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shown in the footnote. With this remark, I may begin to wind up this already too prolonged controversy.
To sum up. Our rather lengthy examination of the strictures contained in the joint papers by the President and a 'Vice-President of the London Lodge' will now clearly show to our fellow members, and to any impartial reader of "Esoteric Buddhism," that its doctrines are neither unscientific, nor are they entirely allegorical. If, owing to their extremely abstruse character, they are misleading, or rather difficult of comprehension,—the author should hardly be blamed for it. He has done his best; and, as the system of philosophy explained by Mr. Sinnett comes assuredly from the highest sources of esoteric knowledge known to us in the East—he has deserved, on the contrary, the best thanks, for even the little he has done. His book forms part of a complete system of Esoteric Science and philosophy which is neither Hindu nor Buddhist in its origion, but which is identical with the ancient Wisdom-Religion itself, and which forms the basis or foundation of every system of religion conceived by the human mind since the time when the first Dhyan Chohan appeared on this planet to plant the germ
When the writer of Reply No. 2, referring to "Greeks and Romans," jocularly remarked that their ancestors might have been mentioned by some other name, and added that "besides the very plausible excuse that the names used were embodied in a private letter, written (as many unimportant letters are) in great haste, and which (this particular letter,) "was hardly worthy of the honour of being quoted verbatim with all its imperfections"—he certainly never meant his remark to yield any such charge as is implied in Mr. Maitland's incorrect quotation. Let any one of the London Lodge compare and decide whether the said sentence can lead any person to doubt "the accuracy of the adept Brothers," or infer "that they are frequently given to write in great haste things which are hardly worthy of the honour of being quoted, etc." And since the word "frequently" does not occur in the alleged quotation, and alters a good deal the spirit of the remark, I can only express my regret that, under the present serious circumstances, Mr. Maitland should have become himself (inadvertingly, no doubt,) guilty of such an inaccuracy.—H. P. Blavatsky.
