Other differences also arise, but these may serve as samples. Are, then, books relating to observations useless? They only become useless, even mischievous, when the theosophical student treats them as revelations or inspirations instead of as observations. Observation is the basis of scientific knowledge; the correction of earlier observations by later ones is the condition of scientific progress. The student of optics, when confronted with the black-and-white rayed disk, the grey disk, the whirling disk hanging motionless, does not conclude that the conflicting observations make observations useless. He searches for and finds the conditions of light, of the constitution of the eye, which explain the equally true though contradictory reports. He submits the observations to renewed experiment and to the scrutiny of reason, until from the contradictions emerges the many-sided truth. What should be the attitude of the theosophical student to books of observations? To all such books you must take up the attitude of the scientific student, not of the believer. You must bring to bear upon them a bright intelligence, a keen mind, an eager intellect, a thoughtful and critical reason. You must not accept as final, observations made by other students, even though those students are using faculties which you yourselves have not as yet developed. You should accept them only for what they are—observations liable to modification, to correction, to reviewal. You should hold them with a light grasp, as hypotheses temporarily accepted until confirmed or negated by further observations, including your own. If they illuminate obscurities, if they conduce to sound morality, take them and use them; but never let them become fetters to your mind, gaolers of your thought. Study these books, but do not swallow them; understand them, but hold your judgment in suspense: these books are useful servants but dangerous masters; they are to be studied, not worshipped. Make your own opinions, do not borrow those of others; do not be in such a hurry to know that you accept other people’s knowledge, for ready-made opinions, like ready-made clothes, are neither well-fitting nor becoming.