1
The modern attitude, which has proved so significant
in science, is safer. The era of mystery-mongering is past. Knowledge which is
not verifiable cannot be received with certitude. Overmuch profession of the
possession of secret powers opens the doors to imposture. He who is unable to
offer adequate evidence had better not seek the public ear. It is only the
supersession of human reason that has made it possible to support error for so
many centuries.
2
The West has been training itself for two centuries
or more along the lines of physical inquiry, and the fruitfulness of achievement
has ordained that physical results, tangible and visible results, are the things
which interest us most.
3
The scientific outlook is its own satisfaction. The
practical rewards which attach themselves to it possess their value, but the
consciousness of being able to appraise life correctly, wherever and whatever be
one's environment, is immeasurably worthwhile.
4
Philosophy must build her structure with
unimpeachable facts which means that she must build it with scientifically
verified facts.
5
How often has mankind been offered concepts and
conclusions, ideas and imaginations along with the vehement assertion that they
are directly observed facts!
6
There is a certain measure of safety in the
deliberate cultivation of rational thought based on observed fact as a guide to
action. This is the way that science has travelled with the discoveries of, and
profits by, natural law. This is the way that industry and commerce have
travelled, with solid results for all to see. Its value, when applied to methods
of achievement, is a proved one.
7
The sciences are useful to man and need not be cursed
for the evil results of their abuse by man. He needs rather to learn how to make
a better, more prudent, and wiser use of them.
8
The spirit of science - which happens to be the
spirit of this age - has rationalized us, and we are naturally impatient of all
misguided persons who appear irrational.
9
The scientific method has been sufficiently used and
sufficiently popularized to bring about a radical change in the outlook of
educated men. Revelations are no longer blindly accepted. The spirit of enquiry
is awake, and these revelations can no longer be saved by placing them in
water-tight compartments, by setting up barricades beyond which the questing
spirit of science is not allowed to proceed. Critical methods of examination
must be everywhere applied. That which seeks to escape by hoisting a sacrosanct
flag, is dishonest to itself and to others.
10
The area of European knowledge has extended far
beyond that of old Rome. Science has penetrated every corner of our lives. It
has come to stay. We must welcome the wisdom of the ancients but its formulation
should be remolded in the light of present day knowledge.
11
As the intellectual change of attitude is promoted
by the discoveries of science and the reflections of scientists, religious,
moral, educational, metaphysical, and social changes will follow as a logical
consequence.
12
The mystics may scorn science, but it is science
which has forced the different peoples of this earth to recognize their
interdependence and to admit the need of brotherhood.
13
Electricity not only lights up the village street;
it also lights up the village mind. For the intrusion of science stimulates
thinking and scarifies superstition.
14
Both reason and science, which stand in the path of
the mystic, assist the further progress of the philosopher.
15
Our chemical magicians wave their wands over a heap
of tar and lo! it is transformed into fragrant perfumes, brilliant dyes, and
valuable drugs.
16
The scientific knowledge accumulated in a single
year nowadays exceeds the entire stock of knowledge of ancient Greece.
17
Modern man must be presented with a modern
technique of spiritual unfoldment. He demands a scientific approach towards
truth and there is no real reason why his demand should not be satisfied. He
demands a simplified yet inclusive technique, and one that will be at the same
time precise practical and immediately applicable.
18
Not loose but exact, not dilettante but methodical,
not credulous but critical, not in haste to jump at conclusions but patient to
get all the facts first - such is the scientific attitude which must be embraced
by the man who would be a philosopher.
19
In an age of science, this stubborn refusal to
relate causal facts to consequential ones, this blind determination to ascribe
all happenings to God's will and none to man's doing, becomes childish.
20
Science is based upon the examination of Nature;
so-called systems of philosophy are too often systems of discussion only or of
abstract thought without any reference to, or test by, the facts of Nature.
21
Both for good and ill, science has imposed a
dictatorship over the other ways of knowing and the other ways and results of
experience. It has admittedly earned its position by the immense value and
utility of its practical application, so visible all around us, as well as
respect for the quality of its thinking - usually exact, factual, and accurate.
22
When we place science as an essential preliminary
and integral part of this course, we must make clear that what is primarily
meant by the term here is scientific education of the understanding and not the
communication of scientific knowledge. Both are necessary in every curriculum,
but whereas the former implies a development of intelligence, the latter is an
accumulation of facts. We value the cultural aspects of science, its power to
train the mind in correct thinking and proper enquiry, as being more important
for the purposes of this quest than its practical aspects, which deal with
physical techniques and material behaviours. We esteem the cautious, sceptical,
and keenly enquiring method of approach which the scientist uses; the
utilitarian results of such a method are not our special concern. The meaning of
this difference becomes clearer when it is stated that the colleges have
produced many science graduates who possess much scientific knowledge, but
little scientific training. They have assimilated a fair amount of scientific
knowledge through the use of memory and other faculties, but they have not
organized their reason and sharpened their intelligence by the assimilation of
scientific principles. The study of philosophy demands a certain mental
equipment, a preliminary expansion of the intellectual faculties, before it can
become really fruitful and actually effective. The knowledge of a number of
facts contained in a number of books is not sufficient to make a scientist; such
a knowledge is sterile from the viewpoint of this quest, however valuable it be
from the viewpoint of commercial and industrial development.
