rean, the Chaldean Kabalistic, or the
Aryan philosophy in regard to it, it will all lead to one and the same
result. The Primeval Monad of the Pythagorean system, which retires
into darkness and is itself Darkness (for human intellect), was made the
basis of all things; and we can find the idea in all its integrity in
the philosophical systems of Leibnitz and Spinoza. Therefore, whether a
Theosophist agrees with the Kabala which, speaking of En-Soph, propounds
the query; "Who, then, can comprehend It, since It is formless, and
non-existent?" or, remembering that magnificent hymn from the Rig Veda
(Hymn 129, Book x.), inquires:

"Who knows from whence this great creation sprang? Whether his will
created or was mute. He knows it--or perchance even He knows not."

Or, again, he accepts the Vedantic conception of Brahma, who, in the
Upanishads, is represented as "without life, without mind, pure,"
unconscious, for Brahma is "Absolute Consciousness." Or, even finally,
siding with the Svabhavikas of Nepaul, maintains that nothing exists but
"Svabhavat" (substance or nature) which exists by itself without any
creator--he is the true follower of pure and absolute Theosophy. That
Theosophy which prompted such men as Hegel, Fichte and Spinoza to take
up the labours of the old Grecian philosophers and speculate upon the
One Substance--the Deity, the Divine All proceeding from the Divine
Wisdom--incomprehensible, unknown and unnamed by any ancient or modern
religious philosophy, with the exception of Judaism, including
Christianity and Mohammedanism. Every Theosophist, then, holding to a
theory of the Deity "which has not revelation but an inspiration of his
own for its basis," may accept any of the above definitions or belong to
any of these religions, and yet remain strictly within the boundaries of
Theosophy. For the latter is belief in the Deity as the ALL, the source
of all existence, the infinite that cannot be either comprehended or
known, the universe alone revealing It, or, as some prefer it, Him, thus
giving a sex to that, to anthropomorphize which is blasphemy. True
Theosophy shrinks from brutal materialization; it prefers believing
that, from eternity retired within itself, the Spirit of the Deity
neither wills nor creates; but from the infinite effulgence everywhere
going forth from the Great Centre, that which produces all visible and
invisible things is but a ray containing in itself the generative