The editor of the London Spiritualist, in answer to Dr. Gully's criticism of Mr. Tyndall's fire-mist theory, remarks that if the entire body of spiritualists are not roasting alive at Smithfield in the present century, it is to science alone that we are indebted for this crowning mercy. Well, let us admit that the scientists are indirectly public benefactors in this case, to the extent that the burning of erudite scholars is no longer fashionable. But is it unfair to ask whether the disposition manifested toward the spiritualistic doctrine by Faraday, Tyndall, Huxley, Agassiz, and others, does not warrant the suspicion that if these learned gentlemen and their following had the unlimited power once held by the Inquisition, spiritualists would not have reason to feel as easy as they do now? Even supposing that they should not roast believers in the existence of a spirit-world — it being unlawful to cremate people alive — would they not send every spiritualist they could to Bedlam? Do they not call us "incurable monomaniacs," "hallucinated fools," "fetich-worshippers," and like characteristic names? Really, we cannot see what should have stimulated to such extent the gratitude of the editor of the London Spiritualist, for the benevolent tutelage of the men of science. We believe that the recent Lankester-Donkin-Slade prosecution in London ought at last to open the eyes of hopeful spiritualists, and show them that stubborn materialism is often more stupidly bigoted than religious fanaticism itself.
One of the cleverest productions of Professor Tyndall's pen is his caustic essay upon Martineau and Materialism. At the same time it is one which in future years the author will doubtless be only too ready to trim of certain unpardonable grossnesses of expression. For the moment, however, we will not deal with these, but consider what he has to say of the phenomenon of consciousness. He quotes this question from Mr. Martineau: "A man can say 'I feel, I think, I love'; but how does consciousness infuse itself into the problem?" And thus answers: "The passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought and a molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously; we do not possess the intellectual organ nor apparently any rudiments of the organ, which would enable us to pass by a process of reasoning from one to the other. They appear together, but we do not know why. Were our minds and senses so expanded, strengthened and illuminated, as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the brain; were we capable of following all their motions, all their groupings, all their electric discharges, if such there be; and were we intimately acquainted with the corresponding states of thought and feeling, we should be as far as ever from the solution of the problem, 'How are these physical processes connected with the facts of consciousness?' The chasm between the two classes of phenomena would still remain intellectually impassable." [21]
This chasm, as impassable to Professor Tyndall as the fire-mist where the scientist is confronted with his unknowable cause, is a barrier only to men without spiritual intuitions. Professor Buchanan's Outlines of Lectures on the Neurological System of Anthropology, a work written so far back as 1854, contains suggestions that, if the sciolists would only heed them, would show how a bridge can be thrown across this dreadful abyss. It is one of the bins in which the thought-seed of future harvests is stored up by a frugal present. But the edifice of materialism is based entirely upon that gross sub-structure — the reason. When they have stretched its capabilities to their utmost limits, its teachers can at best only disclose to us an universe of molecules animated by an occult impulse. What better diagnosis of the ailment of our scientists could be asked than can be derived from Professor Tyndall's analysis of the mental state of the Ultramontane clergy by a very slight change of names. For "spiritual guides" read "scientists," for "prescientific past" substitute "materialistic present," say "spirit" for "science," and in the following paragraph we have a life portrait of the modern man of science drawn by the hand of a master:
" . . . Their spiritual guides live so exclusively in the prescientific past, that even the really strong intellects among them are reduced to atrophy as regards scientific truth. Eyes they have and see not; ears they have and hear not; for both eyes and ears are taken possession of by the sights and sounds of another age. In relation to science, the Ultramontane brain, through lack of exercise, is virtually the undeveloped brain of the child. And thus it is that as children in scientific knowledge, but as potent wielders of spiritual power among the ignorant, they countenance and enforce practices sufficient to bring the blush of shame to the cheeks of the more intelligent among themselves." [22] The Occultist holds this mirror up to science that it may see how it looks itself.