23
We are not likely to give up voluntarily the
civilized comforts which science has given us, nor the machines with which it
serves us. A return to tribalism, medievalism, and primitivity is unlikely.
24
Science brings material comforts in its hands as
its offering to us. These things are not to be despised, but they are also not
to be worshipped. Take them, O man, for you need them; but learn to become less
absorbed in them.
25
There is nothing wrong in seeking to make Nature's
energies and materials serve the needs of mankind. Technology is not all
evil, as beginning escapees from a materialistic society so often believe. Even
Oriental peasants have a simple technology.
26
Thanks to science I can look at my watch and thus
determine with a precision that Copernicus never knew at what point of its
rotation the earth is.
27
This century has seen revolutions in conventional
thought like non-Aristotelian systems, non-Newtonian mechanics, multi-valued
logics, which have destroyed ancient sacrosanct errors.
28
The value of truth as an intellectual ideal has
greatly increased. We have used our brains during the last two or three
centuries as never before. Science has made giant strides, and the
pronouncements of the scientist are highly valued merely because we believe that
he speaks impartially and impersonally as a truth-seeker.
29
Only a little over three hundred years ago did
scientists begin to understand the language of the story. Since that time, the
age of Galileo and Newton, reading has proceeded rapidly. Techniques of
investigation, systematic methods of finding and following clues, have been
developed. The discovery and use of scientific reasoning by Galileo was one of
the most important achievements in the history of human thought and marks the
real beginning of physics. This discovery taught us that intuitive conclusions
based on immediate observation are not always to be trusted, for they sometimes
lead to the wrong clues.
30
The upshot of this statement is that although it is
a fact from the practical standpoint that your typewriter still rests on the
table, it is equally a fact from contemporary knowledge - that is, the
ultra-scientific standpoint of deeper enquiry - that the series of energy-waves
which constituted your typewriter, the series of events which were originally
present in the space-time continuum, are perpetually vanishing. What then is the
meaning of this "fact"?
31
Science, keeping close to facts, restricts the
mental activities whereas fancy, willing to disregard them, lends them wings.
32
It is a great merit of science that its method
produces results that are definite, reliable, and predictable. We know that if
the needed conditions are properly fulfilled, the result will not vary from
previous results.
33
There is still a mystery at the core of the atom.
Humility is as befitting before it today as it was a hundred years ago.
34
The scientific mode of thought is no longer limited
to a few scientists. It has begun to permeate the educated world generally.
35
The religious way was to suppress awkward questions
but the scientific way is to seek out the answers.
36
Modern physics, mathematics, and metaphysics are
bridges towards each other.
37
It may properly be called a scientific method only
if its results can be checked by observers anywhere in the world.
38
It ought to be remembered that a number of those
who have espoused materialism have been led into it by their loyalty to truth,
by their intellectual honesty, rather than by an evil nature.
39
Science is really or entirely an affair of the
intellect because it deals with manifest forces and visible and discoverable
facts.
40
(a) "The vulgar belief that Science has "explained
everything" is a hopeless misunderstanding. As we shall afterwards find, it
would be nearer the truth to say that Science has explained nothing. (b) Science
does not even try to refer facts of experience to any ultimate reality. That is
not its business. (c) In a limited sense Science explains things, namely, by
reducing them to simpler terms, by discovering the conditions of their
occurrence, and by disclosing their history. What do we mean when we say that
Physics has accounted for the tides or that Physiology has made some function of
the body much more intelligible than it used to be? What is meant is that we
have gained a general conception of the nature of the facts in question, and
that we are able to relate them to some general formula. In this sense only does
Science explain things, and it does not really get beyond a description." -
Thomson, Introduction to Science.
41
Earlier scientists had to struggle too much to free
their knowledge and discovery from the dogmas or persecutions of religion not to
be antagonistic toward it. And they had also to struggle against the imaginative
speculations imposed on them by metaphysics not to be friendly with it.
42
The right use of science is the physical release of
man. The worship of science leads to its wrong use and from there to the
downfall of man.
