THEOSOPHICAL PHILOSOPHY

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 108, 31 January 1919, Page 6

THEOSOPHICAL PHILOSOPHY

Sir.-As there aro so many philosophies of human life it is little wonder that many people are at a loss to know what the actual truth of the matter is, and when different ideas of good and bad conduct on the part of individuals, sects, and communities are added to the problem; the confusion of the individual is apt to be doubly confounded. Unless belief leads to thought and action it is dend, and action that is not free and spontaneous is the action of slavery; and whatever philosophy is followed or view of life- taken, it is ultimately .one s own self-determined actions that fix , one s value as a citizen. As an indication of Eastern and Western views of life, 1 may say that whije discussing the social problem with a prominent judiciary ot (his city he remarked that it is said that in the West the doer of a charitable act wards the object of his tliarity as under an obligation to him, while in the East the position is reversed; the welldisposed person feels i&cbted to the recipient for affording him an opportimny to acquire virtue. Of course, both- these are extreme, impractical views, and a modification unci blending of them would no doubt give a good working result. In any case, lam convinced hat a grain of practical faith is worth a ton of abstract philosophy.... '~«,„ Miss C. W. Christie, in her last Sundav's'lecture, according to report, saj;s "we must bear one another s burdens ; but from this universal Chnstly exhortation she sinks into the abyss of party politics when she says "we should cleanse he country of festering sores, the worst of which is the drink trafhc'; but I am sure Mis Christie will admit that the por«on who resists the circumstantial temptation to over-indulgence in liquor 18 greater- than he who is not tempted. iWering sores, according to theosophicnl reasoning, do not oxitt in tho matter tliron-li which a person may err, but in the person himself, and did theosophists practise what they preached by bamn* the burdens of the weak, as is enjoined bv Mrs. Besant, there would be more justification for the existence of their soWe've got politics and pjechin' and philosophies galore, ■. , But they don't get home on nothing; ]ust keep rubbin up the sore. . • . -I am, .etc., • ■ WJ[> BAR]I