Since history recorded the first laws established by man, there never was yet a people, whose code did not hang the issues of the life and death of its citizens upon the testimony of two or three credible witnesses. "At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death," [23] says Moses, the first legislator we meet in ancient history. "The laws which put to death a man on the deposition of one witness are fatal to freedom" — says Montesquieu. "Reason claims there should be two witnesses." [24]
Thus the value of evidence has been tacitly agreed upon and accepted in every country. But the scientists will not accept the evidence of the million against one. In vain do hundreds of thousands of men testify to facts. Oculos habent et non vident! They are determined to remain blind and deaf. Thirty years of practical demonstrations and the testimony of some millions of believers in America and Europe are certainly entitled to some degree of respect and attention. Especially so, when the verdict of twelve spiritualists, influenced by the evidence testified to by any two others, is competent to send even a scientist to swing on the gallows for a crime, perhaps committed under the impulse supplied by a commotion among the cerebral molecules unrestrained by a consciousness of future moral RETRIBUTION.
Toward science as a whole, as a divine goal, the whole civilized world ought to look with respect and veneration; for science alone can enable man to understand the Deity by the true appreciation of his works. "Science is the understanding of truth or facts," says Webster; "it is an investigation of truth for its own sake and a pursuit of pure knowledge." If the definition be correct, then the majority of our modern scholars have proved false to their goddess. "Truth for its own sake!" And where should the keys to every truth in nature be searched for, unless in the hitherto unexplored mystery of psychology? Alas! that in questioning nature so many men of science should daintily sort over her facts and choose only such for study as best bolster their prejudices.
Psychology has no worse enemies than the medical school denominated allopathists. It is in vain to remind them that of the so-called exact sciences, medicine, confessedly, least deserves the name. Although of all branches of medical knowledge, psychology ought more than any other to be studied by physicians, since without its help their practice degenerates into mere guess-work and chance-intuitions, they almost wholly neglect it. The least dissent from their promulgated doctrines is resented as a heresy, and though an unpopular and unrecognized curative method should be shown to save thousands, they seem, as a body, disposed to cling to accepted hypotheses and prescriptions, and decry both innovator and innovation until they get the mint-stamp of regularity. Thousands of unlucky patients may die meanwhile, but so long as professional honor is vindicated, this is a matter of secondary importance.
Theoretically the most benignant, at the same time no other school of science exhibits so many instances of petty prejudice, materialism, atheism, and malicious stubbornness as medicine. The predilections and patronage of the leading physicians are scarcely ever measured by the usefulness of a discovery. Bleeding, by leeching, cupping, and the lancet, had its epidemic of popularity, but at last fell into merited disgrace; water, now freely given to fevered patients, was once denied them, warm baths were superseded by cold water, and for a while hydropathy was a mania. Peruvian bark — which a modern defender of biblical authority seriously endeavors to identify with the paradisiacal "Tree of Life," [25] and which was brought to Spain in 1632 — was neglected for years. The Church, for once, showed more discrimination than science. At the request of Cardinal de Lugo, Innocent X. gave it the prestige of his powerful name.
In an old book entitled Demonologia, the author cites many instances of important remedies which being neglected at first afterward rose into notice through mere accident. He also shows that most of the new discoveries in medicine have turned out to be no more than "the revival and readoption of very ancient practices." During the last century, the root of the male fern was sold and widely advertised as a secret nostrum by a Madame Nouffleur, a female quack, for the effective cure of the tapeworm. The secret was bought by Louis XV. for a large sum of money; after which the physicians discovered that it was recommended and administered in that disease by Galen. The famous powder of the Duke of Portland for the gout, was the diacentaureon of Cælius Aurelianus. Later it was ascertained that it had been used by the earliest medical writers, who had found it in the writings of the old Greek philosophers. So with the eau medicinale of Dr. Husson, whose name it bears. This famous remedy for the gout was recognized under its new mask to be the Colchicum autumnale, or meadow saffron, which is identical with a plant called Hermodactylus, whose merits as a certain antidote to gout were recognized and defended by Oribasius, a great physician of the fourth century, and Ætius Amidenus, another eminent physician of Alexandria (fifth century). Subsequently it was abandoned and fell into disfavor only because it was too old to be considered good by the members of the medical faculties that flourished toward the end of the last century!
Even the great Magendie, the wise physiologist, was not above discovering that which had already been discovered and found good by the oldest physicians. His proposed remedy against consumption, namely, the use of prussic acid, may be found in the works of Linnæus, Amenitates Academicæ, vol. iv., in which he shows distilled laurel water to have been used with great profit in pulmonary consumption. Pliny also assures us that the extract of almonds and cherry-pits had cured the most obstinate coughs. As the author of Demonologia well remarks, it may be asserted with perfect safety that "all the various secret preparations of opium which have been lauded as the discovery of modern times, may be recognized in the works of ancient authors," who see themselves so discredited in our days.
