lest and obscurest
forms. Such an idea is born merely of the idle
spirit of the age. Science is a word which
covers all forms of knowledge. It is exceedingly
interesting to hear what chemists discover,
and to see them finding their way through the
densities of matter to its finer forms; but there
are other kinds of knowledge than this, and it
is not every one who restricts his (strictly scientific)
desire for knowledge to experiments
which are capable of being tested by the physical
senses.

Everyone who is not a dullard, or a man
stupefied by some predominant vice, has
guessed or even perhaps discovered with some
certainty, that there are subtle senses lying
within the physical senses. There is nothing at
all extraordinary in this; if we took the trouble
to call Nature into the witness box we should
find that everything which is perceptible to the
ordinary sight, has something even more important
than itself hidden within it; the microscope
has opened a world to us, but within
those encasements which the microscope reveals,
lies a mystery which no machinery can
probe.

The whole world is animated and lit, down
to its most material shapes, by a world within
it. This inner world is called Astral by some
people, and it is as good a word as any other,
though it merely means starry; but the stars, as
Locke pointed out, are luminous bodies which
give light of themselves. This quality is characteristic
of the life which lies within matter;
for those who see it, need no lamp to see it by.
The word star, moreover, is derived from the
Anglo-Saxon "stir-an," to steer, to stir, to move,
and undeniably it is the inner life which is
master of the outer, just as a man's brain
guides the movements of his lips. So that although
Astral is no very excellent word in
itself, I am content to use it for my present
purpose.

The whole of "Light on the Path" is written
in an astral cipher and can therefore only be
deciphered by one who reads astrally. And
its teaching is chiefly directed towards the cultivation
and development of the astral life.
Until the first step has been taken in this development,
the swift knowledge, which is called
intuition with certainty, is impossible to man.
And this positive and certain intuition is the
only form of knowledge which enables a man
to work rapidly or reach his true and high
estate, within the limit of his conscious effort.
To obtain knowledge by experiment is too
tedious a method