Kabeiri or archangels preside over the planets; the Yesdis or angels rule over the universe in a subordinate way. The demons or guardians carry into effect the purposes of the gods with the world and those that are inferior to them. The heroes or demigods are intermediate between the more exalted orders of spiritual beings and psychic natures, and are the means of communication between them. They impart to the latter the benign influences of those superior to them and aid to deliver from the bondage of the lower propensities. Another race that Abammon names is that of the archons or rulers.

These are described as of two species: the cosmocrators or rulers of the planets, and those that rule over the material world. Souls are at the lower step of this seven-graded scale, and make the communication complete from the Absolute One to the inhabitants of the world. The result of this communication is to sustain the lower psychic nature and exalt it to union with Divinity. This union is not effected by the superior knowledge alone, nor by the action of the higher intellect, although these are necessary auxiliaries. Nothing which pertains to us as human beings is thus efficacious. There must be a more potent energy. This is explained subsequently. In regard to oracles and the faculty of divining, Abammon quotes the Chaldaean sages, as teaching that the soul has a double life, one in common with the body, and the other separate from every thing corporeal. When we are awake we use the things pertaining to the body, except we detach ourselves altogether from it by pure principles in thought and understanding. In sleep, however, we are in a manner free. The soul is cognizant beforehand of coming events, by the reasons that precede them. Any one who overlooks primary causes, and attributes the faculty of divining to secondary assistance, or to causes of a psychic or physical character, or to some correspondence of these things to one another, will go entirely wrong. Dreams, however, which may be regarded as God-sent occur generally when sleep is about leaving us and we are just beginning to awake. Sometimes we have in them a brief discourse indicating things about to take place; or it may be that during the period between waking and complete repose, voices are heard. Sometimes, also, a spirit, imperceptible and unbodied, encompasses the recumbent individual in a circle, so as not to be present to the person's sight, coming into the consciousness by joint-sensation and keeping in line with the thought. Sometimes the sight of the eyes is held fast by a light beaming forth bright and soft, and remains so, when they had been wide open before. The other senses, however, are watchful and conscious of the presence of superior beings. These, therefore, are totally unlike the dreams which occur in ordinary conditions. On the other hand the peculiar sleeplessness, the holding of the sight, the catalepsy resembling lethargy, the condition between sleep and waking, and the recent awaking or entire wakefulness, are all divine and suitable for the receiving of the gods as guests. Indeed, they are conditions sent from the gods, and

precede divine manifestations. There are many forms of entheastic exaltation. Sometimes we share the innermost power of Divinity; sometimes only the intermediate, sometimes the first alone. Either the soul enjoys them by itself, or it may have them in concert with the body, or the whole of the individual, all parts alike, receive the divine inflowings. The human understanding, when it is controlled by demons, is not affected; it is not from them, but from the gods that inspiration comes. This he declares to be by no means an ecstasy, or withdrawing from one's own selfhood. It is an exaltation to the superior condition; for ecstasy and mental alienation he affirms indicate an overturning to the worse. Here Abammon seems to diverge from the doctrine of Plotinos and Porphyry. Indeed, he is often Aristotelian rather than Platonic in his philosophy, and he exalts Theurgy above philosophic contemplation. He explains himself accordingly. The Soul, before she yielded herself to the body, was a hearer of the divine harmony. Accordingly, after she came into the body and heard such of the Choric Songs* as retain the divine traces of harmony, she gave them a hearty welcome and by means of them called back to her memory the divine harmony itself. Thus she is attracted and becomes closely united to it, and in this way receives as much of it as is possible. The Theurgic Rites, sacred melodies and contemplation develop the entheastic condition, and enable the soul to perceive truth as it exists in the Eternal world, the world of real being. Divinity, it is insisted, is not brought down into the signs and symbols which -------------* The chants of the Chorus, at the Mystic Rites. The choir danced or moved in rhythmic step around the altar facing outward with hands joined, and chanted the Sacred Odes. -------------are employed in the art of divination. It is not possible for essence to be developed from any thing which does not contain it already. The susceptible condition is only sensible of what is going on and is now in existence, but foreknowledge reaches even things which have not yet begun to exist.

Abammon explains the doctrine of "Karma" as readily as Sakyamuni himself. This shows what King Priyadarsi declared, that the Buddhistic teachings had been promulgated in Egypt, Syria and Greece. "The beings that are superior to us know the whole life of the soul and all its former lives; and if they bring a retribution by reason of the supplication of some who pray to them, they do not inflict it beyond what is right. On the other hand, they aim at the sins impressed on the soul in former lives; which fact human beings not being conscious of, deem it not just to be obliged to encounter the vicissitudes which they suffer." His explanation of the utility of sacrifices is ingenious, but will hardly be appreciated by many at the present time. Some of the gods, he explains, belong to the sphere of the material world, and others are superior to it. If, then, a person shall desire to worship according to theurgic rites those divinities that belong to the realm of material things, he must employ a mode of worship which is of that sphere. It is not because of these divinities themselves that animals are slaughtered, and their dead bodies presented as sacrifices. These divinities are in their constitution wholly separate from any thing material. But the offerings are made because of the matter over which they are rulers. Nevertheless, though they are in essence wholly apart from matter, they are likewise present with it; and though they take hold of it by a supra-material power they exist with it. But to the divinities who are above the realm of matter, the offering of any material substance in Holy Rites, is utterly repugnant. In regard to the efficacy of prayer, Abammon is by no means equivocal or indefinite. He declares that it joins the Sacred Art in an indissoluble union with the divine beings. It leads the worshiper to direct contact and a genuine knowing of the divine nature. A bond of harmonious fellowship is created, and as a result there come gifts from the gods to us before a word is uttered, and our efforts are perfected before they are distinctly cognized. In the most perfect form of prayer the arcane union with the gods is reached, every certainty is assured, enabling our souls to repose perfectly therein. It attracts our habits of thought upward, and imparts to us power from the gods. In short it makes those who make use of it the intimate companions of the divine beings. It is easy to perceive, therefore, says Abammon, that these two, prayer and the other rites and offerings, are established by means of

each other, and give to each other the sacred initiating power of the Holy Rite. He denies the possibility of obtaining perfect foreknowledge by means of an emotional condition. This is a blending of the higher nature with corporeal and material quality, which results in dense ignorance. Hence it is not proper to accept an artificial method in divining, nor to hold any one making use of it in any great esteem. The Theurgos commands the powers of the universe, not as one using the faculties of a human soul, but as a person preexistent in the order of the divine beings, and one with them. The explanation of the use of foreign terms, not intelligible to the hearer, is noteworthy. "The gods have made known to us that the entire language of sacred nations, such as the Egyptians and Assyrians, is most suitable for religious matters; and we must believe that it behooves us to carry on our conferences with the gods in language natural to them." Names are closely allied to the things which they signify, and when translated they lose much of their power.* The foreign names have great significance, greater conciseness, and less uncertainty of meaning. The First Cause, the God Unknowable, is indicated in graphic language, "Before the things that really are and universal principles is one Divine Essence, prior even to the First God and King abiding immovable in his own absolute Oneness. For nothing thinkable is commingled with him, nor anything whatever; but he is established the antecedent of the God self-fathered, self-produced, sole Father, the Truly Good. For he is the Being greatest and first, the Origin of all things, and the foundation of the primal ideal forms which are produced by the Higher Intellect. From this One, the Absolute God radiated forth; hence he is the self-fathered and self-sufficient. For this is the First Cause and God of Gods, the Unity from out of the One, prior to Essence and the First Cause of Essence. For from him are both the quality of essence and essence itself - for which reason he is called the Chief Intelligence. These are therefore the oldest principles of all things." This is perhaps as plain and explicit as this subject can be made. The close resemblance to the Brahman of the Indian system, from whom proceeds Brahma the Creator, is apparent at a glance. Abammon cites also the Tablet of Hermes, which placed Emeph or Imopht at the head of the celestial divinities, and

----------* We may perhaps, see in this the ulterior reason why Brahmans choose the obsolete Sanskrit, Jews the Hebrew and Roman Catholics, the Latin in their religious services, saying nothing of the "unknown tongues," the use of which in religious services was so much deprecated by the Apostle Paul. We observe the same notion or superstition in the attachment witnessed for the word Jehovah, a term falsely literated in place id-the Assyrian divinity Yava or Raman. Even the Polychrome Bible transmits this idle whim by lettering the word as J H V H, which nobody can pronounce intelligently. -----------named a First Intelligence as before him and to be worshiped in silence. The Chaldaeans and also the Magians taught a similar doctrine. It being established that the Supreme Mind and the Logos or Reason subsist by themselves, it is manifest that all things existing, are from them - beginning with the One and proceeding to the many. There is a Trine: a pure Intelligence above and superior to the universe, an indivisible One in the universe, and another, the universal Life, that is divided and apportioned to all the spheres. Matter is also introduced into the circle, being evolved from the spiritual substance; and so, "materiality having been riven from essentiality on its lower side, and being full of vitality, the spheres and all living things are created and organized therefrom." Abammon has taken a view of Fate which though in many respects acceptable seems also to relate to the ruling of the nativity. It is not true, he insists, that every thing is bound with the indissoluble bonds of Necessity. The lowest natures only, which are combined with the changeable order of the universe, and with the body, are thus subjected. Man, however, has, so to speak, two souls: one that participates of the First Intelligence and the power of the Creator, and one from the astral worlds. The latter follows the motions of those worlds, but the former is above them, and therefore is not held by fate or allotment. There is another principle of the soul superior to all being and becoming to all, nature and nativity, through which we can be united to the gods, rise above the established order of the world, and participate in the life eternal and in the energy of the gods above the

heavens. Through this principle we are able to set ourselves free. For when the better qualities in us are active, and the Soul is led back again to the natures superior to itself, then it becomes entirely separated from every thing that held it fast to the -----------conditions of nativity, stands aloof from inferior natures, exchanges this life for the other, abandons entirely the former order of things, and gives itself to another." In regard to nativities, Abammon admits that the divine oracular art can teach us what is true in respect to the stars, but declares that we do not stand in any need of the enumeration prescribed by the Canons of astrology or those of the art of divining. That the astronomic predictions are verified by results, observations prove. But they do not relate to any recognition of the guardian demon. It is true, he remarks, that there is the lord of the house, as mathematicians or astrologists declare, and the demon bestowed by him. But the demon is not assigned to us from one part of the celestial world or from any planet. There is a personal allotment in us individually from all the universe, the life and corporeal substances in it, through which the soul descends into the genesis or objective existence. The demon is placed in the paradigm or ideal form, and the soul takes him for a leader. He immediately takes charge, filling the soul with the qualities of physical life, and when it has descended into the corporeal world, he acts as the guardian genius. When, however, we come, by the sacred initiation, to know God truly as the guardian and leader, the demon retires or surrenders his authority, or becomes in some way subordinate to God as his Overlord. Evil demons have nowhere an allotment as ruling principles, nor are they opposed to the good like one party against another, as though of equal importance. The "Last Word" includes a brief summary of the whole discourse. Abammon insists that there is no path to felicity and permanent blessedness apart from the worship of the Gods as here set forth. Divine inspiration alone imparts to us truly the divine life. Man, the Theotos,* endowed with perception, was thus united with Divinity in the beforetime by the epoptic vision of the Gods; but he entered into another kind of soul or disposition which was conformed to the human idea of form, and through it became in bondage to

Necessity and Fate. There can be no release and freedom from these except by the Knowledge of the Gods. For the idea or fundamental principle of blessedness is to apperceive Goodness; as the idea of evil exists with the forgetting of the Good and with being deceived in respect to evil. Let it be understood, then, that this knowledge of Good is the first and supreme path to felicity, affording to souls a mental abundance from the Divine One. This bestowing of felicity by the sacerdotal and theurgic ministration, is called by some the Gate to the Creator of the Universe, and by others the Place or Abode of the One Supremely Good. It first effects the unifying of the soul; then the restoring of the understanding to the participation and vision of the God, and its release from every thing of a contrary nature; and after these, union to the Gods, the bestowers of all benefits. When this has been accomplished, then it leads the Soul to the Universal Creator, gives it into his keeping and separates it from every thing material, uniting it with the one Eternal Reason. In short, it becomes completely established in the Godhead, endowed with its energy, wisdom, and Creative power. This is what is meant by the Egyptian priests when they, in the Book of the Dead, represent the Lord as becoming identified with Osiris; and, with such modifications as the changing forms of the various faiths have made, it may fairly be said to be the accepted creed of the religious world. (Un. Brotherhood, May, 1898) * The Beholder or Candidate looking upon the spectacles exhibited at the Initiatory Rites. -----------------SEERSHIP By Alexander Wilder, M.D. Dare I say: No spirit ever broke the band That stays him from the native land Where first he walked when clasped in day? No visual shade of some one lost, But he, the spirit himself, may come,

Where all the nerve of sense is dumb, Spirit to spirit, ghost to ghost. - Tennyson AS we become conscious of limitations there arises in us a desire to pass beyond them. The future, the invisible region of mind and energy, become themes of contemplation and curiosity. What has been denominated "superstition" has gained its place with human beings, far less from servile and abject impulse, than from incessant aspiration to learn the mysteries of life and its relations with the universe. We dread uncertainty more than the dangers that we comprehend. Much of the fear of death owes its existence to the consciousness that we must meet it individually by ourselves. Much that is experienced by persons in low state of health is due to the consciousness that the problem is to be realized alone with only uncertainty in view. Hence men have lived in all periods of history, who left in the background the ordinary considerations of personal ambition and advantage, and sought a higher wisdom and an interior communion with the potencies that influence the vicissitudes of life. Whether people were cultivated or still under crude conditions, it made little difference. In all communities alike, there have been men laboring earnestly to discern and resolve the problems of existence and destiny. The eager question of the age, "whence and whither?" comes up to anxious attention before other inquiries. Its solution has been sought eagerly through all times. It is the problem of every philosophy. In the multiplicity around us all that can be observed is, the outflow of events, a stream propelled by a lifeless force without aim, purpose, or benefit, from nowhence to nowhither. Justice, goodness, moral excellence, in such case would be but incidents in our own mortal existence, temporary accidents of consciousness brought to view by the attritions of every-day experience, but having little or no ulterior advantage. We are hurried to such a whirlpool of unrest and uncertainty by the specious reasonings of a sciolism which regards only apparent facts, but excludes the causes from examination. It has been easy to cast upon everything transcending the common knowledge, the imputation of being visionary and charlatanic. The fact has been overlooked that the very capacity to imagine the possibility of superior wonder-working power, is itself an

argument, perhaps actual proof, that they exist. If there are counterfeits of such powers, there is of necessity a genuine original from which they were copied. The critic, as well as the skeptic, is generally inferior to the person or subject that he reviews, and is therefore seldom a competent witness. He may be content, like the bat, to repudiate the existence of sunlight as beyond knowing, and circumscribe his belief and enquiries to his own night and twilight. True men, nevertheless, while discarding hallucinations and morbid hankerings, and employing caution in their exploration of all subjects within the scope of their comprehension, will always be ready to know concerning what is beyond. There is a faculty of the human soul, which is capable of being roused when the exigency arises for its manifestation. It is dormant during the period of immaturity and spiritual adolescence, and also while the attention is absorbed by matters of the external world. It is capable, however, of cultivation and development, till we are able to receive normally the communication of superior wisdom, and to perceive as by superhuman endowment what is good and true, as well as appropriate for the time. Some may suppose this to be a superior instinct; others, a supernatural power. Nevertheless, it may not always be exercised at will; whatever would force its revealments is very certain to close the perception. There is also constant need for discipline and experience in this as in other faculties. Our powers are limited, and it is more than possible to mistake hallucinations and vagaries of the mind for monitions and promptings from the interior world. "The mind is our divinity," says the poet Maenander. "It is placed with every individual to initiate him into the mysteries of life, and requires him in all things to be good." In this mind, this interior spirit in the soul, consists our power to apprehend the truth in any immediate, direct and intuitive manner. The faculty of intuition is a power which the mind possesses by virtue of its essential nature, kindred with Divinity itself. In its perfect development it is the instinct peculiar to each of us matured into unerring consciousness of right and wrong, and a conception equally vivid of the source and sequence of things. We may possess these powers by proper discipline and cultivation of ourselves. Justice in what we do, wisdom in our life, and love or unselfish charity and desire in our motives, are, therefore, of the greatest importance. These will bring us in due time to that higher insight and perception which seem as a child's instinct

to the possessor, but appear as an almost miraculous attainment to others. Inside of this faculty is everything that really pertains to the prophetic endowment and foreknowledge. Everything of which we conceive as past or future, is mirrored upon the tablet of the Supernal and Infinite and so as real fact is constantly present, an ever-being now. The individual whose perceptions are vivified to the necessary acuteness may thus know, and be able to predict what is to take place. Besides, there are spiritual beings - gods in a minor sense and exalted psychal natures, that are intermediary, capable of knowing such matters and imparting the knowledge to individuals that are still living on the earth. Sometimes the impressions which are made in such ways, are reflected upon the ganglial sensorium, and so become objective images which the seer may contemplate as being before his eyes. This is the case sometimes when they are associated with an individual, or some other object, at the time. The impression may, likewise, fall upon the auditory apparatus, and so be heard as a voice. So often did this occur in former times, that the Pythagoreans were astonished when they heard a person declare that he had never heard or seen a demon. Ancient writers in every nation have recounted examples of these manifestations. The Hebrew Scriptures abound with them. Ancient Palestine was a country of seers. In the second book of Kings are several accounts of wonderful seership which are amply illustrative. They may not be historic, and it is common usage to explain away and deny such things. Yet if there had not been occurrences of such a character, there would have been no such stories framed. The credulity of disbelievers is often very servile. In the narrative as it now appears Elisha the prophet* is described as entheastic, intuitive and clairvoyant. His peculiar faculty of insight is said to have been brought into activity on one occasion by the playing of a minstrel; and at other times when there were periods of extreme exigency. When the King of Syria made several treacherous attempts to capture and abduct the King of Israel, Elisha on each occasion warned the latter of his peril. The Syrian king was confounded; he had laid his plots privately and could only suppose that there was a secret agent of the King of Israel among his officers. One of them refuted the suspicion. "None of us," said he; "but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, declares to the king of Israel the very words that thou speakest in the inner part of thy bed-chamber."

----------* The Hebrew term is NABIA, an entheast or inspired person, an ecstatic. The term "prophet" more properly means, one who speaks for another. But the term has become the appellation of the Hebrew seers and sages, and we with reluctance employ it accordingly. ----------At another time the king of Syria, Ben Hadad, was prostrated with severe illness. Elisha chanced at this time to be in Damascus, and the king resolved to consult him as being clairvoyant, in relation to his prospects of recovery. Hazael, an officer of the court, was sent with costly presents, to obtain the oracular reply. Elisha declared the illness not mortal, but nevertheless predicted the death of the monarch. Then gazing intently upon the messenger, he wept bitterly. The astonished Hazael asked the reason of this. Elisha replied, depicting the ravages which Hazael was going to inflict upon his country and his terrible cruelty to the inhabitants. In vain did Hazael protest that he was a mere underling, and therefore unable to do anything of the sort. "What is thy servant, merely a dog, and not able to do anything so monstrous." Elisha sadly replied: "The Lord hath shown thee to me, king over Syria." Perhaps the best explanation of this subject is given by Apollonios, of Tyana. Like Paracelsus of later centuries, this distinguished man has been described in terms of foulest calumny. But his words are explicit. "I take very little food," says he; "and this abstinence maintains my senses unimpaired, so that I can see the present and the future as in a clear mirror. The sage has no occasion to wait for the vapors of the earth and the corruption of the air to develop plagues and epidemic fevers; he must know them later than God, but earlier than common men. The gods (or superior essences) see the future; common men see the present; sages that which is about to take place. This mode of life produces such an acuteness of the senses, or else it is a distinct faculty, that the greatest and most remarkable things may be performed. I am perfectly convinced, therefore, that God reveals his intentions, to pure and wise men." Volumes have been filled with records of this wonderful power. To reject them would be to discard the faith, the observations, the experiences of every race of humankind. It would be an

unfaithfulness and infidelity to truth itself, which a truth-seeking mind cannot afford. The universe of apparent facts cannot wholly eclipse the cosmos of reality. If foreknowledge is possessed by the Deity, somewhat of it may be imparted to others. To be sure, it is an interior perceptivity, and not to be learned from textbooks, but is a something to be discerned when the external senses are silent. But the counsel of Sokrates to Aristodemos is pertinent and deserving of attention: "Render thyself deserving of some of these divine secrets which may not be penetrated by man, but which are imparted to those who consult, who adore, who obey the Deity." There are, and there will be, intuitions into this world of ours from the regions beyond, and there is certain to be a sensibility to occult forces developed which will enable the key to be used by which to understand the whole matter. (The Word, July, 1906) --------------PORPHYRY AND HIS TEACHINGS. by Professor Alexander Wilder, M.D. THE distinction is due to Porphyry of having been the most able and consistent champion and exponent of the Alexandreian School. He was a native of Tyre, of Semitic extraction, and was born in the year 233, in the reign of the Emperor Alexander Severus. He was placed at an early age under the tutelage of Origen, the celebrated Christian philosopher, who had himself been a pupil of Ammonios Sakkas. Afterward he became a student of Longinus at Athens, who had opened a school of rhetoric, literature and philosophy. Longinus had also been a disciple of Ammonios, and was distinguished as the Scholar of the Age. He was often called a "Living Library," and the "Walking School of Philosophy." He afterward became the counsellor of Queen Zenobia of Palmyra, an honor that finally cost him his life. Longinus foresaw the promise of his pupil, and according to a custom of the time, changed his Semitic name of Melech (king) to Porphyrios, or wearer of the purple. In his thirtieth year, Porphyry bade farewell to his teachers in Greece and became a student in the school of Plotinos at Rome.

