They hold within themselves a certain
knowledge, as well as a perfect peace; and
thus they are not roused or excited by the
partial and erroneous fragments of information
which are brought to their ears by the changing
voices of those around them. When I speak
of knowledge, I mean intuitive knowledge.
This certain information can never be obtained
by hard work, or by experiment; for these
methods are only applicable to matter, and
matter is in itself a perfectly uncertain substance,
continually affected by change. The
most absolute and universal laws of natural
and physical life, as understood by the scientist,
will pass away when the life of this universe
has passed away, and only its soul is left in
the silence. What then will be the value of
the knowledge of its laws acquired by industry
and observation? I pray that no reader or
critic will imagine that by what I have said I
intend to depreciate or disparage acquired
knowledge, or the work of scientists. On the
contrary, I hold that scientific men are the
pioneers of modern thought. The days of literature
and of art, when poets and sculptors saw
the divine light, and put it into their own
great language--these days lie buried in the
long past with the ante-Phidian sculptors and
the pre-Homeric poets. The mysteries no longer
rule the world of thought and beauty; human
life is the governing power, not that which
lies beyond it. But the scientific workers are
progressing, not so much by their own will as
by sheer force of circumstances, towards the
far line which divides things interpretable from
things uninterpretable. Every fresh discovery
drives them a step onward. Therefore do I
very highly esteem the knowledge obtained by
work and experiment.

But intuitive knowledge is an entirely different
thing. It is not acquired in any way, but
is, so to speak, a faculty of the soul; not the
animal soul, that which becomes a ghost after
death, when lust or liking or the memory of
ill deeds holds it to the neighborhood of
human beings, but the divine soul which
animates all the external forms of the individualized
being.

This is, of course, a faculty which indwells
in that soul, which is inherent. The would-be
disciple has to arouse himself to the consciousness
of it by a fierce and resolute and
indomitable effort of will. I use the word
indomitable for a special reason. Only he who
is untameable, who cannot be dominated, who
knows he has to play the lord