A MODERN ZOROASTRIAN.
A MODERN ZOROASTRIAN.
| 1000 | copies | printed, | February, 1888. |
| 1000 | ” | ” | March, 1889. |
| 1000 | ” | ” | March, 1890. |
| 1000 | ” | ” | June, 1890. |
| 1000 | ” | ” | March, 1891. |
| 1000 | ” | ” | June, 1892. |
| 1000 | ” | ” | February, 1893. |
| 1000 | ” | ” | November, 1893. |
A MODERN ZOROASTRIAN
BY
S. LAING,
AUTHOR OF
“MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT,” “PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE,”
“HUMAN ORIGINS.”
Eighth Thousand.
LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, Ld.
1893.
CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS,
CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.
From some of the criticisms on the First Edition ofthis work I fear that the distinction I endeavouredto draw between the use of the term “polarity”in the inorganic and in the spiritual worlds hasnot been made sufficiently clear. I stated in theIntroduction “That while the principle of polaritypervades both worlds, I am far from assuming thatthe laws under which it acts are identical; and thatvirtue and vice, pain and pleasure, are products ofthe same mathematical laws as regulate the attractionsand repulsions of molecules and atoms.” But thiswarning has been apparently overlooked by somereaders who have assumed that instead of analogy Imeant identity, and that it was a mistake to use thesame word “polarity” for phenomena so essentiallydistinct as those of the material and the spiritualworlds.
Thus my “guide, philosopher, and friend,” ProfessorHuxley, for whose authority I have the highest respect,observed in a recent article, that he had long agoacquired a habit, if he came across the word polarityapplied to anything but magnetism and electricity,[vi]of throwing down the book and reading no farther.I must confess that I felt a little disconcerted whenI read this passage; but I was soon consoled, for,in a month or two afterwards, I came across anotherpassage in the same Review which said, “However revoltingmay be the accumulation of misery at the negativepole of Society, in contrast with that of monstrouswealth at the positive pole, this state of things mustabide and grow continuously worse, as long as Istar(the dual Goddess of the Babylonians) holds her wayunchecked.”
Surely, I thought, here is a case in which theProfessor must have thrown down the Review whenhe came to these words: but when I came to theend, I found that it was not the Review, but thepen, which must have been thrown down, for thearticle is signed “T. Huxley.” Can there be a moreconclusive proof that there are a vast variety of facts outsideof