Here he remained six years. Plotinos greatly esteemed him and often employed him to instruct the younger pupils, and to answer the questions of objectors. On one of the occasions, when the anniversary of Plato's Birthday was celebrated (the seventh of May), Porphyry recited a poem entitled The Sacred Marriage. Many of the sentiments in it were mystic and occult, which led one of the company to declare him crazed. Plotinos, however, was of another mind, and exclaimed in delight: "You have truly shown yourself to be at once a Poet, a Philosopher, and a Hierophant." That Porphyry was an enthusiast and liable to go to extremes was to be expected. He acquired an abhorrence of the body, with its appetites and conditions, and finally began to entertain an intention to commit suicide. This, he says, "Plotinos wonderfully perceived, and as I was walking alone, he stood before me and said: 'Your present design, Porphyrios, is by no means the dictate of a sound mind, but rather of a Soul raging with the furor of melancholia.'" Accordingly, at his direction, Porphyry left Rome and became a resident at Lilybaeum in Sicily. There he presently recovered a normal state of mind and health. He never again saw his venerated instructor. Plotinos, however, kept up a correspondence with him, sending him manuscripts to correct and put in good form, and encouraging him to engage in authorship on his own account. After the death of Plotinos, he returned to Rome and became himself a teacher. With a temperament more active and practical than that of Plotinos, with more various ability and far more facility in adaptation, with an erudition equal to his fidelity, blameless in his life, preeminent in the loftiness and purity of his ethics, he was well fitted to do all that could be done toward drawing for the doctrines he had espoused that reputation and that wider influence to which Plotinos was so indifferent.'' [R. A. Vaughan.] It was his aim to exalt worship to its higher ideal, casting off superstitious notions and giving a spiritual sense and conception to the Pantheon, the rites and the mythologic legends. What is vulgarly denominated idolatry, paganism and polytheism, had little countenance in his works, except as thus expounded. He emulated Plotinos, who on being asked why he did not go to the temple and take part in the worship of the gods, replied: "It is for the gods to conic to me." When he lived, the new Christian religion was gaining a foothold, particularly among the Greek-speaking peoples, and its teachers appear to have been intolerant even to the extreme of

bigotry. The departure from established customs was so flagrant as to awaken in the Imperial Court vivid apprehensions of treasonable purposes. Similar apprehensions had led the Roman Senate to suppress the Bacchic Nocturnal Rites; and energetic measures had also been employed in the case of the flagitious enormities in the secret worship of the Venus of Kotytto. The nightly meetings of the Christians were represented to be of a similar character. This led to vigorous efforts for their suppression. Porphyry, though broad in his liberality, was strenuous in his opposition to their doctrines, and wrote fifteen treatises against them. These were afterward destroyed in the proscription by Theodosios, without any attempt to answer them. He was equally suspicious of the Theurgic doctrines and magic rites. The sacrifice of men and animals, for sacrifice and divination, was resolutely discountenanced as attracting evil demons. "A right opinion of the gods and of things themselves," he declared, "is the most acceptable sacrifice." "Very properly," said he, "will the philosopher who is also the priest of the God that is above all, abstain from all animal food, in consequence of earnestly endeavoring to approach through himself alone to the alone God, without being disturbed by anything about him." This was the very core of the Neo-Platonic doctrine. "This," says Plotinos, "this is the life of the Gods, and of divine and blessed human beings - a liberation from earthly concerns, a life unaccompanied by human delights, and a flight of the alone to the Alone." "He who is truly a philosopher," adds Porphyry, "is an observer and skilled in many things; he understands the works of nature, is sagacious, temperate and modest, and is in every respect the savior and preserver of himself." "Neither vocal language nor is internal speech adapted to the Most High God, when it is defiled by any passion of the soul; but we should venerate him in silence with a pure soul, and with pure conceptions about him." "It is only requisite to depart from evil, and to know what is most honorable in the whole of things, and then everything in the universe is good, friendly and in alliance with us." "Nature, being herself a spiritual essence, initiates those through the superior Mind (noos) who venerate her." Although himself believing in divination and communion with spiritual

essences, Porphyry distrusted the endeavor to blend philosophic contemplation with magic arts, or orgiastic observances. This is manifest in his Letter to Anebo the Egyptian prophet in which he demands full explanations respecting the arts of evoking the gods and demons, divining by the stars and other agencies, the Egyptian belief respecting the Supreme Being, and what was the true path to Blessedness. Although we read of no formal schism, there appear to have been two distinct parties - that of the Theurgists represented by Iamblichos, Proklos and their followers, and the disciples of Porphyry, Hypatia, and other teachers, who inculcated that there is an intuitive perception cognate in the soul, and that there may be a union and communion with Divinity by ecstasy and suspension of corporeal consciousness. "By his conceptions,'' says Porphyry, had Plotinos, assisted by the divine light raised himself to the First God beyond, and by employing for this purpose the paths narrated by Plato in The Banquet, there appeared to him the Supreme Divinity who has neither any form nor idea, but is established above Mind and every Spiritual Essence: to whom also, I, Porphyry, say that I once approached, and was united when I was sixty-eight years of age. For the end and scope with Plotinos consisted in approximating and being united to the God who is above all. Four times he obtained this end while I was with him (in Rome) and this by an ineffable energy and not in capacity." Porphyry lived till the reign of Diocletian, dying in his seventieth year. He had given the later Platonism a well-defined form, which was retained for centuries. Even after the change of the State religion, the whole energy of the Imperial Government was required to crush it. Even when Justinian arbitrarily closed the school at Athens, and the teachers had escaped to the Persian king for safety, there were still adherents in secret to their philosophy. Afterward, too, they came forth in Oriental Sufism and Western Mysticism, and retained their influence till the present time. Among the works of Porphyry which have escaped destruction, are his treatise on "Abstinence from Animal Food," nearly entire, the "Cave of the Nymphs," "Auxiliaries to the Study of Intelligible (Spiritual) Natures," "The Five Voices," "Life of Plotinos," "Letter to Anebo," "Letter to his Wife Marcella," "The River Styx," "Homeric Ouestions," "Commentaries on the Harmonies of Ptolemy." His other

books were destroyed by order of Theodosios. The "Cave of the Nymphs'' is described in the Odyssey as situate in the island of Ithaca. The term is figurative and the story allegoric. The ancients dealt much in allegory; and the Apostle Paul does not hesitate to declare the story of the patriarch Abraham and his two sons allegory, and that the exodus of the Israelites through the sea and into the Arabian desert was a narrative made up of types or figures of speech. Caves symbolized the universe, and appear to have been the sanctuaries of archaic time. It is said that Zoroaster consecrated one to Mithras as the Creator; and that Kronos concealed his children in a cave; and Plato describes this world as a cave and prison. Demeter and her daughter Persephone, each were worshiped in caves. Grottos once used for worship abound in Norway. Mark Twain asserts that the "sacred places'' in Palestine were located by the Catholics, and are all of them caves. The initiation rites were performed in caves, or apartments representing subterranean apartments, with "a dim religious light." Zeus and Bacchus were nursed in such places. The Mithraic worship which was adopted from the Persians, and carried all through the Roman world, had its initiations in Sacred Caverns. To the caves were two entrances, one for mortals at the north and one for divine beings at the south. The former was for souls coming from the celestial world to be born as human beings, and the other for their departure from this world heavenward. An olive-tree standing above, expressed the whole enigma. It typified the divine wisdom, and so implied that this world was no product of chance, but the creation of wisdom and divine purpose. The Nymphs were also agents in the same category. Greek scholars will readily comprehend this. The nymphs presided over trees and streams of water, which also are symbols of birth into this world. Numphe signifies a bride, or marriageable girl; numpheion a marriage-chamber; numpheuma an espousal. Water was styled numphe as significant of generation. In short the Cave of the Nymphs, with the olive-tree, typified the world with souls descending from the celestial region to be born into it, in an order established by Divine Wisdom itself. Thus we may see that the ancient Rites, and Notions, now stigmatized as idolatrous, were but eidola or visible representations of arcane and spiritual concepts. As they were once observed with pure reverence, it becomes us to regard them with respect. What is accounted holy can not be altogether impure.

The treatise on Animal Food covers a very broad field which space forbids the traversing. The point in view is of course, that a philosopher, a person in quest of a higher life and higher wisdom, should live simply, circumspectly, and religiously forbear to deprive his fellow-animals of life for his food. Even for sacrifice he regards the immolating of men or animals repugnant to the nature of Gods, and attractive only to lower races of spiritual beings. He, however, leaves those engaged in laborious callings entirely out. His discourse, he declares, "is not directed to those who are occupied in sordid mechanical arts, nor to those engaged in athletic exercises; neither to soldiers, nor sailors, nor rhetoricians, nor to those who lead an active life, but I write to the man who considers what he is, whence he came, and whither he ought to tend." "The end with us is to obtain the contemplation of Real Being [the essence that really is]; the attainment of it procuring, as much as is possible for us, a union of the person contemplating with the object of contemplation. The re-ascent of the soul is not to anything else than to True Being itself. Mind [noos] is truly-existing being; so that the end is, to live a life of mind." Hence purification and felicity (endaimonia) are not attained by a multitude of discussions and disciplines, nor do they consist in literary attainments but on the other hand we should divest ourselves of everything of a mortal nature which we assumed by coming from the eternal region into the mundane condition, and likewise of a tenacious affection for it, and should excite and call forth our recollection of that blessed and eternal essence from which we issued forth. "Animal food does not contribute to temperance and frugality, or to the piety which especially gives completion to the contemplative life, but is rather hostile to it." Abstinence neither diminishes our life nor occasions living unhappily. The Pythagoreans made lenity toward beasts to be an exercise of philanthropy and commiseration. The Egyptian priests generally employed a slender diet, generally abstaining from all animals, some even refusing to eat eggs, and "they lived free from disease." So, Hesiod described the men of the Golden Age. The essay on Intelligible or Spiritual Natures is in the form of aphorisms, and gives the cream of the Later Platonism. We can select only a few of the sentiments. Every body is in place; but

things essentially incorporeal are not present with bodies by personality and essence. They, however, impart a certain power to bodies through verging towards them. The soul is an entity between indivisible essence, and the essence about bodies. The mind or spirit is indivisible, or whole. The soul is bound to the body through the corporeal passions and is liberated by becoming impassive. Nature bound the body to the soul; but the soul binds itself to the body. Hence there are two forms of death: one that of the separating of soul and body, and that of the philosopher, the liberating of the soul from the body. This is the death which Sokrates describes in the Phaedo. The knowing faculties are sense, imagination, and mind or spirit. Sense is of the body, imagination of the soul, but mind is selfconscious and apperceptive. Soul is an essence without magnitude, immaterial, incorruptible, possessing its existence in life, and having life from itself. The properties of matter are thus set forth: It is incorporeal; it is without life, it is formless, infinite, variable and powerless; it is always becoming and in existence; it deceives; it resembles a flying mockery eluding all pursuit, and vanishing into non-entity. It appears to be full, yet contains nothing. "Of that Being that is beyond Mind many things are asserted through intellection; but it is better surveyed by a cessation of intellectual activity than with it. The similar is known by the similar; because all knowledge is an assimilation to the object of knowledge." "The bodily substance is no impediment whatever to that which is essentially incorporeal, to prevent it from being where and in such a way as it wishes to be." An incorporeal nature, a soul, if contained in a body is not enclosed in it like a wild beast in a cage; nor is it contained in it as a liquid in a receptacle. Its conjunction with body is effected by means of an ineffable extension from the eternal region. It is not liberated by the death of the body, but it liberates itself by turning itself from a tenacious affection to the body. God is present everywhere because he is nowhere; and this is also true of Spirit and Soul. Each of these is everywhere because each is nowhere. As all beings and non-beings are from and in God, hence he is neither beings nor non-beings, nor does he subsist in them. For if he was only everywhere he could be all things and in all; but since he is likewise nowhere, all things are produced through him, and are contained in him because he is everywhere. They are,

however, different from him, because he is nowhere. Thus, likewise, mind or spirit being everywhere and nowhere, is the cause of souls, and of the natures posterior to souls; yet mind is not soul, nor the natures posterior to soul, nor does it subsist in them; because it is not only everywhere, but also nowhere with respect to the natures posterior to it. Soul, also, is neither body nor in body, but it is the cause of body because being everywhere, it is also nowhere with respect to body. In its egress from the body if it still possesses a spirit and temper turbid from earthly exhalations, it attracts to itself a shadow and becomes heavy. It then necessarily lives on the earth. When, however, it earnestly endeavors to depart from nature, it becomes a dry splendor, without a shadow, and without a cloud or mist. Virtues are of two kinds, political and contemplative. The former are called political or social, as looking to an in-noxious and beneficial association with others. They consist of prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice. These adorn the mortal man, and are the precursors of purification. "But the virtues of him who proceeds to the contemplative life, consist in a departure from terrestrial concerns. Hence, also, they are denominated purifications, being surveyed in the refraining from corporeal activities, and avoiding sympathies with the body. For these are the virtues of the soul elevating itself to true being." He who has the greater virtues has also the less, but the contrary is not true. When it is asserted that incorporeal being is one, and then added that it is likewise all, it is signified that it is not some one of the things which are cognized by the senses. The scope of the political virtues is to give measure to the passions in their practical operations according to nature. He who acts or energizes according to the practical virtues is a worthy man; he who lives according to the purifying virtues is an angelic man, or good demon; he who follows the virtues of the mind or spirit alone is a god; he who follows the exemplary virtues is father of gods." In this life we may obtain the purifying virtues which free us from body and conjoin us to the heavens. But we are addicted to the pleasures and pains of sensible things, in conjunction with a promptitude to them, from which disposition it is requisite to be purified. "This will be effected by admitting necessary pleasures and the sensations of them, merely as remedies or as a liberation from pain, in order that the higher nature may not be impeded in its operations." In short, the

doctrines of Porphyry, like those of the older philosophers, teach that we are originally of heaven, but temporarily become inhabitants of the earth; and that the end of the true philosophic life, is to put off the earthly proclivities, that we may return to our primal condition. (Un. Brotherhood, Nov., 1897) -----------THE CHILDREN OF CAIN by Alexander Wilder A GENEROUS but eccentric Scotch clergyman, when naming the subjects of prayer for one Sunday morning, added: "And now, let us pray for the De'il; naebody prays for the puir De'il." The character whom we are about to consider is in like predicament, hopelessly aliened from every one's sympathy. Cain, the reputed first-born son* of Adam, lies under the reproach of thousands of years as having introduced murder and rapine into the world, and led the way in the general perverting of mankind. So deeply rooted is this notion that many would regard the attempt to remove the imputation as almost a sacrilege. Even to venture to lighten the burden of obloquy which rests upon his name would be accounted by them as preposterous. Nevertheless this would be feeble as an excuse for neglect to take a rational, impartial and intelligent view of the matter. There is, for candid and reasonable persons, a wider field to occupy than the narrow domain of thinking which is hedged about on every side by prejudice, or servile fear. There may be good reason for some other judgment. -----------* The Assyrian term here signifies the first-born. -----------In fact it is hardly possible to regard the account of Cain as a simple historic narrative setting forth events literally as they occurred. This would raise questions for which there is no adequate satisfactory explanation. The Supreme Being himself is described as having characteristics not consistent with our more enlightened

apprehension. He shows only displeasure, and neither charity nor mercy. We are forcibly reminded of the bitter sarcasm which Byron has put in the mouth of Faliero in response to the pleading of his wife: "Angiolina. - Heaven bids us forgive our enemies. "Doge. - Doth Heaven forgive her own? Is Satan saved From wrath eternal?" Nevertheless, we are by no means disposed to consider the story as merely an archaic legend, or some fugitive piece of folk-lore, deserving of no further attention. These fables and mythic narratives have a deeper meaning than the mere child or unlettered person may apprehend. We will, therefore, examine the matter and endeavor to learn whether it does not contain profounder knowledge. We have a precedent for so doing in the writings of the Apostle Paul. He cites the account of the two sons of Abraham and their respective mothers, and declares it an allegory. He also affirms that the exodus, adventures, and experiences of the Israelites in the Arabian Desert were types or figures, and written for admonition. It is certainly as rational and reasonable to interpret the story of the sons of Adam according to the same principles. It is evidently a kind of parable, which symbolizes in a concrete form some important period in history. The mode of telling the story is one that seems to have been common in ancient times. We may, therefore, consider it as a kind of parable setting forth in an enigmatic form a particular period in development. Thus it may represent a condition, such as is described in the Avesta, when the region indicated in the account was occupied by two classes of inhabitants, the one pastoral and the other consisting of cultivators of the soil. There would inevitably be collisions between them, and eventually, as has always been the result, the agriculturist overcomes and destroys the shepherd. When this has been accomplished, the way is opened for the introduction of the arts of civilized life. This is signified by the record that Cain built a city. With this explanation, there is no occasion for idle and curious questions, as in regard to the wife of Cain or where the inhabitants of the new city were obtained. The legend is wholly isolated from such problems. It relates to peoples and social conditions rather than to individuals. The concept actually involved is nothing less than that of transition from nomadic and isolated life to civic and neighborly

relations. Civilization signifies the condition of living in society, and hence implies provident foresight, mutual dependence, refinement of manners and mental culture. Accordingly we read of the posterity of Cain, that one was the father or eponymic patron of herdsmen, and another of those who handle the harp and the organ, while another is described as "the instructor of every artificer in brass and iron." Thus in the account of Cain and his children, it is very plain that we have an archaic tradition of a developing civilization. It presents analogies to the legend of Prometheus. The famous Titan, we are told, being impelled by pity and affection, gave fire and enlightenment to mankind, teaching to build houses, to employ the labor of cattle, to mine and smelt the metallic ores, to make use of writing, to master the sciences, to treat diseases, and to exercise each useful art. Like Cain, he likewise fell under the anger of Divinity. Zeus, who had then but recently come to supreme power in the universe, regarded these acts as nothing less than defiance of his authority. He caused the offender to be expelled from the inhabited earth to distant Skythic land, there to be pinioned to a rock for ages, suffering incredible torments, and subject to universal hatred and scorn. May we not guess that the story of Cain and his punishment have been derived from parallel sources? THE KENITES. We find repeated mentions elsewhere in the Hebrew writings of a tribe or people whose name and characteristics are strikingly suggestive of affiliation to the personages of the book of Genesis. The Kenites, or Cainites, as the term correctly would read, are represented as possessing many characteristics, like Jabal and Jubal, of the progeny of Cain; dwelling in tents, and being endowed with superior learning and skill. Moses, the Hebrew lawgiver is recorded as marrying the daughter of Reuel or Jethro, a Kenite priest, and living with him forty years prior to the exodus front Egypt. It is further declared that Jethro visited the Israelitish encampment in the Sinaitic peninsula, and celebrated sacrificial rites with him and with the Elders of Israel. This indicates that there were initiations and occult observances of a kindred nature on that occasion. It is only stated, however, that Jethro gave counsel and that Moses "did all that he said." But it is very evident that in this connection, and indeed in other parts of the Bible, there is much to be "read between the lines." The intimate association between the Kenites and Israelites

appears to have continued for several centuries. A son of Jethro is mentioned as being the guide of the tribes while journeying in the desert, and as residing for a season with his clan at Jericho. They afterward removed into the Southern district of the territory of Judah. They appear to have had a great influence upon the Mosaic institutions. The Rechabites, or Scribes, who constituted a learned class, belonged to them, and from their adoption of tent-life and abstinence from wine, the Nazarites would seem to be in some way related to that people. A memorandum in the first book of Chronicles seems to afford some light upon these matters. The writer enumerates the various clans and families of Kirjath-Jearim, Bethlehem, and "Scribes which dwelt at Jabez," and includes them in the summary: "These are the Kenites that came of Hemath, the father of the house of Rechab." * We will here remark by way of digression that during the earlier centuries of the present era the genesis and character of Cain were themes of much curious speculation. A party in the Christian world, now generally designated the Gnostics, held the Jewish Oracles in low esteem, placing higher value on philosophic learning and Oriental wisdom. One group, the "Cainites," boldly declared that Cain was a personage superior to other men, and that he was illuminated by the superior knowledge. They found some pretext for their belief in the declaration of Eve that he was "a man from the Lord," while Seth, who is represented as superseding him, was begotten after the image and likeness of Adam only, and significantly bore the name of the Satan or Typhon of Egypt. -----------* This term "Rechab" is probably a title rather than the name of a person. It is translated "chariot," and evidently denotes the merchaba or vehicle of wisdom. It is applied by Elisha to Elijah, and by King Joash to Elisha: "the rechab of Israel and its guide or pharisi. In this connection it may be not amiss to notice also the term pharisi. It would seem no strained assumption that the Pharisees derived from it their appellation as guides or interpreters of the law. They were students of occult rabbinical learning. The pun in the denunciation of Jesus may be readily perceived: "Ye blind guides, who strain out the gnat but swallow the camel." -----------

