A BRITISH THINKER ON THE THEOSOPHIST

[The Theosophist, Vol. V, No. 6 (54), March, 1884, pp. 133-134]

One of the ablest philosophical students and writers of Great Britain writes in a private letter to a friend, who has kindly allowed us to quote a portion, as follows, about our magazine:—

This monthly (The Theosophist) is a veritable mine of Truth and Right, on every form of knowledge that deserves the appellation Sophos, in the sense first occurring in Euripides or subsequently: but as to the term Theos, it belongs to the unknowable, and therefore I rejoiced in Theos (the feminine) as Themis, &c. [Here follows a far too complimentary estimate of our own imperfectly developed capacities to be quoted by us.] I may say in all sincerity that I know of no Journal, British or Foreign, in which for all objects is so regularly displayed such love of wisdom * * * * It is cosmopolitan, in short. Philosophy, proper, is nowhere represented so ably, thoroughly, and exhaustively as in The Theosophist. Verily it is the magazine of the whole world of Wisdom in respect to the Science of Being, analysis and synthesis of primary causes, or primitive conditions of sentient and conscious EXISTENCE. Everywhere justice, moreover, is rendered to mythological, hypothetical or theological systems, old and new. And each class of material or set of spiritual phenomena has an abiding place accorded to them in the Temple of Theosophy only as they are built on Nature, and their principles are grounded on scientific experiments and historic facts, alike invincible and demonstrative * * * *  * .

We have in this instance departed from our usual rule of abstaining from the reprint of the complimentary and kind things said of our journal in and out of the press. Our excuse is that the eulogy in this case comes from a gentleman, whose “praise, like Sir Hubert’s, is praise indeed.” It has the greater weight, since, but for the obliging courtesy of his correspondent, we should have been quite unaware of his opinion of our efforts to instruct and interest the thinking public. The great Prof. Huxley it was, we think, who said in one of his works, that if about a certain dozen persons in Europe and an equal number in America were satisfied with it, he should consider his trouble amply rewarded. The same is the case with us.

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In the whole world are there more than a handful––outside the circle of our secret schools of Occult Philosophy—who can entirely comprehend and assimilate the pure doctrine of Esotericism? We wish we might so believe.

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