The present writer’s interest in and study of Theosophy and the Secret Doctrine were instigated by Schopenhauer’s “World as Will and Idea.” He found how largely Schopenhauer had drawn from the Upanishads (see previous quotation), and how little, after all, his “Philosophy” had utilized the ancient Wisdom. Hence he resolved to seek the ancient sources of knowledge, and has been trying his best to apprehend and utilize them, the hoarded wisdom of the ages.
He is not in the least anxious to gain recognition for, or to seek to rehabilitate old India, for its own sake. She speaks for herself, through the centuries of the past, and will continue to speak and to influence all coming time.
Jacolliot shows, however, a little irritation at this point over the suppression of facts, the brutality of marauding invaders, and the wholesale and brazen appropriation without the least credit to India’s store of wisdom.
The present writer is, however, exceedingly desirous that his fellow-students in the West should discover, recognize, and utilize this ancient mine of wisdom for themselves.
Its day of recognition is just now at the dawn, and the most pressing problems concerning the real nature, the spiritual possibilities, and the eternal destiny of the soul of man, are pressing and burning questions to-day.
That these problems do not wait solution by modern physical science and physio-psychology, but await only the understanding and acceptance of every earnest and intelligent student, is easily demonstrated. It challenges the world to-day, as it has not done before for many millenniums, and the issues are to be tried out to a scientific demonstration.
The preferences and prejudices of partisans will not be consulted, nor will they in the least interrupt the progress, nor interfere with the solution.
The question is no longer, “What think ye of Jesus?” but “What know ye of your own soul?” A new faith will supersede the old superstitions.
Faith, from the viewpoint of Natural Science, is “the soul’s intuitive conviction of that which both reason and conscience approve.” Blind faith, or belief, is ever the handmaid of superstition. The new faith is the harbinger, the promise, and the potency of knowledge, the anchor of the soul, and the armor of righteousness.
This is indeed the language of confidence, and it should be put to the test of science and experience.