CHAPTER I.

PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION AND ETHICS.
"And this to fill us with regard far man
With apprehension of his passing worth,
Desire to work his proper nature out,
And ascertain his rank and final place.
For tlhese things tend still upward, progress is
The Law of life; man is not Man as yet.
Nor shall I deem his object served, his end
Attained, his genuine strength put fairly forth,
While only here and there_a_sta£ dispels
The darkness; here and there a towering mind
O'erlooks its prostrate fellows; when the host
Is out at once to the despair of night;
When all mankind alike is perfected,
Equal in full-blown powers, then, not till then,
I say, begins men's general infancy."
— Browning's Paracelsus.
So long as the struggle for bare existence in- volves, as it does today, the greater part of the en-
(40
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ergy, time, and opportunities of man, he will never discover the real meaning of manhood, or the pur- pose of human existence. Even this much may be discerned from physical evolution alone; from the study of the human brain, in which there is a con- tinually increasing portion of gray substance set free from the functions incident to the preservation of the physical structure, and evidently designed to be appropriated to separate and higher uses. Mere in- tellectual activities alone, connected with the phys- ical plane, with the maintenance and enjoyment of life, will not explain the philosophy of cerebral de- velopment. It is largely for this reason that the offices of the encephalon are so little known today. There are latent powers and almost infinite capabili- ties in man, the meaning of which he has hardly yet dreamed of possessing. Nor will leisure and intel- lectual cultivation alone reveal these powers. It is only through a complete philosophy of the entire nature of man and the capacities and destiny of the human soul, supplemented by the use of such knowl- edge, that man will eventually come into the pos- session of his birthright; and from this "general infancy" — as Browning puts it — begin the journey from real manhood to perfection.
Two conditions at the present time stand squarely
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in the way of such achievements : first, anarchy and confusion, the result of selfishness in all social re- lations. This condition can be overcome in but one way, viz., by the recognition of the unqualified Brotherhood of Man; not as a theory, a religious duty, or a mere matter of sentiment; but as a fact in Nature; a universal and Divine Law; the penalty for the violation of which is precisely the conditions under which humanity now suffers.
The second condition, which has given rise to "Confusion among the Workmen" in building the social temple and the individual habitation of man, is false ideals ; inefficient methods of education ; and almost total ignorance of the existence and the na- ture of the soul. The result of this ignorance may be seen in the fact, that not one individual in a million who has both leisure and opportunity, makes any real advancement in the evolution of the higher powers; or is even cognizant of the fact that he is a living soul. Old age is filled, not only with in- firmities, but with miseries without number. Not one in a million can say with the poet :
"Tis the sunset of life, gives me mystical lore; As coming events cast their shadows before."
In the great majority of cases with the aged, death
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is looked upon with uncertainty or fear, or as a blessed release from suffering and sorrow. Life is thus endured as a necessary evil, and is more often voted by the individual to be a failure than a suc- cess. What life ought to be is often conceived from our many failures; what it might be is dimly perceived from the intuitions of the soul which the struggles and selfishness of existence have failed to entirely obliterate.
These things ought not so to be, nor need they longer be, if earnest men and women would seek diligently, first for the cause of all our ills, and sec- ondly, for a sufficient remedy. This remedy is to be found, first, in Knowledge; second, in Service of the Truth. Let us now examine a little more in de- tail some of the conditions under which we suffer.
The present is proudly designated as the Age of Science. The art of printing, the power of Steam and Electricity in applied science; the Conservation and Correlation of Energy, and the Theory of Evo- lution in speculative science, with the resulting details, constitute the greater part of our real dis- coveries. One machine is made to do the work of a score or more of men, while the laborers who have been thus displaced have no adequate share in the profits of mechanical invention. Those who work
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with their hands are no longer artisans, but gener- ally machines, a necessity as to different details for which no machine has yet been invented. The work of the laboring classes is thus reduced to the routine of drudgery without the hope of advancement; and, therefore, with no other incentive than to keep the wolf from the door. A manufactured article which, when completed, serves more often to foster ex- travagance and luxury than to supply a necessity, passes through many hands before it is completed. The laborer is glad even thus to serve, because idle- ness means starvation, and still the Army of the Un- employed is an ever-increasing host. The occupa- tion of the common laborer is even more precarious than that of the mechanic or the artisan. Is it any wonder, then, that in times of financial uncertainty, when thousands of laborers are out of employment and threatened with starvation, unable to apprehend the real causes of their suffering, naturally envious of those who are supplied with all the luxuries of life, and knowing that something is radically wrong somewhere to produce all of this inequality and in- justice, band together to secure what they conceive to be their rights by force ?
