The times., 1898-01-24
DOCTRINE OR THE REBIRTH
Major James Albert Clark Tells
Why He Believes in 1t.
Quotes the sares OF Many Genera
tions and Cites Papai Edict--
An Interesting STUDY.

A large and intelligent audience last
| night at Theosophical Hall. Metzerott
| building, listened to Major James
| Albert Clark. who, at special request,
devoted the entire evening to an expla-
nation of the reasons, historical, philo
sophical, scientific and religious, Why
| Theosophists Believe in Reincarna-
nation
After reviewing in a general sense
| the masss of long hidden lore which
| has been translated recently from the
| Sanscrit, embodying the wisdom of the
sages of the East, the lecturer said in
| part:
The very brief period of intellectual
| development cannot nationally be taken
| as outweighing the total mental fruit
age of the non-European races, gath
| cred over thousands of centuries. Re-
| incarnation was a worldwide idea
until it dropped out of the European
mind by duress occasioned by the first
canon against Origen at the fifth ecu
menical council, the second of Constan-
tinople A. D. 553: If anyone shall teach
fabulous pre-eSistence of souls and
the consequence of this, monstrous
restoration COR rebrth) let him be ac-
cursed.
This anathema has no more effect
on the thinking world today than did
subsequent decree against usury, nor
did it eradicate the belief in reincar-
nation even in Europe, for it extended
down to the time of John Erigena and
Bonayentura. and the belief is growing
now in Europe and America beyond
that of the organized efforts of a sys
to,,, i.z..l ltyv oh
the writings of Correll. but through
the enunciations of scientists.
Even so careful and critical a
thinker as the late Professor Huxley
gave utterance to the following; None
but very hasty thinkers will reject 1T
on the ground of inherent absurdity.
Like the doctrine of evolution itself,
that OF reincarnation has its roots In
the world of reality, and it may claim
such support as the great argument
from analogy is capable of supplying.
Sir William Crookes Wallace, Flam-
marion and a long list of scientific
workers ably defend these great argu-
ments from analogy. Professor Max
Muller, for more than a half century
an acknowledged liberal scholar, says:
Personally l must confess to one
small weakness. l cannot help thinking |
that the souls toward whom we feel |
drawn in this life are the very souls !
whom we knew and loved in former /
life, and that the souls who repel US |
here, we do not know why. are the |
souls that earned our disapproyal, the |
souls from which we kept aloof in |
former life.
"The best of German philosophy is
enriched by it. In Schopenhauer, Les
sing, Hegel, LeibnitZ, Herder, and
Fichte the younger. 1t is essentially
advocated The anthropological sys-
tens of Kant and Schelling furnish
points of contact with 1t. The ltalan
Bruno and Campenella en-
braced it, But it is to the great argu-
ment from analogy supplied by the
later scientific schools that reincar-
nation receives its present support by
the enunciation of the two greatest
of scientific thought,
the conservation of force and the law
of evolution. Theosophy holds that
force is never lost in the inorganic
world and it is never created in the
organic world. Our experiences can
not be annihilated. The whole subject
is narrowed to direct issue between
science. which accounts
for the transmission Of these stored eN-
periences by cellular transmission, and
the Philosophical teaching. which eX-
nlains such transmission by the con-
scious efforts Of Individual centers of
The orthodox schools
which hold to the theory of creation out
af nothing are entirely out Of court in
his age of scientific thinking
;cious efforts individual centers OF con-
sciousness. The orthodox schools which
hold TO the theory of creation out OF
1othing are entirely out of court in this
age of scientific thinking.
Goethe in his elaboration OF Wnat he
.alls the stubborn power of perma--
1ence in whatever has once possessed
reality is paralleled in more con-
,rete way by Faraday when he pro-
.Iained the .'indestructibility Of indi-
ridual matter" A particle of oxygen
$ ever particle of oxygen.nothing
AN in the least wear it. If it enters
nto combination and disappears as
,xygen; if it pass through thousand
mineral, vegetable, ami
nal; if it lie hid for a thousand years
nd then be evolved, it is oxygen with
IS first individual qualities.