James Martineau places the following boast: "Matter is all we want;
give us atoms alone, and we will explain the universe."
Vaughan offers a far better, more philosophical definition. "A
Theosophist," he says, "is one who gives you a theory of God or the
works of God, which has not revelation, but inspiration of his own for
its basis." In this view every great thinker and philosopher,
especially every founder of a new religion, school of philosophy, or
sect, is necessarily a Theosophist. Hence, Theosophy and Theosophists
have existed ever since the first glimmering of nascent thought made man
seek instinctively for the means of expressing his own independent
opinions.
There were Theosophists before the Christian era, notwithstanding that
the Christian writers ascribe the development of the Eclectic
Theosophical system to the early part of the third century of their era.
Diogenes Laertius traces Theosophy to an epoch antedating the dynasty of
the Ptolemies; and names as its founder an Egyptian Hierophant called
Pot-Amun, the name being Coptic, and signifying a priest consecrated to
Amun, the god of Wisdom.
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