_ the discord has perpetually
prevailed. In matters of science, after investigation and discussion,
the world comes to an agreement; in matters of theology (or, if you
like, Theosophy) the world grows more and more at variance. _Why_ is
this? There must be an explanation. And to our mind the explanation is
very simple. In matters of science men deal with _facts_, while in those
other matters they deal with _fancies_, and the more freedom you give
them the greater will be the variety of their preferences.

Mrs. Besant's new superstition of Theosophy is, in our judgment, more
foolish and less dignified than Christianity. We are therefore moved
to say that she does injustice to Christianity in representing it as
responsible for all the black paraphernalia and lugubrious ceremonies
of death. There was, indeed, nothing of all this among the primitive
Christians. Such things belong to the world's common customs and
superstitions. Black was not merely a sign of sorrow, or at least of
depression; it was also thought to be protective against ghosts; so that
these trappings and suits of woe belong to the very "spookology" which
is an integral part of Theosophy. Of course I freely admit that the
ordinary gloom of death has been deepened by the Christian doctrine of
hell, though Mrs. Besant seems to think otherwise. She inclines to
the belief that the Western fear of death is ethnological, being the
antithesis of its vigorous life. But it may be objected that the old
Romans were comparatively free from this terror. On the other hand, it
must be allowed that Mrs. Besant is right in her observation that "the
more mystical dreamy East" has little dread of the "shadow cloaked from
head to foot," since it is ever ever seeking to escape from "from the
thraldom of the senses," and is apt to look upon "the disembodied state
as eminently desirable and as most conducive to unfettered thought."
In other words, that "when the brains are out," as Macbeth says, man's
intellect undergoes a wonderful improvement; an opinion, by the way,
which is quite in harmony with Theosophical teaching.

After giving the Theosophical view of the "body," Mrs. Besant says that
when once we _thus_ come to regard it, death loses all its terrors. But
this is not the sole achievement of Theosophy. What terror had death to
Charles Bradlaugh? What terror had death to Mrs. Besant while she was
an Atheist? There are thousands of sceptics who do not want Theosophy
to red