ENQ. I confess, such a perseverance seems to me very astounding, and I wondered why you did all this. THEO. Believe me for no self-gratification; only in the hope of training a few individuals to carry on our work for humanity by its original programme when the Founders are dead and gone. They have already found a few such noble and devoted souls to replace them. The coming generations, thanks to these few, will find the path to peace a little less thorny, and the way a little widened, and thus all this suffering will have produced good results, and their self-sacrifice will not have been in vain. At present, the main, fundamental object of the Society is to sow germs in the hearts of men, which may in time sprout, and under more propitious circumstances lead to a healthy reform, conducive of more happiness _to the masses_ than they have hitherto enjoyed. XIII. ON THE MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. THEOSOPHY AND ASCETICISM. ENQ. I have heard people say that your rules require all members to be vegetarians, celibates, and rigid ascetics; but you have not told me anything of the sort yet. Can you tell the truth once for all about this? THEO. The truth is that our rules require nothing of the kind. The Theosophical Society does not even expect, far less require of _any_ of its members that they should be ascetics in any way, except—if you call _that_ asceticism—that they should try and benefit other people and be unselfish in their own lives. ENQ. But still many of your members are strict vegetarians, and openly avow their intention of remaining unmarried. This, too, is most often the case with those who take a prominent part in connection with the work of your Society. THEO. That is only natural, because most of our really earnest workers are members of the Inner Section of the Society, which I told you about before. ENQ. Oh! then you do require ascetic practices in that Inner Section? THEO. No; we do not _require_ or _enjoin_ them even there; but I see that I had better give you an explanation of our views on the subject of asceticism in general, and then you will understand about vegetarianism and so on. ENQ. Please proceed. THEO. As I have already told you, most people who become really earnest students of Theosophy, and active workers in our Society, wish to do more than study theoretically the truths we teach. They wish to _know_ the truth by their own direct personal experience, and to study Occultism with the object of acquiring the wisdom and power, which they feel that they need in order to help others, effectually and judiciously, instead of blindly and at haphazard. Therefore, sooner or later, they join the Inner Section. ENQ. But you said that “ascetic practices” are not obligatory even in that Inner Section?