“I mean by philosopher, the man who is devoted to the acquisition of knowledge, real knowledge, and not merely inquisitive. The more our citizens approach this temperament, the better the state will be. True knowledge in its perfection and its entirety, man cannot attain. But he can attain to a kind of knowledge of realities, if he has any knowledge at all, because he cannot know nonentities. Hence his knowledge is half-way between real knowledge and ignorance, and we must call it opinion.” NOTE.—Several questions which have been received are held over to be answered next month. ------------------ _To the Editors of_ LUCIFER. In the interesting and lucid article on “Karma” in your number of September 15th, everything seems to hinge on the theory of re-incarnation. “Very well,” says the author of that paper, “let us take the principle of re-incarnation for granted.” But is not this a rather unphilosophical way of handling a subject of such gravity? Take this or that principle for granted, and you may go about to prove anything under the sun. It is the old weakness of begging the question. Is it not this taking for granted what cannot be proved, and is not attempted to be proved, that has led astray speculators—both scientific and religious—everywhere and in every age, and is it not upon similar assumptions that the whole monstrous fabric of theology rests? Of course, in every kind of speculation one is compelled to set out with an assumption of some sort; but then the first thing the reader demands is, that the grounds shall be shown upon which the assumption rests; the assumption, whatever it be, must be made good before one can be asked to accept that which is to be raised upon it. And here comes in my question: What is the warrant or sanction for the principle of re-incarnation? What is the principle grounded upon? Do we undergo re-incarnation, and how do you know it? Having set out with the assumption, the author does not return to it again, and at the end of the article I am as uninstructed as at the outset respecting the pivotal principle upon which all that follows seems to turn. INTERROGATOR. ------------------