It is certain, as has been already shown, that the compilers of the Hebrew Sacred Writings conceded to Cain and his descendants all the profounder culture and proficiency in the arts. Why they so generally represent the younger persons in a family as being superior in moral and physical excellence, and supplanting the elder, may have been for the sake of assigning honorable rank to their own people, one of the latest that had appeared among the nations. They were compelled, however, to acknowledge, however reluctantly, that their Idumaean adversaries excelled in wisdom, and that the Promethean gifts which had enabled the world to attain its eminence of culture and enlightenment were derived front the sources which they decried. THE KAYANIAN KINGS. It is very probable, however, that the legend of Cain came from a different source, and that it should, in many of its particulars, have a somewhat different interpretation. Doctor Oort declares it quite conceivable that it is from a Persian origin. We may, in such case, seek our clews in the farther East, for an elucidation of the problem which shall be plausible and reasonable. The Persian records and traditions inform us that prior to the Achaemenian dynasty, the Medes and Persians were governed by monarchs of a race which they denominate Kayan,** or Sacred. It was during the period of their rule that the great Schism took place between the Eranians and their Aryan congeners. ---------** The probability here intimated is greatly assured by this similarity of names. It is a common practice which has been carried to an extreme, to add letters to Oriental words when transferring them to a European language. In the case now before us, the term KIN has been vocalized in the Bible as Cain; and KAYAN is the same word in which this practice has been carried a little further. ----------By reference to the Avesta and other accounts it appears that the Aryans of the "prehistoric period" were pastoral and nomadic like the present inhabitants of Turkestan. After a time, a part of their number, the Eranians, becoming cultivators of the soil and dwellers in villages, formed separate communities. All evolutions in human

society are primarily religious in character. A new religious system was accordingly developed in Eran. It appears to have attained a matured form in the reign of Vistaspa, one of the most illustrious monarchs of the Kayanian dynasty. Zoroaster, the first who bore the designation, flourished at this period, and with the approval of the king, succeeded in molding the new Mazdean religion into a concrete body of forms and dogmas, with a well-defined form of initiation. After a prolonged period of contention, the "Deva-worshiping" Aryans had made their way to the Punjab, and the dominion of the Eranians had become extended over Persia and into Media and beyond. The first chapters of the Hebrew Scriptures appear to relate to events of this time and it appears plausible and probable that such was the fact. The story of the Garden of Eden is almost undeniably a contribution from Eastern literature; and the killing of Abel seems to represent the overthrow of the worship and worshippers of Bel by the Eranians. The name of Cain would then be derived from the Kayan dynasty that had given shape to the Persian nationality. It is not necessary in propounding this hypothesis, to make the other details harmonize literally with historic events. We must note, however, in this connection, that such names as Silent, Nimrod and Cush, which are found in the book of Genesis, have their counterparts in this region, - in Khusistan the country of the Kossaians, the Nimri tribes of Mount Zagros, and Shamas the sun-god. These verbal resemblances can not well be considered as accidental. It is by no means wonderful or unusual, that history and personal reputation are often marred by vilifying writers. Books of history and even of drama are often written with partisan ends and calumny. Neither Macbeth nor Richard III. deserved the imputations that have been cast upon them. With every event there is a shade which enables misrepresentation to seem the true picture. The Bahman-Yasht is a book of the later Parsism, and contains a compendium of the trials and conflicts of the "true religion" from the time of Zoroaster to the end. It delineates the sufferings endured from the Mussulmans, who sought to exterminate the Mazdean faith by massacre, and finally drove thousands from their country. The writer of this Apocalypse, following in the wake of other prophets, foretells deliverance at the last. A prince of the Kayan race will arise, he declares, who having attained the age of thirty years, the age of man's maturity, will take up arms against the oppressor of the people of Ahurmazda. All India and China, he affirms, will rally to his

standard as did the Eranians when Gava raised the banner of the blacksmith's apron against the ferocious serpent-king Zahak. Then the Mazda-yasnian religion - "the pure thought, pure word and pure deed" - will be triumphant, and a reign of blessedness will be established. Whichever theory we may accept, this legend of Cain affords us an interesting concept of human evolution. Harsh as the necessity appears, the process of development has always been characterized by conflict, which was often analogous to the slaying of a brother. We have the picture before us of Conservatism like the easy-going shepherd with his flocks, idle but ready to slaughter its lambs for sacrifice, and casting aspersions upon the laborious worker who offers the fruits of his own industry, and pollutes no altar-hearth with blood. There is no need, however, for fear that the ulterior result will be other than right. The Divine is divine in so far as it is just. (Un. Brotherhood, March, 1898) ---------------THE APOSTLE PAUL By Alexander Wilder, M.D. WHEN we accept the historic account of the origin and early promulgation of the Christian faith, we are required by consistency to ascribe its early promulgation chiefly to the apostle Paul. His Epistle to his disciples in Galatia is the oldest record which we possess of all the booklets of the New Testament, and the statements which are there made are positive and unequivocal. The Gospel which had been proclaimed by him, he affirms, was not by any human authorization. He did not receive it nor was he taught it by a man, but only by revelation of Jesus Christ. He is very strenuous accordingly in regard to its absolute genuineness. He will compromise nothing. What others were teaching was not the true doctrine. They were creating agitation and actually desiring to transform the gospel itself. "But," says he, "if we or an angel out from heaven teach a gospel different from what has been proclaimed to you, let him be anathema. As we have said before I now say again. If any one proclaims to you a gospel other than what you have already received let him be

anathema." He was not seeking to obtain the approbation of anybody. That would be virtual apostasy. He does not, however, claim to have been a pioneer apostle. There were those, he acknowledges, who were apostles before him. They, however, had made no schism or faction in the Jewish religion. But they assembled weekly in the synagogue, they worshiped in the temple at Jerusalem and continued Jews in every sense of the term. James the Just, the head of the congregation, is mentioned by the Rabbi Eliezar ben Hyrkainus as "a man of Kephar-Sekania, one of the pupils of Jesus of Nazareth." He and his associates believed, as did other Israelites, in the obligatory character of the Law of Moses and adhered tenaciously to the technical ceremonies. Indeed, it is apparent that neither Jesus nor the apostles had ever planned to establish a sect apart from orthodox Judaism. The Gospels, it is true, contain many accounts of disputes between Jesus and the Jewish teachers, "the Scribes and Pharisees," but unless where the contrary is expressed, these disputes are hardly conclusive evidence of ill will. They were of frequent occurrence between rival teachers, and the presuming of profound animosity is rather far-fetched. There is no protest anywhere in the synoptic Gospels against Judaism itself, but an averment that the new evangel was to "the household of Israel" in preference to every other people. The denunciations which have been recorded as spoken by Jesus, are made against distorted interpretations of the precepts of the Law, and also the "traditions of the Elders," which, it was declared, actually annulled the whole authority of the commandment.* Hence Jesus is described as sanctioning their instructions, but disapproving their habitual conduct. "For they say and do not," he alleges; "they strain out the gnat and swallow the camel." Hence he styles them hypocrites or actors, who represent persons in a drama, but do nothing themselves which the drama signifies. Nevertheless, Josephus has imputed amiable characteristics to the Pharisees, as possessing a philosophic disposition, gentle and averse to severity in judicial administration. In all these respects they differed from the Saddueees, who constituted the nobility, including the priests and Levites and were domineering, arrogant, greedy of power and cruel.** While diligently attentive to the ceremonial forms of public

worship, they ignored belief in a future state, or the existence of spiritual beings. There appear to have been two quite distinct parties among the Pharisees, the Zealots, followers of Shammai, and the disciples of Hillel. There were those also who were held in high esteem by Herod. It is probable that by having these distinctions in mind we will obtain correcter views of the statements in the Gospels. While Jesus is represented as freely criticising and even denouncing the Scribes and Pharisees, many of the important utterances accredited to him in the "Sermon on the Mount" and elsewhere, are to be found, sometimes almost literally in the writings and utterances of the Rabbis. -----------* Mishits Sanhedrin, xi. 5: "The words of the Scribes are more beloved than the words of the Law." Talmud Yerushalmi, vi, 6: "The words of the Elders must be observed more strictly than the words of the Prophets." ** Probably deriving their designation from Simeon Zadok or Simon the Just, the high priest in the reign of the earlier Ptolemie, who rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem, and restored public worship. See Acts vi. 7. -----------The Rev. Doctor T. M. Wise, in his treatise on the early history of Christianity, states that the apostles, several years after the death of Jesus, returned from Galilee and established a Sanhedrin among themselves over which Peter and John, and afterward James the Just, presided. The scholastic anarchy that prevailed among the Jews had so weakened the authority of the existing body as to render such action a matter of little difficulty. His authority for this statement is not known to the writer, but he was a thorough scholar, and of indisputable veracity. The apostle Paul was never an agent of the disciples at Jerusalem. His history as given by himself to the Galatians we must consider to be the most authentic. He was originally a zealous advocate of Judaism, and especially of its traditions. In the speeches attributed to him, he declares that he was a pupil of Gamaliel, the son of Hillel, and himself a Zealot and Pharisee. "I persecuted the church of God beyond all moderation," he confesses. His change of views

was caused, he declares, by the revelation of Jesus Christ. God had separated him from his birth, and called him. When, therefore, God had revealed his Son in him in order that he should proclaim him among the different peoples, he did not take a human being into counsel over the matter, nor go up to Jerusalem to the apostles, but went into Arabia, and came back to Damascus, thus passing three years. Then he went to Jerusalem to communicate with Kephas, seeing no one else but James, the brother of Jesus. After this he spent some time in Syria and his native country in Cilicia. It was then, we are told in the later narrative, that he was brought by Barnabas from home to Antioch. Stephen had been put to death at Jerusalem, by authority of the High Priest and Sanhedrin. He had proclaimed a more liberal and exalted view of religious matters than was allowed. Directly afterward followed a persecution of those who cherished his sentiments, who, indeed, were of the Greek-speaking Jews from other countries. They left Jerusalem and hurried home where they proclaimed their new belief. In this way, it is related, there was a large community of disciples established at Antioch. Paul was willing to receive them without regard to nationality or conformity to Jewish customs. Here his disciples, we are told, first received the designation of Christians. They were recognized as a distinct company from the population around them. Antioch had been the metropolis of the Asian dominion and was still a centre of influence socially and intellectually. It was also a focus of religious influence. Barnabas and Paul afterward became its apostles or missionaries to promulgate the new doctrine over Asia Minor and the West. Alexandria appears to have been a distinct field of which little has been preserved. Its school and library had served the purposes of a World's university, and teachers as well as pupils had resorted to it from all regions. The Oriental Theosophy was engrafted on current doctrinal systems, and the result was the development of composite schools of various shades of opinion designated the Gnosis or Superior knowledge. The Jewish influence is vividly perceptible and we find the Wisdom literature appearing in the presentation of the Logos under the several characteristics of Creator, Redeemer, and the Christ; the whole being curiously interwrought in a complex genealogy. There are widely varying accounts of the antagonism which existed between Paul and the leading men at Jerusalem. The

narrative of the Acts of the Apostles was evidently written at a later period when it was desired to efface the remembrance of the matter. It states that Paul and Barnabas had made their tour through Asia minor, founding congregations and providing for their orderly administration, and were engaged as before at Antioch. Here their work was interrupted by teachers from Judea who demanded strict conforming to the law of Moses, as was required of other converts to Judaism. Neither Paul nor Barnabas would accede to this, and went with a delegation to Jerusalem for a final decision. The result was a compromise, the only requirement described by the writer being the utter rejection of certain pagan customs and practices. Paul describes this journey to Jerusalem as having been made after fourteen years of missionary service. He was not without apprehension in regard to the acceptableness of his work, and first of all showed the leading men in a private interview the Gospel which he had been promulgating. But this by no means exempted him from unfriendly controversy. There were "false brethren," Pharisees, who came stealthily to pry into the matter and subject the foreign converts to Jewish usages. "We did not give up our ground to them by submission or compromise, not even an hour," Paul declares. Meanwhile, those to whom he had confided his Gospel, made no criticism or consequence. On the contrary, observing the condition of matters with the non-Judean believers, they simply conceded that Paul and Barnabas might be apostles in that field, while they themselves remained with the believers who still adhered to Judaic usages. They only stipulated that the "poor," the Ebionites of Jerusalem, should be remembered, which Paul was forward to promise. This agreement, however, he describes as only putting off the inevitable clash. Kephas paid a visit to Antioch, and for a time associated with the Christians there as one of their number, eating with them without question. But others coming from James, he was afraid and separated from them. The rest of the Jews in the congregation also withdrew from association with their fellowbelievers, and even Barnabas was swayed by their example and carried away by the same hypocrisy. From that time he ceased to be a fellow-laborer in the new movement. But Paul never regained the lost influence. Paul, thus deserted, did not hesitate to berate Kephas before them all. "I withstand him to the face," says he, "because he was in the wrong."

First he challenged him for his double dealing, and, he then repudiated the Law as a means for the development of the higher life; declaring that if righteousness could be produced by it, the ministry of Jesus had been unnecessary. The few writings which may be attributed to the first century seem to accentuate this controversy. In the Apocalypse there is repeated mention of a teaching that it was lawful to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to take part in gross pagan rites. Those also are alluded to, but not named, "which say that they are apostles, and are not." Paul also on his part denounced certain individuals as "false apostles, deceitful workers transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ, as Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." Perhaps in this expression he meant Apollos who had come from the Gnostic schools of Alexandria and was distasteful to him; but it is more probable that he referred to his antagonists at Jerusalem. The writings of Paul and James set forth the ground of division. In the Epistle to the Romans, Paul has asserted that "a man is justified by faith and not by the works of the Law," and James has responded in a Catholic Epistle addressed to "The Twelve Tribes scattered Abroad" that the Law was inviolable, "whosoever offended in one point is guilty of all, and that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only." The Ebionites denounced Paul unequivocally as an imposter. They affirmed that he had sought to marry a Jewish lady of noble family, and that his reported conversion was entirely due to that matter. Finding that his suit was unavailing, he turned against the Jews and became hostile to their religious beliefs and observances. This made him obnoxious to the members of the priesthood as well as to others of Jewish lineage. Paul himself based his claim of independent apostleship upon direct authority from Jesus Christ. He describes this manifestation. Writing to the Corinthians he says of himself: "It is not becoming to boast, but I will pass to visions and revelations. I knew a man in Christ, it was fourteen years ago, whether in the body I know not or out of the body I do not know; such a one was rapt to the third heaven. And I know that such a man, whether in the body or without the body I do not know, God knows, that he was rapt into paradise and heard things ineffable which it is not lawful for a man to utter familiarly." This reads like an account of one of the epoptic visions in the

Initiations. Dr. Wise gives an account from the Talmud, which he seems to think relates to an occurrence of similar character. "Four men went into Paradise, Ben Azai saw and became insane. Ben Zioma saw and died. Aher saw and cut the scions. Akiba went in and came out in peace." In the person of Aher we are instructed to recognize the Apostle Paul. He appears to have been known by a variety of appellations. He was named Saul, as if in allusion to this vision of Paradise, Saul, or Sheal, being the Hebrew name for the other world. Paul, which only means "little man," seems like a species of nickname. Aher, or "other," was an epithet for persons not of Jewish ancestry or sympathy, and would appear to have been applied to him for having extended his labors to non-Judean populations. His real name, the Doctor intimates, was Elisha ben Abuah. The "scions" which he is represented as having cut in Paradise were doctrines from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. In the words of Haya ben Sharira of the Rabbinic College of Pumpadita: "Aher cut the scions - erred, went astray, became an apostate and heretic." This, it would be manifest from Jewish authority, was the "revelations" which he received as his commission of apostleship. The Midrash explains it further. When Paul or Aher saw the vision of Paradise he beheld the "angel of the presence" whom the Rabbis denominate the Metathron, sitting instead of standing. At once he took this as positive evidence that this holy being was likewise a sovereign power, - the Son of God who ruled over all things, except God himself. It will be borne in mind that in all his teaching Paul declared that he had laid Christ as the foundation for the superstructure of his doctrine. He recognized him as having risen from the dead a spiritual body arising from the decaying corporeal framework, as a plant from the seed which is sown to produce it. He was a genuine apostle, he insists accordingly, having "seen the Lord." In the Epistles of Paul we undoubtedly have the accurate account of his adoption of the new doctrine. Leaving Damascus, he went southward into Arabia. This region was at that period famous for its religious communities. The Essenes, according to Pliny, had dwelt in the neighborhood of the Dead Sea for innumerable centuries. John the Baptist seems like one of that people. The Ebionites and Nazarenes from Jerusalem are said to have repaired to the Perea when invading armies threatened Judea; and it is also stated that

Jerome obtained from them the arcane or secret work which he rendered in new form as the Gospel according to Matthew. The Kenites or Sacred Scribes also dwelt in Arabia. Moses is recorded as having married into their tribe, and both he and Elijah the prophet, we are told, had audience with God, or, in other words, received initiation at Horeb, a cave or sanctuary in Mount Sinai. Jesus himself is described as passing much time in Arabia, perhaps among the Nabateans. Paul, spending three years in this region, had opportunity to perfect his religious studies without resorting to Jerusalem. He never hesitated to set his claims as high as those of prophets or hierophants. "We speak wisdom hidden in a Mystery," he writes to the Corinthians, "which none of the rulers of this world knew" - in other words, which was superior to the epopteia or Beholdings of the Eleusinian, Bacchic or Mithraic revelations. "The psychic man," prizing only sensuous manifestations did not receive it, because it was too fanciful and visionary, but the spiritual man cognized it all; "for," he remarks, "we have the mind (or spiritual perception) of Christ." Finally, as though this was not enough in the way of setting aside the authority of Apollos and the Alexandrian Gnosis, he writes further: "If any man think himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I am writing to you are the commandments of the Lord." Paul, "as touching the Law, a Pharisee," exceeded in conception the scope of view and action contemplated by the most accomplished Rabbi. The Golden Maxim of Hillel, the Golden Rule of Jesus, was with him a matter to be realized - at once a bridge between Jew and Gentile, and from man to God. Casting aside the exclusiveness cherished by the Zealots of Judea, and discarding the narrow views of James and the Ebionites of Jerusalem, he marked out his own career without respect to creed, sect or people, and included the whole human family in his field of operation. He contemplated what had never been attempted before him, the demolishing of the entire fabric of Phrygian, Grecian and Roman worship. He understood his age; he stood upon its summit and adopted means the most available to carry out his purpose. One God, one law of action, one destiny for all mankind, comprised the whole of his evangel. We have no trustworthy record of his death. Ecclesiastical fable has made him a victim of the cruelty of Nero. The statement in

the second Epistle to Timothy has been supposed accordingly to refer to such an event: "I am now being worn out and the time of my dissolution is near." But no historian or annalist has told of his end. Rabbinical records, it is said, relate that he lived to a good old age and died in quiet. Mention is also made of his daughters, of the desertion of his followers and of the hostility of the other apostles; and admiration is expressed of his learning and other excellencies. Indeed, to the present day, intelligent Jews praise the great Apostle. It appears evident, however, that his peculiar teachings fell into discredit about the time of his Epistles. "All they which are in Asia he turned away from me," is recorded in the second Epistle to Timothy; "No man stood with me, but all forsook me." He exhibits much irritation at such unfaithfulness. He had been followed at Ephesus and to Corinth by Apollos, a Jew from Alexandria, who seems to have taught the Gnostic doctrines of the Logos, incorporating it with the gospel of Paul - "showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christos." As a result there sprung up factions: every one declaring himself as of the party of Paul, or Apollos, or Kephas or Christ. "I have begotten you through the Gospel," he declares, "be ye followers of me." To the Galatians, he had been even more severe. "It is not another gospel, but there are some who are disturbing you," he writes; "I would that they were made emasculate." With him the issues were plain. The Jews required a definite symbol or token, and Greeks demanded intelligent reasoning. They sought after philosophic wisdom, but he promulgated rightly, meeting both requirements: "Christ the power of God and the Wisdom of God." The Christ of Paul has constituted an enigma which has never been quite easy to solve. He was something else than the Jesus of the Gospels. Paul disregarded utterly the "endless genealogies," which were characteristic of the Gnostic writings. The author of the Fourth Gospel, describes Jesus as what would now be termed a "materialized" divine spirit. He was the Logos, or First Emanation "at the beginning adnate to God," divine and yet incarnated as a human being. The "mother of Jesus," like the princess Semele had given birth, we are told, not to a love-child, but to an offspring that was very God. No Jew of whatever sect, no apostle, no earlier believer of the Gospel, ever promulgated such an idea. Nevertheless, Paul himself always seems to treat of Christ as a

personage rather than as a person. In a manner somewhat analogous, the Sacred lessons of the Secret assemblies often personified the divine Good and the Divine Truth in a human form, assailed by the passions and appetites, but superior to them; and this doctrine, emerging from the crypt, has been apprehended by churchlings and gross-minded individuals as that of immaculate conception and divine incarnation. The hypothesis of the end of the world and attending judgment which was kept in mind by the apostolic writers, must without doubt be treated hermeneutically. It was in keeping with the doctrines of cycles, which was part of the ancient secret learning. Its mythic meaning is disclosed in the following passage: "If any man is in Christ he is a new creature; old things have passed away, all things have become new, and are all of God." It is very probable that this is the key to all the references to judgment and the coming or becoming present of the Lord. Paul believed that the Jesus whom he saw was the spiritual essence apart from the body, as "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor that which is corruptible inherit incorruption." The Lord he declares to be "spirit" and whoever was "in him" had risen or ascended to the evolution of the spiritual nature, faculties and conditions. He was in the anastasis, the resurrection or future life; he was "dead and freed from sin," and so although while as to the external and psychical nature he might abide in the world, he had, in his interior being, passed into eternity. The Gospel of Paul exhibits, in very many respects, a remarkable similarity to the sublimer doctrines of Plato. Living in different ages and with different peoples, their language and mode of expression are somewhat diverse. But no one who is familiar with the expositions of the philosopher concerning the nous or interior mind, divine alike in God and man, and the agathon or Supreme Good, which is the all of life, can long be unable to recognize the teachings of the great apostle concerning the spirit or inner self, by which God and man are at one, and love or charity, the justice or righteousness which transcends all and at the same time embraces all. We need not care for the petty criticisms of those who have failed to measure the great apostle. He was not a man of common ability. He was superior to his time, and even his own people were compelled to acknowledge his greatness. Inside his world he would have no Jew or Greek, as such. By faith, fidelity to intelligent

conviction, both were alike children of the Light. Great, energetic and resolute, he boldly asserted the doctrines of One God and a pure life. Every prejudice and partition-wall in the way of their acceptance, he beat to the ground. Plato had not scrupled to forbid the tales of Homer in his ideal commonwealth; and Paul emulated him in discarding every teacher, system or custom which restricted the human mind, or tended to hide from it the sublime ideal. The fame of the great Christian luminary arose anew in Christendom, and his doctrines, modified by many unfortunate adulterations, have been proclaimed through the world. It supplanted the rival Ebionism, but in its turn amalgamated with other current notions. Hence modern Christianity can hardly be said to be strictly identical with the doctrine and mode of life promulgated by Paul. It lacks his breadth of view, his earnestness, his keen spiritual perception. Bearing the impress of the several nations professing it, exhibiting as many forms as there are races, it may be similar in Italy and Spain, but it differs widely in England, France, Germany, Russia, Armenia, and Abyssinia. As compared with preceding worships, the change from one to the other seems often to have been more in name than in genius. Men had gone to bed at night pagans and awoke in the morning pursuant to law, Christians. As for the Sermon on the Mount and other teachings of Jesus, the conspicuous doctrines are more or less repudiated by every Christian community of any considerable dimensions. Barbarism, oppression and cruel punishments are as common as in the days of paganism. Yet the humanizing leaven is fermenting, and despite the usual railing against sentimentality, which is so often launched against individuals of conviction, we may continue to hope that when mankind shall become enlightened, or the barbarous races and families are supplanted by those of nobler nature and instincts, the ideal excellencies may become realities. "This is undeniable," says Doctor Hookyaas: "that the victory of the Gospel over the heathen world is mainly due to the power and the gifts of Paul, with his insignificant person, but his mighty spirit, with his zeal and inspiration, his elasticity and perseverance, his unconditional surrender to his work. It was he whose marvelous power and intensity of soul and utter self-sacrifice severed Christianity from the Synagogue when without him it would have remained an insignificant or forgotten Jewish sect; it was he who worked it into a new principle of life and a new system of religion, who

proclaimed and established it in two continents with a courage, an energy, and a perseverance that have never been surpassed. In a word, Christianity and, therefore, humanity owe an inestimable debt to Paul: and except Jesus, we know of no human being who has won and who still retains, after so many ages, an influence like his." (The Word, September, 1908) -----------------PHILOSOPHIC MORALITY by Professor Alexander Wilder, M.D. IN the Platonic Dialogue on true Sanctity, entitled "Euthyphron'' the concept is brought into vivid relief, that virtue or holiness must be intrinsic and in conformity with a just principle. None are superior to it or beyond in this world or any other. Even the partisan gods of Olympus, some arrayed on one side and some in opposition, must abide that test. It would not do, therefore, to set forth that as holy which was pleasing to them, when there were two rival factions. They must love it because it is intrinsically holy, but it is not holy because they love it. This distinction will apply equally well to some modern instances. There are those who approve any act if some individual to whom they give allegiance shall do it, even though objectionable in itself. But goodness is above every god, leader, or favorite person, and belongs solely to the Absolute One. Religious worship must be subjected to the same criterion. If it is of advantage to the Divinity, and we are to derive benefit from it as an equivalent, it is a matter of traffic - so much service and so much payment. It may not be doubted that there is a certain utility in worship, but it is not after this manner. True worship is a venerating of the right. There can be nothing really learned, nothing really known of the superior truth, except the knowledge is reverently sought and entertained. There is no better way to excellence, the great teacher of the Akademeia affirms, than to endeavor to be good, rather than to seem so. In this consists the whole of genuine ethics. Morality is the sway of a superior aim. Everything which is founded on appearances, which is apprehended only by observation and sensuous perception,

