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of 'absolute evil' is asserted by the adept!" On the contrary, the implication is plain that no such thing "as absolute evil" is ever realised by humanity. If, however, still further elucidation of the subject is sought, I have but to point out another passage, on the same subject, on page 84, and by the same "inspiring adept;" which will render Mr. Maitland's—I love to think unconscious—misrepresentation as clear as day to everyone. "There is more apparent and relative than actual evil even on earth, and it is not given to the hoi poloi to reach the fatal grandeur and eminence of a Satan every day"—writes the venerated Master on the said page. It is, indeed, very hard to conceive how a person of Mr. Maitland's undoubted fairness and ability could have so hopelessly sunk in such a slough of serious errors!
To crown the list of voluntary and involuntary mistakes and misconceptions, we must mention his ascription to Madame Blavatsky of certain statements that, considering her relation to the holy personage to whom they refer, could never have been, nor were they made by her. The internal evidence, in the absence of any signature to the article (Replies to an English F. T. S.), in which the sentence occurs (see Theosophist, October 1883, p. 3), is strong enough to warn off all careful readers from the unwarranted assumption which Mr. Maitland has made. But it is certainly curious that the gentleman should have never missed a single chance of falling into blunder! The "Replies"—as every one in our Society is aware of—were written by three "adepts" as Mr. Maitland calls them—none of whom is known to the London Lodge, with the exception of one—to Mr. Sinnett. The sentence quoted and fathered upon Madame Blavatsky is found in the MSS. sent by a Mahatma who resides in Southern India, and who had alone the right to speak, as he did, of another Mahatma. But even his words are not correctly stated,*[1] as
- ↑ * I here deny most emphatically of having ever caused to be printed—let alone to have myself written it—the sentence as it now stands quoted by Mr. Maitland in his "Remarks". The Theosophist of October is, I believe, available in England and the two sentences may be easily compared.
