HISTORICAL THOUGHTS ON VEGETARIANISM.

THE world is ever hungry for new truths, for, while there is nothing new under the sun, old truths may resolve themselves into as many new ones for us, as there are varieties of intelligence to receive and express them. Vegetarianism, being in its basic principles co-existent with nature's divine laws, has always been true, while taught and practised alike by sage, poet and philosopher for thousands of years; but during the Dark Ages which followed the decline and downfall of the Roman Empire, its truths, with many others, were nearly buried in oblivion, while ignorance, bigotry and superstition darkened the eastern world. Glancing briefly down the vast fabric of history, we may note certain lines of marked development in various nations, or at different periods. In Egypt, wisdom; in Greece, beauty and art; while in America, liberty; and liberty is such a great acquirement for the welfare of the human race that it becomes an opportunity for the recovery of all knowledge and art that ever preceded it. Good evidence points the diligent student of history to the belief that those marvelous old Egyptians and beauty-loving Greeks attained their highest perfection while subsisting upon an ideal diet composed principally of fruits, grains, vegetables, etc. Imagine the transcendental Plato, or the sculptor Phidias (whose exquisite genius drew angelic forms of beauty and life from cold marble), eating such horrible modern abominations as fried liver, or deviled kidneys; and smoking filthy pipes of fuming poison! Could Demosthenes, the silver-tongued, whose fervid eloquence stirred the hearts of his admiring countrymen, have returned home from those classic halls of cultured Athens, to dine on so barbarous a dish as baked ox-heart or pigs'-feet? There may have been a butcher's shop next to the Farthenon, or a slaughter-house beside the Acropolis, after its ancient spirit of glory had departed; but such uncivilized customs were not co-existent with the development and perfection of the arts in Greece. The rapid extinction of the North American Indian, on the other hand, affords a study of the national characteristics and ultimate end of an almost exclusively flesh-eating race.

The karmic theories and teachings of the ancient eastern philosophers relative to the re-incarnation of life into successive stages of existence, as well as from animal forms, has, perhaps, never been conclusively demonstrated, or successfully refuted, for it is still perpetuated under the modern principles of evolution. It was these views of metamorphosis in the religion of the Egyptians which forbade the wanton killing of the lower animals; and until the acquisition of wealth and luxury, which often marks the speedy decline of these ancient and mighty empires of antiquity, they subsisted, like the invincible phalanx of Alexander, or the hardy legions of Cæsar, upon a plain and frugal fare. Verily nations, like individuals, have their periods of birth, development and decline. But can these marvelous nations of antiquity have lived to no purpose? for, although their massive temples and magnificent monuments of architecture are but desolate and awe-inspiring ruins, they have subserved a purpose, and may not the spirit of life which once animated these vast theatres of human action (being the highest expression of the Infinite on this planet,) move westward with the course of empire, and, re-incarnated within the human form divine, now live to shape the destinies of this great western repub

lic! for the present, being all in all, is a living astral record of all the past, and a prophetic promise for all the future. I must ask your pardon for wandering somewhat from the central idea, but as Vegetarianism is at once the foundation, key, and cap-stone in the monument of practical human attainment, it contains sufficient truth to harmonize most beautifully with all other truths, and we may (by obeying its inborn dictates,) lose sight of the key-hole, but, nevertheless, explore Nature's vast store-house of knowledge. EDGAR NELTON.

ESOTERIC TALKS.

BY J. VINCENT TAYLOR.

THE ELEMENTS, INHABITANTS AND ECCENTRICITIES OF OUR SISTER

WORLDS. (Continued.)

INDEED, all the wonderful feats we have seen of which an ordinary being would be capable at the surface of Ceres, must be multiplied fifty-fold when we take into account the possible superior size of the inhabitants of that planet. Muscular exertion there goes fifty times as far as it does here; and as these gigantic beings will be able to put forth at least fifty times as much of it, the exploits they will be capable of achieving must be no less than 2500 times as great as anything that could be done here. Upon this enlarged field of speculation we can scarcely venture to enter. The wildest flights of fancy, and the most exaggerated visions of fairyland, will be more than realized. Like Milton's angels, they could tear up the hills by their bases, and hurl them at their foes. Stronger than the vanquished Titans of old, fetters of iron would be to them as threads of gossamer; and mountains, piled on the top of mountains, would not suffice to crush or imprison them with their load. Like the genii of the Arabian Nights, they could spring at a bound from the earth to the clouds, or clear half a dozen miles at a single leap. The seven-league boots would be no longer a fable. Puck said he would put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes; but one of these giants of Ceres would stride around his planet in less than half that time. Of course all the other denizens of the asteroid will have their size and strength increased in the same proportion. The race-horse would rear his crest two hundred feet into the air, and gallop five thousand miles an hour. The giraffe on the plain might lift his stately head, and browse on the trees that crown the mountain-top. The ponderous elephant would cover three acres of ground, and surpass in strength the most powerful steam-engine. The lion's roar would be more dreadful than the thunder-peal, and his resistless spring more terrible than the lightning's flash. Snakes two hundred feet in circumference and a thousand in length, would roll their huge coils through the forests; while the sea would boil and foam with the gambols of its mighty inmates, and the gigantic carcass of the leviathan extend for a mile along the deep.