is transient and temporary; and it must wane and perish when the cause which gave it existence shall cease to afford it life and vigor. But when we seek to do that which is right we are reaching forward, as with antenae toward the enduring, the permanent, the eversubsisting. The secret of the moral sense and feeling is the presentiment of eternity. Most appropriate, therefore, was the maxim of Kant: "Act always so that the immediate motive of thy will may become a universal rule for all intelligent beings." The supreme purpose of our life in this world and condition of existence, is discipline. Every experience that we undergo, every event that occurs, has direct relation to that end. In this matter, likewise, each individual must minister to himself. We have, each of us, our own lesson to learn, and cannot derive much instruction, or even benefit from what another has done or suffered. It is hardly more befitting to adopt for ourselves the experience of others than it would be to wear their clothes. The ethics which should govern our action will not be found set forth in a code. Good men, says Emerson, will not obey the laws too well. Indeed, nothing tends more to bring confusion and death into arts and morals, than this blind imposing upon one period or individual soul, the experience of another person or former age. We may, perhaps, do very well with general notions, but certainly not with specific personal conclusions. The snail that entered the shell of the oyster found it a wretched dwelling, though it possessed a precious pearl; and the swallow gathering food for the winter after the example of the provident ant was the reverse of wise. The right-thinking person will be the law for himself. Our varied experiences have for their end the developing of this condition in us. The ancient sages taught accordingly that manners or ethics are certain qualities or principles which long habit and practice have impressed upon what they denominate the sensuous and irrational part of the mental nature. Moral virtue does not consist in the uprooting or suppressing of the passions and affections. This is not possible or even desirable. Indeed if they should really be rooted up from our being, the understanding itself would lose its vigor, become torpid, and perhaps even perish outright. It is their province, like that of the fire in the furnace, to impart energy to the whole mental machinery. Meanwhile the understanding takes note, and acting by the inspiration of the superior intellect, directs how that energy shall be employed. Human beings act according to their impulses, and the

true morality consists in the bringing of these into good order and the disposing of them to laudable purposes. Casuists have affirmed that our first sense of duty was derived from the conception of what is due to ourselves. This is instinctive in every living being. Even the ethics of the New Testament are founded upon this precept: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," it is likewise declared that "he that loves another has fulfilled all law." We are able to define what is just to others by our apperception of what is right for ourselves. These premises, it will be apprehended, will establish selfishness as the measure of moral virtue, and even as its basis. This is by no means so unreasonable as it may seem. Selfishness in its proper place and function is necessary and orderly. It is the first of our natural propensities. The babe that we admire and often praise as the emblem of innocence, is hardly less than absolutely selfish. It regards everything around it as its own by right, and every person as its servant. It knows no higher motive than its own enjoyment. By no art of reasoning can we show this to be immoral. It is not necessary for any one to plead that it is right, because the child was born so. We can perceive it easily enough by considering it intelligently. The highest good that a person can accomplish is to be measured by the highest usefulness of which he is capable. In the case of the babe, its utility, so far as others are concerned, is only possible and in prospect. All that it can perform well is summed up in eating and growing. This is really the state which is usually denominated "selfish" and yet we perceive that it is necessary to the ulterior purpose of becoming useful. Perhaps we ought to give a philosophic definition to evil itself. We may have been too prone to restrict our concepts of the operations of the universe to the limits of our own backyard. What seems like an infringing of order in our brief vision may be a perfect harmony in the purview of the higher wisdom. In the objectifying of the world of nature as the work or projected outcome from the Divine, it must of necessity be distinct, imperfect, limited and inferior. We apprehend this to be true of every created being. If it could be otherwise, then mankind and all the universe would be, not simply divine in origin and relative quality, but they would also be very God, and coordinate Deity. Hence, therefore, imperfection and evil are unavoidable in all derived existence. Yet they are full of utility. They certainly enable us

to obtain the necessary experience and discipline for becoming more worthy. In this way they are beneficial, and a part of the Divine purpose. The child that never stumbled never learned to walk. The errors of the man of business are his monitors to direct him in the way of prosperity. Our own sins and misdoings are essential in an analogous way to our correction and future good conduct. The individual, however, who chooses to continue in these faults and evil conditions, thereby thwarts their beneficial objects. His shortcomings become turpitude. All such, turning their back to the Right, will be certain to "eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices." The sense of individual right which is commonly designated as selfish, will be found capable of exaltation and expansion till it shall attain the rank and dimension of the widest benevolence. From the consciousness of what is due or belonging to ourselves proceeds the intelligent apprehending of what is proper and right for another. The child, when he comes into contact with playmates will soon learn that every one of them has personal rights with which others may not interfere. It may be only an imperfect conception, nevertheless it is a discipline and will exalt his view of things above the altitude of unmixed selfishness. When in riper years the attraction of sex is superadded, the field and opportunity are afforded for completer and nobler development. It may be objected that the individual too generally aspires to possess the object of regard without due consideration of the wishes and well being of the other. In this view, the new emotion will be but a new form of the radical selfish impulse. Indeed, it is not possible or even desirable that the earlier nature should be superseded. However high the head may reach toward the sky, the feet of necessity must rest upon the earth. Even the eagle must come down from its loftiest flights to solace its wants. The noblest human soul has like need of earthly repose and aliment, without which it will cease its aspirations to the higher life and thought. Eros, the ancient sages affirm, drew forth the divine order from chaos. The attraction of the sexes inspires a desire of pleasing, which is in itself a tendency toward self-abnegation. In due time the relations of household, neighborhood and society proceed from this root and perform their office of extending individual aims to universal ends. Selfishness must then be relegated to the background, or it will become manifested as a monster of arrested growth and deformity. In its primary office as impelling us to maintain ourselves in

normal health it is permissible, and in the helpless and immature it is entirely laudable. But the person of adult years who shall remain in this rudimentary moral condition, whether living in a wilderness or among the most cultured, is for all that, only a savage. Civilization in its genuine sense, is the art of living together; and it is vitally dependent upon the just regard of every individual for the rights of the others. Whoever promulgates and lives by the maxim that "everyone must shift for himself," has not yet passed beyond the confines of uncivilized life. However rich, cultured or scholarly, he has yet to learn the simple alphabet of morality. Perhaps we shall find the Pauline ethics, as set forth in the New Testament, our best exposition of moral virtue. It is an indispensable condition of a morality that is to be efficient, says Jacobi, that one shall believe in a higher order of things of which the common and visible is an heterogeneous part that must assimilate itself to the higher: both to constitute but a single realm. Paul has declared all superior virtue to consist in charity, or paternal love for the neighbor, and utterly ignores self-seeking. "No one of us lives for himself," he declares; "and no one dies for himself, but does so for God." Writing to his Corinthian disciples, he extols the various spiritual attainments, and then having included them in one summary, he avers that charity infinitely surpasses them all. He then depicts in glowing terms its superior quality: "It is forbearing, it is gentle; It is never jealous, it never boasts, It is not swelling with pride, It acts not indecorously, It seeks not wealth for itself, It is not embittered, nor imputes ill motive, It has no delight in wrong-doing, But rejoices in the truth." Thus with true philosophic ken, he mentions the various spiritual endowments as incident to the lower grades of development, and cast into the dark by charity. "When I was a babe," he says, "I prattled, thought and reasoned as one; but when I became man, I set the things of babyhood aside." Whoever seeks the general good, the best interests of others, with all his heart, making all advantage to himself a subordinate matter, has passed the term of childhood, and

is adult man in full measure and development. It will he perceived that philosophic morality is not a creature of codes, books or teachers. It is always inseparable from personal freedom. It is character and substantial worth as distinguished from factitious reputation and artificial propriety of conduct. The person who keeps all the precepts of the law is not complete till he yields himself and his great possessions to his brethren. The cross of the life eternal may not be taken and borne in the hand while one grasps eagerly the sublunary good. We thus trace the moral quality in our nature from its incipient manifestation as a duty which we owe, to its culmination as a principle by which we are to live. It fades from view as a system enforced by rules and maxims, from being lost in the greater light of its apotheosis as an emanation from a diviner source. We are taught by our experience of results to shun evil and wrong-doing as certain to involve us in peril; and now the higher illumination reveals them as a turning aside from the right way, and sinning against the Divine. Our highest duty is to perfect ourselves in every department of our nature by the living of a perfect life - or as Plato expresses it, becoming like God as far as this is possible - holy, just and wise. Such is the aim of all philosophy, and it is attained by whomever in earnestness and sincerity pursues the way of justice and fraternal charity. (Un. Brotherhood, Dec., 1897) --------------THE PROBLEM AND PROVIDENCE OF EVIL By Alexander Wilder, M.D. "The Power that always wills the bad and always works the good." - Goethe DEFOE, in his famous work, describes Robinson Crusoe as instructing his man Friday upon the leading doctrines of the Christian religion. As he endeavors to explain the problem of evil as the work of Satan, his pupil asks, eagerly: "Why God no kill the Devil?" Doubtless, Defoe, when writing this question, was evading personal

responsibility while thrusting before the world a problem which threatened to sap the very foundations of the accepted theology. If there be such a Power in the universe able to thwart the divine beneficence and to lead human beings to ruin in wanton malignity, it must be, as has been taught in former centuries, actual Divinity and the rival of Deity itself. We cannot in such case attribute omnipotence to God; but if the converse be true, that he only suffers such ruin of souls when able to prevent it, we can hardly suppose him wise and benevolent. This question has agitated thinking minds ever since the dawn of history. Nevertheless, we are conscious that only Divinity, supreme in essence and beyond essence, sustains the universe and regulates its movements. It alone operates in harmony, adapting all means to their proper ends. It is therefore one and absolute. Hence evil, on the other hand, can be only a disturbing element, never permanent and substantial in its operations, but always destructive. Even when in any of its phases it seems to be persistent, it eventually fails and comes to an end in any endeavor which it may seem to prompt and inspire. From the nature of things, therefore, we may not consider it to be any counterpart of the Supreme Right, nor the purpose of any creative operation. We must accordingly ignore without hesitation any concept in relation to it as being actually an essence or individuality absolutely hostile to Divinity, or as leading and abetting hosts of malignant demons to mar the order of the universe and lead human beings from the Right. In former periods, however, all objects were personified and supposed to be endowed with soul. The physical forces were regarded as personalities, and whatever was grievous and harmful was considered as essentially evil. In this way, accordingly, every tribe and people that had attained no superior culture had abundance of evil beings ready on opportunity to lead individuals astray or to inflict harm upon them. There were also in these modes of thinking divinities representing all forms of mental endowment, whose aims and influences were good. Beyond these was likewise the mystery of Death. That existence did not end with this event was a cherished belief. The soul was conceived as still alive and hovering around the family abode. If it was cared for, propitiated with food and sacrifices, it was a good angel to the kindred; but if this should be neglected it suffered accordingly and was likely to render unfriendly offices, if not to become inimical outright. The personification of evil as a distinct hostile power in the

world seems, however, to have had its inception at a period comparatively recent. There was no such personifying of wrong as an individual potency in the writings of the earlier people of whom we have knowledge. There was no Devil that was depicted as always such from the beginning. The earlier demons that were represented as malignant were not described as ranging over the whole world, but only over specific regions. The conception of a diabolic personality appears to have been formed from that of a tutelary god that had been dethroned by conquest or social revolution. Thus Set or Typhon of Egypt and the Western Semitic populations of Asia had been honored as a god through a long succession of dynasties, but changes occurred at a later period, which have not been fully explained, by which he became in the newer form of worship the Satan Adversary, always hostile to the Good. In the religious system of ancient Persia known as Magian and Zoroastrian this conception appeared in a more concrete form. Even there, however, it exhibits evidences of having changed almost radically in its long career. The Avesta, the sacred scriptures of that faith, what little of it is still extant, contains texts implying as much. The people of archaic Eran had broken away from their kindred Aryan neighbors and adopted a new mode of living, as well as another form of religious belief. Renouncing the nomadic life, they became tillers of the soil and dwellers in permanent homes, which were very generally grouped together into villages. It was a veritable illustration of the story of Cain and Abel, the agriculturist rooting out the herdsman. The enmity which arose involved also their religious notions. The devas are still regarded as gods in India and as evil spirits by the Parsis,* Indra; the Dyu-piter, or "father in heaven," of the Veda, is an unfriendly power in the Avesta. But in the earlier Zoroastrian teachings the Supreme Being is represented as One, as it seems to be also declared in the book of Isaiah: "I am the Lord, and there is none else; I form the Light and create Darkness; I make peace and create evil." But the later Mazdean philosophy appears to have reasoned from premises more easily comprehended by the common thinking. It was recognized that in the world of nature there is law, and also that in the same realm there is conflict. While, therefore, profounder thinkers contemplated all things as dependent upon the One, Zeroana the Infinite, all operations and events were attributed to the Two, who in their separate capacities nevertheless wrought out as though in concert the Divine purpose. But these

eventually were considered as perpetually at war, Ahura-Mazda, the eternally Good, and Anra-manyas, the Evil Mind, always seeking to mar everything created and every form of life as it came into existence. Few individuals care to investigate this subject more critically. Thus from this source came the belief in pure evil, original sin, and also in an arch-enemy of God and man. The Evil Genius was represented as always in conflict, always on the alert for mischief. From him was the thorn to the rose, the shadow to the light, the sorrow that attends on every joy. "He sowed the seeds of evil in animal life," remarks Mrs. Robins-Pennell, "and transmitted the germs of moral and physical disease to the universal man." -----------* The gypsies have been described as worshiping the Devil. The fact is overlooked, however, that they were an outcast Indian people and that the term Deva is a Sanskrit designation signifying Deity. -----------In this description we observe no critical distinction between moral evil and physical. The same potency that introduced cold in the primitive Aryana is the one that promotes what is evil "in the thought and word and deed." The concept of Satan as the Evil potency appears to have been evolved at a period comparatively modern. In the dramatic sketch which is given in the book of Job he seems to have a place in the assemblage of "Sons of God." There certainly is no show of enmity or alienation. It is apparently his office to go up and down the earth to find out how its order was maintained. He is interrogated accordingly by the Lord in respect to the fidelity of Job, and suggests that it is solely in return for the protection that has been afforded. The tests are then given: first, by permitting the destruction of wealth and family; then by the inflicting of loathsome disease, and finally by the aggravating imputations of his three friends that his calamities are the penalty of his own wrong-doing. The sufferer insists positively upon his uprightness and faultless integrity, exempting himself from the charge as he would have done before the assessors of the dead. Nevertheless, he considers that his calamities are from God. "The hand of the Lord has wrought this," he declares to his inquisitorial friends. When likewise his wife, grieving

at his condition, apparently so utterly hopeless, pleads to him to invoke God and die, he replies submissively: "Are we to receive good at the hand of God, and are we not to receive the evil also?" This dramatic representation in the introduction to the story of Job has been the moral of analogous literary productions in later centuries. Satan, now displaced from his office of Censor in the heavenly sphere and become Prince of Darkness, is now the seducer and destroyer of souls. Christopher Marlowe delineates the compact of Doctor Faustus with Mephistopheles (hater of the light), which was carried into effect by his terrible fate. Goethe followed with his inimitable work. He also introduces Mephistopheles, "the spirit which evermore denies" and that claims evil as his own element. Faust, the scholar, is delivered over to the Tempter to be subjected in every form of allurement and moral peril. He is plunged into the mire of sensuality and selfish caprice, as well as human ambition. But amid it all the divine element in the soul is not destroyed. He retains his consciousness of the right, and after all his waywardness exhibits the desire to continue in the doing of benefits to his fellow-beings. This brings to its close his compact with the Evil One, but the same moment it delivers him from the penalty of the bond. Thus the Dark Spirit outwitted himself. Milton, however, had already given in his great poem, Paradise Lost, the setting to the story of Satan and the "Fall of Man," which has been very generally accepted in Protestant Christendom. He has represented the great apostate, taking for his model in this delineation Prince Rupert, the commander of the Cavaliers in the Civil War in England, in whom the temper and character of the aristocracy were vividly displayed. This hero of Milton, though fallen from his high estate, retains many of the characteristics of the distinguished prince which win admiration. He had rebelled when the Son of God was placed over the angelic ranks and had drawn a third of them from their allegiance. Though having become the arch-fiend, he is nothing less than "archangel ruined." Having now taken evil as his good and choosing to rule in hell rather than to serve in heaven, he now delights himself in leading human beings astray. As if to give a finality to all this class of vagaries, Mr. Philip James Bailey presents us with his epic poem, Festus. In the previous dramas the faithful Job, the weary scholar and the guileless parents of mankind had been chosen for attack. Now, the youth Festus is delivered to Lucifer to be subjected to his arts. But, as before, evil is

not triumphant. As Job was restored to more than former prosperity, and Faust was borne by angels and redeemed souls to the highest bliss, so Festus, after having tasted the delights of mind and sense, is numbered with the heavenly multitude, the whole human race delivered, and even Lucifer himself restored, a penitent, to his former rank. "It suits not the eternal laws of good That evil be immortal." Sin, in its proper meaning, denotes a missing of the aim, a failure to reach the right end, a being in fault rather than any profound turpitude or wickedness. When, however, it is voluntary; when it is a deliberate violation of the Right, then it becomes flagrant wrongdoing, injury and crime. The whole nature is thus contaminated, and becomes vicious and corrupt. As all human beings have erred more or less and are subject to the infirmities incident to an imperfect nature, they are subject to suffering in consequence;* hence they are under the necessity of directing their careers by the wisdom which they acquire by their experience. ----------* The story of the Garden of Eden in the book of Genesis mentions the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If this be regarded as a historic account of the earth before there had been transgression, it will also imply that evil was itself recognized as exiating prior to the introducing of human beings upon the scene. ----------The ancient philosophers held that the soul is of twofold quality. The higher faculty, the mind or spirit, was an essence akin to Divinity itself, but the sensuous and passional constituents perish with the body. The earlier Christian authors exhibit considerable variations in their concepts of evil and its personal representative. These were, however, superior in tone to those set forth in the Avesta. The moral view was more distinctly presented, and the evils incident to the realm of nature, like cold and heat, pain and physical injury, were less considered. They evidently regarded the Roman dominion as in a certain sense identical with the kingdom of evil. Nevertheless, the

writings accredited to Clement of Rome do not appear to have recognized any predominating evil personage. Tertullian, however, who was more conversant with Asiatic opinion, speaks distinctly of Satan, the Devil, and Justin Martyr also described him as leader of the powers of darkness, the cause of transgression and physical disaster, the ally of heretics and the inspirer of the former worship. With the illiterate multitude these notions were cherished in their worst aspect. The concept drifted through the Middle Ages to the present time. We find it cropping out in common religious discourse and in current speech.* ----------* The writer wrote an article in 1854 for a newspaper, insisting that there was no such personality as the Devil. An answer was made to it in which was the expression: "I fear he has denied his Savior." ----------In the earlier centuries of the present era the Gnostic sects and theories overlapped and were largely intermingled with those which are now distinguished as Christian. The New Testament contains many features and expressions which indicate their influence. Their leading doctrines, so far as we know of them, appear to have been developed from the older systems extant in the East and incorporated into the newer theological structures. One of these is remarkable for its explanation of Judaism and the traditions of the Hebrew Scriptures. It replaces the Dark Spirit of the Persians by Ilda-Baoth (Son of Darkness), and represents him as identical with the Jehovah of the Jewish people. He was described as having created the world out of chaotic matter and placing the first human beings in the Garden of Eden, forbidding them to eat of the Tree of Knowledge. But the Genius of Wisdom, taking the form of the serpent, persuaded to the violating of this restriction, and mankind thereby became capable of comprehending heavenly mysteries. This has been followed by a continued conflict between the powers of light and darkness. For man, in his prior psychic nature, notwithstanding his ability to receive illumination, is nevertheless still "of the earth earthy," and requires to be generated anew into the divine life. This concept appears to have originated in the belief that matter is itself the source of evil. The corporeal nature, "the flesh, with its affections and lusts,"

it was inculcated, must therefore be subjugated and destroyed. As whatever was natural was regarded as impure, the concept of evil became interwoven with every form of sensuous delight. Whether the individual was a philosopher, a Gnostic or other style of Christian, the same notion seems to have been entertained. Many strained and strange beliefs have sprung from this conception. The most pronounced among these is the notion that it is inherent as well as incident in mankind to be evil and to do wickedly. So long as human beings exist in the world it is asserted that they will be controlled by natural impulses and motives of action, and that, because of this, they will be selfish, sensual and persistent in evildoing. Such is the belief substantially of the leading denominations in Christendom, and likewise of various religionists that are not so classified as Christian. Its unfortunate influence has been to develop a feeling of despair reacting in recklessness, laxity of morals, and also cruelty and disregard of justice between man and man. The beastly sentiment that might, meaning physical superiority, makes and is the all of right, finds its sanction and support in the reasoning that this is natural to all creatures. It is certainly the moral code of wild animals. Accordingly, we do not accuse the tiger of moral delinquency because it preys upon helpless creatures, and by such logic the person with tigrish nature may as well seek to be justified for acting according to its impulses. There has been a disposition among many thinkers to consider the state of nature and the conditions of natural existence as far from light, purity and goodness; and to regard the besetments of selfishness and wrong-doing as belonging to the body. "I find a law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity," says the Apostle Paul; "for with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." Jesus also is recorded as saying that "evil thoughts and all kinds of wicked impulses and actions come from within, from out of the heart of man, and make him impure." Under the influence of notions of this kind, monastic life has been a religions characteristic in the different faiths, ancient and modern, Christian and non-Christian. Various macerations of the body were added. Among these were fasting, abstinence from the bath, and studied neglect of physical comfort. It was the aim and dream to crush out the bodily sensibility in order that the soul might be emancipated and enabled to reach the higher beatitude.

