THEOSOPHY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13813, 28 July 1908, Page 6

THEOSOPHY.

"MAN AND HIS DESTINY."

-■MRS. BESANT'S LECTURE. There was a crowded attendance at the Albert Hall yesterday evening to hear Mrs. Annie Besant, the president of the Theosophical Society, deliver her first Auckland lecture. Mr. Kaber Harrison presided. ■ Mrs. Besant chose as her subject '|Man and His Destiny," and dealt with it in a manner that held her vast audience enthralled from start to finish. ;,■ At the outset she' touched trenchantly on the inequalities and differences of human life as at present existing, and asked whether it was ]>os- - sible to pretend in such conditions that a man could bo spoken of as master of his own destiny. Having propounded this proposition, Mrs. Besant took the remainder of her allotted time to answer it. The i lecturess .argued that human observation had taught that there were three things on which a man's fate in this world appeared to depend, These were character---upon which his destiny largely depended-— tunity, and circumstance, the environment into which he was born. Science declared that man, as he was born, was ■< the result of cause oyer which he had no and that he had no power over the future. From the standpoint of science the future of humanity loomed as darkly as the past. But there was another solution given to these great problems of human life by some of the greatest thinkers of our race. -And this solution changed humanity from slaves to masters," from playthings of destiny to the makers and controllers of destiny. , Mrs. Besant showed how.man had reached his present stage of development by learning Nature's laws and thus partly conquering her. . And" what man had done in one department of Nature he might do in another. •■• Nature's laws did not enslave us the moment we understood them. They never varied one hairsbreadth. By understanding the factors of human nature, and by studying human life, we could build our destiny and create the future. Mrs. Besant proceeded to develop in an interesting manner this train of thought, and was loudly applauded at the conclusion of her remarks. « ' '.\.—.

This afternoon there will be a public conversazione at the Albert Hall,; at which the celebrated tectums will be present, and to-morrow evening she will deliver her final lecture at the same place.