But all this concerns mere physical existence, though the effects are seen on every plane of life.
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With regard to the Science of Man, and all that concerns his origin, nature and destiny, individually or collectively, neither science nor religion has taught us anything. Science has given us the slogan — "the survival of the fittest," — a mere scien- tific phrasing of the motto of the Robber Barons, that "he may seize who hath the power, and he may hold who can." In the industries of life the result may be reduced to one word, Competition. In manufacture, in trade, in all professions — even the Clerical profession — in schools, everywhere, Competition, Strife, and "the survival of the fittest."
"And this to fill us with regard for man; With apprehension of his passing worth, Desire to work his proper nature out, And ascertain his rank and final place."
So far our boasted civilization is, on a gigantic scale, a Car of Jagannatha, and it crushes heads and hearts as relentlessly as the wooden idol of our heathen brothers, only, American-like, we do the killing by wholesale.
Are not nearly the whole of the energies and activities of life directed to and expended upon the physical plane alone? And has not the struggle for existence increased with the great majority, in spite
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of all our boasted progress, our boasted science, and our Christian Civilization? We have neither the time, the energy, nor the disposition to discover the real meaning and aim of life, because all our ener- gies are absorbed in the bare maintenance of exist- ence.
"Ah! small is the pleasure existence can give, When the fear we shall die only proves that we live."
If real knowledge of the nature of the soul and the destiny of man had never existed, our present con- dition would be pitiable in the extreme; but when it is demonstrated that this knowledge once existed, that it was first degraded by selfishness and then lost by design, and that for centuries designing Priests, many of whom would have disgraced a scaffold, but who have been canonized as saints, have done their utmost to deprive humanity of this knowledge, what shall the humanitarian say? Shall he preach Uni- versal Brotherhood and Toleration, and yet seek revenge on the priesthood ? A thousand times, no ! but rather leave priest and proletariat to settle their own affairs and go their own way, and go to work ourselves to recover the lost knowledge, and when recovered devote it absolutely to Humanity.
The most hopeful sign of the times is the humani-
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tarian work being done by thousands of well-disposed persons who appreciate existing evils, and desire to get rid of them. In very few instances, however, the results . attained are commensurate with the energy or the sacrifice employed, for self- sacrifice is a virtue not altogether unknown to Christendom. But in very many instances these humanitarian efforts resemble an attempt to destroy a Upas tree, which being cut down every day grows again before morning. We imprison and execute criminals, and crime nowhere decreases. We se- questrate and "doctor" the insane, and insanity continually increases. We build hospitals for or- phans, the sick and the aged, and we do well; but orphanage, sickness and the distress and poverty of age grow in no wise less. It ought sometime to occur to us that society is all wrong, or that some- thing is radically wrong with all our methods. In the aggregate all the profits derived from scientific discoveries and from labor-saving machines has to be returned to the criminal or indigent classes. The only thing that we can boast of as a result is an in- crease in the number of millionaires ; and these, as a class, instead of being the fruition of a higher evo- lution are almost without exception the very flower of a Civilization of Competition and Selfishness.
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They have created an aristocracy of wealth, very often by gambling or stealing, and determine the criterion of what is called "good society," viz.: ex- travagant display and vulgar pretentiousness.
What then is really the matter with our boasted civilization? The answer is, ignorance and sel- fishness; it is the result of the "Sin of Separate- ness."
If in our social and political affairs the foregoing are the results in spite of all scientific progress, and in the face of our boasted "Christian Civilization," in the intellectual realm, or in educational matters, are we any better off? Let us see.
One of the first lessons the child is taught in school is Competition. It is instilled into every child at an early age that he should aim to be at the head of his class, and his exertions are continually incited to get ahead of his fellows. Many a young man or young woman graduating from literary institutions and carrying off the prizes for profi- ciency or scholarship are mental wrecks all the rest of their lives. Nor are the subjects taught, or the branches of learning mastered, such, in a great ma- jority of instances, as are of any great practical value to the student in after life. The amount of technical information acquired is often useful in the
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so-called learned professions; but in the ordinary walks of life more often fall into disuse, and seldom serve the purpose of opening the higher avenues of knowledge, or putting the individual in possession of a real knowledge of himself.
Herbert Spencer mentions five objects to be at- tained in the education of children: That education which prepares for direct self-preservation; that which prepares for indirect self-preservation; that which prepares for parenthood; that which prepares for citizenship; and that which prepares for the miscellaneous refinements of life. These objects set forth by one of the most profound writers of the present time, may be seen to pertain to self-pres- ervation and "getting on" in life, the last object may, by implication, have a Social bearing; but any higher knowledge, designed to put man in posses- sion of his real powers and to promote the evolu- tion of the soul, are not even mentioned.
