Fundamentally, the primitive riddle, the primordial mystery not being elucidated, all the rest illumines only the steps that lead from comparative knowledge to absolute ignorance. It will probably be the same with all the revelations that may address themselves to man’s intelligence so long as he continues on this planet, for this intelligence doubtless has limits which no effort can enlarge. But in the meantime it is certain that these steps, which lead to nothing, nevertheless, at the first onset and from the earliest days led him to the highest point which his intelligence has attained or can hope to attain. The most ancient explanation embraces straightway all the attempts at explanation that have hitherto been offered. It harmonizes the positivism of science with the most transcendental idealism; it accepts matter and spirit; it reconciles the mechanical impulsion of atoms and worlds with their intelligent guidance. It gives us an unconditioned divinity, “a causeless cause of all the causes,” worthy of the universe which is this divinity itself and of which all the divinities that have succeeded it in all our religions are but scattered, mutilated and unrecognizable members. It offers us, lastly, in its law of Karma, by virtue of which each being undergoes in his successive lives the consequences of his actions and gradually purifies himself, the loftiest, justest and most unassailable, the most fertile, consoling and hopeful moral principle that could ever be proposed to man. Because of all this it appears worthy of investigation, respect and admiration. 14