The philosophers, however, while they deprecated the mingling of the soul with the corporeal nature, also acknowledged intelligently the rightful place of the bodily organism and conditions. When Porphyry was contemplating suicide in order to escape from the evils and calamities incident to life, Plotinos, his preceptor, remonstrated, declaring that this was not the suggestion of a sane intelligence, but that it proceeded from some morbid affection of body. Indeed, we have no sufficient reason for supposing that dying will totally separate the soul from the entanglements incident in our corporeal existence. The passions and desires may still inhere, and the unhoused selfhood, thus turned adrift, finds itself more helpless than the beggar in the street. The true separation of the soul from the body Plotinos has explained accordingly as being a purification from anger, evil desire, and other causes of disturbance. This may take place while yet remaining with the body. The individual is still in the world, while at the same time beyond and above. Hence the words of Jesus are pertinent - "I pray not that thou shouldst take them from the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from evil." "But it is not possible that evil shall be extirpated," says Sokrates to Theodoros, "for it is always necessary that there should be something opposed to goodness. Nor may they be established as attributes in the gods, but from necessity they encompass the mortal nature and the lower region. We ought, therefore, to endeavor to flee hence to the gods most speedily; and this fleeing is an assimilating to God in the greatest degree possible, and the assimilating is to be intelligently just and holy." The philosopher further explains that upon character, upon faithful devotion to the right, the true excellence of each individual is based. The knowing (gnosis) of this is wisdom and true virtue, but the not-knowing is manifest ignorance and baseness. "Hence," he remarks, "there are the constituents of both in the interior being of every one in existence; one that is divine and most blessed, and one which is without God and most wretched. They who do not discern that such is the case, by their stupidity and lack of spirituality, become unconsciously through unrighteous actions like the one and unlike the other." It was more than incidental obstacles to good that were implied. The philosophers contemplated also a moral delinquency. They styled it "ignorance," but it was a condition voluntary and willful. "It is darkness," Porphyry declared, "and will fill men with all manner of

evils." The ignorant person is the reverse of spiritual and noetic. He may be quick of intellect, eloquent, skillful in argument and in whatever pertains to common science. But he is without love for the beautiful and good, preferring what is base and unjust. It is the worst ignorance, Plato declares, because it pertains to the mass of the soul, the mortal part which feels pain and pleasure, and is opposed to everything higher, to the superior knowledge, well-established condition and reason. We are thus enabled to behold evil with its concomitants, in its proper place and character. It is the obverse side of the great worldpicture, the opposing pole on the sphere of objective existence, the shadow, and in reality the bond-servant of the Right. In the realm of Nature it manifests itself as the difficult thing, the obstacle that is set for us to overcome, and in this way has its use as a discipline and exercise by which to develop our powers. In the superior region of mind and morals it includes those qualifies incident to our imperfect nature and field of activity which operate to retard the higher purpose and hold us back in the domain of crude infantile selfishness. Nevertheless, that which may seem to our limited powers of vision to be absolutely bad is undoubtedly good and right when regarded upon the general plane which includes all things within its purview. When, like a servant putting off his livery to assume the rank and authority of the master, the lower nature is set in the foreground as the superior principle of action, it becomes itself an adverse condition to be fought against and brought into subordination. It is certain to defeat itself in the end, to fail through imbecility. All that it can actually accomplish is a design which is beyond and superior to itself, which has been directed silently and occultly by a Power that is overruling it for a nobler purpose. Its proper office, it will be perceived accordingly, is to afford exercise to the soul for the purpose of bringing its faults to plain sight, of evolving its capacities and eliminating its deficiencies, thus making a perfection attainable of which we might not otherwise be capable. "It is a part of the mystery of evil," remarks Dr. Abbot, "that it evokes the good; that when it is driven from the door good comes up the path and enters in its place. In spite of a thousand apparent triumphs, evil is the servant of good, and prepares the way for its approach." What, accordingly, is accounted evil exists solely for the sake of the actual good which awaits beyond. The alliance of the soul to the conditions of natural existence is

necessarily attended by a certain privation of good and by exposure to the casualties and calamities of life. It is born into the world to be disciplined and perfected through experience. Hence from babyhood to the completest maturity the individual is required to "forget the things that are behind and reach forward to the things that are before." That which was good in the earlier period of life becomes evil when the time arrives to abandon it. The infant may be innocently selfish, for he can know nothing beyond; but the older person is called to a broadening charity. Dominating selfishness at that period of life is an arrest of development, monstrous, and in itself pernicious to the whole moral nature. It was actually believed by the sages that prior to its introduction into the world the soul was in a state of superior perception, and that the first lapse began by a certain passiveness, a susceptibility which rendered it subject to the attraction toward an objective mode of existence. When afterward the whole spiritual nature is submerged, and overwhelmed and eclipsed, and even sensualized, it is, nevertheless, divine in its inmost quality. It never purposely chooses evil for its portion, but yearns amid all its wanderings for the truer life. Every lapse, pain or trial which it undergoes operates to the same infinite end. The light is sure eventually to overcome the darkness. There is none so bad but that he may become holy and divine through goodness. The chain of love, ending in the Infinite, is incessantly combining all below and all above. Yet spake yon purple mountain, Yet said yon ancient wood, That night or day, that love or crime Led all souls to the good. (The Word, October, 1906) ------------------CONCERNING PLEASURE - Philebos By Alexander Wilder, M.D. WE have a no other knowledge of Philebos than appears in this

Dialogue having his name. He is introduced to us as having been brought to Sokrates by his pupil Protarchos, for the purpose of discussing a peculiar sentiment. Nevertheless, as though he was diffident or weary of the matter, he says but little, while Protarchos, who is a pupil of Gorgias the Sophist, maintains the argument. He assumes that the most substantial good to all living beings consists of joy, pleasure, delight, and whatever may be in accord with things of that character. Sokrates, however, lays down the contrary proposition: that to have understanding, to apperceive, to remember, and endowments akin to these faculties, such as right sentiment and true reasoning powers, are altogether better and more to be preferred than pleasure by those who are able to participate in them. These endowments, he declares, are not of advantage only to them, but also to those who come after them. It would now devolve upon each disputant, therefore, to indicate the permanent habit or incidental disposition of soul which is to be regarded as capable of assuring for every one a blessed condition of life. On the one hand, such a habit had been set forth by Philebos as being that of rejoicing, and on the other by Sokrates as the possessing of undertaking. But then, Sokrates suggests, suppose some other condition should appear which should be superior to both of these? Thus the term pleasure is applied in diversified forms. A dissolute person is described as having pleasure in one way and the discreet man in another. The unwise man is pleased in being satisfied with foolish sentiments and expectations, but the thoughtful man takes pleasure in thinking. Here pleasures are seen to be unlike one another. Many are evil, but others are good. Certainly also, however, the departments of knowledge are also different, so that in the matter of diversity the two sides are counterparts to each other. "So let us examine," says Sokrates, "whether we ought to pronounce pleasure or intelligence the highest good, or whether there is a third, that is superior to both. We are not engaging in a contest to gain a victory, but ought both of us to fight for what is the real truth." After referring to the problem of the one and the many, which are shown to be radically the same, Sokrates is besought by Protarchos to point the way, if there is any, out of the common one of viewing the matter. He explains that the men of ancient times who lived nearer to gods, had left after them the tradition of a gift to human beings which had come through Prometheus along with the

glowing fire. The tradition related that the beings that are described as being eternal are from both the one and many, and thus limit and unlimited are combined in their nature. Accordingly as things have been so arranged, it is necessary for us in our reasoning after having assumed one general idea concerning anything that we shall endeavor to ascertain whether it is true. Whenever this shall have been found out, we should look for two ideas if there are two; but otherwise search for three or more. Then the search should be made for the others, which pertain and are to be included with these, and are intermediary between one and the undefined. Eventually it will be manifest that the one at the beginning is not only one, and many, and infinite, but likewise what it is. It should be noted that the concept of indefiniteness is not to be brought to this intermediary many, till there is perceived the relation of all the number from infinity the one. Thus knowing becomes intelligence. "The divine beings have delivered this tradition to us," says Sokrates, "in order that we should examine matters in this way, and learn and instruct one another. But now-a-days the wise men take up the one or many, as it may chance, and more hurriedly or slowly than is judicious, and they bring up the undefined immediately after the one, letting the intermediate pass without notice." This is illustrated in the art of writing. The voice as it issues from the mouth is absolutely one, yet when regarded by its modulations it is differentiated to infinity. The perceiving of it as one, or that it is unlimited, does not meet our conception of knowing; without such perceiving there can be no knowledge. When we perceive the one it is necessary to follow it to the infinite, and then must by number make our way back to the one. Thus knowing becomes intelligence. Upon this principle, it is recorded that Theth constructed the system of letters. The sound of the voice was first contemplated as being without limit; nevertheless, there are distinct sounds distinguished by the vowels; others which are called semi-vowels; and still others which are known as mutes or consonants, and liquids. The number of each kind having been duly comprehended, together with the relations existing between them, they are congregated together in the gramatical technic. This mode of reasoning may be applied to the question under consideration and we are led to the suggestion that the absolute good is neither pleasure nor intelligence, but a third something that is

different from them and superior to both. It is evident that this condition is more perfect and sufficient, every being that knows of it desires eagerly to possess it, and cares for nothing else, except as it has been made complete together with such as are good. In the life of pleasure there should be nothing of intelligence and in the life of intelligence there should be nothing of pleasure. For if either of them is the superior good it will need no addition from anything else. If it required such aid it would come short of being the chief good. The individual possessing only the condition of pleasure must then be considered as being without mind, memory, superior knowledge, or upright judgment. He must be totally ignorant whether he ever had or did not have any enjoyment, or even to think when feeling a joy that he is actually feeling it; and having no reasoning faculty, he could not even expect a joy to come at any future time. This would not be living the life of a human being, but that of a certain kind of mollusk, or some other marine substance endowed with vitality, and having bodies like those of oysters. On the other hand, a life of pure mentality - the possessing of intelligence, mind, superior ken, and every recollection of every thing, would be absolutely without the experiencing of pleasure, great or little, or of pain, but would, instead, be a total insensibility to any thing of the kind. This condition, likewise is one that nobody would choose, A third one in which mentality and pleasure are combined, is to be preferred to a type of either the first or second alone. This concept, however, leads beyond, and all these to a fourth subject of enquiry, that of the cause. Taking a survey of the whole field, all things may be apportioned thus: as those which are limitless and so capable of being increased or diminished; those which limit and measure; those which are produced by the joint action of those two; and the cause of all. Belonging to the first of these are the antagonistic qualities like heat and cold, pleasure and pain, dryness and moisture, swiftness and slowness. By the combining of any two of these opposites they will limit each other according as they are interblended, thus producing moderation, due proportion and equipoise; hence, besides these three, the unlimited, the limiting, and the combined two, there is a fourth to be considered. For pleasure, except it is limitless and admits of increase and diminution, is not entirely a good. So,

likewise, pain is not wholly bad. Hence it will be perceived that something of a different nature is required that can impart good to pleasures. The philosopher having established this fact, now endeavors to indicate this additional principle. It is not to be supposed that all things, including what we call the universe, go on by chance, and are managed by a power destitute of rationality. On the contrary, they are arranged and directed by mind and superior intelligence. Every thing is disposed in perfect order. The universe, sun, moon, stars, and the revolutions of the sky, all move in their course without break or accident. The constitution of the universe, (the macrocosm) is the same as that of human beings, the microcosm. As our body is informed by soul, so there is a soul of the universe from which it derives its existence. The potency which bestows the soul and makes the body its shadow, and also frames the other creations, is revered as the perfect and manifold wisdom. In these creations was manifest a nature superlatively beautiful and worthy of veneration. The Cause which produced this order of things and which arranges the years and seasons and months, is most rightly called mind and wisdom. Yet these could not have actual existence without a soul. Hence in the nature of Zeus, there are both a kingly soul and a kingly mind through the power of the Supreme Cause. Thus Plato recognizes the oversoul, the superessential, the source of All. Having led the discourse from theme originally proposed for consideration by a legitimate course of reasoning, to the acknowledgement of divinity, he turns his attention back to the problems, mind and pleasure which had been already assigned to their true rank. Mind was shown to be akin to the supreme cause, and pleasure to belong to the category of the limitless, having neither beginning, middle or end. The third factor is next to be considered, that in which pleasure and mental action are combined. Though opposites in their nature, pleasure and pain are in the same category, each of them consequent to the other. Apart from pain we would not be conscious of pleasure. When the established order of the framework of the body is relaxed, pains are the result. The restoring of this order will produce pleasure. Hunger, thirst, chilled condition of the body, overheating, are pains occasioned by such relaxation; and the supplying of food, drink, proper warmth, or lowering of bodily

temperature in such instances are sources of pleasure. Accordingly, these conditions of pain are simply a consciousness of want and the desire for its supply. The sensation thus produced is a mental movement, as is likewise the desire itself. The inclination of every living being to mitigate its sufferings shows that there is a perception of the means of relief, which arises from remembering such means. The philosopher accordingly brings the others to the acknowledgment that as memory leads to the things desired, the soul is the actual factor, and hence that the body by no means experiences hunger or the other conditions. Memory operating with the sensations and the conditions which they create, writes speeches in our souls. If the impressions are true the opinions which are formed from them will also be true, and the speeches likewise which are produced. If they are not, true, neither will the opinions and speeches be true. There is also an artist within us, which makes pictures of these things in the soul. When our sight or some other of our senses is shut off, these pictures and representations are apparent to us. Dreams and reveries manifest them to our view. Our opinions are founded both upon these and also upon our hopes and fears, which are so many expeditions to the future. T hey are thus sources of pleasure and pain from anticipation of what may happen. There are periods when the soul feels neither pain nor pleasure. These are produced by the great changes about us; while moderate and trifling changes are not noticed at all. Indeed it has been asserted that all real pleasure was the enjoying of freedom from pain. This however, is hardly correct. The most intense pleasures are the bodily delights, those which are preceded by the strongest desires. Those in fevers suffer violent thirst and are eager for drink. The greatest delights and the extremest pains are produced when the condition of the soul and body is one of darkness, but not when it is normal and virtuous. Yet we would hesitate to draw the conclusion that a disordered state of body and soul was one of greater pleasure than a moral and healthy condition. The passions, which are of the soul alone, as anger, fear, desire, grief, love, emulation, envy, are so many forms of pain, yet are fraught with boundless delights. Thus in the representations of tragedies, individuals will weep while in the every extreme emotions of joy. Envy, however, is a more forcible illustration. It is unequivocally a pain of the soul; nevertheless, the envious person

feels warm delight at the calamities of others. Ignorance, too, is evil, and so is the habit that we call silliness. Of this ignorance, our philosopher enumerates three kinds. Some imagine themselves to be richer than they are; others as more handsome of body; but the third class, who are the most numerous, think themselves to be better, to excel in virtue of soul - such not being the case. They aim at the possessing of wisdom, when in the midst of eager rivalship and false concepts of what wisdom really is. Those who are not able to defend themselves are made subjects of ridicule; and they who can sustain their own part are hated. In thus making game of the one and hating the other, the passion of envy which is a pain of the soul is manifested as a dream in which everything comes by snatches; but to which are concepts and even views of what is beyond. Hence there is a good exceeding what has been apprehended. But, as Plato has remarked in the Republic, "it exists here only in our reasoning, but I think has no existence upon this earth." Thus it may be regarded as fully established, that in all things relating to them, the body by itself without the soul, the soul by itself without the body, and likewise the soul and body together, have their respective delights and enjoyments in abundance, all these being common right with pain. Sokrates referred to this close relation of the two, when the chain was taken off his leg in the prison. That something which was called pleasure seemed unaccountable to him in its peculiarity and particularly so in its relation to its opposite, pain. The two will not be present with an individual at the same time; and yet if one should pursue and attain the one, he is compelled to receive the other, as though they were both united together from one head. If Esop had observed this, he would have made a fable to explain that the Creator, desiring to reconcile the two warring principles, and not able to do it united their heads. Hence when one of the two visits an individual the other comes directly afterward. Nevertheless, plausible as it may seem, especially to sufferers of severe pain, we may not credit the assertion that the cessation constitutes the only real pleasure. There may be seeming pleasures which are not really such, and there are delights which appear to be many and great, but are really combined with pains, which have relation to perplexities of body and soul. There are pleasures, certainly, which are truly pure and genuine. Of this kind are those delights of sense which are experienced from beautiful colors and figures, from agreeable odors,

from harmonious sounds, and in short, from whatever possessing wants that are unperceived and without pain permits them to be supplied after a manner that is both perceptible and full of enjoyment. The pleasures that are connected with leaning, are of this character. There is no pain at the beginning arising from hunger after knowledge, and if afterward the learning is lost by forgetfulness, there is no pain perceived in the forgetting. If the individual subsequently feels pain through the want of the knowledge, it has no relation to the forgetting when this takes place. The pleasures of learning may be considered, therefore, as unmixed with pain, but only a few participate in them. Pleasures may also be distinguished as the vehement and the moderate. Those of the intense character belong to the department of the limitless and are borne along through the body and soul, but the moderate delights are the more pure and genuine. The assumption is declared by some reasoners that pleasure is a something always beginning, but never attaining to any real existence. Yet all beginning is for the sake of the existing afterward; ship-building, for example, is for the sake of ships, and ships are not for the sake of ship-building. All generating is for the sake of what is generated. It is manifest at the slightest consideration that pleasure, unmixed with mentality, and mentality without pleasure, are conditions of life in no way to be desired. Neither of the two is perfect or good. Instead, this must consist in a proper combining of the two. One form of pleasure, however, is purer than another; and one department of knowledge is superior to another. There must be accordingly an adaptation of each to the other, or else dire confusion would ensue. Every art, every mental pursuit, must be allied to its corresponding delight. A vehement, exciting delight is not congruous or in harmony with mental pursuits. Maddening pleasures interpose a thousand hindrances to mind and understanding, but enjoyments that are pure and moderate, which are accompanied with health and sobriety are acceptable and appreciated. "For I imagine," says Protarchos when pressed to the conclusion, "that no one will find anything more immoderate than pleasure and extravagant joy; not a single thing of more moderation than mind and understanding." The moderate and opportune are before it in the divine favor; and these always are allied to symmetry, harmony and beauty, the perfect and sufficient. The mind and understanding come next, and

after them the superior knowledge, the nobler arts, and right judgment of things. These all stand in closer relations to the superior good than to pleasure. Then, after these and transcending them are the genuine pleasures which do not follow in the line of knowledge, but rather the sensations of the soul. "It is sanity," says Emerson. "to know that over my knack or work, and a million times better than any talent, is the central intelligence which subordinates and uses all talents; and it is only as a door into this that any talent or the knowledge it gives is of value. My next point is this: that in the scale of powers it is not talent but sensibility which is best. Talent confines, but the central life puts us in relation to all." Sokrates now declares, as though to nail all that has been brought to view, that, though all the swine and goats in the world were to join in applauding the advocate for pleasure, he himself would never be persuaded that the superior good, human happiness, consisted in being pleased so long as mind excelled and prevailed in all things. Yet, this is not complete. They who covet and delight in the contemplation of the real do not become satiated. To them the present is as a dream in which every thing comes by snatches; but to which there are concepts and even visions of what is beyond. There are perceptions that there is yet a superessential good beyond our investigations - an end and consummation older than inquiry has apprehended. But as the philosopher has remarked in the Republic, "It exists in our discourse, but I think that it is nowhere upon this earth." (The Word, June, 1906) ---------------------THE AMERICAN SOKRATES - Alexander Wilder, M.D. A WRITER in a recent number of a monthly periodical has endeavored to show resemblances of Doctor Franklin to Sokrates. He has made out a very good case, and even the most captious will admit that the matter is well worth considering. Nevertheless, a person who should regard it from a superficial point of view may find

the analogy not so easy to trace. The mode of life of the two men was so unlike that the apparent resemblances may appear farfetched and often very faint. For example, Sokrates eschewed a political life; but Franklin, after he had accumulated what he considered a competency, was almost constantly called upon to take part in public affairs and was among the foremost in effort to develop and shape the Government of the American Republic. Sokrates adhered tenaciously to the established worship of Athens and accounted the pursuits of physical science as an intruding into the counsels of the gods; Franklin took delight in exploring into the secrets of the natural world, and was a zealous advocate of religious freedom, whatever the sect or form. Sokrates made himself disliked by his countrymen by his persistent practice of dialectic, which often revealed to them their own opinions as absurd; Franklin was esteemed for his useful inventions and his prolific resources of mind, which made his public service invaluable. He invented many articles which added to the conveniences of housekeeping, never seeking a patent for them, and supplemented them all by his Promethean achievement - the bringing of lightning from the sky, so that it might be bound in harness and made to carry messages, propel machinery and do the work of men. No wonder that the Athenian died by the penal sentence of a court, while the American was honored at home and in other countries. It is probable, however, that many of these diversities may be explained by the difference of conditions and the periods at which the men lived. More than twenty-two centuries intervened between the time when Sokrates walked in the streets of Athens and Franklin set type in Philadelphia. The populations were diverse in customs, habits of thought and mode of living. What might be wise, what would be approved by one people, would not be tolerated by the other. We must look deeper and form our judgment from the men themselves by a comparing of their profounder thought and their utterances. The maxims of "Poor Richard" have been long accepted as part of our literature. Thomas Paine esteemed them as superior to the "Proverbs of Solomon." They range favorably beside the sayings of Epiktetos and Publius Syrus. True, they conform very closely to the Silver Rule - to do according as one is done by. This method seems to be of most service to the worldly-wise, although it is often opposed to that diviner charity which is the loving of the neighbor and not a supreme seeking of own advantage. We will find in Franklin's autobiography, however, the material which will fit us for juster

judgment. He tells at the outset of an uncle whom he resembled closely in person and modes of thought. This uncle died some four years before the birth of the nephew. But for this period of time intervening, it was remarked that there might have been a transmigration of soul from the one to the other. An Oriental pundit, or a modern believer in reincarnation, however, would make no such account of the interval thus occurring. Franklin himself informs us that he had sought to acquire the Socratic mode of dialectic. He procured a copy of the works of Xenophon and made it his study. He makes this remark in support of the method: "As the chief ends of conversation are to inform or to be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish that well-meaning and sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive and assuming manner that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition and to defeat most of those purposes for which speech was given to us. In fact, if you wish to instruct others, a positive, dogmatical manner in advancing your sentiments may occasion opposition and prevent a candid attention." * -----------* Xenophon: Memorable Accounts, I. "Now it seemeth to me, that whoever applieth himself to the study of wisdom in hopes of becoming one day capable of directing his fellow-citizens, will not indulge, but rather take pains to subdue whatever he finds in his temper turbulent and impetuous; knowing that enmity and danger are the attendants of force; while the path of persuasion is all security and good will; for they who are compelled hate whomever compels them, supposing that they have been injured; whereas we conciliate the affection of those whom we gain by persuasion; while they consider it as a kindness to be applied to in such a Manner. Those, therefore, who employ force are they who possess strength without judgment; but the well-advised have recourse to other means. Besides, he who pretends to carry his points by force hath need of many associates; but the man who can persuade, knows that he is of himself sufficient for the purpose. -----------This reminds us of a familiar practice of Sokrates. He generally

began his discourses by asking the judgment of others, on the pretext that he was himself totally ignorant of the subject. After Franklin had become a man of business in Philadelphia as a printer and stationer, as well as head of a family, he conceived the project of attaining a state of moral excellence. He had been a deist till he perceived that those whom he had persuaded by his reasonings were ready to wrong him without the least compunction. This convinced him that the doctrine, however true, was not useful. He was not ready to accept "revelation" as especially imparted from Divinity. He was of opinion that certain actions were not bad because they had been forbidden, or good because they were commanded. But he surmised that the bad actions were forbidden because of being bad for us, and good ones enjoined because they were intrinsically beneficial. "This persuasion," he remarks, "with the kind hand of Providence, or some guardian angel, or accidental favorable circumstances and situations, preserved me." He devoted Sundays to study, seldom attending any public worship. The Calvinistic dogmas of Eternal Decrees, Election, Reprobation, etc., appeared to him unintelligible and doubtful. But, he declares, "I never doubted the existence of a Deity; that He made the world and governed it by His providence; that the most acceptable worship of God was the doing good to man; that our souls are immortal, and all crimes will be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter. These I esteemed the essentials of every religion, and being to be found in all the religions we had in our country, I respected them all, though with different degrees of respect, as I found them more or less mixed with other articles, which, without any tendency to inspire, promote or confirm morality, seemed principally to divide us and make us unfriendly to one another." Conscious that a mere speculative conviction that it is to our profit to be completely virtuous is by no means sufficient to prevent us from slipping, but that, on the contrary, ill habits must be broken and good ones acquired and established, he devised a catalogue of the virtues the practice of which would be the measure of rectitude. This list included twelve which he considered as necessary and desirable. He tabulated them, giving to each an appropriate definition. They were arranged in the following order: 1. Temperance. 2. Silence. 3. Order. 4. Resolution. 5. Frugality. 6. Industry. 7. Sincerity. 8. Justice. 9. Moderation. 10. Cheerfulness. 11. Tranquillity. 12.

