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 organized Hierarchy, so that final failure even for the tiniest of its units is of all impossibilities the most impossible.  A glimpse of the working of that Hierarchy inevitably engenders the desire to co-operate with it, to serve under it, in however humble a capacity, and some time in the far-distant future to be worthy to join the outer fringes of its ranks.

This brings us to that aspect of Theosophy which we have called religious.  Those who come to know and to understand these things are dissatisfied with the slow aeons of evolution; they yearn to become more immediately useful, and so they demand and obtain knowledge of the shorter but steeper Path.  There is no possibility of escaping the amount of work that has to be done.  It is like carrying a load up a mountain; whether one carries it straight up a steep path or more gradually by a road of gentle slope, precisely the same number of foot-pounds must be exerted.  Therefore to do the same work in a small fraction of the time means determined effort.  It can be done, however, for it has been done; and those who have done it agree that it far more than repays the trouble.  The limitations of the various vehicles are thereby gradually transcended, and the liberated man becomes an intelligent co-worker in the mighty plan for the evolution of all beings.

In its capacity as a religion, too, Theosophy gives its followers a rule of life, based not on alleged commands delivered at some remote period of the past, but on plain common sense as indicated by observed facts.  The attitude of the student of Theosophy towards the rules which it prescribes resembles rather that which we adopt to hygienic regulations than obedience to religious commandments.  We may say, if we wish, that this thing or that is in accordance with the divine Will, for the divine Will is expressed in what we know as the laws of Nature.  Because that Will wisely ordereth all things, to infringe its laws means to disturb the smooth working of the scheme, to hold back for a moment that fragment or tiny part of evolution, and consequently to bring discomfort upon ourselves and others.  It is for that reason that the wise man avoids infringing them—­not to escape the imaginary wrath of some offended deity.

But if from a certain point of view we may think of Theosophy as a religion, we must note two great points of difference between it and what is ordinarily called religion in the West.  First, it neither demands belief from its followers, nor does it even speak of belief in the sense in which that word is usually employed.  The student of occult science either knows a thing or suspends his judgment about it; there is no place in his scheme for blind faith.  Naturally, beginners in the study cannot yet know for themselves, so they are asked to read the results of the various observations and to deal with them as probable hypotheses—­provisionally to accept and act upon them, until such time as they can prove them for themselves.