[9] It has become “fashionable,” especially of late, to deride the notion that there ever was, in the _mysteries_ of great and civilized peoples, such as the Egyptians, Greeks, or Romans, anything but priestly imposture. Even the Rosicrucians were no better than half lunatics, half knaves. Numerous books have been written on them; and tyros, who had hardly heard the name a few years before, sallied out as profound critics and Gnostics on the subject of alchemy, the fire-philosophers, and mysticism in general. Yet a long series of the Hierophants of Egypt, India, Chaldea, and Arabia are known, along with the greatest philosophers and sages of Greece and the West, to have included under the designation of wisdom and divine science all knowledge, for they considered the base and origin of every art and science as _essentially_ divine. Plato regarded the _mysteries_ as most sacred, and Clemens Alexandrinus, who had been himself initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries, has declared “that the doctrines taught therein contained in them the end of all human knowledge.” Were Plato and Clemens two knaves or two fools, we wonder, or—both? III. THE WORKING SYSTEM OF THE T.S.[10] THE OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY. ENQ. What are the objects of the “Theosophical Society”? THEO. They are three, and have been so from the beginning. (1). To form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity without distinction of race, colour, or creed. (2). To promote the study of Aryan and other Scriptures, of the World’s religion and sciences, and to vindicate the importance of old Asiatic literature, namely, of the Brahmanical, Buddhist, and Zoroastrian philosophies. (3). To investigate the hidden mysteries of Nature under every aspect possible, and the psychic and spiritual powers latent in man especially. These are, broadly stated, the three chief objects of the Theosophical Society. ENQ. Can you give me some more detailed information upon these? THEO. We may divide each of the three objects into as many explanatory clauses as may be found necessary. ENQ. Then let us begin with the first. What means would you resort to, in order to promote such a feeling of brotherhood among races that are known to be of the most diversified religions, customs, beliefs, and modes of thought? THEO. Allow me to add that which you seem unwilling to express. Of course we know that with the exception of two remnants of races—the Parsees and the Jews—every nation is divided, not merely against all other nations, but even against itself. This is found most prominently among the so-called civilized Christian nations. Hence your wonder, and the reason why our first object appears to you a Utopia. Is it not so? ENQ. Well, yes; but what have you to say against it?