43
The scientific mind, cautious to accept nothing
more than the evidence justifies, scrupulous to achieve accuracy in observation,
possesses the defects of its virtues. For it shuts out the complete view of a
thing, since that requires the use of other faculties as well as the intellect
it uses, faculties such as imagination and emotion.
44
Metaphysics must teach us to think and science must
provide us with the necessary facts upon which to exercise our thinking. But if
it omits mystical facts it is incomplete science.
45
The intellectuals, including the scientists, have
substituted faith in intellectual processes for faith in religious ones. In the
last case it is open belief; in the first one, it is masked, hidden, covered up,
but still faith.
46
All of those who use the data of science to support
their belief in intellectual materialism and to justify their scorn for religion
and mysticism, deny the very source from which they ultimately draw their
intellectual capacity to make their criticism. And to the extent that it lets
them use it so, science itself becomes superstition.
47
The philosopher fully appreciates the high worth of
the point of view of science and applauds its method, but he refuses to limit
himself to them. For he knows that one cannot take all truth as one's territory
unless one applies all sides of his being to the enterprise.
48
In striving to master their earthly surroundings,
they do nothing wrong. Nor is this statement changed if they call on the
scientific intellect to help them do so. Materialism begins and grows when the
moral, the metaphysical-intuitive, and the religious points of view are
submerged and lost in the process.
49
After the intellect has finished analysing this
experience, judging it by science's light and with science's critical rigour,
the subtle essence is lost.
50
With all our scientific knowledge and technical
skills, we know little of our subconscious self, less of our spiritual self, and
we are unable to control thoughts and even less able to concentrate attention.
51
There is no teaching - however scientific - which
will not be found, on simple or severe analysis, to make some call on faith.
52
The thousands of scientists who throng the halls of
culture today can tell us so much about the thousands of details existent in
Nature or fabricated by man yet still cannot tell us why the entire cosmos is
present here in space-time at all. They have a rich wealth of knowledge and can
describe well what is happening but what it is all for completely eludes them.
53
Although the educational trend has stimulated
interest in science above any other subject, a time will come when the educated
person will find that he cannot live by science alone. The arts will demand and
receive their due. The spirit will put in its gentle call. In other words,
culture will have to complete itself.
54
If scientific progress has freed man from many
drudgeries, it has enslaved him with many illusions. One of these is the belief
that it is itself sufficient to guide and guard him.
55
Stupendous are the possibilities when the atomic
forces will be toiling for us, slaving for us; but still they are only material
possibilities.
56
Those who believe that science will remove all the
troubles of man and all the flaws in man, have badly taken their measure of
Nature.
57
The scientist can give us facts of which he has
made certain, but why they should happen to be as they are, he cannot say.
58
The wheel revolved. Time circled around the globe.
And men cast their faith from them. A new star had arisen, Science!
59
Science treats man as a higher animal, and has no
better view of him. This is incomplete to the point of falsity, dangerous to the
point of self-destruction.
60
The scientist boasts of his triumphs. But how great
after all is his triumph over Nature if he is still unable to make even a tiny
insect?
61
If knowledge fails to reconcile science with
religion and philosophy, then civilization will become the victim of a
politically directed materialistic scientific knowledge, and end by destroying
itself.
62
Are the physicians and surgeons not already worthy
to be called dead who know so little of their own selves, and so much of the
bodies in which they are lodged?
63
Science has seduced us completely, so completely
that we are able to live unaffected by the wisdom of the ancients and of the
past as though it had never been. Science has become its graveyard. We do not
understand that the realm of truth into which these ancients penetrated still
exists.
64
When science leads man to deny his sacred source
and to decry all personal testimonies to experience of its existence, science is
no longer serving man but seriously crippling him.
65
Science is not the same thing as scientism. The
latter involves a cult, the former a valid attitude. The victims of the modern
higher education too often and too unwittingly are initiated and pressed into
this cult, while all the time believing that they are being trained in the
former.
66
The cold analysis by a scientist may find no thing
present in man that will fit the term "Overself," nothing sacred, mystic, and
egoless. But in making this analysis his principal instrument was the intellect,
and this at once limited his result.
67
These tough-minded people cannot see that a state
of consciousness can be real if they cannot bring it within their limited
imagination.
68
What clergymen preached to them, scientists taught
them to doubt.
69
They proclaim the relativity of all intellectual
standpoints, all spiritual doctrines, but fail to see that their own standpoint
and doctrine are also stamped with such relativity.
70
Scientific truth acquired from without is utterly
different from Spiritual truth revealed from within.
71
They derive their own minds and all other minds,
along with their bodies, from the primeval mud. Thus consciousness, the
pitifully slender and fragmentary echo of an echo which is all we ordinarily
possess, is degraded and falsified, so that its ultimately divine origin is
utterly lost.