It is admitted on all hands that from time immemorial the distant East was the land of knowledge. Not even in Egypt were botany and mineralogy so extensively studied as by the savants of archaic Middle Asia. Sprengel, unjust and prejudiced as he shows himself in everything else, confesses this much in his Histoire de la Medicine. And yet, notwithstanding this, whenever the subject of magic is discussed, that of India has rarely suggested itself to any one, for of its general practice in that country less is known than among any other ancient people. With the Hindus it was and is more esoteric, if possible, than it was even among the Egyptian priests. So sacred was it deemed that its existence was only half admitted, and it was only practiced in public emergencies. It was more than a religious matter, for it was considered divine. The Egyptian hierophants, notwithstanding the practice of a stern and pure morality, could not be compared for one moment with the ascetical Gymnosophists, either in holiness of life or miraculous powers developed in them by the supernatural adjuration of everything earthly. By those who knew them well they were held in still greater reverence than the magians of Chaldea. Denying themselves the simplest comforts of life, they dwelt in woods, and led the life of the most secluded hermits, [26] while their Egyptian brothers at least congregated together. Notwithstanding the slur thrown by history on all who practiced magic and divination, it has proclaimed them as possessing the greatest secrets in medical knowledge and unsurpassed skill in its practice. Numerous are the volumes preserved in Hindu convents, in which are recorded the proofs of their learning. To attempt to say whether these Gymnosophists were the real founders of magic in India, or whether they only practiced what had passed to them as an inheritance from the earliest Rishis [27] — the seven primeval sages — would be regarded as a mere speculation by exact scholars. "The care which they took in educating youth, in familiarizing it with generous and virtuous sentiments, did them peculiar honor, and their maxims and discourses, as recorded by historians, prove that they were expert in matters of philosophy, metaphysics, astronomy, morality, and religion," says a modern writer. They preserved their dignity under the sway of the most powerful princes, whom they would not condescend to visit, or to trouble for the slightest favor. If the latter desired the advice or the prayers of the holy men, they were either obliged to go themselves, or to send messengers. To these men no secret power of either plant or mineral was unknown. They had fathomed nature to its depths, while psychology and physiology were to them open books, and the result was that science or machagiotia that is now termed, so superciliously, magic.
While the miracles recorded in the Bible have become accepted facts with the Christians, to disbelieve which is regarded as infidelity, the narratives of wonders and prodigies found in the Atharva-Veda, [28] either provoke their contempt or are viewed as evidences of diabolism. And yet, in more than one respect, and notwithstanding the unwillingness of certain Sanscrit scholars, we can show the identity between the two. Moreover, as the Vedas have now been proved by scholars to antedate the Jewish Bible by many ages, the inference is an easy one that if one of them has borrowed from the other, the Hindu sacred books are not to be charged with plagiarism.
First of all, their cosmogony shows how erroneous has been the opinion prevalent among the civilized nations that Brahma was ever considered by the Hindus their chief or Supreme God. Brahma is a secondary deity, and like Jehovah is "a mover of the waters." He is the creating god, and has in his allegorical representations four heads, answering to the four cardinal points. He is the demiurgos, the architect of the world. "In the primordiate state of the creation," says Polier's Mythologie des Indous, "the rudimental universe, submerged in water, reposed in the bosom of the Eternal. Sprang from this chaos and darkness, Brahma, the architect of the world, poised on a lotus-leaf floated (moved?) upon the waters, unable to discern anything but water and darkness." This is as identical as possible with the Egyptian cosmogony, which shows in its opening sentences Athtor [29] or Mother Night (which represents illimitable darkness) as the primeval element which covered the infinite abyss, animated by water and the universal spirit of the Eternal, dwelling alone in Chaos. As in the Jewish Scriptures, the history of the creation opens with the spirit of God and his creative emanation — another Deity. [30] Perceiving such a dismal state of things, Brahma soliloquizes in consternation: "Who am I? Whence came I?" Then he hears a voice: "Direct your prayer to Bhagavant — the Eternal, known, also, as Parabrahma." Brahma, rising from his natatory position, seats himself upon the lotus in an attitude of contemplation, and reflects upon the Eternal, who, pleased with this evidence of piety, disperses the primeval darkness and opens his understanding. "After this Brahma issues from the universal egg — (infinite chaos) as light, for his understanding is now opened, and he sets himself to work; he moves on the eternal waters, with the spirit of God within himself; in his capacity of mover of the waters he is Narayana."
