Mystic masonry, or, The symbols of freemasonry and the greater ...

148 Mystic Masonry.
underlying Intelligence. Matter is said to be essentially
dead and inert, and Mind is regarded as the
fortuitous result of combination and aggregation,
known as "organization." Evolution is regarded
as the result of modification and improvement by
use and selection, and the increment carried forward
by heredity. In other words, of Autonomy.
The theory of Religion is that of a Personal God
and an arbitrary and equally mechanical, though
miraculous, creation; of a Revelation equally miraculous;
of souls created as by arbitrary caprice of
Deity, with the accidental co-operation of man, even
in violation of Divine Law. It talks of Laws, but
admits their abrogation through the Will (caprice)
of God. It is true that neither Science nor Religion
has openly formulated the foregoing creeds, but
they are fair deductions from the postulates assumed,
the logical results of a Nature without Intelligence;
and a God who creates Laws only to
annul them at His own good pleasure ! Reconciliation
between Science and Religion thus becomes
impossible, because each is a contradiction to itself.
But a reconciliation was reached in the Secret
Doctrine ages ago.
The old universal Wisdom Religion was scientific
to the last degree ; for beneath both Science and Re-