ts that
others have verified, but to carry on researches by properly qualified
persons among its own members; to utilise its magnificent theories,
its knowledge--for they are more than theories--for the explanation of
new phenomena, for the gradual evolution of new powers among greater
numbers of its members; and I do not believe that in that there is so
much danger as some people fear. I do not believe that the study of
the hidden side of Nature is so perilous a study as some think. All
researches at first hand in the early days of a science have some
danger: chemistry, electricity, had dangers for their pioneers, but
not dangers from which wise people and brave should shrink; and I fear
for the future of the Theosophical Society if it follows the track of
many of the religions and lets go its hold of knowledge of the other
worlds, and comes to depend on hearsay, tradition, belief in the
experience of others, and the avoidance of the reverification of
experience. For it must be remembered that in giving a vast mass of
knowledge to the world, H.P.B. distinctly stated that these are facts
which can be reverified by every generation of observers; she did not
give a body of teaching to be swallowed, to be taken on authority, to
be accepted by what is called faith; but a body of verifiable
teachings, facts to be examined over again, facts to be experimented
on, to be carefully studied, as the scientific man studies the part of
the world he knows. Unless we can do that, I fear we shall tend only
to become another religion among the religions of the world; that we
also shall lose our power over the thought of our generation, and to
that which has been done so splendidly in past years--the spreading of
these ideas so that they are becoming commonplace now among cultured
and intellectual people--pause will be given, and the spreading
influence will be checked, because we have left part of our work
undone, part of our message unsaid. And I would urge on you in
relation to this that which I said in a sentence at the beginning of
my address, that there is one condition of research into these matters
common to ordinary science and to the science of the higher worlds,
and that is a balanced judgment, acute and accurate observation, and a
constant readiness to reverify and recast earlier observations in the
light of the later ones that are made. All science grows by
modification as more and more facts are collected by the scientific