ade to pass before the eyes of the
investigator as though they were happening at this moment. By thus studying
the past we learn that man is divine in origin and that he has a long
evolution behind him--a double evolution, that of the life or soul within,
and that of the outer form. We learn, too, that the life of man as a soul
is of, what to us seems, enormous length, and that what we have been in the
habit of calling his life is in reality only one day of his real existence.
He has already lived through many such days, and has many more of them yet
before him; and if we wish to understand the real life and its object, we
must consider it in relation not only to this one day of it, which begins
with birth and ends with death, but also to the days which have gone before
and those which are yet to come.

Of those that are yet to come there is also much to be said, and on this
subject, too, a great deal of definite information is available. Such
information is obtainable, first, from men who have already passed much
further along the road of evolution than we, and have consequently direct
experience of it; and, secondly, from inferences drawn from the obvious
direction of the steps which we see to have been previously taken. The goal
of this particular cycle is in sight, though still far above us but it
would seem that, even when that has been attained, an infinity of progress
still lies before everyone who is willing to undertake it.

One of the most striking advantages of Theosophy is that the light which it
brings to us at once solves many of our problems, clears away many
difficulties, accounts for the apparent injustices of life, and in all
directions brings order out of seeming chaos. Thus, while some of its
teaching is based upon the observation of forces whose direct working is
somewhat beyond the ken of the ordinary man of the world, if the latter
will accept it as a hypothesis he will very soon come to see that it must
be a correct one, because it, and it alone, furnishes a coherent and
reasonable explanation of the drama of life which is being played before
him.

The existence of Perfected Men, and the possibility of coming into touch
with Them and being taught by Them, are prominent among the great new
truths which Theosophy brings to the western world. Another of them is the
stupendous fact that the world is not drifting blindly into anarchy, but
that its progress is under the control of a perfectly organize