If we reverse the circumstances, and go to a world larger than our own, instead of smaller, the case will of course be exactly the opposite. If we were transported to the Sun, we should feel as much like fish out of water as the colossal inhabitants of Ceres would here; and, in fact, it will be readily seen that if the Sun were inhabited by beings constituted like ourselves, its population could consist only of dwarfs two or three inches in height. Very singular, it surely is, that the larger the world,

the smaller its denizens must be; that the inhabitants of the earth, should be men, those of the Sun dwarfs, and those of the tiny asteroid, giants.

We must remind our Readers what they might well be excused for forgetting that we are not romancing about what might be the case in some absurd and impossible circumstances, and if the laws of nature were to undergo some extraordinary and unheard-of change, but that we are speaking in all truth and soberness; and what we have stated is absolute and demonstrable fact. * If any man were transported at this moment to the planet Ceres, he would be able to do everything we have mentioned; and the actual inhabitants of that planet, if constituted like ourselves, must be able to do the same. Whether, if they exist at all, they are beings like ourselves or not, of course we cannot tell; their frames may be feebler, and their powers more limited than our own, and life at the asteroids may be, after all, not so very different from life on the Earth itself.

And now to consider a few other points connected with the planets namely those which arise from their various positions relatively to the Sun, and from the character and velocity of their movements. The general celestial phenomena, and the periodical changes connected with them, must of course be the same at all the planets. They have the same alternation of day and night, of summer and winter, that we have. For them, as for us, the Sun has been set to rule the day, and moons and stars to rule the night. But though their times and seasons, their days and years, are exactly analogous to our own, yet the differences in their positions and movements will produce corresponding differences of a very marked kind in the lengths of those periods, and in the vicissitudes of climate occasioned by them. The most important of these differences are caused, of course, by the various distances from the Sun at which the planets are situated. Mercury is three times nearer it than we are, and Neptune thirty times farther away. It follows from this that at Mercury the Sun will appear nine times as large as it does to us the intensity of its light and heat being of course increased in the same proportion; while at Neptune, all its influences will be nine hundred times feebler than they are here. Hence, at the former planet, the average heat must be greater than that of boiling water; and if at its creation it contained any seas or rivers like our own, they must have long ago been dissipated in vapor by the Sun's overpowering beams. At Neptune, on the other hand, that luminary will appear no larger than one of the planets appears to us. How cold and dreary an abode it must therefore be! its brightest noonday more dusky than our winter twilight, and its hottest midsummer far colder than our frozen poles.

Another consequence of the varying distances of the planets is a great diversity in the length of their years, some of them being as short as three of our months, while one extends over no less than a hundred and sixty of our years. How long and dreary the circle of the seasons must be there! Forty human years of spring, forty of summer, forty of autumn, and forty of winter. The contrast between the seasons will be in some of the planets greater, and in some much less than our own; at Jupiter especially there will be no perceptible change of seasons at all, and day and night will everywhere last for twelve hours each, just as at our equator.

See Herschel's Astronomy, end of chapter VIII., where some of the above ideas are hinted at. Our mathematical readers will see that there is not the slightest exaggeration in the extent to which we have carried them.

This is splendid speculative material for the student; for, of course, as we are brought into future contact with distant worlds, which mankind is bound to be by means of psychological communication, the people will want to know all that is to be known of each other. Then the grandeur of some, and the insignificance of others, will be made known to a common conception.

Intuitive psychological teaching and aspiration is sure to bring the inhabitants of distant worlds together in some form, on some, as yet, undefined plan of operation. We are not all animal; there is constantly a tendency of the inner being to rise up into the universe in search of some ancient kindred tie to something there.

