[399] Jowett: Introduction to the “Timæus,” vol. ii., p. 508.
[400] Ibid.
[401] “Conflict between Religion and Science,” p. 14.
[402] “Conflict between Religion and Science,” p. 311.
[403] “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” vol. v., p. 88.
[404] W. R. Grove: “Preface to the Correlation of Physical Forces.”
[405] “Timæus,” p. 22.
[406] Beginning with Godfrey Higgins and ending with Max Müller, every archæologist and philologist who has fairly and seriously studied the old religions, has perceived that taken literally they could only lead them on a false track. Dr. Lardner disfigured and misrepresented the old doctrines—whether unwittingly or otherwise—in the grossest manner. The pravritti, or the existence of nature when alive, in activity, and the nirvritti, or the rest, the state of non-living, is the Buddhistic esoteric doctrine. The “pure nothing,” or non-existence, if translated according to the esoteric sense, would mean the “pure spirit,” the NAMELESS or something our intellect is unable to grasp, hence nothing. But we will speak of it further.
[407] This is the exact opposite of the modern theory of evolution.
[408] Ficinus: See “Excerpta” and “Dissertation on Magic;” Taylor: “Plato,” vol. i., p. 63.