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Now, Mr. Maitland's endeavours to catch Theism "under yet another mode" of expression are very unsuccessful. Although," it is urged, "the name [of Theism] is repudiated, the idea is retained under the term "Seventh Principle" (p. 179) or "Universal Spirit," which is described as "existing everywhere and operating on matter, provoking the existence of man himself, and the world in which he lives, and the future conditions towards which he is pressing." "The Seventh Principle, indefinable for us in our present state of enlightenment, is," we are further assured, "the only God recognized by Esoteric knowledge, and no personification of this can be otherwise than symbolical. It is, we are told, "the all-pervading Judge, to whom men have to give account." Unfortunately, Mr. Maitland has omitted to define the term Theism, and thus prevented us from examining the process by which he has evolved that faith out of the above quotations from "Esoteric Buddhism." All that, under the circumstances, remains for us to do is, to show that Mr. Sinnett's statements, although the word "God" occurs therein, do not warrant the acceptance of a personal God. It is not certainly justifiable to convert the "Seventh Principle" or "Universal Spirit" into a Jehovah, from what has been said of it in one place, utterly regardless of the reiterations about it, in other connections. In one passage, for instance (p. 176), we find Mr. Sinnett saying:—"The one and chief attribute of the Universal Spiritual principle, the unconscious but ever active life-giver, is to expand and shed; that of the Universal Material Principle is to gather in and fecundate." Then on the same page and the following creation is denied in toto. Without endorsing the phraseology adopted by Mr. Sinnett, which is, however, that of all the Kabalists and may be even found in Eliphas Levi's "Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie," as in the great book of Khiu-ti, I may safely assert that no Theist would be over-anxious to claim the author of "Esoteric Buddhism" as a fellow-worshipper. The argument founded upon Mr. Sinnett's use of such words as "God" and "Judge" has already been disposed of. In fact, such criticism only reminds one of