72
Einstein has demonstrated once and for all how
experimental science can only reach relative truth and how absoluteness is
unapproachable. And even in mathematics, too, where we imagine that exactness
replaces approximation we shall find that absolute quantities are unattainable.
It is impossible to mark with precision the fraction of a fraction of a fraction
of a second which actually elapses before or after any given time-dimension
which is read off the dial of a watch and thus falsifies our reading. It is
equally impossible to measure with rigid certitude any dimension on the scale
which shall not be a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of an inch shorter or
longer than our supposed measurement. Nor has any scientific experiment yet
arrived at an absolute zero in actuality but has merely approximated it.
73
The mystic, who knows more about the internal world
than the scientist, is entitled to a hearing not less respectful than that to
which the scientist is entitled because he knows more about the external world.
74
Are the computer, the auto, and the television
enough to support a man when higher supports are lost or lacking?
75
There is no need to deny the beauty of a flower, a
picture, or a landscape in order scientifically to affirm its chemical
composition. There is room for both views.
76
It is the tragedy of one who knows too much to
believe that the universe is an accidental conjunction of atoms but too little
to believe that man himself is divine in essence, in origin, and in destiny.
77
There is in man a knowing principle. During his
existence he applies it to particular and separate objects, creatures, the world
outside, Nature. And now - to space! This spirit of inquiry has enabled him to
bring the moon into his path of travel. But the Knower itself remains neglected,
unknown.
78
The scientific approach is insistent in demanding
proof and requiring evidence.
79
Science has its bigotries no less than religion.
80
In cautiously trying to shut out from its
examinations and understanding of facts the human factors which falsify them,
the modern scientist shut out also those which are all-important in the
examination and understanding of himself.
81
They are still trying to know by touch of the hand
or sight of the eye what only stilled concentration of mind can reveal.
82
The same education which frees a man from
superstition may cause him to miss the subtler knowledge of his real inner
being, so that his mind wrongly believes itself to be a product of the body.
83
Science examines the universe and reads from it the
laws of existence. The scientist cannot go beyond the unseen energy from which
the atom is derived. But the metaphysician, using pure intelligence alone, can
pursue the question: What is fundamentally real in all this?
84
The scientific attitude should have been used to
keep superstition and imposture, fanaticism and fancy, confusion and untruth out
of religion. Instead it was used to destroy religion in many minds.
85
Scientific knowledge can be extended indefinitely
but it will not be able to do more than help body and, to a lesser extent, mind:
salvation it cannot give us.
86
Those intellectuals who limited themselves only to
the knowledge of present-day science and to the methods of present-day research
have only themselves to blame for the world-wide menace of self-destruction at
which they now shudder.
87
The disintegration of the atom which science has so
amazingly achieved is an immense symbol of the disintegration of man which the
scientist has brought about. The results of both are not only equally disastrous
but also intimately related.
88
The consciousness which has gone into these
remarkable inventions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries can be traced
back to the primary consciousness of man, and that is the divine part of his
being, the Overself. But all these inventions serve a material purpose, and
man's use of them could have been foreseen, for they have been used only to draw
him deeper down into materialism and farther away from the higher goal which has
been set for him by the World-Idea. Science is neutral. What he has done to
apply its discoveries shows the kind of thought which is uppermost in his mind,
and that the use of these inventions is for selfish, exaggeratedly selfish,
purposes by individuals and by nations. The negative purposes have predominated
over the positive use made of them.
It is clear enough that with the terrible weapons now in the hands of the human race, and with the low moral ideals which it holds, sooner or later they will be used to destroy the greater part of the population of the planet.
89
The atomic bomb could not have fallen on Hiroshima
if the science of mathematics had not been formulated by developed human
intellect. That human ethics failed to develop so far - and was even rejected by
science - was a failure which turned white magic into black magic.
90
Yes, science has progressed, and carried us all
along with it. But where has it progressed, led us? We are faced not only with
the nuclear war as a future possibility but also with the dangers and
devastations of experimental atom fission as a present actuality. The grave
changes in climate with their serious results for agriculture, animals, and life
of man himself as well as the increasing permeation of water reservoirs, rivers
and lakes and seas with destructive radiation, are definitely harming us today.
I am not suggesting a revolt against science but offering a warning.
91
We must pity the millions who have become the
shut-eyed, mesmerized creatures of their period, who are carried away too far
from the shores of safety by the triumphs of science to understand what the
terrible end of it all may be.
92
Science, which was to have served man faithfully,
has become a trap. The more he uses it, the more dangerously is he trapped. But
alas! he does not want to see how precarious is his situation, so the prophet
must remain mute and obscure: waiting and watching the higher forces which are
themselves watching for the inevitable result that will arrest this evil.
