Theos-Talk Archives (September 2004 Message tt00394)

To me this quote shows the expansivness of the mind HPB was coming
from and encouraging... even putting the scientists of today to shame
I think.
Perry

ENQUIRER. What do you mean by sui generis?

THEOSOPHIST. I mean that, though the fundamental law and the universal
working of laws of Nature are uniform, still our Solar system (like
every other such system in the millions of others in Cosmos) and even
our Earth, has its own programme of manifestations differing from the
respective programmes of all others. We speak of the inhabitants of
other planets and imagine that if they are men, i. e., thinking
entities, they must be as we are. The fancy of poets and painters and
sculptors never fails to represent even the angels as a beautiful copy
of man -- plus wings. We say that all this is an error and a delusion;
because, if on this little earth alone one finds such a diversity in
its flora, fauna and mankind -- from the sea-weed to the cedar of
Lebanon, from the jelly-fish to the elephant, from the Bushman and
negro to the Apollo Belvedere -- alter the conditions cosmic and
planetary, and there must be as a result quite a different flora,
fauna and mankind. The same laws will fashion quite a different set of
things and beings even on this our plane, including in it all our
planets. How much more different then must be external nature in other
Solar systems, and how foolish is it to judge of other stars and
worlds and human beings by our own, as physical science does!

http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/key/key-6.