The lotus, the sacred flower of the Egyptians, as well as the Hindus, is the symbol of Horus as it is that of Brahma. No temples in Thibet or Nepaul are found without it; and the meaning of this symbol is extremely suggestive. The sprig of lilies placed in the hand of the archangel, who offers them to the Virgin Mary, in the pictures of the "Annunciation," have in their esoteric symbolism precisely the same meaning. We refer the reader to Sir William Jones. [31] With the Hindus, the lotus is the emblem of the productive power of nature, through the agency of fire and water (spirit and matter). "Eternal!" says a verse in the Bhagavad Gita, "I see Brahma the creator enthroned in thee above the lotus!" and Sir W. Jones shows that the seeds of the lotus contain — even before they germinate — perfectly-formed leaves, the miniature shapes of what one day, as perfected plants, they will become; or, as the author of The Heathen Religion, has it — "nature thus giving us a specimen of the preformation of its productions"; adding further that "the seed of all phœnogamous plants bearing proper flowers, contain an embryo plantlet ready formed." [32]
With the Buddhists, it has the same signification. Maha-Maya, or Maha-Deva, the mother of Gautama Buddha, had the birth of her son announced to her by Bhodisat (the spirit of Buddha), who appeared beside her couch with a lotus in his hand. Thus, also, Osiris and Horus are represented by the Egyptians constantly in association with the lotus-flower.
These facts all go to show the identical parentage of this idea in the three religious systems, Hindu, Egyptian and Judaico-Christian. Wherever the mystic water-lily (lotus) is employed, it signifies the emanation of the objective from the concealed, or subjective — the eternal thought of the ever-invisible Deity passing from the abstract into the concrete or visible form. For as soon as darkness was dispersed and "there was light," Brahma's understanding was opened, and he saw in the ideal world (which had hitherto lain eternally concealed in the Divine thought) the archetypal forms of all the infinite future things that would be called into existence, and hence become visible. At this first stage of action, Brahma had not yet become the architect, the builder of the universe, for he had, like the architect, to first acquaint himself with the plan, and realize the ideal forms which were buried in the bosom of the Eternal One, as the future lotus-leaves are concealed within the seed of that plant. And it is in this idea that we must look for the origin and explanation of the verse in the Jewish cosmogony, which reads: "And God said, Let the earth bring forth . . . the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself." In all the primitive religions, the "Son of the Father" is the creative God — i.e., His thought made visible; and before the Christian era, from the Trimurti of the Hindus down to the three kabalistic heads of the Jewish-explained scriptures, the triune godhead of each nation was fully defined and substantiated in its allegories. In the Christian creed we see but the artificial engrafting of a new branch upon the old trunk; and the adoption by the Greek and Roman churches of the lily-symbol held by the archangel at the moment of the Annunciation, shows a thought of precisely the same metaphysical significance.
The lotus is the product of fire (heat) and water, hence the dual symbol of spirit and matter. The God Brahma is the second person of the Trinity, as are Jehovah (Adam-Kadmon) and Osiris, or rather Pimander, or the Power of the Thought Divine, of Hermes; for it is Pimander who represents the root of all the Egyptian Sun-gods. The Eternal is the Spirit of Fire, which stirs up and fructifies and develops into a concrete form everything that is born of water or the primordial earth, evolved out of Brahma; but the universe is itself Brahma, and he is the universe. This is the philosophy of Spinoza, which he derived from that of Pythagoras; and it is the same for which Bruno died a martyr. How much Christian theology has gone astray from its point of departure, is demonstrated in this historical fact. Bruno was slaughtered for the exegesis of a symbol that was adopted by the earliest Christians, and expounded by the apostles! The sprig of water-lilies of Bhodisat, and later of Gabriel, typifying fire and water, or the idea of creation and generation, is worked into the earliest dogma of the baptismal sacrament.
