Members of the Theosophical Society and the general public have alike manifested a wide divergence of opinion both as regards the fundamental aim of the Society, and its adaptation to individual cases. To get a right view of these points, it is first absolutely necessary that the Society should be considered as a whole, and to remember that like every movement in the physical or spiritual world, it must be governed by the great law of Evolution. This is its primal Cause, and the evolution of the individual its primary work. It is not, as its history shows, an ephemeral institution, to last for a given period, like a hospital, or a society to benefit animals, or poor children, or fallen women. It is a spoke of the universal wheel of Evolution. When the world contained a body of persons sufficiently developed on the spiritual plane, they naturally formed a nucleus, from which rays presently diverged to various parts of the globe. Stimulating centres of energy which are constantly expanding through the individual efforts of their members. What is true of the whole body is true also of its component parts, and each individual, in mental capacity and psychical conditions is precisely what his previous experience, or his evolutionary ratio entitles him to be. Only by means of ever increasing effort on his own part, can he invigorate these powers. In founding the Theosophical Society, it was hoped that the united labors of all for each and of each for all, might result in so much enlightenment and expansion of individuals as the friction of many minds, all directed to one issue, should through the correlation of moral forces afford. Hence the Society was based upon the idea of Universal Brotherhood. There are at present two classes of persons who misinterpret this aim of the Society. The first class is variously composed of,—(_A_) those persons who suppose the Society to be solely devoted to a large phase of the subject, such as the progressive development of the entire body of the present race, or to the united interests of great masses of people, leaving the individual altogether alone in the uphill path of his own spiritual development. (_B_) Various persons in different parts of the world who have seen fit, coincidently with giving in their adherence to the idea of Universal Brotherhood, to ridicule it as “a mere sham” or “a pure formula” or “an utopian impossibility:” the wavering incredulity of every such person arises no doubt from individual or constitutional peculiarity. (_C_) Such as suppose this basic idea to be an elastic declaration which may always be used as a shield to ward off the unpopular or chaffing accusation of an interest in Mysticism. (_D_) Those who base their denial of universal brotherhood upon the very sensible rule requiring applicants for initiation to have endorsement from active fellows of the Society. “If you make distinctions you are not universal,” is the cry of these last.