93
Great inventions have not given more aspirations
but they have enlarged his power to communicate with others about them and have
made it easier to serve some of them. But unfortunately for him, they have also
enlarged his power to communicate evil ideas and made it easier to serve evil
desires.
94
Where science is balanced by the intuitive
heart-forces it brings well-being to man but where it is controlled by the cold
selfish head-forces alone it brings him to black magic and destroys him.
95
Science which, with its early promise of utopian
progress, was to bring cheer to the heart, has actually brought fear to the
mind.
96
Philosophy respects science, but not the abuses of
science. When they occur, they create materialism in metaphysical thought,
pollution in industrial application, and unbalance in religious criticism.
97
Scientific progress has given us useful gadgets,
but terrible poisons. Instead of the paradise to which the enthusiasts of the
last century asserted it was going to lead us, we now look forward with much
anxiety, for it is beginning to look more like a hell upon earth.
98
When man extended the simple tools which he used
into the early simpler machines, the development was an inevitable consequence
of his developing mind. The change was a useful one and brought him conveniences
or comforts unavailable to the monarchs and millionaires of previous centuries.
But when this was pushed farther and farther, faster and faster, its inherent
dangers appeared, human safety was imperilled, human health ignored, and human
sensitivity crushed. Technology grew into a monster.
99
It is proper for man to use the world, to exploit
science, only as long as he does not permit them to enslave him.
100
The knowledge got through the eyes and ears may,
when united to reason, lead only to selfish cunning and cause destructive
suffering to others. But when it is united to both reason and intuition, it can
lead only to wisdom and bring good to others. The world today is undergoing this
danger and ignoring this remedy. Consequently, the more science discovers about
the atom, the worse will be humanity's suffering.
101
If and when the scientist who observes phenomena
and tabulates facts tries to sink a shaft deep down through them, he will strike
the stratum of metaphysics. He may despise it, he may withdraw in disgust, but
if he continues to push his shaft he will not be able to escape having to
investigate his phenomena and facts in the way that the metaphysician
investigates them. Nor will he be able to stop even there. If first thought
makes a common man into a scientist, and second thought into a metaphysician,
third thought will make him into a philosopher.
102
Few people outside the Royal Society know that
Sir Isaac Newton, whose book, The Principia, changed science to its
foundations, was not only one of England's greatest men of science but also one
of her most ardent students of mysticism. There is a large mass, estimated at
one million words, of unprinted papers which he left behind in a box at
Cambridge - papers which must surely have been well known to his bewildered
biographers but which have never been published out of fear of harming Newton's
reputation by the mere revelation of this interest in a subject which was for so
long taboo in scientific circles. After Newton's death Bishop Horsley inspected
the box with a view to publication, but on seeing some of the contents he
slammed the lid with horror. The existence of these papers is well known to, and
has been testified by, Sir Robert Robinson, President of the Royal Society, who,
asking how Newton could be both a mathematician and a mystic, himself answered
that it was because he "perceived a mystery beyond and did his best to penetrate
it." Also it is well known to the late Lord Keynes, the famous economist, who
was moved by them to exclaim that Newton's "deepest instincts were occult," and
that "the clue to his mind is to be found in his unusual powers of continuous
concentrated introspection."
In a lecture given to a small private audience at the Royal Society Club in 1942, Lord Keynes said this about Newton: "Why do I call him a magician? Because he looked on the whole universe and all that is in it as a riddle, as a secret which could be read by applying pure thought to certain evidence, certain mystic clues which God had laid about the world to allow a sort of philosopher's treasure hunt to the esoteric brotherhood.... He believed that these clues were to be found partly in certain papers and traditions handed down by the brethren in an unbroken chain back to the original cryptic revelation in Babylonia.... All would be revealed to him if only he could persevere to the end, uninterrupted, by himself.... All his unpublished works on esoteric and theological matters are marked by careful learning and extreme sobriety of statement. They are just as sane as the Principia."
A large section of these papers seeks to deduce secret truths of the universe from apocalyptic writings; another examines the truth of Church traditions; a third deals with alchemy, the philosopher's stone, the elixir of life, and the transmutation of metals; a fourth consists of copies of ancient mystic manuscripts or translations of them.
There, in the University Library at Cambridge, about half of these silent memorials of Sir Isaac Newton's secret studies still rest today, while the other half were sold by auction and dispersed in private hands in 1936.
Newton's library had such titles in it as Agrippa's De Occulta Philosophia, Fame and Confession of the Rosie Cross, Geber's The Philosopher's Stone, several of Raymond Lully's works, and four of Paracelsus'. His own personal annotations appear in most of the volumes. He studied Jacob Boehme very closely and copied long pieces from his works.
