And the earnest students in
such eases must multiply. They are multiplying now even, merely on the
strength of the little that has been revealed. True, as yet--for some
time to come--the study will be, as it were, the whim of a few; but
"those who know," know among other things that, give it fair-play, and
it must become the subject of enthusiasm with all advanced thinkers. And
what is to happen when the world is divided into two camps--the whole
forces of intellectuality and culture on the one side, those of
ignorance and superstitious fanaticism on the other? With such a war as
that impending, the adepts, who will be conscious that they prepared the
lists and armed the combatants, will require some better justification
for their policy before their own consciences than the reflection that,
in the beginning, people accused them of selfishness, and of keeping a
miserly guard over their knowledge, and so goaded them with this taunt
that they were induced to set the ball rolling.
There is no question, be it understood, as to the relative merits of the
moral sanctions that are afforded by occult philosophy and those which
are distilled from the worn-out materials of existing creeds.
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