The Theosophical Quarterly Subscription price, $1.00 per annum; single copies, 25 cents Published by The Theosophical Society at July; October; January; April In Europe, 5s. Single copies may be obtained from, and subscriptions Entered July 17, 1905, at Brooklyn, N. Y., as second-class matter, Copyright, 1920, by The Theosophical Society The Theosophical Society, as such, is not responsible for any opinion or declaration in this magazine, by whomsoever expressed, unless contained in an official document. I THEOSOPHY AND MODERN PROBLEMS1 THINK that all the members of the audience realize that this lecture is a part of the Theosophical Convention,-the annual Convention of The Theosophical Society. I remember President Hadley's saying once that he thought the function of a University was to establish and to maintain standards of education. One view of The Theosophical Society is that its purpose is to establish and to maintain standards of spiritual and moral life; not generalities or vague, wide statements, but principles which shall be entirely practical, whether for the organization of religions or nations, or for the conduct of daily life-the daily life of the individual, whether it be typesetting or housekeeping or anything else to establish a spiritual standard which must be conformed to, if those great or small tasks are to be rightly done. As to the more particular topic of this afternoon-Theosophy and Modern Problems-let me explain just how it came to be chosen. Some of us were discussing the debates in a legislative body concerning a subject then very much in the public mind-let us say it was the Parliament of the Chinese Republic. We came to the conclusion that the participants in that legislative discussion might be divided into two groups: those who were quite clearly and palpably supporting the wrong side, and those who were supporting right things for entirely wrong reasons. They were united by the fact that there was practically a complete absence of moral principle in them all. (In some ways I am very fond of China, so I will tell you the truth, that this body was not Chinese.) There was that flagrant fact-not a particle of moral principle in the whole thing from beginning to end. One asks oneself, very natu rally, where do we find moral principle in public life to-day. What policies can we indicate, what movements can we name, which are quite consciously resting on a clear moral principle which is absolutely sound; 1 Notes of a lecture by Charles Johnston, on April 25, 1920, on the occasion of the Convention of The Theosophical Society. or where are we to find a statesman, or the leaders or the organizers of some undertaking, who are consciously seeking the fundamental moral principle implied, and founding themselves on that? You then realize, I think, that there is an appalling absence of moral principle in the world at this time. I think that is the great modern problem. I am going to try to elucidate that statement, but the elucidations are not at all so important as the fact itself,-the crying need for a recognition of moral principles to begin with, then a clear understanding of these moral principles, and lastly a firm determination to carry them out in action. I am going to take an illustration somewhat far away, because it is not expedient that anyone speaking to a representative audience on Theosophy, and as a part of the Theosophical Convention, should take examples so close at hand as to be suspected of partisanship. So while taking a distant example, I ask you not to infer that there are no examples closer at hand. There is no lack of them. But I cannot do them justice, for the reason already given. So we shall begin a good many miles away, in Bolshevik Russia. I think we realize very clearly that the theories and motives of Bolshevik Russia came from German Socialism. In reality they go back much further. The Socialism of Karl Marx has a fundamental moral defect and a fundamental scientific defect. The moral defect is that it is the expression of envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness. I think one might say that its fundamental scientific defect is that all its theories are wrong; and one reason for that is that the man who founded them had not a glimmer of an idea of evolution. He published his most notorious book in 1850, nine years before Darwin made public his first discoveries. The system of Marx is the deadest thing from that point of view that could be conceived of. It has no conception of evolution. This false philosophy is the origin of the Russian movement. Lenine-I believe his real name is Ulianoff; he is of an old Russian family and ought to know better-came by way of Berlin, from Switzerland, to go to Russia. I will not say anything about the Russia to which he came or the first revolution which had taken place before he arrived, in July, 1917, to be welcomed by the moderate Socialists. I am not going back at any great length to the breaches of principle of which they had been guilty in their absolute disloyalty to their sovereign and to the Allied cause, and to the flood of lies they put into circulation, to the effect that the Emperor was going to conclude peace with Germany, and that therefore they ought to have a revolution. There had been, in all this, a grave breach of moral principle. And this is a point on which I wish to lay stress: a breach of moral principle is invariably two things, a piece of moral treachery to begin with; second, in the result it is invariably calamitous. The working out of that law may not always be immediately evident, but I am quite sure that moral compromise means first moral treachery and then physical disaster. The moral compromise of the first Russian Revolution was moral treachery, which came nigh to bringing defeat to the French, British and Belgian Armies in France, and which brought complete disaster to the first Russian revolutionists. To come to the second revolutionary group, the Bolshevist group: they founded themselves on the principle