Humanity seems to progress by inventing one discovery after the other

Book excerpt: The dark cycle of Kali Yuga has brought back a Babel of modern thought, compared with which the “confusion of tongues” itself appears a harmony. · Let us summon disciples and fill them with sacred fire. · Let us establish mysteries and teach the Doctrine. · Let us build a temple tower whose top may reach unto heaven. A scientist is wiser in his own conceit than seven theosophists that can render a reason. No new philosophy is set up in The Secret Doctrine, only the hidden meaning of some of the religious allegories of antiquity is given, light being thrown on these by the esoteric sciences, and the common source is pointed out, whence all the world-religions and philosophies have sprung. Truth must represent an unbroken continuity. It must have no gaps and contradictions, no broken or missing links. And which of our modern religions, sciences or philosophies, is free from such defects? One who affirms that the Universe and Man are objects of the senses only, and who fatally chains thought within the region of senseless matter (as do the Darwinian evolutionists) is, at best, a sophiaphobe when not a philosophaster — never a philosopher. The period when nascent Humanity, following the law of the natural and dual evolution, was descending along with spirit into matter has been closed. We are now helping matter to ascend toward spirit; and to do that, we have to help substance to disenthrall itself from the viscous grip of sense. The so-called barbaric peoples, who stood before the present division of nations, had a much higher civilization than has yet been found in geological strata. The period when nascent human speech was preceded by gesture signs, anteceded the Sanskrit only by two thousand years or so. However, relics of social and psychological culture can hardly be found in layers of soil.