406 Occultism Reconsidered . (July, 
the Arabian philosophers investigated Nature just as we do, 
by experiment and observation, and published their disco- 
veries in plain language. The same may be said of the 
true Greek philosophers, such as Thales, Empedocles, 
Democritus. Going still farther back, we find an Egyptian 
medical treatise, the “ Papyrus Ebers” (of the date 1552 B.C.), 
clear and open in its teachings, and written in a manner 
which shows that the observation of natural phenomena and 
committal of experience to writing— -as we should now say, 
publication — were not things of yesterday. Hence we have 
proof that, contrary to the didtum of Mr. Sinnett (p. 3), for 
some 4000 years men of Science did not exclusively work in 
secret, or teach their discoveries merely “ in secret to care- 
fully selected pupils.” In fadt the burden of proof lies, we 
should say, with those who maintain that Occult Science 
is the elder. The culture of Europe has “ not been developed 
by Europeans for themselves within the last few hundred 
years.” 
But not merely is the history of open science apparently 
misunderstood, its present views and its future aims are 
not fairly set forth. Thus in a letter of Root Hoomi Lai 
Singh’s (p. 97) he is made to say — “ The very existence of 
those gigantic ancestors of ours is now questioned, —though 
in the Himavats, on the very territory belonging to you, we 
have a cave full of the skeletons of these giants, and their 
huge frames, when found , are invariably regarded as isolated 
freaks of Nature.” Now if there is one error of the past 
more completely and unanimously rejedted by Modern 
Science than another, it is that of regarding fossils as lusus 
Naturce. We call attention to the words we have italicised, 
which seem to imply that such skeletons have been found. 
By whom ? Had they fallen into the hands of the Geolo- 
gical Survey of India the whole world would have been aware 
of every particular. 
Again, we are told on p. X32—-also by Root Hoomi Lai 
Singh — that “ the philosophical and transcendental notion 
of the mediaeval Theosophists, that the final progress of 
human labour, aided by the incessant discoveries of man, 
must one day culminate in a process which shall result in 
the evolution of nutritious food out of inorganic matter, is un- 
thinkable for men of Science.” A more mistaken accusation 
was never brought forward. The great objedt of modern 
chemists is the evolution of organic compounds — commonly 
so-called — out of inorganic matter, and the many striking 
successes which they have achieved in the last few years 
merely urge them on to further attempts. The synthesis of 
