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sense of the teachings of the real Teachers of our race, it has unhesitatingly declared religion to be irrational and unscientific. And, since metaphysics only endeavours to ascertain the final causes of the word-process, and since its conclusions invariably agree with those of religion, wherever and whenever they are pushed to the final issue, it, too, has been dubbed unscientific indiscriminately. As a matter of fact, consistency of thought without which no department of knowledge can be perfect, however much it might be based on the observation of facts in nature, it is not the facts of observation themselves which constitute science, but their rational classification, and the ascertainment of their causes-is unthinkable without the aid of true metaphysics or philosophy. Hence, philosophy, which totally rejects the element of chance and its companion, arbitrariness, and which recognises only the sequence of Cause and Effect in its all-embracing sphere of activity, is the science of all sciences known to man.
The absence of the knowledge of the soul in the West has been the cause of the development and growth of a system of thought which soon managed to shake itself free from religious dominion of every description whatsoever, and which, in consequence of the extraordinary abilities and forcible eloquence of some of the leading scientists, who took up its cause, evolved out, towards the end of the last century, into what has been termed Scientific Agnosticism. Carried away by the brilliancy of their scientific researches in the realm of what has been described as dead matter,and encouraged by the semblance of worldly prosperity which their discoveries and inven
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