no need to make that as a portal to your fellowship. And we
believe, we of the Theosophical Society, that just because the
intellect can only do its best work in its own atmosphere of freedom,
truth has the best chance of being seen when you do not make any
conditions as to the right of investigation, as to the claim to seek.
To us, truth is so supreme a thing that we do not desire to bind any
man with conditions as to how, or where, or why, he shall seek it.
These things, we say, we know are true; and because we know they are
true, come amongst us, even though you do not believe them, and find
out for yourself whether they be true or not. And the man is better
worth having when he comes in an unbeliever, and wins to the knowledge
of the truth, than is the facile believer who acknowledges everything
and never gets a real grip upon truth at all. We believe that truth is
only found by seeking, and that the true bond is the love of truth,
and the effort to find it; that that is a far more real bond than the
repetition of a common creed. For the creed can be repeated by the
lips, but the seeing of truth as true can only come from the intellect
and the spirit, and to build on the intellect and the spirit is a
firmer foundation than to build on the breath of the lips. Hence our
Society has no dogmas. Not that it does not stand for any truths, as
some people imagine. Its name marks out the truth for which it stands:
it is the Theosophical Society; and that shows its function and its
place in the world--a Society that asserts the possibility of the
knowledge of God; that is its proclamation, as we have seen, and all
the other truths that grow out of that are amongst our teachings. The
Society exists to spread the knowledge of those truths, and to
popularise those teachings amongst mankind. "But," you may say, "if it
be the fact that you throw out broadcast all your teachings, that you
write them in books that every man can buy, what is, then, the good of
being a member of the Theosophical Society? We should not have any
more as members than we have as non-members." That is not quite true,
but it may stand as true for the moment. Why should you come in? For
no reason at all, unless to you it is the greatest privilege to come
in, and you desire to be among those who are the pioneers of the
thought of the coming days. No reason at all: it is a privilege. We do
not beg you to come in; we only say: "Come if you like to come, and
shar