In all our religious instruction, from childhood, and through all the ministrations of religion in after life, we are taught to look very sharp after the salvation of our own souls; and this in the face of the statement that a very large proportion of the human race will eventually be utterly lost, or damned, for all eternity ! Science completes the pic-
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ture by trying to demonstrate that the struggle for existence is a necessary condition of all improve- ment ; and that only the sharpest tooth and the long- . est claw can survive. The ideal thus held aloft by both religion and science is selfishness. Self- preservation is regarded as the "first law of life." The result is materialism in the strictest and broadest sense, and this has paralyzed, where it has not utterly destroyed, all higher ideals.
Is it not reasonable to suppose that if we were possessed of real knowledge we might so govern our actions, and so shape our lives as to avoid the pit- falls of ignorance, and set our feet on the line of the higher evolution? Religion offers Faith, with a system of rewards and punishments, and inculcates Charity, which is more often interpreted as the giving of alms ; but religion does not give us Knowl- edge. Science offers a theory, or a working hy- pothesis, but still does not give us Knowledge. So long as it requires all of our energies to barely maintain existence on the physical plane, and to help those who can not do even that, unaided, we have little opportunity to seek for higher things.
The complicated system under which we are working is the result of many centuries of ignorance and superstition, and of many generations of evil-
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doing, and these results cannot be changed in a day. Many of our modern institutions, covered over, as they are, with abuses and injustice, are, neverthe- less, so deep-rooted that they will have to work themselves out to the bitter end of pain, sorrow, and, probably, through lawlessness and bloodshed. This need not be, yet it would be impossible to con- vince, all at once, a sufficient number of individuals who are involved in these institutions, of the real cause of all our misery, and, at the same time, to induce them to co-operate at once to remove the cause. Such a thing is not to be expected, because of universal unbelief as to the existence of the rem- edy proposed; hence, retributive Justice will have to work out its own results.
Is it really necessary that mankind should forever remain in ignorance, and forever repeat the same follies, and invite the retribution that we have in- voked ?
In the following pages, two sources of knowledge have been pointed out, viz., Masonry and Philoso- phy, and these have been shown to take their rise, either directly or indirectly, from the Mysteries of Antiquity. The Unqualified Brotherhood of Man is the basis of all Ethics, and the Great Republic is the Ideal State. If these concepts were accepted
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and acted upon, there would result time, opportu- nity, and the power to apprehend the deeper prob- lems of the origin, nature, and destiny of man. "Man is not man as yet." What he may be, and what he might do, under favorable conditions, is very seldom even dreamed of. We never build be- yond our ideals. We habitually fall below them.
There are a few persons in nearly every com- munity with whom the struggle for existence is re- duced to the minimum; and, undoubtedly, the ma- jority of these are women. Having a competency against want, or being amply provided for, they really have leisure for study and self-improvement; and many of these engage more or less in charitable work. But possessing no high ideal beyond the meritoriousness of charity and the self-approbation which it brings, and having no real knowledge as to the nature of the soul and the laws of its higher evolution, they fritter away their opportunity in luxury and self-indulgence, which they feel is jus- tified by the tribute they have already paid to char- ity. The result is, that they are habitually con- sumed with ennui; and they are as unstable as water in the search for a new sensation or a new excitement.
If the majority of these are women who deter-
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mine the standards and usages in what is called "society," the ideals of their male associates are far lower than theirs, and the men are saved from ennui by the diversity of Club Life or the necessities of business. The common laborer who finds continued employment is really less miserable oftentimes than these sons and daughters of fortune, who generally lose all zest in life, whose old age is filled with mis- ery over their vanished youth, and whose lives are frequently cut short by paresis, where they do not degenerate into imbecility. It is one of the most hopeful signs of the time that among this favored class an increasing number are found devoting themselves, their time, energy, and money, to the betterment of the condition of the masses. Re- incarnation being true, these servants of humanity are laying by a store of good Karma, which is lit- erally "treasure in heaven," and which must inevit- ably secure for them still broader opportunities and greater power for good in another life; and best of all, they are unfolding the higher spiritual percep- tions. Nothing so shrouds the Higher Self in man as selfishness, and this is the reason why so few per- sons are possessed of the direct perception that what is true, is True, and that what is false, is False. There has been for a long time a very widespread
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.aid increasing conviction that Education would prove a panacea for all our evils; and that if we could begin with the young, and have the training of children, we could eventually reform society, even though these children might be the offspring of vicious parentage. That "we must educate or we must perish" contains, no doubt, a great truth; but it is offset by another saying: "Education cannot repair the defects of birth." What real education is, how and when it should begin, and what, under the most favorable circumstances, it may be ex- pected to accomplish, we do not yet perceive. The saying that it takes at least three generations to make a Gentleman contains a truth, even if the criterion as to what constitutes a real gentleman may be uncertain or defective. And again, the say- ing, that the education of a child should begin at least nine months before it is born, shows that pre- natal conditions and influences are at least recog- nized as existing. But in this last direction, viz., as to the environment of the Mother during gestation, the Ancient Greeks knew far more than we, and enacted laws to prevent physical deformity from being propagated or even seen. The result was physical symmetry such as the world has seldom seen.
