THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY
A Review of The Secret
Doctrine
By William Q Judge
The Secret Doctrine, by Blavatsky, is a work whose aim is stated as
follows: "To show that Nature is not a fortuitous concurrence of atoms,
and to assign to man his rightful place in the scheme of the Universe; to
rescue from degradation the archaic truths which are the basis of all
religions; and to uncover, to some
extent, the
fundamental unity from which they all spring; finally, to show that
the occult side
of Nature has never been approached by the Science of modern
civilization."
This is a high aim, a great claim to advance. Whether both are
fully sustained
must be left, not
alone to the judgment of individual readers, but to that large
verdict of "humanity
and the future generations," to which the author appeals.
Meantime, the just critic recognizes that these claims are ably put
forth, in a
work of great
erudition and power. The publication of a book like this has, in
itself, an emphatic
significance. The attention of thinkers has in late years
been directed to
the evolution of thought, its laws and its results. Of these
last The Secret
Doctrine is a tremendous one. It marks the acme of the
theosophical movement;
that movement which urges a search after truth in every
department of life,
while predicting the final and essential unity of the whole.
It shows the most advanced phase of religious development and
points out its
future course; not
alone concerned with the beliefs of the present; refusing
indeed to recognize
that present as a separate fact, but showing past and future
interwoven into one
eternal now, and all religions, all sciences, proceeding
from one primeval
belief, which afterwards became differentiated, along the path
of evolutionary
progress, into forms which are various facets of the one truth.
The writing of this work is sufficient evidence for a demand for
it, and however
we may take
issue with some of its teachings, we must recognize the breadth and
beauty of its aim;
also three facts concerning it:
First, it is a great event in literature per se.
Second, it is not the outcome of the mental or other experience of
any one
person. No human
brain could singly conceive a scheme so vast, so complex in details, so simple of base. It is
evidently an aggregation beginning far back
in archaic
times.
Third, it is thrown into the arena where science and religion,
where matter
versus spirit, are
warring, as the sceptre of the king was thrown into
the
lists to bid
contention cease. It logically reconciles the combatants in
proving their basic
unity, in saying to the materialist: All issues from the
one substance
which is eternal, -- and to the [believers in] spirit: That one
substance is vivified
by the co-eternal undetermined potency called Spirit, of
which our word
"will" is the nearest expression.
A work which can do us this service in a rational manner, while
bringing the
testimony of all
recorded time to sustain its teachings, certainly deserves
careful attention.
The need of unity is the great tendency of our time. It is
displayed in art,
literature, religion, mechanics, industrial enterprise and
international law, by
efforts towards co-operation, arbitration, in a word --
unity. To find
this need met in the religious field without empiricism or
dogmatism, without
attempt at scientific limitations or theological form,
attacks our innate
sense of justice, and inclines us to weigh before we reject.
The basis of this remarkable work is the "Book of Dzyan,"
an archaic Ms. unknown
to the western
world and secretly preserved in the
given, with
ancient and modern commentaries, followed by learned references and
explanations. The whole
is supplemented by addenda showing the respective
positions of modern
scientists and occultists, their agreements and their
differences. To persons
wishing to be well informed on such questions without
the need of
reading many books, these last are invaluable as giving a bird's-eye
view of the
modern situation by well selected quotations from writers of
established reputation. Vol. I treats of Cosmogenesis; Vol. II of
Anthropogenesis. The stanzas
are weird, magnificent. They have the grand calm of
classics, joined to
that subtle, soul-stirring quality which is of all time and
conveys the aroma of
the orientalist, to the student, from their own
inherent
literary quality,
quite apart from that deeper interest with which their
teachings invest them
for the bold explorer into the mysteries of Being.
Altogether the book is a fascinating one. The style is abrupt and
full of
variations which show
the work of different minds and sustain the author's claim
to the aid of
Tibetan adepts. For all these reasons it is sure to be much read,
much abused and
hotly defended.
William Q Judge First Published 1889
THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY