vol. xxx, no. 4 april 1926 universal brotherhood - a fact in nature

UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD - A FACT IN NATURE
By Nature, then, we mean the sum-total of the manifested life
around us; and by physical Nature, the whole of the physical, material
universe. As Goethe so beautifully expresses it:
"And thus, at the roaring loom of Time I ply,
And weave for God the garment thou seest Him by."
Literally, of course, Nature means that which is born, that which
has come forth into manifestation; and, for the moment, we will not
inquire whence. And of this sum-total we, men and women and all
Humanity, are part. This we assume as a self-evident fact. The ancient
Egyptians, and all other ancient peoples, even as most people do today,
used to regard Nature as the Great Mother. Isis, in one aspect, was
Nature, the Mother of all living. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky says, in
The Secret Doctri~ze:
"And it is easy to see that Ad-Argat (or Aster3[, the Syrian goddess . . .) and Venus,
Isis, Ister, Mylitta. Eve, etc., etc., are identical with the Aditi and V2ch of the HindBs. They
are all the 'Mothers of all living,' and 'of the gods.' "- 11, 43
This plainly has a mystical and spiritual meaning, but we quote
it merely to show the universal belief in regard to Nature, thus per-
sonified, as the Mother of all. At present we are concerned only with
Kature in its physical, material aspect; and if we were to go no further,
if we could accept this as a fact, not as a mere poetic fancy, or in any
mystical sense, but as a demonstrable fact, then are we all, indeed, kith
and kin,- brothers and sisters,- born "of One Sweet Mother."
But what do we find? As H. P. Blavatsky, in The Key to Theo-
sophy, declares :
"All the unselfishness of the altruistic teachings of Jesus has become merely a theo-
retical subject for pulpit-oratory; while the precepts of practical selfishness taught in the
Mosaic Bible, against which Christ so vainly preached, have become ingrained into the inner-
most life of the Western nations. 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth' has come to
be the first maxim of your law. Now, I state openly and fearlessly that the perversity of
this doctrine and of so many others Theosophy alone can eradicate.
"How?
"Simply by demonstrating on logical, philosophical, metaphysical, and even scien-
tific grounds that: (u) All men have spirilually and physically the same origin, which is
the fundamental teaching of Theosophy. (b) As mankind is essentially of one and the same
essence, and that essence is me -infinite, uncreate and eternal, whether we call it God or
Nature -nothing, therefore, can affect one nation or one man without affecting all other
nations and all other men. This is as certain and as obvious as that a stone thrown into a
pond will, sooner or later, set in motion every single drop of water therein."
Let us then question science, and ask, what has she to tell us? ,
And the answer of science is that we all are born in the same fashion,
made of the same materials, live in general on the same kinds of food;
that our loves, our hates, passions and desires, all have much in common;
that underneath what is with most people but a veneer of what we are