MAKING OF A MAN

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 33, 8 August 1921, Page 3

MAKING OF A MAN

THE TEACHING OF THEOSOPHY.

The Concert Chamber was well filled last night when Dr. Wedgwood delivered his .final lecture for the Theosophical Society on "The Makingjof a Man." Dr. Wedgwood said it wa's a curious but traffic fact that the great majority of mankind did not understand the purpose! of their existence, or the part they played in the plan of evolution. The great advantage of theosophy was that it did offer a coherent scheme of life, showing man's place in its universe, as well as the relation of one kingdom to another, with the same divine life glowing through all. Since the discovery of radium people had modified their ideas of matter, for it had been proved to be continually in a state of flux. Beginning at the mineral, men of science had proved that the life in the mineral responded to certain treatment; that it could be poisoned, become tired and recover after rest. Passing on to the vegetable kingdom, we found the same intelligence working in trees and plants. Prom theN vegetable' kingdom it passed on to the animal kingdom, where is gained a wonderful range of experience by contact with man. From the- animal it reached individualisation in the human kingdom. It was in the human kingdom where the great powers of the divine spirit unfolded. This took numbers of lives in different bodies from the crude life of violence and killing in the savage to the lofty and sublime expression of the saints, philosophers,.. and teachers of the human race. In a .world ruled by divine justice there must be some explanation of the inequalities of life and reincarnation whiclr its twin doctrine of Karama gave it. It was the only reasonable and just scheme. The only one in which it was possible for the great divine powors of the spirit to unfold. It would be utterly impossible tp exhaust them in one life of seventy years. Everything that came to us in the way of experience left an indelible mark on ua, and men and women became greater and bigger as they passed through innumerable experiences of pain and liappiness. People said they did not remember their past lives. As; a matter of fact, the real I, the ego, did, but tire body which did not remember, even many of the experiences of; its present life did not remember its past. Yet what was conscience, which differed with oach individual, but the memory of past experience. It naturally followed that life became more purposeful as we realised the powers and possibilities of the spirit within. Theosophy showed how we could co-operate in the scheme of evolution and take ourselves in hand and develop character, forge a-head more rapidly. as it were; by definite and sustained thought, i Man discovered as he advanced that ho was something greater than his emotions and his mind, and as he gained control over them they became obedient servants instead of masters. People often refused to look into^ the teaching of reincarnation because they did not like it. Evolution explained the long process through which man remedied defects and built faculties, and finally attained 'perfection.