Why the Misery of Ill-Being Cannot Be Relieved

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Alexei Maximovich Peshkov · Down to Earth Series · 10 pages

A ten-page compilation opened by an abstract and train of thoughts with page references and closing with a list of further reading; the frontispiece is by Eychanchan. The second author named is Alexei Maximovich Peshkov, better known as Maxim Gorky. Note that this document is reached from two separate lines on the Down to Earth list — its own, and an earlier line reading “Why the hollow men prize their vice and live by it,” which is the file's former title and takes its wording from a heading inside the document itself.

The argument distinguishes between two kinds of philanthropist before criticising either. The religious philanthropist is described as doing good not simply for its own sake but with an eye to his own salvation; the secular philanthropist, socialist at heart, hopes to make men happy by helping them materially. Against both the compilation sets an uncomfortable observation: that ill-being is not only endurable but agreeable to some of those who endure it — not from love of vice, it says, but from love of the very state that the wealthy classes call misery — and that kind and considerate regard will sometimes bring out the worst qualities in people who led a fairly presentable life while kept down by pain and despair. Indiscriminate benevolence is accordingly said to be capable of doing severe harm, a conclusion the abstract concedes will be resisted by those blinded by their love of the suffering poor. The constructive half follows. Practical charity is not one of the declared objects of the Society, though the flame of brotherly love and sympathy in action with every living creature, whether man or beast, is said to burn silently in the heart of every true Theosophist; and a heartfelt appreciation of Theosophy is offered as the thing that softens the atrocities of life by creating a charity which afterwards, of its own accord, makes itself manifest in practical works. The heading “Even the hollow men prize their vice and live by it” stands near the close.

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