Bruno's and Spinoza's doctrines are nearly identical, though the words of the latter are more veiled, and far more cautiously chosen than those to be found in the theories of the author of the Causa Principio et Uno, or the Infinito Universo e Mondi. Both Bruno, who confesses that the source of his information was Pythagoras, and Spinoza, who, without acknowledging it as frankly, allows his philosophy to betray the secret, view the First Cause from the same stand-point. With them, God is an Entity totally per se, an Infinite Spirit, and the only Being utterly free and independent of either effects or other causes; who, through that same Will which produced all things and gave the first impulse to every cosmic law, perpetually keeps in existence and order everything in the universe. As well as the Hindu Swâbhâvikas, erroneously called Atheists, who assume that all things, men as well as gods and spirits, were born from Swabhâva, or their own nature, [33] both Spinoza and Bruno were led to the conclusion that God is to be sought for within nature and not without. For, creation being proportional to the power of the Creator, the universe as well as its Creator must be infinite and eternal, one form emanating from its own essence, and creating in its turn another. The modern commentators affirm that Bruno, "unsustained by the hope of another and better world, still surrendered his life rather than his convictions"; thereby allowing it to be inferred that Giordano Bruno had no belief in the continued existence of man after death. Professor Draper asserts most positively that Bruno did not believe in the immortality of the soul. Speaking of the countless victims of the religious intolerance of the Popish Church, he remarks: "The passage from this life to the next, though through a hard trial, was the passage from a transient trouble to eternal happiness. . . . On his way through the dark valley, the martyr believed that there was an invisible hand that would lead him. . . . For Bruno there was no such support. The philosophical opinions, for the sake of which he surrendered his life, could give him no consolation." [34]
But Professor Draper seems to have a very superficial knowledge of the true belief of the philosophers. We can leave Spinoza out of the question, and even allow him to remain in the eyes of his critics an utter atheist and materialist; for the cautious reserve which he placed upon himself in his writings makes it extremely difficult for one who does not read him between the lines, and is not thoroughly acquainted with the hidden meaning of the Pythagorean metaphysics, to ascertain what his real sentiments were. But as for Giordano Bruno, if he adhered to the doctrines of Pythagoras he must have believed in another life, hence, he could not have been an atheist whose philosophy offered him no such "consolation." His accusation and subsequent confession, as given by Professor Domenico Berti, in his Life of Bruno, and compiled from original documents recently published, proved beyond doubt what were his real philosophy, creed and doctrines. In common with the Alexandrian Platonists, and the later Kabalists, he held that Jesus was a magician in the sense given to this appellation by Porphyry and Cicero, who call it the divina sapientia (divine knowledge), and by Philo Judæs, who described the Magi as the most wonderful inquirers into the hidden mysteries of nature, not in the degrading sense given to the word magic in our century. In his noble conception, the Magi were holy men, who, setting themselves apart from everything else on this earth, contemplated the divine virtues and understood the divine nature of the gods and spirits, the more clearly; and so, initiated others into the same mysteries, which consist in one holding an uninterrupted intercourse with these invisible beings during life. But we will show Bruno's inmost philosophical convictions better by quoting fragments from the accusation and his own confession.
The charges in the denunciation of Mocenigo, his accuser, are expressed in the following terms:
"I, Zuane Mocenigo, son of the most illustrious Ser Marcantonio, denounce to your very reverend fathership, by constraint of my conscience and by order of my confessor, that I have heard say by Giordano Bruno, several times when he discoursed with me in my house, that it is great blasphemy in Catholics to say that the bread transubstantiates itself into flesh; that he is opposed to the Mass; that no religion pleases him; that Christ was a wretch (un tristo), and that if he did wicked works to seduce the people he might well predict that He ought to be impaled; that there is no distinction of persons in God, and that it would be imperfection in God; that the world is eternal, and that there are infinite worlds, and that God makes them continually, because, he says, He desires all He can; that Christ did apparent miracles and was a magician, and so were the apostles, and that he had a mind to do as much and more than they did; that Christ showed an unwillingness to die, and shunned death all He could; that there is no punishment of sin, and that souls created by the operation of nature pass from one animal to another, and that as the brute animals are born of corruption, so also are men when after dissolution they come to be born again."