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Now when all these problems are studied in the light of re-incarnation the greater part of all ob- scurity disappears. Such study teaches us what the Ego is, and exactly what is determined by heredity, and what are the individual and inalienable posses- sions of the Ego itself. It teaches how, by a law as blind as that of gravitation, because it is always ab- solutely just, and as inflexible as Fate, the Karma of the child, associates it with the Karma of the pa- rents, whether on the score of virtue or of vice. If both vice and virtue adhere to the Ego as me result of all former living, and are manifest in the ten- dencies of the individual, one way or the other, then the parentage, in any case, can only furnish the necessary conditions of expression; the opportunity to work out the innate tendencies.
Now the thing that education can and ought to change, is these innate tendencies. This is the only genuine reformation ; and a great step toward this is gained by improvement in individual environ- ment. If, however, it be considered that all envi- ronment is the result of Karma under natural law, it will be seen that the most unfortunate and hope- less environment might sometimes afford the very conditions of reformation. It can be imagined that a really intelligent and aspiring Ego, brought by
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Karma into these unfavorable conditions as the re- suit of its own acts in a former life, would not only- put forth all of its energies to rise, but would be forevermore repelled by such degrading influences as now surround him, and flee from them as from a pestilence.
Here we come face to face with the real problem of education. How shall we educate ? With the children of the poor, and even with many of those of the middle classes, the ordinary curriculum of School and College often serves to inculcate ideas of luxury and contempt for labor, and results, in many instances, in idleness and dissipation. Many parents are ambitious that their children should be educated, in order that they may escape from hard work, and have an easier time in life than they have had themselves. In morality, or ethics, the children are taught certain precepts, or are required to recite certain religious formula, such as the Creed or the Catechism; they are very seldom, however, taught unselfishness or self-conquest. The result is that the innate perceptions of the child, which are nat- urally far keener than most people are aware of, and which invariably, unless cultivated, become blunted with age and worldly experience, are utterly disregarded, or they are blunted by the very system
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of competition in education to which reference has already been made. It may thus be seen that it makes all the difference in the world how we edu- cate, and that Ideals here are of more importance than almost anywhere else.
It is true that in some of the newer colleges, methods are being introduced which foster individu- ality, and which cultivate the natural perceptions to an extent hitherto almost unknown. This method must necessarily result in putting those students who are so fortunate as to come under its influence in possession of their own faculties, and in making them aware of their own capabilities. This method must necessarily favor a strong Individuality in the student. Now, if this can be supplemented by a further knowledge of the Latent Powers of the Soul and with the true ideals of the higher evolution, the result will be something not yet apprehended by the majority of educators.
In discussing the question as to what kind of knowledge is of the most use, Herbert Spencer places Scientific Knowledge in the first category; not alone for its practical results, but on account of the ideals to which it may give rise, and the broader apprehension to which it may lead. "Only the sin- cere man of science," he says, "and not the mere
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calculator of distances, or analyzer of compounds, or labeler of species; but him who through lower truths seeks higher, and eventually the highest — can truly know how utterly beyond, not only human knowledge, but human conception, is the Universal Power of which Nature, and Life, and Thought are manifestations."
In like manner Professor Huxley makes the con- summation of Science to be the discernment of the rational order pervading the universe. It is, then, our methods that are most at fault and our ignorance that holds us down.