Chastity. A Quaker friend informed him that he was generally regarded as proud, and sometimes as even overbearing and rather insolent. This led him to add Humility to his list as thirteenth, and he enforced it by the words: "Imitate Jesus and Sokrates." He now arranged them in a little book, and set out by devoting a week in turn to each virtue. Day by day he made a memorandum of how well or ill he had succeeded in the endeavor, marking the failures. When he had made his way through the thirteen in as many weeks he began anew and went on as before. He afterward changed this mode of proceeding. He remarks that his greatest trouble was in regard to Order that every part of his business should have its allotted time. He had not been in earlier life accustomed to method, and, as he had an exceedingly good memory, he had not been sensible of his faultiness. He struggled for years to correct this, but found himself incorrigible. "But on the whole," says he, "though I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of attaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavor, a better and happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it; as those who aim at perfect writing by imitating the engraved copies, though they never reach the wishedfor excellence of those copies, their hand is mended by the endeavor and is tolerable while it continues fair and legible." In conformity with these views Franklin planned the compiling of a book to be entitled "The Art of Virtue." It was designed to set forth and enforce his cardinal doctrine: That vicious actions are not hurtful because they are forbidden, but forbidden because they are hurtful, the nature of man alone considered." His endeavor was to convince young men that no qualities are so likely to assure a poor man's fortune as probity and integrity. But Franklin's time was so occupied by public business that the book was never published. He also projected a great association upon the basis which comprises the essentials of every known religion. It was to be begun and extended first among young and single men only. Each candidate for membership was to be initiated after assenting to the creed and an exercise of thirteen weeks in the virtues as prescribed. The existence of the society should be kept secret, the members looking up youths suitable for initiation. They were also pledged to afford to each other their advice, assistance and support in promoting one another's interest. But after having proposed the scheme to two

others, who accepted it, Franklin found himself too much engaged to go further, till he became too old to undertake the matter. "I am still of opinion," says he, "that it was a practicable scheme, and might have been very useful by forming a great number of good citizens; and I was not discouraged by the seeming magnitude of the undertaking, as I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes and accomplish great affairs among mankind if he first forms a good plan, and, cutting off all amusements or other employments that would divert his attention, makes the execution of the same plan his sole study and business." Becoming a candidate for re-election as Clerk to the General Assembly of the Province of Pennsylvania, Franklin was warmly opposed by one of the principal members. Instead of resenting this, he took occasion to ask of the man the loan of a rare book. This was granted, and a warm and permanent friendship was the result. From this occurrence he deduced the maxim: "He that has done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another than he whom you yourself have obliged." Franklin adds: "It shows how much more profitable it is prudently to remove than to resent and continue inimical proceedings." He remarks of the Rev. George Whitefield, whom he greatly admired: "If he had never written anything, he would have left behind him a much more numerous and important sect." Franklin composed and published numerous maxims upon a variety of subjects. We present a few: "After getting the first hundred pounds it is more easy to get the second." "As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously." "The best public measures are seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion." "When men are employed they are best contented." Sokrates was beat adapted to his time, as the American sage was to the early days of the new Republic. Xenophon describes him as "the most sober and chaste of mankind," sustaining all vicissitudes with equal complacency, persistent in self-control, and influencing those familiar with him to the love of virtue. While he conformed to the religious usages of the commonwealth of which he was a citizen,

his conceptions were lofty and philosophic. The soul, the intellectible part of us, he declared to have come from he knows not whence, and by it man is as a god in the midst of creation. As it governs the body, does not the soul of the universe govern it in like manner? And does not the providence of God extend in like manner? So, likewise, he exhorted, to render oneself "deserving of the communication of some of the divine secrets which may not be penetrated by man, but are imparted to those alone who consult, who adore, who obey the Deity." Being remonstrated with because of his plain habits and teaching without pay, he replied: "Though I am not over-delicate in regard to food, though I sleep but little, and do not once taste those infamous delights in which others indulge, there may no other cause be assigned than that I have pleasures far more choice in their quality, which delight not only for the moment in which they are enjoyed, but gladden with the hope of perpetual satisfaction." "When we see a woman bartering her beauty for gold, we look upon her as base, but when she consorts with a worthy young man she gains our approbation and esteem. It is the same with philosophy; he who sets it forth for public sale, to be disposed of to the best bidder, is a public prostitute.... My pleasure is in the company of my friends. When we are together we employ ourselves in searching into those treasures of knowledge which the ancients have left us; we draw from the same fountain, and, running over what these sages have left behind them, wherever we find any thing excellent we remark it for our own use; and when we see mutual love begin to flourish among us we think that we have profited not a little." Chaerokrates, being on ill terms with his brother, Sokrates advised him to make overtures of good will. "Are you afraid of making the first advances to your brother, lest it should lower you in the opinion of those who hear it?" he demanded. "Surely it ought not to be less glorious for a man ro anticipate his friends in courtesy and kind offices, than to get the start of his enemies in injuries and annoyances." "It behooves us not a little," he says to Antisthenes, "to consider of how much worth we really are to our friends, and that we are diligent at the same time to raise our value with them as much as we can, in order that they may not lay us aside like useless lumber." To the young Kritobulos he gives counsel: "The shortest way to make yourself beloved and honored is to be indeed the very man that you wish to appear. Set yourself diligently to the attaining of every

virtue, and you will find on experience that no one of them but will flourish and gain strength when properly exercised." Notwithstanding what we might regard as idleness or shiftlessness, he was as positive as Franklin in his exhortations to thrift and industry. He counseled Eutheros to seek out some employment which would enable him to lay up something for old age. "Keep clear of those persons who seem to be glad to find fault," says he, "and seek out only such as are more candid. Which done, pursue with steadiness and alacrity whatever you undertake, but beware how you undertake anything beyond your power. Thus will you find relief for your indigence, without the hazard of incurring much blame. Certainty will take the place of a precarious subsistence and leave you to the full enjoyment of all the peaceful pleasures of old age." He professed to know few that were wholly idle. The man who spent his time at dice or in playing the buffoon to make others laugh may be said to do something, he admitted. But such were no better than idlers, since they might employ themselves so much more usefully. No one would quit a good occupation for one that was otherwise, and if he did so it would be less excusable, for he could not plead being without employment. Justice, together with every other virtue, he declared to be wisdom itself. "Whatsoever is just and fair must be the result of sound wisdom," said he; "and as nothing can be fair and just where virtue is wanting, therefore justice and the other virtues are wisdom." Sokrates also discoursed much with Euthedemos on matters of duty and our relations to the Deity. "The Supreme God holds Himself invisible," said he, "and it is only in His works that we are capable of admiring Him. And if there is anything in man that partakes of the divine nature it must surely be the soul which governs and directs him; yet no one considers this as an object of his sight. Learn, therefore, not to despise those things which you cannot see; judge of the greatness of the power by the effects that are produced, and reverence the Deity." The general tone of these sayings, it will be perceived, discloses a certain vraisemblance, and seems to indicate that the American in many respects followed the same course of thought and ways of reasoning as the Athenian. Both were alike in their theological notions, and there is great similarity in their practical methods. Their unlikenesses were incident to the different

circumstances, but in essential purpose and other characteristics they were identical. They sought, after the manner best suited to their times, to serve their fellowmen to the best of their ability, and it is not for us to measure their success. Indeed, it may not be estimated after the rule by which men commonly judge. (The Word, September, 1906) -------------------HENRY CLAY by Alexander Wilder, M .D. THE illustration of "Henry Clay addressing Congress" exhibits, with almost the exactness of portraits, the likeness of the prominent members of the American Senate at that time. It is to be regretted that a key is not given, as several of them, and these not the men of less importance, are not at this late period easily recognized. Yet as we look upon their faces here delineated, we feel as it we had known them all. Naturally our attention is first directed to the figure of the one addressing the Senate. The United States will have to pass through another Civil War as destructive of former memories as this one has been, before Henry Clay can be forgotten. Making his mark upon the history, legislation and diplomacy of the country, that mark cannot be removed except the heart of the Nation is torn out with it. The presiding officer we recognize as Millard Fillmore, once a favorite son of New York, and Vice-President in 1849 and 1850; then succeeding to the presidency at the death of General Taylor. Growing up from poverty and his few opportunities, he became an accomplished lawyer, a diligent legislator, and a statesman of recognized ability. Comely of person, graceful in manner, and generous in his impulses, he was at the time one of the most popular men of Western New York, and continued to be till he signed the measure that operated more than any other to estrange the citizens of the Republic from one another - the Fugitive Slave Act of 1851. We also observe near the speaker General Lewis Cass, then the foremost man of the Democratic Party, whose nomination for President in 1852 Mr. Clay desired and hoped for as most likely to

avert the crisis which he foresaw. He then lay dying, but to the last the welfare of his Country was at his heart. But General Cass was passed over, and the current moved with renewed force to the final event. For years as Senator and Cabinet Minister he put forth his energy to arrest its progress, but was compelled to give way overpowered. On beyond is John C. Calhoun, with head bent forward, listening intently. His, likewise, was a career of remarkable significance in the Nation. He had entered Congress almost at the same time with Mr. Clay, and both in concert with Langdon Cheves and William Lowndes, who seemed to have been elected for that purpose, put forth their utmost efforts with success, to procure a declaration of war with Great Britain. The measure was regarded essential to the continuance of the Republican Party in power, and Mr. Madison reluctantly acceded to it, regretting his compliance soon afterward. The next turn of the wheel made Mr. Calhoun a Cabinet Minister, and an aspirant for the presidency, for which he had the support of Daniel Webster. Falling short of that ambition, he became the champion of State Rights and nullification, bringing his native commonwealth to the verge of civil war, and himself into personal peril. Thenceforth he set about educating his people for mortal conflict. The attempt to add new territory to this country for the extending of the power of the Southern as against the Northern States, had brought nearer the crisis which Mr. Clay was striving to avert. It seems almost anachronism to place Mr. Calhoun in this picture, for he died in 1850. Daniel Webster, however, is the figure soonest recognized. The artist has placed him in a row a little way behind the orator, sitting in a thoughtful mood, but leaving us at a loss to surmise whether he is attending to the subject under discussion, or meditating upon some topic which he may esteem to be of profounder importance. He was translated to the Cabinet a second time by President Fillmore, but found himself without supporters except personal friends and admirers, and estranged from his political associates. He quickly followed Mr. Clay to the grave in 1852. The other faces in the picture seem familiar and are carefully depicted. We do not find, however, the "new men" who had already come as precursors of the next epoch in American history. John P. Hale and William H. Seward are left out, and we fail of finding Daniel S. Dickinson, John Davis or Stephen A. Douglas. Those whom we do

see there were undoubtedly regarded as more notable, belonging as they did to an era that seems to have passed almost completely into oblivion. For it is true however discreditable as it may seem, that the events of that time and the men of that time are almost as little cognized by Americans of the present generation as though they had been of the period of Magna Charta and the Conference of Barons at Runnymede. The war with Mexico resulting from the annexation of Texas in 1845, had effected the addition of New Mexico and California to the jurisdiction of the United States. Legislation was required to provide for the exigency. An issue had been introduced by the "Wilmot Proviso," declaring that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except for crime, should exist in the new territory. This issue had decided the election of 1848 giving the Whigs the National Administration. The organizing of Oregon with this inhibition had created an alarm. There were fifteen states with slavery and fifteen without, so that each region had an equal number of Senators. This arrangement was now imperilled. The contest was very sharp. Mr. Clay apprehending danger to the Union, procured the appointment of a joint Congressional Committee to devise measures of pacification. This Committee reported what was known as the "Omnibus Bill," providing for the admission of California as a State, the organization of territorial governments for Utah and New Mexico, and more effective measures for the rendition of runaway slaves. It is apparently in support of this measure that Mr. Clay is speaking. The prominent senators, the supporters of this legislation, are listening. It may be well to add that it did not pass in this form, but that the several propositions thus massed together, were afterward enacted in separate bills. [[portrait]] Mr. Clay was always a conspicuous character in American History. His marked personality, his impressive manner, his profound sincerity, his unquestioned patriotism, his unblemished public career, his loyal friendship, his ardent sympathy for the helpless and injured, all combined to make him the idol of his party. He was like Agamemnon, a "king of men." Even when defeated, he never lost prestige, but gained in the affection of those who knew him. Ambitious, he certainly was, for he aspired to the chief office in the

Republic, but he stubbornly refused to employ unworthy means to secure the prize. When the place was within his grasp, and his supporters were buoyant with assurance of success, he put it out of his reach by exuberant frankness. Yet the disappointment never weakened his love of country, and his last efforts were put forth to secure harmony in our public councils and to preserve the Nation undivided. He was the architect of his own fortunes. His early opportunities were limited, and he had never been able to obtain a liberal education. His father was a Baptist preacher, at that time of no account in Virginia, and there was no relationship with "first families." Henry Clay was strictly of the people and a son of the people; his blood was intensely red, without any tinge of patrician blue. Early left an orphan he ate the bread of poverty, and at a tender age was taught to work for a livelihood, to plough, to dig and labor in the harvest field. He was generally known in the region as "the Mill Boy of the Slashes." Fortunately for him when he was fourteen years of age, his mother married a second husband, a man quick to perceive the ability of the youth and to find him opportunity. He was placed for a year in a retail store in Richmond, and afterward in the office of the clerk of the High Court of Chancery. A biographer describes him at this period as raw-boned, lank and awkward, with a countenance by no means handsome, and dressed in garments homemade and ill-fitting, with linen starched to such a stiffness as to make him look peculiarly strange and uncomfortable. As he took his place at the desk to copy papers, his new companions tittered at his appearance, and his blushing confusion. They soon learned to like him, however, and he was found to be a faithful and industrious worker. He read incessantly during his hours of leisure but unfortunately acquired a habit of cursory perusing, a "skimming over" which he never conquered, and which seriously interfered with thoroughness. This became afterward to him a source of profound regret. His diligence at work attracted the attention of the Chancellor, George Wythe, who selected him for amanuensis to write out and record the decisions of the Court. This was the turning point of his career. Wythe was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and member of the Convention that framed the Federal Constitution. He believed in what he promulgated, emancipating his slaves and making provision for their subsisting. Thomas Jefferson and John

Marshall had been his students. The four years thus spent there decided Clay to become a lawyer, and he entered the office of Robert Brooke the Attorney General as a regular student. A year later he received the license to practice. At the age of twenty he set out for Kentucky to seek his fortune, making his residence at Lexington then styled "the literary and intellectual centre of the West." He became, like all Southern men of note, a politician, and quickly gained distinction as a speaker. In 1797 a Convention was held to revise the Constitution of the State, and he labored assiduously, but without success to procure the adoption of a system of emancipation. He saved his popularity, however, by vigorously declaring against the Alien and Sedition Laws of Congress. So much easier is it to resent and deplore the wrongs that others commit than to repent of those we commit ourselves. Mr. Clay was from this time a champion of the helpless and the wronged. It required personal as well as moral courage. There were men in Kentucky who regarded themselves as leaders in Society and above being held to account for unworthy and lawless acts. Colonel Joseph Dayiess, then District Attorney of the United States and a Federalist, perpetrated a brutal assault upon a private citizen. Everybody feared him but Mr. Clay. He took the matter boldly up. Dayiess warned him to desist, but was unable to frighten him even by a challenge to a duel. With like sentiment toward a man that he conceived to be wronged, he became a defender of Aaron Burr, but on learning of deception he refused further friendly relations. After a period of service in the Legislature, Mr. Clay was chosen to fill an unexpired term in the Senate at Washington and took his seat in December, 1806, when under thirty years of age. He seems to have paid little heed to the unwritten law of reticence, but took active part in speaking and legislating. He advocated the projects of a bridge across the Potomac, and also roads and canals to facilitate communication between the Atlantic Seaboard and the region west of the Allegheny Mountains. A monument near Wheeling commemorates his support of the Cumberland Road. Political opinions then current have a curious flavor now. Many questioned the constitutionality of such legislation. The establishment of a Navy was opposed. The Barbary States received tribute year by year for abstaining from piracy on American Commerce. Great Britain, claiming to be mistress of the seas, took some six thousand seamen from merchant vessels to serve in her

Navy, and confiscated goods that were shipped to European markets. France, likewise, issued decrees of forfeiture; and all the defense attempted was an embargo forbidding American vessels to leave port. Spain pretended that her possessions in West Florida extended to the Mississippi River, and the Federalists in Congress denounced the action of President Madison to hold that region as being a spoliation of a helpless and unoffending power. Mr. Clay had just come again to the Senate. Although the youngest member he was foremost in sustaining vigorous action. "I have no commiseration for princes," said he; "my sympathies are reserved for the great mass of mankind, and I own that the people of Spain have them most sincerely." Then he turned upon the great sensitiveness exhibited toward Great Britain. "This phantom has too much influence on the councils of the Nation," he declared. I most sincerely desire peace and amity with England; I even prefer an adjustment of differences with her before one with any other Nation. But if she persists in a denial of justice to us, or if she avails herself of the occupation in West Florida to commence war upon us, I trust and hope that all hearts will unite in a bold and vigorous vindication of our rights." Mr. Clay next appears as Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1811. The House was more to his liking than the Senate; it was at that time a debating body not dominated as it is now by Committees appointed by the Presiding Officer. He was vehement in demanding preparations for war with England, and talked of terms of peace to be dictated at Halifax. The President was timid, and the North and East opposed; but a declaration was made, and Mr. Madison proposed to make Mr. Clay Commander-in-chief. This he declined. There was a likelihood of cabals in Congress like those which assailed General Washington in the Revolution. The Navy saved the credit of the Nation, which the Army failed to sustain, and with that it averted a peril of disunion. Negotiations for peace were held at Ghent. Mr. Clay, as one of the Commissioners, yielded a reluctant consent to the treaty. He would not visit England till he heard of the Battle of New Orleans, but he went to Paris. In an interview with Madame de Stael, she spoke of the exasperation in England and the serious intentions of sending the Duke of Wellington to America. "I wish they had," said Clay. "Why?" she asked. "Because," said he, "If he had beaten us we should only

have been in the condition of Europe, without disgrace. But if we had been so fortunate as to defeat him, we should have greatly added to the renown of our arms." This conversation was repeated to the Duke, who at once remarked that he would have regarded a victory over the Americans as a greater honor than any which he had ever achieved. He also praised the American Peace Commissioners as having shown more ability than those of England. Henceforth, Mr. Clay remained in his own country. Mr. Madison tendered him the mission to Russia but he declined. He then offered him the portfolio of the War Department. But Mr. Clay chose rather to return to the House of Representatives and was again elected Speaker. He was now himself a leader; the men who had been at the head of the Republican Party from the time of Washington, were passing from supremacy. The war had developed new necessities and new views of political subjects, and new men were taking hold of public service. What had been denounced in 1810 became the policy of 1816; the Federal party passed away, for its leaders had offended the nation, and the new Republicans had adopted their principal measures. We now find Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun still hand in hand, with Daniel Webster the Union-lover and John Randolph the Union-hater in opposition, and the President still holding the old traditions. The conditions of affairs in South America was the occasion of a bill for more strict enforcing of neutrality. Mr. Clay dissented from the measure. The ignorance and superstition imputed to the people of the Spanish provinces, he insisted, was due to the tyranny and oppression, hierarchic and political, under which they groaned. Their independence was the first step toward improving their condition. "Let them have free government if they are capable of enjoying it," said he; "but let them, at all events, have independence. I may be accused of an imprudent utterance of my feelings on this occasion. I care not. When the independence, the happiness, the liberty of a whole people is at stake, and that people our neighbors, occupy a portion of the same continent, imitating our example and participating of the same sympathies with ourselves, I will boldly avow my feelings and my wishes in their behalf, even at the hazard of such an imputation." He had exulted at the victory of New Orleans by a Western

General in a Western State. But when General Jackson in the Seminole War, enlisted volunteers again without civil authority, invaded Florida, decoyed Indian Chiefs into his camp by a flag of truce and put them to death, besides executing two British subjects, Mr. Clay denounced his acts as a disregard of every principle of honor, humanity and justice. He was, however, again in advance of popular sentiment. The proposed admission of Missouri to the Union as a Slave State became an issue for several years. It was a question whether there should continue as before an equal number of Free and Slave States, so as to assure the latter a safeguard in the Senate. It was interest on one side and sentiment on the other. The excitement was so intense as to threaten the Union itself. Dissolution was actually considered. The matter was finally determined by a vote to admit Missouri but to exclude slavery from all the region west of it and north of its southern boundary line. In this controversy Mr. Clay acted with the Southern Congressmen, and by his sagacity as Speaker, the measure was made sure: the conflict, however, to be again renewed a third of a century later, transforming the politics of a Nation. None of Mr. Clay's speeches on this question were published. He had been constrained by the voice of his State and fears for the safety of the Union, but he was not willing to appear before his countrymen and posterity in the lurid light of sustaining slavery. The revolt in Greece enlisted the sympathy of all America. Meetings were held to declare the prevailing sentiment. Albert Gallatin even proposed to aid with a naval force. Mr. Webster offered a resolution in Congress authorizing a Commissioner to be sent to that country. Mr. Clay supported the motion in his Demosthenean style. After portraying the situation, he added the challenge: "Go home if you can; go home if you dare, to your constituents, and tell them that you voted this proposition down; meet if you can, the appalling countenances of those who sent you here, and tell them that you shrank from the declaration of your own sentiments; that you can not tell how, but that some unknown dread, some indescribable apprehension, some indefinable danger, drove you away from your purpose; that the spectres of cimiters, and crowns, and crescents, gleamed before you and alarmed you; and that you suppressed all the noble feelings prompted by religion, by liberty, by national independence, and by humanity." Mr. Clay had been already placed in the field as a candidate for