of tyranny, and of murder as a means to tyranny (principles which come straight from hell, and I presume will thither return with their votaries); tyranny of the most infamous kind,-domination of the worst over the best, of the lowest over the highest, with murder as a means to tyranny. So far as Russia is concerned, the wheel has not yet run the full circle. But meanwhile I am going to speak on another aspect of that matter, as it concerns the relation of other nations with the Bolshevist Government. There is once more the point of moral compromise and moral treachery. Is it a desire to get certain raw materials-let us say wheat, and platinum, and flax, and what not-which is the real cause of this extraordinary inclination to recognize the Soviet Government? Surely people who advocate that, ought to read the medieval legends about those who make compacts with the devil. It is very easy to see how retribution will come. It requires no second-sight or gift of prophecy to see what must follow, if this supreme folly is persisted in. If we recognize that detestable tyranny as a legal government, we do two things: we are guilty of moral baseness, and we come under the legal obligation to recognize the Bolshevist representatives, to receive them here and to give them diplomatic immunity. The so-called envoy of Soviet Russia, who is a dyed-in-thewool German, has already shown what the envoy of a Soviet government is prepared to do. To receive Bolshevist representatives is, of course, putting dynamite under our own government and under everything decent in this and other countries. If we recognize them, and receive their representatives, we give them a free hand. Personally, I am not going to underwrite any fire insurance to cover that liability. If we do it, we shall get just what we deserve, and we shall learn that moral compromise is moral treachery on the one hand, and physical disaster on the other. I think perhaps things will move somewhat rapidly to give us that valuable lesson, if we commit that extreme act of folly. Now comes the question: if it be our duty to establish and maintain moral standards, not in the abstract, but standards which shall be workable in the smallest details of human life, how are we to reach these moral standards; how are we to formulate them? Precisely for that purpose our work as members of The Theosophical Society exists. This is what we have in view in our discussions, debates and studies; precisely to reach the fundamental moral principles of life. And recognizing, as we do, that there are fashions in that, just as there are in other things, subject to just as rapid changes, and desiring not to be at the mercy of temporary fashions, we carry our thought over long periods of time and try to include the best thought of the best thinkers of all nations through all time. That is the meaning of the second object of the Society, to study the religions and sciences of all times and all nations, and to demonstrate the importance of that study-its importance for our purpose. We have no vague indefinite views, and we are not enamoured of glittering generalities. We want something that we can make work; therefore we are seeking in the religions and philosophies of the world the fundamental principles of human life in order to put them into action. Perhaps I have told some of you the story of the Chinese politician who was a candidate for office. A delegation came to him to find out where he stood on some such question as the League of Mongols. Our candidate was in the embarrassing position of not knowing whether it was a delegation of the Yellows or the party of the Greens. He asked the delegation to be seated. They said, "Mr. Candidate, we should like to hear about your principles." The candidate was greatly embarrassed, because he did not know which party the delegation came from. If he said he was for a high tariff on the Tibetan frontier, he was in bad favour with the one party. If he advocated the Mongol League, he offended the other. So he said: "Gentlemen, I have principles,—but they can be changed!" Now I think he had a very decided advantage over many contemporary politicians who have no principles-though they can be changed, also. To have no moral principles is pretty bad, but there is one thing which has been exemplified, let us say within a hundred years, which is that to have a lot of principles, not one of which is really true, may be fully as calamitous. The emotional lower nature catches reflections from the spiritual world, and these reflections flash and flicker over the lower mind; all kinds of topsy-turvy reflections of moral principles, sprinkled about on the surface of the emotional waves. This makes up much of what is called the new idealism. The psychic reflection of a principle is about as safe to stand upon as, let us say, the reflection of a bridge in the water. There is your real bridge, which is the spiritual principle, and there is the water-the psychic nature-and in the water is the reflected bridge. People who try to found their action on these pseudo-principles, which look like real principles, are exactly as we should be if we tried to cross that picture bridge in the water, and were not very good swimmers. That is a danger which is a very real danger, a dependence on things that look like moral principles and are not real principles at all. It is a part of our work as students of Theosophy, to distinguish the true principles, eliminating the bias of the day, all personal and national bias; trying to take the spiritual testimony of all time and deduce the principles from that. What are some of the fundamental principles that we do find? Let us say that we take, going back through the ages, works like the Autobiography of St. Teresa, or the Imitation, or the writings of St. Francis, St. Thomas à Kempis, or the best of the Church Fathers; or going behind these, to their sources in the Gospels; or back to the ages before, to the Tao-Teh-King, back to the far off Scriptures of India, to |