It is this higher knowledge toward which all use- ful and rational acquirement tends; and why should our efforts cease short of the very highest? All education that does not tend in this direction, with the final goal consistently and continually in view, is false, and is necessarily a failure. Now, this higher knowledge is a knowledge of the Soul : of its origin, nature, powers, and the laws that govern its evolu- tion; and this is precisely the knowledge which modern science fails to afford, but which Ancient Science taught in the Mysteries of Antiquity. All preliminary study and training led up to this — "The real measure of a man." Just as all life is an evolu- tion, so is all real knowledge an initiation; and it
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proceeds in a natural order, and advances by specific "degrees." The candidate must always be worthy and well qualified, duly and truly prepared. That is, he must perceive that such knowledge exists; must desire to possess it; and must be willing to make whatever personal sacrifice is necessary for its acquirement. He must have passed beyond the stage of blind belief or superstition, the bondage of fear, the age of fable, and the dominion of appetite and sense. This is the meaning of being "duly and truly prepared." He must have proved his fitness in these directions, no less than the absence in him of that subtler form of intellectual selfishness which comes from the possession of knowledge, and the desire for dominion through it over others less highly endowed, for selfish purposes of his own. His mo- tive, therefore, alone, can determine that he is "worthy and well qualified."
It is true on every plane of life, that in the process by which knowledge is acquired — always by experi- ence— man becomes the thing which he knows ; that is, knowing is a progressive becoming. There re- sults, therefore, a continual transformation of the motives, ideals, and perceptions of the individual, whenever in his daily experience in life he is placed on the lines of least resistance or the Natural Order
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of Evolution. This is the really scientific and phil- osophical meaning of all Initiation. By referring to the chapter in which the Principles and Planes of Life are considered, it will be seen that the princi- ple just stated is the logical deduction from the idea of Microcosm and Macrocosm, or the philosophical concept that man is Involved from Divinity, and Evolves with Universal Nature ; and that, therefore, his evolution runs pari passu with that of the earth he inhabits.
There is so much of the commonplace that passes with us for knowledge, and that is so utterly void of comprehension, that unless one is familiar with this line of thought he will not readily see the truth and bearing of the statement, that man always becomes that which he really knows. Here lies the reason why the mere inculcation of moral precepts so often fails entirely in transforming character; and why there is so much lip-service. In his travels through China and Thibet, Abbe Hue gives a graphic ac- count of the traveling traders whom he encountered. He depicts their shrewdness in trade and their gen- eral air of friendliness, and declares that the slogan forever on their lips was that "All men are brothers," but this did not prevent them from taking every possible advantage of their customers ; so easy
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is it for a moral precept to degenerate into mere slang. Conscience is the struggle of the under- standing in assimilating experience; it is the effort of the individual to adjust precept with practice, or in other words, Conscience is that living, active process, resulting in the growth of the soul, and in the increase of man's power to apprehend truth.
In the Ancient Mysteries, Life presented itself to the candidate as a problem to be solved, and not as certain propositions to be memorized and as easily- forgotten. The solution of this problem constituted all genuine initiation, and at every step or degree the problem expanded. As the vision of the can- didate enlarged in relation to the problems and meaning of life, his powers of apprehension and as- similation also increased proportionately. This was also an evolution. It may reasonably be supposed that the lower degrees of such initiation concerned the ordinary affairs of life, viz., a knowledge of the laws and processes of external nature: the candi- date's relation to these through his physical body, and his relations, on the physical plane, through his animal senses, and social instincts, to his fellow-men. These matters* being learned, adjusted, Mastered, the candidate passed to the next degree. Here he learned theoretically, at first, the nature of the soul ;
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the process of its evolution, and began to unfold those finer instincts that have been so often referred to in certain sections of this work. If he was found capable of apprehending these, and kept his "vow" in the preceding degree, he presently discovered the evolution within him of senses and faculties per- taining to the "soul-plane." His progress would be instantly arrested, and his teachers would refuse all further instruction, if he was found negligent of the ordinary duties of life; those to his family, his neighbors, or his country. All these must have been fully discharged before he could stand upon the threshold as a candidate for the Greater Mys-. teries; for in these he became an unselfish Servant of Humanity as a whole; and had no longer the right to bestow the gifts of knowledge or power that he possessed, upon his own kinsmen, or friends, in preference to strangers. In the higher degrees, he might be precluded from using these powers even to preserve his own life. Both the Master and his Powers belong to Humanity. If the reader will but reflect a moment, how the tantalizing Jews called upon Jesus to "save himself and come down from the cross," if he were the Christ, it may be seen that this doctrine of Supreme Selflessness ought, long ago, to have been better apprehended by the
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Christian world; for while it is a Divine Attribute, the Synonym of the Christ, it is latent in all human- ity, and must be evolved as herein described.
That which makes such an evolution seem to modern readers impossible, is, that it cannot be conceived as being accomplished in a single life, nor can it be. It is the result of persistent effort guided by high ideals through many lives. Those who deny Pre-existence may logically deny all such evolution. There must, however, come a time when the con- summation is reached in one life; and this is the logical meaning of the saying of Jesus — it is fin- ished.
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