Even such a hard-headed scientist as Professor E.N. da C. Andrade was forced to confess, at the Tercentenary Celebrations in 1946, "I feel that Newton derived his knowledge by something more like direct contact with the unknown sources that surround us, with the world of mystery, than has been vouchsafed to any other man of science. A mixture of mysticism and natural science is not unexampled - Swedenborg has important achievements in geology, physiology and engineering to his credit."
Archbishop Tenison said to Newton: "You know more divinity than all of us put together."
103
The moment it comes to consider the life-force in
Nature and the mind in entities, science can get at the final truth about them
only by handing over the task to metaphysics and mysticism - only by calling in
concepts that are no longer scientific in the orthodox sense.
104
Science has passed through its short-lived
materialistic phase and is plunged in the midst of a revision of all its
nineteenth-century categories.
105
It is no use denouncing science for the horrors
of war, the miseries of industrialism, and the unbelief of materialism. The way
to conquer the evils arising from the unethical abuse of science is to go right
inside its camp and win it over to philosophy.
106
There is this vital difference, that whereas the
scientist can only observe the object into which he is investigating, the
mystic can participate in the one upon which he is meditating. In the
first case, there is a knowing in separation from it; in the second, a knowing
in union with it.
107
Nuclear research has shown that the atom consists
of energy alone. It is but an aggregation of energies. It has shown that there
is nothing, no "thing" at the world's root. But only free minds and discerning
eyes among scientists see clearly that this establishes the existence of Spirit,
which is no formed thing, and overthrows the doctrine of materialism.
108
We are moving toward the day when science,
instead of negating religious faith, will actually nourish it.
109
Man's body is formed of chemical compounds yet
man himself - with his flights of sacred aspiration and intellectual
speculation, his adventures in artistic creation and appreciation - has little
resemblance to a chemical compound.
110
We may develop the scientific intellect until its
visible achievements and results astound us even more, but they will always be
relative to time and place, always subject to human limitations. But there is
another line we could take for development, one that works with the metaphysical
intellect. This need not set up an opposition to science, for it is not
concerned with empirical work. It is a faculty of abstract thinking, seeking the
large generalized archetypal ideas. When it succeeds in finding them, their
verification is to be got by letting the intellect lapse and letting the pure
knowing element reveal itself. In this way consciousness moves to a higher
level.
111
The proper method of overcoming the evils of a
materialistic intellectualism is not to escape back into a pre-intellectual
attitude but to let it grow side by side and in proper balance with the
spiritual attitude, not to refuse to look at the problems it raises but to try
to solve them through such an integral endeavour.
112
Metaphysics, starting from one end of the path,
must eventually meet science when it has advanced sufficiently far to test all
its hypotheses by physical experience. Science, starting from the other end of
the same path with physical research, must eventually meet and hand its problems
over to metaphysics when it seeks to arrive at a large general view of all its
accumulated data. The metaphysical Idea, must verify itelf by the scientific
Thing. The scientific Thing must understand itself to be the metaphysical Idea.
113
If God is not the inner reality of this universe,
then Matter is both its inner and outer reality. There will then be no room in
the thinking mind for any belief other than materialism, no plea for religion,
no admittance to a spiritual metaphysics.
114
So long as they choose to look at the phenomena
of the universe only within the perspective of their own limited assumptions and
refuse to look at any evidence outside them, so long will those scientists who
still reject everything non-material remain the victims of their own prejudiced
and biased judgement. But the others - and they are increasing - who genuinely
practise the scientific method of investigation and therefore come with an open,
patient, and experimental mind, are moving forward to the formulation and
verification of reliable truths, laws, and principles.
115
Philosophy does not attempt to explain what it is
the business of science to explain. Hence it does not oppose the aims of science
nor does it fear the further progress of science. On the contrary, its regard
for fact makes its teachings consistent with those of science. It simply leaves
to science the filling-in of the details of the world's picture, itself
supplying the outline.
116
It is impossible for the scientist to conclude
his thinking about the observations which he has made of Nature and the facts
which he has amassed in the laboratory without venturing into metaphysics. If he
is afraid to make such a venture then he must leave his thinking inconclusively
suspended in mid-air.
117
We thus see that philosophy is the integral
development of science, a continuity of the same austere point of view. But
whereas science deals with particular groups of concrete perceptions, philosophy
deals with abstract generic concepts.
118
Science which first made materialism seem the
most plausible explanation of life, through the careful observation of facts and
close reasoning upon those facts, has since refuted itself. It is enabling
philosophy to put the hidden teaching upon firm and rational foundations.
119
The scientists as such cannot set foot in a
region like that of pure Mind. They must rise above their scientific limitations
and convert themselves into mystical philosophers first.