Thus the globe might have been smaller, and inhabited by either celestial or physical giants; or by celestial or physical dwarfs, if lower than now in a former state of active, intelligent life. We may incline to the opinion that it was smaller, and peopled with celestial and physical giants combined; that it was during such a period, prior to the chaos, that the demi-gods existed in, on, and around the globe, and gave rise to the homage paid to Chronos, Zeus, Juno, Saturn, etc. After all we have brought forward, it would be unfair to the evidence, and common sense of the age to say this Earth was neither a thing of beauty, nor a home of responsible life before the time of which Moses writes; therefore, let us cease from doing an injustice to our present standard of intelligence by pretending to deny the possible practicability of such a certainty.

In view of coming events, there are grave reasons why we should be all satisfied in the general adoption of the views and theories we lay before you, because it will the better enable all men to understand the esoteric (secret) elements of Christianity, Astronomy, Natural Philosophy, Political Economy, Geology and Science, without detracting from, but rather adding to, the lustre of each-yielding a grander conception of Eternal God to the souls of little men; a better, higher, and nobler appreciation of all that is sumblime in the intricacy of the universe, and of all that is simple and knowable in nature. It is a serious matter; human progress is upon the threshold of a new era in which international comity and modern Theosophy should lead the way, and influence the progressive, philosophic, and scientific teachers of every civilized land throughout the coming futurity of years.

[To be continued.]

STEPPING-STONES.

As we start out upon our tour of search for truth, let our first steppingstone be a clear understanding of the relation sustained, and the sympathy existing between the mind, spirit, and soul of man.

The spirit of man is the abiding place of the soul; it is as a covering or sheath which protects the sensitive soul from contact with the harsh things of life. Christ often spoke of the spiritual body and the temporal body. Come with me to the field, and we will there find a fitting illustration of this thought. The seed planted takes root, grows, and bears fruit; that fruit has an inner substance or core; that core holds seeds for another planting; hence, seed, fruit, and seed again. Or, if you prefer, let the plant represent the temporal body; it contains the germ for the blossom, and the blossom represents the spiritual body, which holds the germ, or in

nermost for another planting. Development of the spirit is typified by the unfolding to life of that element which the plant possesses and which makes the blossom. Progression is the process of perfecting this flower, and the bringing to perfection, or the culmination, is shown by the seed produced by the blossom, or the perfecting of the spirit. Thus the work goes on unlimitedly, ever bringing out new tints and shades.

These illustrations will help to fix more clearly in the mind of the Reader, the relation existing between mind, spirit and soul. Looking at the subject from this stand-point every man is a trinity, a three in one. He possesses mind, spirit and soul, three attributes independent, yet each drawing from the other; inseparable, since one cannot exist without the other. "And God said let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness." (Genesis 1; 26.)

Mind is the machine which reflects the soul through the medium of the spirit. Or, in other words, where man's soul seeks expression, the spirit is the channel through which that expression is conveyed to the mind, or cast upon the reflector. This brings us up to the truth that the soul is the purification of the spirit, not entirely separate and distinct from the spirit, for one cannot exist without first having dwelt within the bosom of the blossom.

The science of which we would speak is that which pertains to the life hereafter in connection with the spirit thereafter. There is a spirit-life, and a life of the soul. The education of the spirit, that it may be a fit dwelling-place for the soul, should be our aim in earthly life. This is the existence of sense. On this planet we fit the mind for its spiritual tenant; hereafter we fit the spirit that it may be an all-sufficient dwelling-place for the soul. The work expected of man in this existence, is living a life of purity, and bringing the spiritual within him into such close contact with the mind that it may thrill out through his nature, and so illuminate his life, that all his thoughts and acts may be good and pure. Thus can he refine mind and spirit, and bring them nearer together, in order that the soul may unfold, expand, and gain expression. Through purification of mind spirit is purified, and the soul reaps the benefit.

It is possible for mortals to attain the higher things of spirit-life in this world; the Christ did this.

Man fits himself for the perfect state inasmuch as he works here on earth. If the spirit is brought out or developed here, its entry into the life beyond will be upon a higher plane than the spirit of one who did not put to use the blessings our all-wise Father strewed along his path.

Man's work and thought here creates for him an atmosphere in the beyond, through which he must pass. When I use the term work, in this connection, I refer to deeds of thought and spirit.

If the spirit has been made pure by an elevated earth-life, the atmosphere awaiting it in the summer land will be one of purity and love. Surrounded by such a halo of goodness, it may at once begin the continuation of a good work. But if the earth-experiences have been the reverse of pure, the spirit can hope for naught but darkness through which it must grope its way, and by contact with spirits of a brighter magnitude, whose work it is to minister to spirits dwelling in the shadow, it must create light for itself.

That this is both necessary and wise I will show by comparing earthlife to the primary school, and the beyond, or brighter life, to the college.