Category: Isis Unveiled: H. P. Blavatsky (1877)

"Professor Buchanan's Outlines of Lectures on the Neurological System of Anthropology, a work written so far back as 1854, contains suggestions that, if the sciolists would only heed them, would show how a bridge can be thrown across this dreadful abyss.   It is one of the bins in which the thought-seed of future harvests [...]

"One of the cleverest productions of Professor Tyndall's pen is his caustic essay upon Martineau and Materialism. At the same time it is one which in future years the author will doubtless be only too ready to trim of certain unpardonable grossnesses of expression.   For the moment, however, we will not deal with these, [...]

"The editor of the London Spiritualist, in answer to Dr. Gully's criticism of Mr. Tyndall's fire-mist theory, remarks that if the entire body of spiritualists are not roasting alive at Smithfield in the present century, it is to science alone that we are indebted for this crowning mercy.   Well, let us admit that the [...]

"In his oft-quoted work, Conflict between Religion and Science, Professor Draper shows a decided propensity to kick the beam of the scales of justice, and lay all such impediments to the progress of science at the door of the clergy alone. With all respect and admiration due to this eloquent writer and scientist, we must [...]

"There exists a certain work which might afford very profitable reading for the leisure hours of skeptical men of science. It is a book published by Flourens, the Perpetual Secretary of the French Academy, called Histoire des Recherches de Buffon.   The author shows in it how the great naturalists combated and finally conquered the [...]

"What can we do? Shall we recall the disagreeable past? Shall we point to mediaeval scholars conniving with the clergy to deny the Heliocentric theory, for fear of hurting an ecclesiastical dogma?   Must we recall how learned conchologists once denied that the fossil shells, found scattered over the face of the earth, were ever [...]

"We would there were no occasion to extend the critic's glance beyond the circle of triflers and pendants who improperly wear the title of men of science. But it is also undeniable that the treatment of new subjects by those whose rank is high in the scientific world but too often passes unchallenged, when it [...]

"To close the question, the Positivists neglect no means to overthrow Spiritualism in favor of their religion. Their high priests are made to blow their trumpets untiringly; and though the walls of no modern Jericho are ever likely to tumble down in dust before their blast, still they neglect no means to attain the desired [...]

"We have to add but a few more words before we drop this unpleasant subject. We have found Positivists particularly happy in the delusion that the greatest scientists of Europe were Comtists.   How far their claims may be just, as regards other savants, we do not know, but Huxley, whom all Europe considers one [...]

"The ignis fatuus, now so favorite an image with many dwarf philosophers, had itself to struggle for recognition. It is not so long since the now familiar phenomenon was stoutly denied by a correspondent of the London Times, whose assertions carried weight, till the work of Dr. Phipson, supported by the testimony of Beccaria, Humbolt, [...]