1882.] 
Occultism Reconsidered . 
407 
human food may not be effected this century or the next, but 
it is kept fully and clearly in view as the great goal of applied 
science. 
Hence we submit we have shown that the history, the 
teachings, and the aims of open science do not receive full 
justice at the hands of Mr. Sinnett. 
We may now cast a glance at certain important and 
fundamental distinctions between Occultism and Open 
Science, Root Hoomi Lai Singh is quoted as saying— “You 
do not seem to realise the tremendous difficulties in the way 
of imparting even the rudiments of our science to those 
who have been trained in the familiar methods of yours. 
The more you have of the one the less capable you are of 
instinctively comprehending the other.” Open Science, as 
we know, is purely intellectual. It is attained by intellectual 
training only, other pursuits — whether in themselves mo- 
rally good or evil — being discarded as distractions. In the 
book before us Root Hoomi complains of modern civilisation 
as resting so exclusively upon intellect. He complains, even, 
that “ exaCt experimental science has nothing to do with 
morality, virtue, philanthropy.” He asks, censuring, “What 
have the laws of Faraday, Tyndall, or others to do with 
philanthropy?” The training of the adept is not purely 
intellectual, but seems to involve a certain amount of 
asceticism. There is required amongst other things “a life 
of absolute physical purity ” — whatever these words and 
their subsequent explanation may mean. The type of the 
adept here given is thus widely different from Lord Lytton’s 
Mejnour. He, if an ascetic, was so like not a few of our 
modern men of Science, simply from complete absorption in 
his studies. He is described not as a philanthropist, but as 
purely intellectual in his pursuits. With him life “ is but a 
power to examine.” 
Passing to the tenets of Occultism as compared with those 
of Open Science, we find, in the former as in the latter, the 
recognition of the immutability of law, and of the principle 
of continuity. Evolution seems to be admitted, and perhaps 
even abiogenesis, since the objeCt of Nature is proclaimed 
to be (p. 129) “ the evolution of conscious life out of inert 
material.” The age of miracles is declared not to be past, 
but never to have existed. Concerning energy a remarkable 
difference of views must be noted. Says Root Hoomi : — 
“ You see no difference between the energy expended by the 
traveller who pushes aside the bush that obstructs his path 
and the scientific experimenter who expends an equal amount 
of energy in setting a pendulum in motion. We do ; for we 
