Annie Besant
Beebop is a series of graded readers for three levels which increase in complexity to allow for improvement in ability and interest. The ratings take into consideration the following components: difficulty of vocabulary, sentence length, comprehension abilities and subject matter. Each level consists of four story books and four accompanying activity books.
Read more from Annie Besant
Christian Esoterism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thought Power: Its Control And Culture (Premium Ebook) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Thought Power, It’s Control and Culture Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOccult Chemistry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Path to Atheism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Spiritual Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThought Forms: A Record of Clairvoyant Investigation Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Case for India Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Christian Creed; or, What it is Blasphemy to Deny Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ancient Wisdom Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEsoteric Christianity (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Nature and Practice of Yoga Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnnie Besant: An Autobiography Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Pterodactyl's Egg Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A rough outline of Theosophy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeath and After Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAfter Death Experiences Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKarma: A Theosophical Manual (Easy to Read Layout) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFruits of Philosophy A Treatise on the Population Question Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEsoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAfter Death Experiences Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Esoteric Teachings: The Writings of Annie Besant Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThought Forms Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Basis of Morality
Related ebooks
A Textbook of Theosophy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Inner Life (Annotated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Devachanic Plane Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTheosophy and Life's Deeper Problems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPsychism and Spirituality Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Outline of Occult Science Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAfter Death Experiences Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study in Consciousness - A Contribution to the Science of Psychology (1904) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Inner Nature of Man: And Our Life Between Death and Rebirth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Introduction to Yoga Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Textbook of Theosophy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHoly Path of Science & Spirituality (Theory of Self-Realization) (Part-2)-2020 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Astral Plane Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Martinus, Darwin and Intelligent Design - A new Theory of Evolution Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Inner Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Way of Initiation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Consciousness of the Atom: Lectures on Theosophy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBrotherhood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Human Heart: Supersensible Organ of Perception Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInvisible Helpers (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hidden Side Of Things Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThrough The Esoteric Gates of Gold: New Revised Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKarmic Relationships: Volume 3: Esoteric Studies Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Dayspring of Youth Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Invisible Helpers: Premium Ebook Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTheosophy: An Introduction to the Supersensible Knowledge of the World and the Destination of Man Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Consciousness of the Atom Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Reviews for The Basis of Morality
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Basis of Morality - Annie Besant
The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Basis of Morality, by Annie Besant
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The Basis of Morality
Author: Annie Besant
Release Date: April 4, 2005 [EBook #15545]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BASIS OF MORALITY ***
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, David Garcia and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.
THE BASIS OF MORALITY
BY
ANNIE BESANT
AUTHOR OF
Mysticism, The Immediate Future,
Initiation: The Perfecting of Man,
Superhuman Men, etc. etc.
THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING HOUSE
ADYAR, MADRAS, INDIA
1915
CONTENTS
I. REVELATION
II. INTUITION
III. UTILITY
IV. EVOLUTION
V. MYSTICISM
I
REVELATION
Must religion and morals go together? Can one be taught without the other? It is a practical question for educationists, and France tried to answer it in the dreariest little cut and dry kind of catechism ever given to boys to make them long to be wicked. But apart from education, the question of the bedrock on which morals rest, the foundation on which a moral edifice can be built that will stand secure against the storms of life—that is a question of perennial interest, and it must be answered by each of us, if we would have a test of Right and Wrong, would know why Right is Right, why Wrong is Wrong.
Religions based on Revelation find in Revelation their basis for morality, and for them that is Right which the Giver of the Revelation commands, and that is Wrong which He forbids. Right is Right because God, or a Ṛṣhi or a Prophet, commands it, and Right rests on the Will of a Lawgiver, authoritatively revealed in a Scripture.
Now all Revelation has two great disadvantages as a basis for morality. It is fixed, and therefore unprogressive; while man evolves, and at a later stage of his growth, the morality taught in the Revelation becomes archaic and unsuitable. A written book cannot change, and many things in the Bibles of Religion come to be out of date, inappropriate to new circumstances, and even shocking to an age in which conscience has become more enlightened than it was of old.
The fact that in the same Revelation as that in which palpably immoral commands appear, there occur also jewels of fairest radiance, gems of poetry, pearls of truth, helps us not at all. If moral teachings worthy only of savages occur in Scriptures containing also rare and precious precepts of purest sweetness, the juxtaposition of light and darkness only produces moral chaos. We cannot here appeal to reason or judgment for both must be silent before authority; both rest on the same ground. Thus saith the Lord
precludes all argument.
Let us take two widely accepted Scriptures, both regarded as authoritative by the respective religions which accept them as coming from a Divine Preceptor or through a human but illuminated being, Moses in the one case, Manu in the other. I am, of course, well aware that in both cases we have to do with books which may contain traditions of their great authors, even sentences transmitted down the centuries. The unravelling of the tangled threads woven into such books is a work needing the highest scholarship and an infinite patience; few of us are equipped for such labour. But let us ignore the work of the Higher Criticism, and take the books as they stand, and the objection raised to them as a basis