Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-04-28
rHgosorHY Anp occuLrIsM IN INDIA.
Some Account of New and Remarkable
Movement
kr 0riente Lug.

ly noticed by the Western world, or when
noticed has been spoken OF with the de-
rision al zays challenged by the upcompre-
hended; yet which, when patiently ex-
amined, will be found to possess very
positive, and even q very practical, mean
ing, and to present many interesting and
possibly important features.
The most pronounced intellectual ten
dency of the Western world in the latter
part of the nineteenth century is towards
Agnosticism. European Science may be
said to have already established body of
Materialism against which Theology ap-
pears to struggle in vain. Yet this ma
terialist tendency, though the most marked
of the period, is not the only important
one. Contemporaneous with it is stream
of thought which seems scarcely to touch
it at any point, and which takes directions
altogether outside the region regarded as
open to exploration by Science. And this
state of things is due to conditions result
ing from remote and indirect causes, which
require to be pointed out. The Middle
Ages have much ie ::aswer for, and among
the rest they must be held largely account
able for the extent to which modern skep-
ticism has been pushed. The nineteenth
century witnessed the fruition of medieval
ignorance, superstition and bigotry, in the
so-called witch.mania, an epidemic of blind
folly and credulity which naturally led to
powerful reaction. The establishment of
the inductive method when this reaction
was at its hight tended still more to in
tensify it, and one of the results is that
Science has been almost unconsciously mar
rowed in its scope, and has been brought
to ignore, or at least to exclude from its
field of research, very large and inter-
esting class of phenomena. 1t is not sur.
prising that the hideous inventions of the
NaHeus Mallefcarum. in which the gross
and crude superstitions of Celt and Teuton
were given grim animation by the subtle
spirit of the Scheolmen, should have
caused a deep and lasting revulsion.
In fact the swing of the pendulum
has been in. the opposite direction ever
since, and from believing in everything we
have come to believe in nothing; from the
Rosicrucian doctrines of a space peopled
with sYlphs, an earth with gnomes, and
fire with salamanders, we have come to a
Professor Kingdom Clifford, declaring dog
matically that the universe sis made of
atoms and ether, and there is no room in it
for ghosts" The effects of this Material.
ism upon modern thought have of late been
very marked. The cynical and Respondent
poems of Omar Khayyam, the astronomer
poet OF Persia, have in our day been RI
vailed by one of the most powerful and
CHASTITY of literary efforts-the Getty of
Dreadful Night" by James Thomson. The
doctrine there laid down is that existence
is an evil for which Death is the only rem
edy, and that the grave ends all. Less
subtle and rational than Buddhist theology,
this new theory is even more gloomy and
hopeless. This is the mournful burden Of
the latest doctrine:
" The world rolls round forever like mill;
1t grinds out death and life and good and i'll
1t has no purpose, heart or mind or will.
While air Of Space and Times full river flow
The mill must blindy whirl unrestng SO;
II ~, b,,t. nh Epor
Manmightknow one thing, we're his sight less dim
That it whirls not to suit his petty whim,
That it is quite Indifferent to him.
Nay, does it treat him harshly as he saith?
1t grinds him some slew years Of bitter breath,
Then grinds him back into eternal DEATH"
This is no doubt an extreme instance of
the modern spirit of unbelief and despond-
ency; but the question, els life worth
living?" has been put in many other ways
than that of Mr.. Mallock, and it has been
answered at once more logically and hon.
estly than he has answered it. It is true
that there are men like Professor Clifford,
who maintain the feasibility of making life
happy and of preserving system of mo-
rality without the aid and support of any
faith in future state of existence. But it is
evident that to those who are not naturally
sanguine this must seem all but impossible,
and that they are liable to reach the con-
clusion of the preacher in the City Of
Dreadful Night %
90 Brothers of sad lives they are so brief;
few short years must bring us all relief
Can we not bear these years of laboring breath?
But if you would not this poor life fulfill,
Lo you are free to end it when you will
Without the fear of waking after death"
This is the language of despair, and it is
unfortunately language with which too
many earnest and intrepid thinkers at the
present day are familiar. But while Ag-
Mysticism claims many powerful minds,
and Nihilism darkens the lives of those
who have sombre tendencies. third ele.
ment refuses to admit the conclusions of
inductive science, and revels in bright if
not by any means well-deGned visions,
based upon the phenomena OF what is
called Spiritualism. Upon these phenom-
ena Science looks with disdainful eye, aud
for the most part dismisses them as illu.
sions. This disdain has no effect upon the
multitude, who unquestionably justify too
often the opinion of the Latin poet that
the world prefers to be deceived. The
eager and unquestioning credulity of the
majority of the adherents of Spiritualism
has done much to discourage investigation
and to justify the sneers of scientific men.
But beside the more credulous Spiritualists
and the incredulous scientists there is a
class of thinkers and inquirers whose pc.
sition it will be necessary TO describe with
some detail. These hold that there is no
such thing as the Supernatural, but that
physical science has not said the last word