President, and this temerity astonished his supporters. He had enemies, likewise, to take advantage of his excitable temper, to irritate him to personal altercation. John Randolph was conspicuous. He taunted Mr. Clay for his defective education. "I know my deficiencies," Mr. Clay replied. "I was born to no patrimonial estate; from my father I inherited only infancy, ignorance and indigence. I feel my defects; but so far as my situation in early life is concerned, I may without presumption say they are more my misfortune than my fault." There were no political parties in 1824; all were Republicans, and the contest was simply between men. Mr. Clay was approached with propositions such as would now be considered legitimate. He refused to enter into any arrangements or make any promise or pledge. There was no choice effected by the Electors. In the Legislature of Louisiana, advantage was taken of the absence of members to deprive him of the vote of that State. He was thus deprived of the opportunity of an election by the House of Representatives. It so happened, however, that the decision was in his hands, and he gave his vote to John Quincy Adams. The two had differed widely and with temper, but of Mr. Adams' superior fitness there was no possible question. In political matters he never rewarded a friend nor punished an adversary. He administered every trust conscientiously. Mr. Clay became his Secretary of State. It was an administration which the Nation would like to witness again. The honor of the Nation was sustained; the country was prosperous beyond former periods. What may now appear incredible, there were twenty-four states in the Union, yet the public expenditures barely exceeded eleven million dollars a year. The endeavor to effect a friendly alliance with the new SpanishAmerican Republics was unsuccessful. When Bolivar wrote Mr. Clay a letter acknowledging his good offices, he replied with a gentle remonstrance against the establishing of an arbitrary dictatorship. He was disappointed in his hopes and expectations. Mr. Adams had judged those men better than he. In diplomacy Mr. Clay aimed at reciprocity in commercial matters. He advised the recognition of Hayti likewise, as a sovereign State. He also became one of the chief supporters of the African Colonization Society. He believed it possible to remove a sufficient number of free negroes to reduce sensibly the number of the colored population, and bring about gradual emancipation. "If," said he, "I

could be instrumental in eradicating this deepest stain upon the character of our country, and removing all cause of reproach on account of it by foreign nations; if I could only be instrumental in ridding of this foul blot that revered State that gave me birth, or that not less beloved State which kindly adopted me as her son, I would not exchange the proud satisfaction which I should enjoy for the honor of all the triumphs ever decreed to the most successful conqueror." In 1828 a new administration and a newly organized political party were chosen. Mr. Clay returned to Kentucky. But defeat never lessened his hold upon his friends. In 1831 Daniel Webster, voicing the sentiment of them all, wrote to him: "We need your arm in the fight. It would be an infinite gratification to me to have your aid, or rather your lead.'' Reluctantly he obeyed. He took his seat in the Senate more heartily welcomed by his friends, more bitterly hated by his enemies, than ever before. From this time he was more conservative. He was henceforth the opposer of aggression, the pacificator for the sake of the Union. He was again nominated for President by the Republicans in 1832. Some years later the opposition united to form the Whig Party, but although he was its acknowledged leader, the anti-masonic influence gave the nomination in 1840 to Gen. Wm. H. Harrison. He was, however, again nominated in 1844 and apparently certain of election till a letter was published in which he spoke of the proposed annexation of Texas in ambiguous terms which disaffected antislavery voters enough to defeat him. He had retired from the Senate two years before, but came back under the new administration. He foresaw peril to the Republic, and now hoped to be able to stay the tide. But it was only temporary. His personal appearance, as represented in the picture, was unique. He was tall and thin, though muscular; and there was an entire absence of everything like stiffness or haughtiness. His manner was cordial and kind, inviting rather than repelling approach. His eyes were dark gray, small, and when excited they flashed with striking vividness. His forehead was high and broad. His mouth was large, but expressive of genius and energy. His voice was silvery, deep-toned, and exquisitely modulated. When speaking, he threw his soul into the subject, carrying along the souls of the hearers, making them assent or dissent as he did. He spoke as the patriot warrior of a

thousand battles would speak; and despite the enmity and rancor which pursued him with fiendish bitterness, the men opposed to him mourned with his friends when he was no more a denizen of earth. (Un. Brotherhood, Feb., 1899) ------------H.P.B. - A PROFILE OF THOSE DAYS - Alexander Wilder, M.D. ... The study in which Madame Blavatsky lived and worked was arranged after a quaint and primitive manner. It was a large front room, and being on the side next to the street, was well lighted. In the midst of this was her den, a spot fenced off on three sides by temporary partitions, writing desk and shelves for books. She had but to reach out an arm to get a book, paper or other article that she might desire, that was within the enclosure. In this place Madame Blavatsky reigned supreme, gave her orders, issued her judgments, conducted her correspondence, received her visitors and produced the manuscript of her book. She did not resemble in manner or figure what I had been led to expect. She was tall, but not strapping, her countenance bore the marks and exhibited the characteristics of one who had seen much, traveled much, and experienced much. Her figure reminded me of the description which Hippocrates has given to the Scyths, the race from which she was probably descended. Her appearance was certainly impressive, but in no respect was she coarse, awkward, or ill-bred. On the other hand she exhibited culture, familiarity with the manners of the most courtly society and genuine courtesy itself. She expressed her opinions with boldness and decision, but not obtrusively. It was easy to perceive that she had not been kept within the circumscribed limitations of a common female education; she knew a vast variety of topics and could discourse freely upon them. In several particulars, I presume that I never fairly or fully understood her. Perhaps this may have extended further than I am willing to admit. I have heard tell of her profession of super-human powers and of extraordinary occurrences that would be termed miraculous. I, too, believe, like Hamlet, that there are more things in heaven and earth than our wise men of this age are willing to believe. But Madame Blavatsky never made any such claim to me. We always discoursed on topics which were familiar

to both, as individuals on a common plane. Colonel Olcott often spoke to me as one who enjoyed a grand opportunity, but she herself made no affectation of superiority. Nor did I ever see or know of any such thing occurring with anyone else. She professed, however, to have communicated with personages whom she called "the Brothers," and intimated that this, at times, was by the agency, or some means analogous to what is termed "telepathy." I have supposed that an important condition for ability to hold such intercourse was abstinence from artificial stimulation such as comes from the use of flesh as food, alcoholic drink and other narcotic substances. I do not attach any specific immorality to these things, but I have conjectured that such abstemiousness was essential in order to give the mental power full play, and to the noetic faculty free course without impediment or contamination from lower influence. But Madame Blavatsky displayed no such asceticism. Her table was well furnished, but without profusion, and after a manner not differing from that of other housekeepers. Besides, she indulged freely in the smoking of cigarettes, which she made as she had occasion. I never saw any evidence that these things disturbed, or in any way interfered with her mental acuteness or activity. She spoke the English language with the fluency of one perfectly familiar with it, and who thought in it. It was the same to me as though talking with any man of my acquaintance. She was ready to take the idea as it was expressed, and uttered her own thoughts clearly, concisely and often forcibly. Some of the words which she employed had characteristics which indicated their source. Anything which she did not approve or hold in respect she promptly disposed of as "flapdoodle." I have never heard or encountered the term elsewhere. Not even the acts or projects of Colonel Olcott escaped such scathing, and in fact he not infrequently came under her scorching criticism. He writhed under it, but, except for making some brief expression at the time, he did not appear to cherish resentment. - (Eclectic Theosophist, No. 59, reprinted from The Theosophist, Sept. 1977) -----------------THE KEY OF THE UNIVERSE By Alexander Wilder, M.D.

ONE summer afternoon, some twenty years or more ago, a neighbor in Roseville invited me to his house, where a visitor was showing a radiometer. Professor Sir William Crookes had devised the toy some little time before, and the scientists were propounding their theories of its motion. The instrument consisted of a needlesupport on which was fixed a vane with four wings. It was placed in a vertical position, under an exhausted receiver, and suggested a miniature water-wheel standing on end. When exposed to the light it revolved incessantly, but stopped instantly whenever the light was excluded. The peculiarity of propulsion by the influence of light suggested the analogy to the revolutions of the earth and other planetary bodies. The radiations of actinic force from the sun are centrifugal, as in the radiometer, and if there had been no restraining principle, would have sent them all out into the infinite space, and perhaps into chaos outright. But the centripetal force, as every pupil in science knows, holds them fast in orbits and compels them to make their journey in circles in an orderly manner, thus subserving the ends of their existence. I have never taken pains to elaborate this concept properly, or even to establish its correctness; but it is enough to note that a single principle must be operative through the whole activity of creation, while a twofold manifestation of it, in seeming conflict, is essential and constant in the carrying onward of its works. This principle is often explained as the "operation of law." But it related only to a stage in the process of causation. It is the outcome of will and intelligence, and implies that a persistent energy is its source. The Zoroastrian system as held by the Parsees, is based on this postulate. It ascribes personality to these superior forces, giving them a religious as well as philosophic form. It assigns the Cause of all to a divine being, denominated Zeruan, the Infinite. Associate and yet subordinate are the two forces or "minds," rivals to each other, and in conflict for superiority, one creating and bringing to perfection, the other impeding and destructive. This conflict is manifested in the operations of nature, and has no cessation so long as the world endures. Nowadays, however, we continue, though it be somewhat in the character of sciolists, to acknowledge after some perfunctory form, the Absolute Essence; and very many are prone to think of the universe as being after the manner of a clock which has been wound

up and set to moving, and receives no further attention till it runs down. We do not profit by such conjecturing. We would be no more successful in the endeavor to define the extent and resources of the Infinite, than in an attempt to ascertain with a gallon measure the capacity of the ocean. We can do no better than to hold them in profound veneration. Nevertheless, we are by no means restrained from enquiring into the laws and modes of operation by which all things occur with us and around us. There is an inherent curiosity in us which prompts to such investigation, and we have a measure of ability to comprehend why and how the various phenomena take place and become manifest. There is no limit in this, except such as is imposed by the imperfectness of our development, which oftentimes occasions an obtuseness of the understanding, or an incapacity to appreciate such knowledge. With such conviction, we may venture to interrogate respecting some of the operations of the universe. The achievements of the later centuries embolden us to such enquiry and speculation. We can hardly view the universe as a vast lifeless machine operated by mechanic force, but rather as an organism influenced by a vital principle. Essence is by means of existence and not apart from it, is the declaration of that philosopher of modern times, Emanuel Swedenborg; and the one is not possible without the other. We find the counterpart to this statement in the world of nature, that everything subsists by virtue of polarity. In the magnet one pole is essential to the existence of the other, and neither is without the other. An ingenious author* attemps to elaborate these conceptions, setting forth that electricity is the operative force that gives form and substance to all visible things, and that matter is but the garment of the invisible electric forces. This concept in its principal phases is evidently reasonable and worthy of favorable consideration. Life and mind are behind all manifestations and the analogous statement is made in the New Testament in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "By faith we cognize that existing things are set in order by the permeating (rema) of Divinity, so that the things which are visible have not come into existence from those which are apparent to sense." -----------* George W. Calder: The Universe an Electric Organism. ------------

Although we may not be quite ready to accept without qualification all that is suggested by reputed scientists in relation to these subjects, it appears reasonable that the universe is the product of electric forces, and that its various operations are carried on unceasingly through their agency. The negative something called "matter"* cannot be intelligently comprehended except from such a point of view. Boscovich, the eminent Italian savant affirmed that in the last analysis, matter consisted of points of dynamic force. Faraday regarded this as capable of being demonstrated. It is disputed, however, by other scientists of different habits of thinking, one of whom affirms that the atom has the power to assume form and to create form, and that matter and force can not be transformed into each other. This may be correct, so far as present scientific knowledge extends, but further demonstration is to be desired. We may, however, regard the question thus far as abstract. ----------* Emanuel Swedenborg describes matter as a sort of debris of spirit, resulting from the privation of vital energy. "There are three atmospheres, both in the spiritual and natural world," says he. "These are separate from each other according to degrees of altitude, and in their progress toward lower things, they decrease in activity according to degrees of breadth. And since atmospheres in their progress toward lower things decrease in activity it follows that they constantly become dense and inert, and finally in outmost become so dense and inert as to be no longer atmospheres but substances at rest, and in the natural world fixed like those on earth that are called matters. Such is the origin of substances and matters." - Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and Wisdom, Page 305. -----------The assumptions which have been made are not to be disputed because they are not duly demonstrated. The human mind is capable of conceptions and intuitions that may not be scientifically demonstrable, but nevertheless are true. It may be presumptuous, but it does not seem wonderful that with the later discoveries and demonstrations of electricity, it has been imagined that in this agent the Key of the Universe has been found. As the outcome and manifestation of the One Mind and

Energy it is logically evident that unity extends through every department of the creation. One agency must be present accordingly everywhere. What little is known of the nature of electricity, seems to warrant the supposition that it is that agency. In the characteristics of positive and negative, the duality which exists universally is strikingly displayed. It is inferable therefore that electricity is in a peculiar sense, the creative and governing energy of Deity. That something which we call life, but which we cannot describe except negatively exhibits various phenomena which we recognize as electric. Observing these facts, and venturing to make the deductions which are thus suggested we may not only regard the universe as an organism, but consider electricity as its organiser and sustainer. The negative element, matter, is evidently the product of electric force, and all the operations of the universe are carried on by virtue of electric propulsion, qualified and held in place and order by magnetic attraction. So far as we know, there may be solar systems coming into existence and others going out; or it may be, as seems more easy to imagine and comprehend, that the universe is sempiternal with its Author. The phenomena of heat and light which are so essential to our mundane existence, are attributed to the sun. Nevertheless, in the sense by which we commonly understand things, this is an illusion. Every ascension made by a balloon, or by the climbing of a mountain, leaves warmth wofully behind; and the peaks capped with snow in summer time afford irrefutable testimony to the most obtuse understanding. It is unequivocally certain that the space occupied by our solar system through which our earth and the other planets run their course is absolutely cold. In such case the sun can by no means be regarded as a central mass of fire heating up space, fed perhaps from comets and meteorolites, and so destined to burn out at some future period, leaving all the tributary planets and their inhabitants hopelessly to perish from cold. The phenomena of light is parallel with that of heat. It can hardly be set forth as an emanation, and so far as we know all the space between the sun, planets and other bodies in the celestial infinity, is dark as fabled Erebus. We learn, however, that the emanations from the sun are of various intensity and quality. When they become intermingled with irradiations from the earth, there are different phenomena manifested, some known as heat, others as light, while others are not thus vividly

apparent to the sense. But the last are revealed by the photographic plate, and it may be that they are impressing pictures upon the walls around us of what we are saying and doing, which some future scientific discovery may bring into plain observation. This property of radiant energy thus develops in our atmosphere of heat, light and chemical phenomena, and these are produced here in the atmosphere of the earth from their joint operation. The actinic rays coming in different degrees of intensity and directness, effect resultant variations in the sensations, of warmth, light, and other phenomena. It has been shown that light coming upon an object presses upon it with a definite degree of weight. Another discovery, far more far-reaching and revolutionary postulates that there exist in every atom of matter particles a thousand times smaller than matter. These are the ions or electrons of recent scientific discovery. Each of them is electric, and it has been conjectured that they are either electricity itself or its carrier. These electrons constitute the fourth form of matter which Sir William Crookes has promulgated. By their agency every function of life is performed, every operation in the realm of nature, every motion and revolution of the globes in the sky. The Marconi-graph is successful by their aid, and its inventor may truly be said to have harnessed the lightning. The discovery of radium for a season set the scientific world agog. It emits heat, light and actinic force and yet undergoes no perceptible change or waste of substance; and it exhibits an energy so powerful that Sir William Crookes estimated that a gram was enough to lift the whole British Navy to the summit of the highest mountain in Scotland. Lord Kelvin surmises that it will, when fully investigated and exploited, overturn the whole doctrine of conservation of energy and correlation of forces. "Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure." As every existing thing is permeated by electric energy, it may be remarked that everything is luminous. The bat and the owl see in places that are dark to us, while the bright sun of noonday makes objects invisible to them. Our own bodies, opaque as they are, emit rays of light which animals can perceive in the night. Both light and sound are relative; the eyes that can see and the ears which can hear are accountable for the recognition of both. Pythagoras taught that the heavenly bodies moved in their spiral courses in accordance with the notes of music; so that, if we had ears properly attuned we

might be able to hear "when the morning stars sang together." But what a storm of discordancies would then make life on earth unendurable. Even the imperfections of our senses have their compensations. This polarity is admirably exhibited in the vegetable kingdom. The seed is deposited in the earth, and as it germinates, the plumule goes upward, and radicle downward. The law of positive and negative rules. Every root and every branch of the tree is guided by the same law; and in the coniferous trees, they come but with a mathematical regularity, at prescribed distances apart and each in its proper direction. If the various celestial worlds are floating in a region of intense cold, they are solids, and by no means composed of molten elements. The sun, that mighty magnet that holds the planets in their orbits while sending actinic emanations to them all, forcing them into motion, must be itself necessarily what the philosopher Anaxagoras declared, a stone. The earth is also of similar material. There are doubtless electric currents running through it in various directions heating and chilling as they go. For example in the Comstock mine in Nevada, in one section, over two thousand feet below the surface, it is warm and increases in warmth the lower the descent, in another section some thirty-five hundred feet below it is very cool. Such diversities are simply analogous to what is observed in the atmosphere at different points. The ancient philosophers evidently had a knowledge and cognizance of this agent. They designated ether an igneous air, and wrote of it as a special form of atmosphere. In their scientific fabric, a cube at the bottom denoted the water; a globe next was the symbol of the earth; then was the crescent to indicate air and a lozenge to denote fire. The aether was beyond, alone and yet permeating all these. They wrote of it sometimes as a superior form of atmosphere impregnated with life, in which the gods and celestial powers had their abode; yet which was so subtile and refined as to penetrate and permeate everything in existence. It has also even been conceived to be the divine spirit, Deity itself, the omnipotent Zeus, the everpresent Indra, the celestial blue. Thus the modern steadily moves on to rectify the field of the ancient philosophers. However loudly they may decry the men and wisdom of the past and boast of the grand discoveries and condition of later times, it is often but a recurring of the former achievements,

the serpent with the tail in its mouth. The divine returns upon itself. Francis Grierson remarks: "So far as we know, electricity is the soul of form. What we call brain-waves have an analogy to electric waves. We are being ruled by the seemingly impossible. The day is not far distant when the science of the mind will treat material science as a plaything, and the spiritual power of intellect will kill Mammon like the stroke of an electric bolt, and brute power succumb to soulforce." "Science may yet stumble upon the soul," says Sir William Crookes. That would be wonderful, for dissectors of the human body do not even find its lurking place. But let us hope while "the lamp holds out to burn." "Who nobly does must nobly think, The soul that soars can never sink, And man's a strange connecting link Between frail dust and Deity." (The Word, July, 1906) ---------------------LUCKY AND UNLUCKY DAYS by Alexander Wilder, M. D. THERE is said to be a vein of superstition in everybody's constitution. I do not set myself against this declaration, or presume to pass judgment upon it. I have known avowed disbelievers and agnostics who consulted professional clairvoyants, astrologists and fortunetellers, and shaped their action by what they were told. Yet I would not scoff at them, for they were acting out a principle of their being, and whether they were moving in error or wisely, they were none the less genuine and sincere. After all, the intrinsic qualities of the nature are to be estimated rather than the incidental manifestations. We do well to heed the utterance of Steerforth in David Copperfield: "Think of me at my best." Even superstition has its excellences. It is not, and never was wholly visionary or absurd. Its origin is in the higher department of our being, where we reach out from matters of sense and conjectural

reasoning in quest of some higher truth which mere logic and sensuous faculties are not capable of apprehending. When human beings were more simple and their spiritual faculties were not overlaid by dense coverings of grosser thinking they felt more certain of their relations to ethereal natures. It was no marvel then, that they conceived that they held converse with others who moved and even existed outside of physical bodies, that they became cognizant of facts and events known and planned in that world where thought is action, and that they learned of periods, days and hours in which it would be fortunate or of evil omen to undertake any enterprise. Their faith, childish and irrational as it now may be regarded, was nevertheless of that mountain-moving character that brought them face to face with the things that are, and enabled them to know. In these days when classified conjecture is honored as science, names are applied as being actual descriptions of things. If an opprobrious epithet is given, it passes often as deciding the whole matter. The beam in the eye of the critic serves to aid in the survey of the mote in the eye of the brother. To be scientific is accounted better than to be clear-seeing, just and true. In this way it has become a fashion to dispose of everything outside of accepted theory by such sweeping terms as superstition. They seem to forget when they adopted this epithet that they had degraded it from its pure meaning in order to make it serve an unworthy purpose. It once had a place among angels, and meant no less than a standing above, an exaltation of the soul above things of sense, a surviving when the external frame was dead. It was a prophetic condition; the superstitious person could communicate with Divinity and perceive the future. But gods were dethroned to supply religious systems with devils. In like manner noble words were perverted from their proper meaning, to meet the behest of scorners. In this way superstition that once meant the cognition of sublimer truth is now only known as overscrupulous exactness in religious matters, false religion, and belief in the direct agency of supernatural beings, or in singular or extraordinary events, or in omens and prognostics. Under these definitions every religion would be included, not even excepting the various forms of Christianity. Nevertheless, when any belief has been generally entertained among the several races of human beings, and in all ages, there is very strong presumption that it is substantially true. The mind is not

capable of thinking a thing that does not exist. We may therefore, with reasonable assurance, accept the notions and traditions, that have come to us from the past, as having in them a living seed of truth, and are warranted in crediting what we hear of a like character, which is from truthful witnesses. In so doing we may be sure of the approval of our own conscience, and that we are moving forward in the company of the noblest and purest minds of all ages, those who were "While in, above the world." The current notions that certain days are propitious and others unfavorable, are doubtless generally derived from tradition and superficial observation. Some of them originate with ancient astrologic beliefs. That the stars were set in the firmament of the heavens for signs or foretokens, the first chapter of the Genesis distinctly sets forth. The ancient temples were plots of ground marked off with religious formalities primarily for observation of the sky, to contemplate or consider, or in other words, to consult the stars. The vault of the heavens was mapped out in constellations, twelve of which were in the Path of the Sun, which he took in his yearly journey, and they were styled by the astrologists houses. They are mentioned as such in the Assyrian Tablets: "He made the mansions of the Great Gods on high (twelve) in number."* It was believed anciently that these divinities of the sky took part in conflicts between nations and between individuals. "From the heavens they fought," the prophetess Deborah sings; "the stars from their orbits fought against Sisera." There were propitious and unpropitious seasons, as the months were reckoned, and as the "lords of the houses" in their respective turns, were in authority. Hence Hesiod advises: "Observe the opportune time." The month of May, for example, has been regarded from unremembered antiquity as being inauspicious for the contracting of marriage. This conceit has drifted down to the present time, and it is still entertained by many. There are other notions of the same category, but the change from Old to New Style in the computing of time, and the growing inclination to discard such things are likely to sweep the sentiment entirely out of existence. The old mythopoeic theogonist of ancient Greece has given a

very complete record of the auspices of the several days in the month, which he describes as having been fixed by the all-counseling Supreme Zeus himself. It may be well to remark however, that in this arrangement the month is regarded as consisting of thirty ------------* Lepsius says that the Great Gods of Egypt had not an astronomic origin, but were probably distributed on an astronomic principle when the kingdom was consolidated. It was necessary then to preserve the divinities of the several former dominions, which was done by including them in this way in one system. -----------days, and that in the Grecian calendar it began about the third week as computed by us. Whether the eleven days which have been eliminated from the reckoning in the transition to New Style are to be considered, is for the curious individual to determine for himself. Whoever, therefore, is disposed to accept this classification and arrangement of lucky and unlucky, must bide the chances of their harmonizing with the present dates. First of all the first, fourth and seventh days of the month were all esteemed as holy days. The first had observances in commemoration of the new month, the fourth was sacred to Hermes and Aphrodite, and was considered, when the omens were propitious, to be the most suitable for the contracting of marriage. The fifth was unqualifiedly unlucky, a day in which quarreling and misfortune were likely to occur. The sixth was unfortunate for girls, both in respect to birth and marriage, but it was auspicious for the birth of boys. In other respects, it was adverse - a day characterized by raillery, falsehood, treacherous speaking, and clandestine wooing by fond discourse. The seventh day of the month was esteemed as holy beyond other days. Upon the seventh day of the month Thargelion it was said that Apollo was born.* This day was observed accordingly at the oracle-temple of Delphi and other places sacred to this divinity by the singing of hymns of praise, pious offerings, and fervent supplications. The eighth and ninth days are suitable for the transacting of business and the performing of necessary work. "The first ninth is entirely free from harm and

----------* According to the Symposiacs ascribed to Plutarch, Socrates was born on the sixth, and Plato on the seventh of Thargelion. The priests of Apollo at Delos used to affirm that the goddess Artemis or Diana was born on the sixth. Thargelion was the eleventh month of the Attic year, and began at the middle of May. ----------evil omen," says Hesiod; "lucky indeed is this day for planting and for being born, to man as well as to woman; it is never a day that is altogether unfortunate." The tenth is a fortunate day for the birth of boys. The eleventh and twelfth are both propitious to industry, but the twelfth is far more so than the eleventh. It is a suitable day for housewives to begin important work in the household. The thirteenth is a day to hold back from beginning to sow, though it is proper for the setting of plants. "The fourteenth is a day sacred above all others." It is fortunate also for the birth of girls. The sixteenth is described as "very unprofitable for plants, but auspicious for the birth of men; yet on the other hand it is a day not propitious for a girl either to be born or joined in wedlock." The seventeenth is a good day for the man in the country to thresh grain or to cut timber for implements or furniture. The nineteenth is quaintly described as "a better day toward evening." The twenty-fourth is emphatically pictured as "in truth a very perfect day," and the caution is given to avoid gnawing the heart with grief. It is best in its omens at early morning, but becomes worse as the evening approaches. The days which have here been indicated are those which are significant. The others are harmless and without omen, or anything of moment. A day is sometimes a mother and sometimes only a keeper. One person esteems some particular day as most auspicious, while another is as positive in belief that some different day is better. Few, nevertheless, are able to indicate the days that are really propitious. He is the lucky one who distinguishes the omens and avoids the mistaking of them, who guides his conduct intelligently with reference to what is boded and promised by the immortal ones. Thus far Hesiod. As poet and as the counselor of the industrious and thrifty, he was truly wise and thoughtful. Perhaps this is praise enough.

