Theosophy is "divine" or "god-wisdom." Therefore, it must be the life-blood of that system (philosophy) which is defined as "the science of things divine and human and the causes in which they are contained" (Sir W. Hamilton), Theosophy alone possessing the keys to those "causes." Bearing in mind simply its most elementary division, we find that philosophy is the love of, and search after, wisdom, "the knowledge of phenomena as explained by, and resolved into, causes and reasons, powers and laws." (Encyclopedia.) When applied to god or gods, it became in every country theology; when to material nature, it was called physics and natural history; concerned with man, it appeared as anthropology and psychology; and when raised to the higher regions it becomes known as metaphysics. Such is philosophy - "the science of effects by their causes" - the very spirit of the doctrine of Karma, the most important teaching under various names of every religious philosophy, and a theosophical tenet that belongs to no one religion bu explains them all. Philosophy is also called "the science of things possible, inasmuch as they are possible." This applies directly to theosophical doctrines, inasmuch as they reject miracles; but it can hardly apply to theology or any dogmatic religion, every one of which enforces belief in things impossible; nor to the modern philosophical systems of the materialists who reject even the "possible," whenever the latter contradicts their assertions.
Theosophy claims to explain and to reconcile religion with science. We find G.H. Lewis stating that "Philosophy, detaching its widest conceptions from both (Theology and Science), furnishes a doctrine which contains an explanation of the world and human destiny." (1) "The office of Philosophy is the systematization of the conceptions furnished by Science ... Science furnishes the knowledge, and Philosophy the doctrine" (loc. cit.). The latter can become complete only on condition of having that "knowledge" and that "doctrine" passed through the sieve of Divine Wisdom, or Theosophy. ...
Ueberweg (A History of Philosophy) defines Philosophy as "the Science of Principles," which, as all our members know, is the claim of Theosophy in its branch-sciences of Alchemy, Astrology, and the occult sciences generally.
Hegel regards it as "the contemplation of the self-development of the Absolute," or in other words as "the representation of the Idea" (Darstellung der Idee).
The whole of the Secret Doctrine - of which the work bearing that name is but an atom - is such a contemplation and record, as far as finite language and limited thought can record the processes of the Infinite.
Thus it becomes evident that Theosophy cannot be a "religion," still less "a sect," but it is indeed the quintessence of the highest philosophy in all and every one of its aspects. Having shown that it falls under, and answers fully, every description of philosophy, we may add to the above a few more of Sir W. Hamilton's definitions, and prove our statement by showing the pursuit of the same in Theosophical literature. This is a task easy enough, indeed. For, does not "Theosophy" include "the science of things evidently deduced from first principles" as well as "the sciences of truths sensible and abstract"? Does it not preach "the application of reason to its legitimate objects," and make it one of its "legitimate objects" - to enquire into "the science of the original form of the Ego, or mental self," as also teach the secret of "the absolute indifference of the ideal and real"? All of which proves that according to every definition - old or new - of philosophy, he who studies Theosophy, studies the highest transcendental philosophy.
[p. 437 ...] Theosophy is no national property, no religion, but only the universal code of science and the most transcendental ethics that was ever known; that it lies at the root of every moral philosophy and religion; and that neither Theosophy per se, nor yet its humble unworthy vehicle, the Theosophical Society, has anything whatever to do with any personality or personalities! To identify it with these is to show oneself sadly defective in logic and even common sense. To reject the teaching and its philosophy under the pretext that its leaders, or rather one of its Founders, lies under various accusations (so far unproven) is silly, illogical and absurd. It is, in truth, as ridiculous as it would have been in the days of the Alexandrian school of Neo-Platonism, which was in its essence Theosophy, to reject its teachings, because it came to Plato from Socrates, and because the sage of Athens, besides his pug-nose and bald head, was accused of "blasphemy and of corrupting the youth."