Perfidious as they are, the above words plainly indicate the belief of Bruno in the Pythagorean metempsychosis, which, misunderstood as it is, still shows a belief in the survival of man in one shape or another. Further, the accuser says:
"He has shown indications of wishing to make himself the author of a new sect, under the name of 'New Philosophy.' He has said that the Virgin could not have brought forth, and that our Catholic faith is all full of blasphemies against the majesty of God; that the monks ought to be deprived of the right of disputation and their revenues, because they pollute the world; that they are all asses, and that our opinions are doctrines of asses; that we have no proof that our faith has merit with God, and that not to do to others what we would not have done to ourselves suffices for a good life, and that he laughs at all other sins, and wonders how God can endure so many heresies in Catholics. He says that he means to apply himself to the art of divination, and make all the world run after him; that St. Thomas and all the Doctors knew nothing to compare with him, and that he could ask questions of all the first theologians of the world that they could not answer."
To this, the accused philosopher answered by the following profession of faith, which is that of every disciple of the ancient masters:
"I hold, in brief, to an infinite universe, that is, an effect of infinite divine power, because I esteemed it a thing unworthy of divine goodness and power, that being able to produce besides this world another and infinite others, it should produce a finite world. Thus I have declared that there are infinite particular worlds similar to this of the earth, which, with Pythagoras, I understand to be a star similar in nature with the moon, the other planets, and the other stars, which are infinite; and that all those bodies are worlds, and without number, which thus constitute the infinite universality in an infinite space, and this is called the infinite universe, in which are innumerable worlds, so that there is a double kind of infinite greatness in the universe, and of a multitude of worlds. Indirectly, this may be understood to be repugnant to the truth according to the true faith.
"Moreover, I place in this universe a universal Providence, by virtue of which everything lives, vegetates and moves, and stands in its perfection, and I understand it in two ways; one, in the mode in which the whole soul is present in the whole and every part of the body, and this I call nature, the shadow and footprint of divinity; the other, the ineffable mode in which God, by essence, presence, and power, is in all and above all, not as part, not as soul, but in mode inexplicable.
"Moreover, I understand all the attributes in divinity to be one and the same thing. Together with the theologians and great philosophers, I apprehend three attributes, power, wisdom, and goodness, or, rather, mind, intellect, love, with which things have first, being, through the mind; next, ordered and distinct being, through the intellect; and third, concord and symmetry, through love. Thus I understand being in all and over all, as there is nothing without participation in being, and there is no being without essence, just as nothing is beautiful without beauty being present; thus nothing can be free from the divine presence, and thus by way of reason, and not by way of substantial truth, do I understand distinction in divinity.
"Assuming then the world caused and produced, I understand that, according to all its being, it is dependent upon the first cause, so that it did not reject the name of creation, which I understand that Aristotle also has expressed, saying, 'God is that upon whom the world and all nature depends,' so that according to the explanation of St. Thomas, whether it be eternal or in time, it is, according to all its being, dependent on the first cause, and nothing in it is independent.
"Next, in regard to what belongs to the true faith, not speaking philosophically, to come to individuality about the divine persons, the wisdom and the son of the mind, called by philosophers intellect, and by theologians the word, which ought to be believed to have taken on human flesh. But I, abiding in the phrases of philosophy, have not understood it, but have doubted and held it with inconstant faith, not that I remember to have shown marks of it in writing nor in speech, except indirectly from other things, something of it may be gathered as by way of ingenuity and profession in regard to what may be proved by reason and concluded from natural light. Thus, in regard to the Holy Spirit in a third person, I have not been able to comprehend, as ought to be believed, but, according to the Pythagoric manner, in conformity to the manner shown by Solomon, I have understood it as the soul of the universe, or adjoined to the universe according to the saying of the wisdom of Solomon: 'The spirit of God filled all the earth, and that which contains all things,' all which conforms equally to the Pythagoric doctrine explained by Virgil in the text of the Æneid:
Principio coelum ac terras camposque liquentes,
Lucentemque globum Lunæ, Titaniaque astra
Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus
Mens agitat molem;
and the lines following.
"From this spirit, then, which is called the life of the universe, I understand, in my philosophy, proceeds life and soul to everything which has life and soul, which, moreover, I understand to be immortal, as also to bodies, which, as to their substance, are all immortal, there being no other death than division and congregation, which doctrine seems expressed in Ecclesiastes, where it is said that 'there is nothing new under the sun; that which is is that which was.' "
Furthermore, Bruno confesses his inability to comprehend the doctrine of three persons in the godhead, and his doubts of the incarnation of God in Jesus, but firmly pronounces his belief in the miracles of Christ. How could he, being a Pythagorean philosopher, discredit them? If, under the merciless constraint of the Inquisition, he, like Galileo, subsequently recanted, and threw himself upon the clemency of his ecclesiastical persecutors, we must remember that he spoke like a man standing between the rack and the fagot, and human nature cannot always be heroic when the corporeal frame is debilitated by torture and imprisonment.
