It has left all the men of the past ages, all of the present time, all of many generations yet to come, in a condition, which, compared with that which I try to foresee, must be called very immature.  This has never been a stumbling-block to me; for I hold that the Lord understands his own work, the end from the beginning; and that, if “order is heaven’s first law,” there is a place for every soul that is in it, and a possible satisfaction of the desires of every one.  Dr. Clarke expresses the thought that, however much any being may have gone astray, the soul reconciled at last to God, though it can never undo the past, or be at that point it might have reached, will yet be perfectly content with its place in the universe, and as much blessed as the archangels.  That consideration has satisfied my mind when I contemplated humanity, seeming to stop so far short of its perfection.  My regrets—­if I can use such a term—­came, as I believed, out of my ignorance.

Now comes a book which claims to give us the key of the whole problem of human destiny—­a book containing some assertions regarding occult science, belief in which must remain suspended in our minds, and some points in cosmogony which conflict with our Christian convictions—­yet a book making statements about human history which, though in the highest degree startling, are not contradicted by anything we know of the past, but are rather an explanation of some of its dark passages—­a book developing a system of human growth which cannot be disproved and which makes plain some of the riddles of destiny.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the book is its tremendous assumption.  “All that have hitherto written on this subject have been only half-taught.  They have not been admitted to the real inner doctrine.  Here is the first putting-forth, to the world, of the real teaching, as the Buddhists present it to those who have been initiated into occult science.”  Such is, in substance, the author’s claim.  We may believe just as much of this as we can.  I, for my part, knowing nothing about the matter, choose, just now, and for our purpose, to assume that the doctrines of Esoteric Buddhism are what Sinnett says they are, because they suggest to my mind so many attractive avenues for my imagination to wander in.

There are two main points in this book which give it its chief interest:  (1) “The past history of the human race as now living on this planet;” and (2) “The manner in which, and the circumstances under which, any individual man works out his own salvation.”  But before entering upon these, we should say a word about the Buddhist statements regarding the nature of man.