120
The scientists have reached a region of
investigation where each turn of the page of the world-problem reveals another
page which is even harder to read. The newer problems are metaphysical ones.
Therefore, when science ceases to be such and becomes metaphysics, it fulfils
its highest purpose.
121
To move from physics to metaphysics is to move
farther from touchable things to more abstract conceptions, from pictured images
to comprehended ideas, from concrete forms to mind-held abstractions. The first
leads to materialism, if the research stops there and goes no further. If,
however, he pursues the enterprise and looks for origins, sources, and primary
causes, he must end up as a mentalist.
122
Science, using the method of analysis to find the
truth about things, must afterwards add the method of synthesis or it will get
only a half-truth. This need not mean surrendering the mind to speculation,
imagination, theorizing, fantasy, or so-called metaphysics, but rather using its
creative faculty and its power of understanding - in short, using intelligence
which is derived from intuitive feeling and correct thinking.
123
So long as science does not pause to reflect
adequately upon its own self, its own character and its own foundations, so long
is it necessarily materialistic. But after it has taken the trouble to do so,
which means after it has fulfilled its higher purpose by turning metaphysical,
it cannot help renouncing its materialism.
124
The scientist remains loyal to his self-set goal.
He will sooner or later be compelled by the logic of his discoveries as much as
by the logic of his reflections to turn himself into a philosopher and continue
his quest in the still higher sphere of philosophy.
125
In the last one hundred years even the sciences,
particularly the fields of nuclear physics and biology, have moved so far ahead
that they have opened the way for principles and teachings, the knowledge and
practices of true philosophy.
126
Life will be better guided when scientific
knowledge lets itself be joined to spiritual consciousness.
127
The speculative metaphysician starts by
postulating the existence of some self-sustaining eternal principle, whereas the
scientific metaphysician ends with such a principle.
128
Those who question the soundness of these ideas
are nearly always those who are still mesmerized by materialistic superstitions.
It is impossible for them to cope with life's higher requirements because they
persist in thinking sensately.
129
Because the spirit of man is neither
scientifically measurable nor immediately experienceable, the educated modern
mind too often rejected its reality and denied its utility.
130
He should feel not less reverent and not less
worshipful even though he is expunging superstition and working with science.
Does this surprise anyone? Can he still become a philosopher without any
intellectual embarrassments, self-betrayals? Yes he can and assuredly a more
effective one.
131
The same science which formerly separated him in
belief and understanding from the divine Mind, later, by its confirmation of the
universal laws and powers, draws him nearer to it.
132
In view of the spirit of the times, the attitude
and findings of modern science must be respected and harmonized with the
mystic's. Both Blavatsky and Steiner saw this and tried to accommodate science
in their presentations. However, since their day there has been a revolution in
scientific theory which has made this work easier, much easier.
133
Science has carried itself to the broadest
possible dimensions. Now it must carry itself to the deepest.
134
The fear of yielding to personal feeling in his
thought about the world became so exaggerated in the scientist that it shut out
the pleading and rejected the services of impersonal feeling, which manifests
itself through intuition. This is why he came to the denial of mystical doctrine
and scorn of mystical experience. But such undue one-sidedness could not last
indefinitely. Its end is within sight.
135
The hope of educated men who understand and
appreciate the services of science but who deplore its dangers and recognize its
limitations, lies in the investigation and development of consciousness.
136
When men awaken to a more emotional realization
of what science has done to them - as opposed to what it has done for them -
there will be an urgent demand for a reinterpretation of science itself. The old
interpretation will be discarded as dangerous.
137
When the scientist recovers his lost quality of
reverence - not necessarily expressed through some established religion - for
some mysterious Greatness present in the cosmos he investigates, something which
escapes analysis or description but arouses feeling and wonder, his work will
not suffer but become fuller and his understanding become more satisfying.
138
It is a meaningful historic fact that Francis
Bacon wrote the first notable book in the English language of a philosophical -
by which I do not mean theological - kind and the first notable book of a
scientific kind in the same language. He was a Creator, a Pioneer, a Pathfinder.
139
Faith in science is no longer the alternative to
faith in religion - except for one-sided, narrowed minds in either camp. Rather
are there now complementary faiths.
140
The scientist who seeks to learn the origin,
history, nature, and laws of the physical universe and the psychologist who
probes into the working of the human mind - both must at some point of their
investigation consider the questions "Who Am I?" side by side with "What Is the
World?" Next they cannot afford to ignore the mystery of the Deity. Finally it
will be found at some point on their way that they need to impose a
self-discipline and an ethical code upon themselves.
141
Having emptied human life of its spiritual
meaning, turning it into a "fortuitous conjunction of atoms," science is now
nearing the point where it will have no other course than to restore the
meaning, but in a rational intelligent way.
