In strong opposition to our mode of procedure, many popular teachers of this or that form of “New Thought” have been trying of late to annul modern doubts, and to lead men to a higher spiritual insight by means of certain “intuitions,” for the sake of which skeptical inquiry, stern criticism, elaborate reflection must be laid aside; so that the kindly disposed learner, even if he indeed is not to be a believer in certain old-fashioned creeds, still looks to his teacher for a means of quieting his doubts, and so that what is supposed to be “philosophy” becomes a sort of “anæsthetic revelation,” with the teacher as the assistant who administers the anæsthetic whereby the pupil is prepared for the surgery of life. Now, whatever may be the use of such “New Thought” for invalid wrecks, or even for more or less world-weary lovers of the good, whom sad experience has turned away from their earlier religious creeds, and who need to be restored to their courage in facing reality;—still, these anæsthetic methods of the lovers of the “silence” and of the vague light, are _not_ suited to the best needs of the enlightened young people, such as these “Seekers” who are about to begin life, who know their little fragments of science, of socialism, and of modern problems, and who want unity with clearness. Nor are such young people at just this age yet ready for our more technical academic procedure. Shall they be left then unguided, until their interest in unifying life has been lost in the confusion and variety of their increasing knowledge, until their youthful idealism has been saddened and perhaps soiled by the world, and until their criticism of life has become at once tragic and cynical?