The distinguishing of days and periods as sacred and profane, as fortunate and of ill omen, is older than any record of history. The cycle of the week appears from early dates to have been regarded as more directly influential in human affairs. Perhaps this has been the case because it is a matter more familiar, and more directly within the province of the understanding. The ancient belief assigned to each of the days a virtue of its own; to some of them good omens, and to others auspices which were less fortunate. The number was fixed at seven and might conform to the number of planetary worlds and divinities. A name has been given accordingly to every day of the week to signify the divinity or patron genius of a planet, that was supposed to have a marked influence upon the fortunes of individuals for that space of time. We thus have Sun-day, Monen-day, Tuisko's day, Woden's day, Thor's day, Freyja-day, Sathor-day. The Romans had also named the days in corresponding order: Dies Solis, Dies Lunae, Dies Martis, Dies Mercurii, Dies Jovis, Dies Veneris, Dies Saturni. This is no caprice taking its rise within any time comparatively recent. The ancient Assyrians also divided their months into weeks of seven days each, and attached a magic significance to particular periods. Nor is this accounted to be orginal with them but to have been adopted from the Akkadians, a Skythic people whom they had supplanted in the Euphratean country. The Assyrian month was lunar, extending from the first appearing of the new moon to the period of its utter disappearing from the sky. The seventh day of the first week was sacred to Merodakh, the god of Light, and to his consort, Zirat-banit* ----------* Merodakh, was the Amar-Utuki of the Akkadians and Khitans of the Upper Euphrates. He appears to have been recognized and worshipped by Cyrus as the Mithras of the Persian worship. Ziratbanit was the Succoth-Benoth, or Suku the Mother of the Babylonian and Akkadian pantheons. These divinities, as well as "the Sabbath or rest-day, passed to the Semites from the Akkadians," as we are assured by Professors Sayce and Tiele. -----------and it was observed with a solemnity that was full of terror. It was denominated sulum, a term which signifies dies nefastus, the unlucky

day. Upon the Sabbath the king was strictly enjoined from eating cooked food, changing his clothes, putting on new garments, and from performing any act of religious worship, driving in his chariot, holding court, and from taking medicine for a bodily ailment. There were similiar conditions for every seventh day during the entire month. The fourteenth was regarded as sacred to Nergal and the goddess Belat, the twenty-first to Shamas and Sin, the Sun and Moon, and the twenty-eight to Hea or Nisrokh and Nergal. The strictest sabbatarian of modern time was outdone by the rigid austerity of the Akkadian and Semitic Sabbath. The nineteenth day of the month, however, was a joyful exception. It was accounted a "white day," a gala day, a day of good fortune, and the beautiful goddess Gula was its patron. The beliefs respecting fortunate days and unlucky ones have been extended to later times, and are recognized in the records and literature of different peoples. The days of Saturn and the Moon were considered inauspicious beyond others. If we attached significance to this persuasion we would be disposed to agree with it. We have frequently, if not generally found both Monday and Saturday untoward in the way of taking any new step, beginning a work, or transacting business with others. We have also observed a like experience with others. By no means, however, do we suppose that there is any specific magic or occult influence in the matter. It seems to be due to the fact that in the general arrangements of business incident to the cessation of employments on Sunday, many persons are obliged to contract their sphere of action upon the days immediately before and after in order to accord with this practice. Their movements affect the plans of others, creating more or less of obstruction of effort. Their influence thus extends to a remote distance. Perhaps there are sprites in the region almost contiguous to our physical senses that have a hand in effecting all this; but for common purposes the reason which has been suggested appears to be a sufficient explanation. Nevertheless, the general belief must be accounted for by proofs of a more recondite nature. The thinkers of far-off times had implicit reliance upon the decrees of fate, the utterance of the purpose of Divinity.* The Superior Power, having determined upon something gives oracular signs, by way of making it known to human beings. The planets, which are dominant over the days of the week are significant in such matters, and to be regarded. Saturn was

always regarded by the astrologers of Babylon as of malignant aspect. The planets, it was believed, had emanated from the sun, and Saturn being the oldest had been sent forth farthest into the outer region of darkness. It bore the name of Khus or Cush, the son or emanation of Ham, the sun. It was the Sun of the Underworld, in Erebus or the remote West.** This seems to explain the reason of the awe or terror with which the Assyrians regarded the seventh day of the week, prohibiting every act not absolutely necessary, lest it should entail evil upon them. ----------* The word fate from the Latin fatum means etymologically, that which is spoken. ** This concept was also entertained in Egypt. The region of the dead was denominated Amenti, or the West, and Osiris, as the ruler, bore the title of Ra-t-Amenti (Radamanthos). He was the son of Seb, the Siva or Kronos of Egypt, the lord of death. ----------The Gnostics did much to perpetuate this impression. In their Theogony, the Demiurge or Creator was the genius of the planet Saturn, and the Evil Potency that seeks to mislead and injure mankind. Their influence was probably active in the religious change by which Sunday was made the sacred day instead of Saturday. Astrologists have generally described Saturn as the most potent and most malignant of all the planets. Its influx is represented as imperceptibly undermining the vitality of the bodily organism. A vast part of suffering is thus accounted as due to its malefic action. This does not, however, even if actually true, show conclusively why the day of Saturn should be regarded as productive of misfortune. We may make the same appeal in the case of Monday. We are aware that the moon has borne an evil reputation for malignant influence on plants, as well as on the atmosphere. Various disorders of mind and body have their names from the baleful influence exerted upon individuals; but they have never been imputed to the day of the moon. We must suppose that Monday is not specially unlucky, except as folly, misconduct or accident happens to make it so. Modern fancy has designated Friday as the inauspicious day of the week. So deep is this impression that sailors are unwilling to begin a voyage on that day, but are confident when they set out on

Sunday. Others whom we would suppose were more intelligent are equally credulous. In this case we have an example of a perverted tradition. Friday, in olden times, was the day of good fortune above others. It was sacred to the benign goddess, the Mother in every ancient faith; the one who gives delight and success. The Assyrian Kings always on the evening of the day presented an offering to the divinities Merodakh and Istar, invoking them with the significant open hand. It was a day propitious for every important undertaking. When, however, the old worships were superseded, it seems to have been considered necessary to break the charm. It was accordingly set apart for capital punishments and inquisitorial tortures, till the odium and accumulated terrors led men to curse the day as fraught with direst evil. Other devices were employed in like manner to eradicate confidence in other good omens. The result, however, has been as might have been foreseen. There has been no increase of faith, and the popular belief in omens and auspicious days has only been changed. Fetishes, ceremonies, and lucky periods are as much a matter of belief as before, but the objects have been modified. But amid it all, it may safely be borne in mind that good fortune is attendant on Friday as on other days. We may hope little from the days as they are marked in the calendar. We do not question that there may be a difference in their serviceableness for specific purposes as there is in regard to humidity and temperature. That is a fact, however, to aid us to shape our action wisely, and by it we may not be overborne. There is a time suitable for everything in its order, and they who are truly intelligent will apperceive it. We may not count one day secular or profane more than another. All days are alike fortunate and alike sacred. The fortune of a month is not influenced by an accidental first sight of the crescent moon, nor are the events of a day affected by the casual pointing of a sharp object in a certain direction. These are notions derived from former usage. Yet we confidently believe that there are auxiliary agencies in the universe about us superior to our common ken, that in one way and another impart to us conceptions of what we should do. Yet whoever lingers unduly for opportunity to manifest itself, and neglects to take the current that serves, is liable to lose the object aspired for. On the other hand, the wise and the heroic will storm the very gates of apparent misfortune, and, like Samson, carry them off. "The kingdom of the heavens suffereth violence," said Jesus; "and the violent take it by force " As the

purpose inspires to effort so the day is made lucky. Justice in our action, wisdom in our thought, and charity in our motive are essential to a true insight. The individual is his own star, his own fortune, his own destiny. (Un. Brotherhood, July, 1898) --------------THE NEW ORDER OF AGES by Alexander Wilder ALL human progress is in circles, and never directly in straight lines. Such is the course of events, the order of the seasons, the career of the stars in the sky. After all advancing there is an apparent going backward all growth has its periods of retardation, all ascent its descendings likewise. We find this abundantly confirmed by example in the brief space of human activity of which we have been able to obtain historic records. Where it has been imagined otherwise, we can find it only apparently so. Where there is evolution and manifestation, there has always been a prolific seed to set the development in motion. The fragrant Nymphaea, the creamy pondlily, or the sacred lotus, may have sordid mud for its birthplace and maintenance, but it began with a rudimentary plant. The like is always engendered from its like. We may be content, therefore, to contemplate ourselves as having a human ancestry all the way to remote ages. We are perfectly safe in relegating the simian races to their own, with the assurance of the Creed - "as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end." The origin of human beings may be counted as from the source to which their nobler aspirations tend. The oak and the pine grow toward the sky, because the effort is instinctive in the seed. We have good reason to presume as much in regard to ourselves. In regard, however, to conjectures about dates and periods we do not care to speculate. The point in the past is yet to be found at which a memorial of human beginnings may be set. Indeed, it is a matter entirely beyond our power of thinking. We do well to rest content with deducing what we may from the facts at our hand, and from the intuitions with which we are endowed.

There is innate in us all a desire and aptitude to learn what is beyond the scope of our present knowing. Our animal wants come first, and are peremptory, but the gratifying of them does not set us free from unrest. We are conscious that we are something else than brute animals, and it is manifest in the passion to know, and possess. The infant child will cry for the moon, explore the flame of the candle with his fingers, and pull the doll to pieces in order to find out the mystery of its construction. He even becomes curious about existence. I have heard a child that had attained to vocal speech discourse extensively and as from actual memory, of his residence and employments in the years before he was born. When, likewise, the phenomenon of dying is beheld, children become inquisitive about it, eager to know what has actually occurred, whether it is all or there is still living and being in some mode and form not plain to them. They are not willing to admit that the person is no more. In this eager passion for more perfect knowing, and in these curious conjectures, are manifested the instinct of that life which is beyond time, and scintillations of the grander truth. The mind seems to exhibit the reflection of some concept, some memory of the Aforetime, and to have caught with it as by refraction from the other direction, an impression of the life continuing. From views like these the poet Wordsworth was prompted to write his memorable verse: "Heaven hangs about us in our infancy." There has been in every people having as such a worship and literature, the memory or conception of a primitive period of felicity. "The races of men were wont to live as gods," says Hesiod. "Their life was devoid of care, labor and trouble; no wretched old age hung imminent over them, but with hands and feet always vigorous as in youth they enjoyed themselves without any illness, and when at last they died it was as though they had been overcome by sleep. They are now benignant demons hovering about the earth, and guardian spirits over human beings." ------------* Deva, which in Sanskrit signifies a divine being, here means a devil. The ancient schism between the two great Aryan peoples is indicated in these conflicting definitions of characteristic words. Thus Yima, who is described in the Avesta as the ruler set by Ahurmazda over living men in the Garden of Bliss, is changed in India into Yama, the first man and sovereign in the region of the dead. There are

many other of these counterparts. -----------In the Aryan records of India are similar traditions of the Hiranya or Golden Age of righteousness, in which was no labor or sorrow, no priests or sacrifices, and but one God and one Veda. The Yasna, or Book of Worship of the Parsis, also describes the happy reign of Yima, in which there was neither cold nor heat, neither decay nor wasting disease, nor malice inspired by the devas;* father and son walked forth each like the other in the freshness of fifteen years. "Men enjoyed the greatest bliss in the Garden which Yima made." Akin to this legend is that of the Garden or Park of Eden depicted in the Book of the Genesis in Hebrew story, copied apparently from that of the Grove or Park of the Gods in Babylonia. We may perceive a striking resemblance in the outcome. The serpent came; Yima beginning to desire the wrong, the celestial light withdrew. Long ages of evil followed, ages of silver and copper and iron, full of trial and calamity. Yet the Divine One has by no means wholly abandoned the children of the Earth. Here and there along the succession of ages, the "kingly majesty," or radiance unites itself with heroic men and gifted sages, till the circuit shall be completed. "That which hath been is that which shall be," and not absolutely new. The Golden Age, the Treta Yug, that preceded all, comes again as the cycle returns upon itself. "Now comes again the Virgin Astraea, the Divine Justice," sings the poet Vergil; "the reign of Saturn returns, and there is now sent down a new-born child from on high." The "kingly splendor," the light of the ages, now attaches itself to the new prophet Sosianto, the greatest of the sages and to all who are with him, in order to accomplish the restoration of all things. "The world will now continue in a state of righteousness; the powers of evil will disappear and all its seed pass away." (Zamyad Yasht) A very similar culmination is set forth by early Christian teachers. It is related that the Apostle Paul was brought before the court of the Areopagos at Athens, by several Stoic and Epikurean philosophers, to explain certain of his doctrines which they accounted strange and alien, He protested that he was simply describing a Divinity whom they were worshiping without due intelligence of his character. He is the Creator and Disposer of all things, the apostle declared; and does not dwell in temples or depend upon offerings from his worshipers. Nor, is he far from any one of us, for in him we

live and move and are, as several of the poets have affirmed: "We likewise are children of God." The former want of intelligence, however, is not regarded, but now a superior way of life and truth* is announced to all mankind everywhere: inasmuch as he has set a day or period in which the habitable earth will be ruled with justice and the Right hold sway thereafter. This expectation has been a significant feature in subsequent history. It was not confined to any single religion. Not only was it general in the Eastern world, but it was also current in the new Continent of the West. The natives of Mexico greeted the coming of Cortes as the promised return of the "Fair God," Quetzalcohuatl, which would be followed by the establishment of a new reign of peace. The Mayas of Yucatan exhibited a similar confidence. These illusions were speedily dispelled when the Spaniards began to manifest their insatiable rapacity and merciless cruelty, but the belief is still cherished in many parts of that country that Motzuma himself, who was in some unknown way, adopted in place of the other, as the primitive hero of the people, is now living in a celestial abode, and will yet come and restore the Golden Era. The Peruvians had also a tradition that Viracocha will come from the region of the Dawn and set up his kingdom. Other cities and tribes have similar beliefs. ------------* Greek, [[script]], metanoein. This term is translated "to repent," in the authorized version of the New Testament, but I have taken the liberty to render it as a noun, by the phrase here given, considering it as meaning etymologically, to go forward to a higher moral altitude, or plane of thought. ------------Christianity began with a like conception of a happier era for mankind. The epistles of the Apostle Paul mention it as an event near at hand, and even in the Evangelic writings are many sentences affirming the same thing. The prediction is recorded in them that "this gospel of the reign of heaven shall be proclaimed in the whole world for a testimony to all the various nations, and then the end will come." The Apostle supplements this by the emphatic statement that it had been proclaimed in all the created world beneath the sky, and thus gives his sanction to the general expectation. The unknown author of the Apocalypse seems to have been somewhat less catholic than

Paul and covertly denounces him. He sets forth the concept of a new Jerusalem, which he describes as the holy city, complete in every respect, with the names of the tribes of Israel inscribed on its foundations and of twelve apostles on its gates, descending out of the sky from God, and illuminating the Gentile nations with its light. The beatific vision failed of being realized but the expectation remained all through the Middle Ages as an important element of Christian doctrine. At the beginning of the Tenth Century this appeared in conspicuous form. This was a period of calamity almost unparalleled, war unceasing, years of famine, frequent earthquakes, and pestilence rapidly supervening upon pestilence, as though the human race was doomed. The belief was general throughout Europe that the present order of the world was about to be dissolved. The augurs of ancient Etruria had predicted that the time of national existence for their country would be a thousand years and it had been verified. The duration of Christendom it was supposed would be for a like period. The coming judgment was at once the hope and the terror of that time. Under this conviction the Crusades and wars of extermination against heretics and unconverted peoples, were undertaken in rapid succession. The Pontiff at Rome claimed divine authority over the nations. The Emperor of Germany followed by assuming to be Prince of the Holy Empire to whom all kings and rulers owed allegiance, and the attempt was made by force of arms to plant peace perpetually in the world. Frederick Barbarossa perished in a crusade, but his faithful people continued for hundreds of years firm in their belief that he was only sleeping in the tomb, and would yet awake to realize the hope of the nations. In these days of repression and violence it did not seem possible to divest men's minds of the persuasion that the expected reign of justice would be a dominion of external state and magnificence, and to show them instead that it was to be a brotherhood of charity, in which the pure thought, pure word and pure deed are prominent. Yet several writers in the New Testament appear to have declared this very distinctly. Paul affirms that the reign of God consists in justice, peace and joyfulness in a holy spirit. It is also recorded that Jesus himself described it as not of this world to be supported by war and violence, or to make its advent with external manifestation, "Lo, the reign of heaven is within you" - such is the

explicit statement. But men looked for the star, not in the sky over their heads, but rather in the pools that were beneath. Some juster conception, however, was possessed by clearseeing Mystics who flourished during the Middle Ages. There were gifted men, devoted to the profounder knowledge, who sought to escape persecution by the use of a secret speech with a covert meaning intelligible only to one another. Perhaps they were a fraternity like other sodalities. Some thought them illuminated from above; others, that they were dabbling in forbidden arts. What was not easily understood was accounted as magic. When the Renaissance came, the dense cloud began to dissipate, and men began to apprehend more clearly. The early Reformers had some distincter perception, but the obscurity was still too dense for open vision. And thus the centuries passed. It is said to be darkest just before daylight. This figure is employed to indicate the woeful period that often precedes a happier one. The Sixteenth Century was characterized by crime and calamity. From that time has been a steady bettering. It was as the slow coming of morning. There were no changes to be considered marvelous, no miracles except as every event about us, if we might but see more deeply, is a miracle. There was, however, a gradual unfolding of higher principles of action, and a broadening dissemination of knowledge. For those whose eyes were open there was much to be descried; and those who had ears to hear caught the sounds of the harbingers of the new day. Emanuel Swedenborg, the Swedish Illuminate, looking into heaven like the Martyr Stephen, beheld it opening to reveal the winding up of the former order of things, and the evolution of the new. We may interpret him as we are best able, but the intrinsic verity of his revelation may not he denied. The world of thought is enlarging itself as never before during the historic period. There is no Holy Office or Star Chamber with its tortures to repress and punish dissenting beliefs. There is greater freedom in regard to religious faith, and a wholesome increasing independence of formal creeds and dominating teachers. Yet while perhaps drifting more widely apart in speculative opinion, there is evidently an approximating to a closer unity of sentiment and a higher standard of duty. We are nearing the end of the period when conquest, slaughter and rapine are honored as glorious war. There is a public opinion

maturing among the "plain people" that all controversies can be determined justly without such recourse. In this the self-interest of the selfish and the conscience of the conscientious concur as one. The reign of God is the reign of justice, and the reign of justice is the reign of peace. Nevertheless, we may not expect any speedy developing of Eutopia, or an ideal commonwealth of nations. There is an infinitude of preparation necessary, not merely in teaching, but in doing. The mills of the gods grind slowly, and there are hundreds of millions that people the earth that are not in condition to realize a very hopeful development. They require other discipline than that described by the Zulu chief: "First a missionary, then a consul, and then an army." The century that is about to open has in store for us, we trust, better things than have marked the long array of ages in the historic past. It is not enough that scientific learning is widely extended, and mechanic arts developed to greater perfection. Civilization, properly understood, means something more vital and essential. It embraces life as a whole, a knowing how to live. In it the strong uphold the weak, the greatest serve the humblest, the wisest are those who dispense the most benefits. It implies a moral development, aiming to realize a perfect society. The century now about to close, despite its shortcomings, made a long advance in that direction. In many respects it has also retrograded toward the former estate, both in ethics and legislation; but the Twentieth Century taking up its work will doubtless set out anew toward the ideal civilization. (Un. Brotherhood, June, 1898) ------------