142
Whoever adores the Highest Beauty, whether
through Nature's scenery or art's fabrication, through prayer or meditation,
song or poem, feelingly and sincerely, is not wasting his time, whatever
materialists may say. Even the intellectual mathematician or astronomer
contemplating on infinity or space, can use this approach as worship.
143
Science seeks an explanation of the universe
based on the facts. Its attitude is correct, of course, but from another
standpoint, incomplete. For its approach starts from outside and tries to stay
there. Metaphysics starts from inside and supplies what is lacking. But unless
it penetrates to the deepest fact at the start, it gets mixed with speculation,
theology, or guesswork. What is this fact? Consciousness! One day the two -
science and metaphysics - must meet.
144
It is one of the greater yet sadder ironies of
the modern world that Bacon, who is considered one of the founders of its
science, is used only to point the way to materialism. He himself says in one of
his "Essays" that "a little philosophy bringeth men's minds to atheism, but
depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."
145
There is no need to be dismayed at the negative
attitude of scientists towards this philosophy. He has only to compare their
present-day outlook with that of three-quarters of a century ago to realize that
great progress has been made.
146
The recent findings of physical scientists are
strikingly revolutionary when compared with the conclusions of those who worked
in Darwin's day. But what is most astonishing is that they support the
discoveries made by Asiatic thinkers who lived long before modern science
appeared.
147
Every thoughtful scientist now knows that just as
matter has turned out to be a manifestation of force, so force will eventually
turn out to be a manifestation of something higher; he perceives that matter is
really an appearance behind which stands the reality force; so an ultimate
reality must be reckoned as standing behind force. In other words, there is but
ONE Reality and various forms under which it appears.
148
Atomic science needed mathematical formulae and
equations to carry on its work. They are, after all, symbols and abstractions,
that is, pure concepts. So too physical science now needs metaphysical concepts
to carry its work further. The refusal to do so on the objection that
metaphysics is not physics leaves the scientist powerless to answer his own
ultimate questions.
149
The last great discovery awaiting science is the
scientist himself. By this I do not mean the acquisition of more and more
information about him, nor the exploration of the various kinds of thoughts and
emotions belonging to him. I refer to a sustained stubborn concentration
penetrating his consciousness in depth.
150
It is pathetic to hear men reason in so shallow a
way that they find nothing more than mere chance in the coming together of
nuclear forces to make a world. It is saddening to observe them slip into so
great a mistake with so little resistance and so large an insensitivity, for it
shows that in this matter they think and feel in a one-sided and ill-balanced
way. But just as materialism came as an opposition to superstition masquerading
as religion, as a corrective gone too far, so there are little signs of
beginnings of new dawns.
151
The materialist who sees only the animal side of
man is usually brutal or sensual, whereas the materialist who sees also the
intellectual side is immeasurably more evolved. But both miss the intuitive
side.
152
A science devoid of the life-giving power of
intuitive feeling leads to its own self-destruction in the end.
153
Science must pass from concrete observation to
abstract thought if it would pass from mere fact to the ultimate meaning of its
fact.
154
When science begins to stammer it is time for it
to turn for help to philosophy.
155
The science-suffused Western mind can follow this
thread of thought into the subjective sphere without undue difficulty.
156
Jeans sees in the universal orderliness an
evidence of God's design. Eddington sees in it an evidence of what the human
mind can contribute to its own experience.
157
Some of the Japanese nuclear physicists have
picked up the clue afforded by their laboratory work and found in Buddhism's
highest metaphysics a satisfactory world-view.
158
The facts of philosophic mysticism cannot be
proved beyond doubt so easily as those of physics. They cannot be classified and
organized and utilized in the same way. Yet this is not to say that the
scientific method is inapplicable here.
159
The nineteenth-century science, which depressed
thinkers with the view that matter was the only reality and man the product of
blind chemical and mechanical forces, began to go out forcibly with the
nineteenth-century ideas of warfare when the atomic bomb exploded over
Hiroshima.
160
Those who seek escape from our present troubles
by turning back to a revival of medievalism have somewhat muddled their
thinking. Science admittedly took the wrong turning when it entirely separated
itself from the truths of religion, mysticism, and metaphysics, but it
took the right turning when it separated itself from their fantasies. So what we
have to do today is to go back to the pre-Renaissance and pre-Reformation times
and re-learn abstract thinking, mystical practices, and religious notions, but
at the same time recast them in modern form and refuse the superstitions which
were then entangled in them. But this will be equivalent to a spiritual
re-creation; it can hardly be called a mere return. There is moreover one prime
objection to following the way of the medievals which effectually bars it for
our liberated era. Their minds were fettered to the walls of vested interests
and dared not go outside them. No genuine progress is possible under such
conditions.