Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 9.djvu/310

 J82

��Esoteric Buddhism. — A Review.

��the time to make it all out, be shown to be the sufficient basis for a belief in, and a logical ground for anticipating, the progress of man toward moral and spiritual perfection. A healthy man is an optimist. Pessimism is the pro- duct of dyspepsia ; and all the interme- diate phases of philosophy come from some want of noimal brain-action. Following out the Darwinian theory, — supported as it seems to be by the facts, — one must believe that the human race as a whole is improving in bodily development ; that the results of what we call civilization are, increase of sym- metry in the growth of the human body, diminution of disease, greater perfec- tion in the power of the senses, in short, a gradual progress toward a healthy body. Now, a healthy body brings with it a healthy mind. The two can- not be separated. Whatever brings the one will bring the other ; whatever im- pairs the one will impair the other. A sound mind must bring, in time, a sound moral nature ; and all, together, will tend toward the perfection of humanity in the development of his spiritual affini- ties. Such has been, roughly sketched, my belief regarding the progress of man. It has left all the men of the past ages, all of the present time, all of many generations yet to come, in a condition, which, compared with that which I try to foresee, must be called very immature. This has never been a stumbling-block to me ; for I hold that the Lord understands his own work, the end from the beginning ; and that, if "order is heaven's first law," there is a place for every soul that is in it, and a possible satisfaction of the desires of every one. Dr. Clarke ex- presses the thought that, however much any being may have gone astray, the soul reconciled at last to God, though

��it can never undo the past, or be at that point it might have reached, will yet be perfectly content with its place in the universe, and as much blessed as the archangels. That consideration has satisfied my mind when I contem- plated humanity, seeming to stop so far short of its perfection. My regrets

— if I can use such a term — came, as I believed, out of my ignorance.

Now comes a book which claims to give us the key of the whole problem of human destiny — a book containing some assertions regarding occult science, belief in which must remain suspended in our minds, and some points in cos- mogony which conflict with our Christian convictions — yet a book making state- ments about human history which, though in the highest degree startling, are not contradicted by anything we know of the past, but are rather an explanation of some of its dark passages

— a book developing a system of human growth which cannot be dis- proved and which makes plain some of the riddles of destiny.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the book is its tremendous assump- tion. " All that have hitherto written on this subject have been only half- taught. They have not been admitted to the real inner doctrine. Here is the first putting-forth, to the world, of the real teaching, as the Buddhists present it to those who have been ini- tiated into occult science." Such is, in substance, the author's claim. We may believe just as much of this as we can. I, for my part, knowing nothing about the matter, choose, just now, and for our purpose, to assume that the doc- trines of Esoteric Buddhism are what Sinnett says they are, because they suggest to my mind so many attractive avenues for my imagination to wander in.

�� �