But for the opportune appearance of Berti's authoritative work, we would have continued to revere Bruno as a martyr, whose bust was deservedly set high in the Pantheon of Exact Science, crowned with laurel by the hand of Draper. But now we see that their hero of an hour is neither atheist, materialist, nor positivist, but simply a Pythagorean who taught the philosophy of Upper Asia, and claimed to possess the powers of the magicians, so despised by Draper's own school! Nothing more amusing than this contretemps has happened since the supposed statue of St. Peter was discovered by irreverent archæologists to be nothing else than the Jupiter of the Capitol, and Buddha's identity with the Catholic St. Josaphat was satisfactorily proven.
Thus, search where we may through the archives of history, we find that there is no fragment of modern philosophy — whether Newtonian, Cartesian, Huxleyian or any other — but has been dug from the Oriental mines. Even Positivism and Nihilism find their prototype in the exoteric portion of Kapila's philosophy, as is well remarked by Max Müller. It was the inspiration of the Hindu sages that penetrated the mysteries of Pragnâ Pâramitâ (perfect wisdom); their hands that rocked the cradle of the first ancestor of that feeble but noisy child that we have christened MODERN SCIENCE.
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Notes:
1. See de Mirville's "Question des Esprits," and the works on the "Phenomenes Spirites," by de Gasparin.
2. Honorary Secretary to the National Association of Spiritualists of London.
3. Job.
4. See Dr. F. R. Marvin's "Lectures on Mediomania and Insanity."
5. Vapereau: "Biographie Contemporaine," art. Littre; and Des Mousseaux: "Les Hauts Phenomenes de la Magie," ch. 6.
6. A. Comte: "Systeme de Politique Positive," vol. i., p. 203, etc.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. See des Mousseaux: "Hauts Phenomenes de la Magie," chap. 6.
10. Littre: "Paroles de Philosophie Positive."
11. Littre: "Paroles de Philosophie Positive," vii., 57.
12. "Spiritualism and Charlatanism."
13. Prof. Hare: "On Positivism," p. 29.
14. "Journal des Debats," 1864. See also des Mousseaux's "Hauts Phen. de la Magie."
15. "Philosophie Positive," Vol. iv., p. 279.
16. Dr. F. R. Marvin: "Lecture on Insanity."
17. See Howitt: "History of the Supernatural," vol. ii.
18. Prof. Huxley: "Physical Basis of Life."
19. Reference is made to a card which appeared some time since in a New York paper, signed by three persons styling themselves as above, and assuming to be a scientific committee appointed two years before to investigate spiritual phenomena. The criticism on the triad appeared in the "New Era" magazine.
20. Dr. Marvin: "Lecture on Insanity," N. Y., 1875.
21. Tyndall: "Fragments of Science."
22. Tyndall: Preface to "Fragments of Science."
23. Deuteronomy, chap. xvii., 6.
24. Montesquieu: Esprit des Lois I., xii., chap. 3.
25. C. B. Warring.
26. Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii., 6.
27. The Rishis were seven in number, and lived in days anteceding the Vedic period. They were known as sages, and held in reverence like demigods. Haug shows that they occupy in the Brahmanical religion a position answering to that of the twelve sons of Jacob in the Jewish Bible. The Brahmans claim to descend directly from these Rishis.
28. The fourth Veda.
29. Orthography of the "Archaic Dictionary."
30. We do not mean the current or accepted Bible, but the real Jewish one explained kabalistically.
31. "Dissertations Relating to Asia."
32. Dr. Gross, p. 195.
33. Brahma does not create the earth, Mirtlok, any more than the rest of the universe. Having evolved himself from the soul of the world, once separated from the First Cause, he emanates in his turn all nature out of himself. He does not stand above it, but is mixed up with it; and Brahma and the universe form one Being, each particle of which is in its essence Brahma himself, who proceeded out of himself. [Burnouf: "Introduction," p. 118.]
34. "Conflict between Religion and Science," 180.
