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 over men, over facts, over all things save his own divinity can arouse this faculty.  “With faith all things, are possible.”  The skeptical laugh at faith and pride themselves on its absence from their own minds.  The truth is that faith is a great engine, an enormous power, which in fact can accomplish all things.  For it is the convenant or engagement between man’s divine part and his lesser self.

The use of this engine is quite necessary in order to obtain intuitive knowledge; for unless a man believes such knowledge exists within himself how can he claim and use it?