examined at firsthand by all who will take the trouble to qualify

themselves for the study. When so examined, they prove to be parts

of a magnificent scheme, coherent and readily comprehensible—a
scheme which, while it agrees with and explains much of the old
religious teaching, is yet in no way dependent on it, since it can be
verified at every step by the use of the inner faculties which, though
as yet latent in the majority of mankind, have already been brought
into working order by a considerable number among our students.

For the past history of man, this theory depends not only upon the
concurrent testimony of the tradition of the earlier religions, but upon
the examination of a definite record—a record which can be seen
and consulted by anyone who possesses the degree of clairvoyance
requisite to appreciate the vibrations of the finely subdivided matter
upon which it is impressed. For its knowledge as to the future which
awaits humanity, it depends, first, upon logical deduction from the
character of the progress already made; secondly, on direct
information supplied by men who have already reached those
conditions which for most of us still constitute a more or less remote
future; and thirdly, on the comparison which anyone who has the
privilege of seeing them may make between highly evolved men at
various levels. We can imagine that a child who did not otherwise
know the course of nature might reason that he would presently
grow up and become a man, merely from the fact that he had
already grown to a certain extent and in a certain way, and that he
saw around him other children and young people at every stage of
growth between his own and the adult level.

The study of the condition of man at the present time, of the

immediate methods for his evolution, and of the effect upon that
evolution of his thoughts, his emotions, his actions—all this is
regarded by theosophical students as a mere matter of the
application of well-known laws as a broad, general principle, and
then of careful observation, of painstaking comparison of many