There is a dangerous tendency in the Theosophical Society to make books of observations authoritative instead of using them as materials for study. We must not add to the number of blind believers who already exist, but to the number of sane and sober students, who patiently form their own opinions and educate their own faculties. Use your own judgment on every observation submitted to you; examine it as thoroughly as possible; criticise it as fully as you can. It is a poor service you do us when you turn students into popes, and, parrot-like, repeat as authoritative, statements that you do not know to be true. Moreover, blind belief is the road to equally blind scepticism: you place a student on a pedestal and loudly proclaim him to be a prophet, despite his protests; and then, when you find he has made some mistake, as he warned you was likely, you turn round, pull him down, and trample on him. You belabour him when you should belabour your own blindness, your own stupidity, your own anxiety to believe. Is it not time that we should cease to be children, and begin to be men and women, realising the greatness of our opportunities and the smallness of our achievements? It is not time to offer to Truth the homage of study instead of that of blind credulity? Let us ever be ready to correct a mistaken impression or an imperfect observation, to walk with open eyes and mind alert, remembering that the best service to Truth is examination. Truth is a sun, shining by its own light; once seen, it cannot be rejected. “Let Truth and falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a fair encounter?” FOOTNOTES [1] I am told that these punishments are no longer used in English jails. If that be so, a step has been made in advance. [2] The _principle_ of reincarnation is accepted, in this sense, by many Spiritualists, who deny that man returns to earth. With them another line of argument would be followed to prove the necessity of reincarnation on earth. [3] See _The Science of the Emotions_, by Bhagavān Dās, Theosophical Publishing Society. [4] A Roman Catholic friend tells me that it is also used in cases of great danger, and that a friend of hers was thrice raised by it from what threatened to be a deathbed. [5] _Mundakepanishat_, I. i. 5. [6] _Loc. cit._, ii. 46. [7] _Buddhism_, p. 116. [8] _Kalama Sutta_ of the _Anguttara Nikaya_. TOPICAL INDEX TO THE CHANGING WORLD BY ANNIE BESANT ARRANGED BY THE CHICAGO LODGE, T.S. FOR THE USE OF STUDENTS Copyright 1910 by THEOSOPHICAL BOOK CONCERN 26 Van Buren Street, CHICAGO INDEX A