Theosophical University Press Online Edition
Qabbalistic and Theosophic Principles
Androgynous and Hermaphrodite
The Temptation of Jesus
The Destiny of the Animal Kingdom
Buddhism and Theosophy
How May One Find His Guru?
Do We Ever Incarnate as Beasts?
Cycles in China
Spiritualism
Euthanasia
Do We Evolve in Eternity?
Theosophists' Attitude Towards Military Force
I notice in Chapter Two of FUNDAMENTALS OF THE ESOTERIC PHILOSOPHY, that man is divided into four parts: (a) Neshamah, (b) Ruahh, (c) Nephesh, and (d) Guph. Over all these four principles, there is the Ineffable, the Boundless called 'Ein Soph. Would the author of FUNDAMENTALS kindly give me his opinion about the correspondences or the differences between these four principles and the Qabbalistic triad consisting of the three highest Sephiroth: (a) Kether (the Crown), (b) Hhochmah (Wisdom), and (c) Binah (Intellect) -- all emanations of Ein Soph, the Boundless.
This thoughtful question contains profound suggestions; and the mere fact that the questioner seeks for correspondences or differences between the Qabbalistic Quaternary as given in Fundamentals, and the Qabbalistic highest Cosmic Triad of Sephiroth, shows that he himself has actually answered his own question, but probably is not fully aware of it.
The four human principles as given by me in Fundamentals, are reflexions or 'projections,' as it were, of all the nine Sephiroth of the Qabbalistic Cosmic Tree of Life; and the differences in manner of enumerating or of expressing the Cosmic Principles and the human principles depend upon the fact that the human principles are reflexions or 'projections' as above said, of the Cosmic Sephiroth. The three highest Sephiroth, as given, and properly given, in the question, are the originals or correspondences of what in man in the Theosophical philosophy are called Atman, Buddhi, Manas; Kether corresponds to Atman, Hhochmah corresponds to Buddhi, and Binah corresponds to Manas.
In another sense, Neshamah corresponds to the Divine Monad, Atma-Buddhi; Ruahh corresponds to the Spiritual Monad, Buddhi-Manas; and Nephesh corresponds to the Human-Astral Monad, or Kama-Manas-Prana. Guph is in either case, whether cosmic or human, the mere vehicle of all the other higher principles, and in the case of man corresponds to the physical-astral body.
All the Cosmic Sephiroth are born from the bosom of `Ein Suph, or the Boundless, and hang as it were like a pendant therefrom; very much as the three highest principles in man, Atman, Buddhi, Manas, are born from the bosom of the Boundless, and are eternally therein, hanging like a pendant therefrom; the lower four principles of man hanging like a second pendant from these higher, just as the lower six Sephiroth hang as a pendant from the three highest Sephiroth.
We thus see that the correspondences are very close, when properly understood, as I have endeavored briefly to outline them in the preceding paragraphs.
My study of THE SECRET DOCTRINE and other of H. P. Blavatsky's writings leads me to infer that her use of the words 'androgynous' and 'hermaphrodite' has reference more to the duality of spirit and matter in the universe, rather than to a duality of sexes, masculine and feminine. Is this right?
Yes, quite right. Used by Theosophy, and as a rule by H. P. B., the word 'androgynous' does not mean 'double-sexed,' except when very distinctly imbodied beings are referred to. When it is used of entities of spirit, things obviously, entities obviously, which have no sex -- for sex is but a passing phase of our earth evolution, for us and the beasts and the plants -- it is used only to signify what in philosophy is called duality, the dual characteristic of manifested nature. This is sometimes called the positive and negative, sometimes the feminine and masculine, these latter two words being borrowed from human life, not meaning that one side of the universe is actually male and the other actually female, which would be utterly ludicrous, but merely meaning that at a certain point, at manifestation in fact, duality supervenes. That is all it means.
Of course when we refer to imbodied beings, then it is perfectly proper to speak of mankind as androgynous, double-sexed, of which the as yet vestigial organs remaining in the physical frame are remnants out of that hoary past. So androgynous, when used of the Universe, signifies only the duality of spirit and matter, consciousness and vehicle, spirit and substance -- using any pairs of words you like. And this androgynous or dual character of all the manifested worlds began indeed with Cosmic Buddhi or Maha-Buddhi; but actually only began to show itself on the plane where Fohat especially works, which is the plane of Cosmic Kama. Above that the two rays from the one ascend to reunite; and you have an example in yourselves: the individual ego, or the individual spirit, during its imbodiments breaks up into the septenary constitution, one side of which you may call spirit, and the other side, the vehicular; one side consciousness and the other side vehicle; one side you may call will and the other side consciousness. It does not matter what you call them: duality is there.
But duality springs forth from the Atman, the fundamental basic egoity or Monad in the human being, and the human being simply copies in his constitution and structure what the universe is. According to the axiom of Hermes: "As it is above, so is it here below." Study here below what you see, thereby gaining a key to knowing the Divine. The Divine reflects itself in its distant offsprings in its distant vehicles -- the imbodied Universe as in man. The Atman reflects itself in the man feebly because of our imperfectly evolved vehicles; and evolution consists not in a growth of these spiritual realities to something greater, so much as a perfecting of the vehicles, such as mind, through which the divine ray passes so that they may continuously grow, as evolution proceeds in its refining and unfolding powers -- so that the divine ray may ever shine forth in larger and greater splendor. That is what all evolution means: from within outwards. Just as the seed brings forth the plant, the plant the bud, the bud the flower, and the flower the seed: the seed, the plant, the bud, the flower, the seed, the plant, the bud, the flower. Nature repeats herself ceaselessly. She reimbodies, reimbodies, reimbodies.
I thought that it was only before we had entirely learnt something that we had to struggle with ourselves about it, but that when we, in previous lives, had quite overcome some special temptation, this temptation never occurred to us again, and we did not even get the idea of its possibility. I thought this was the way by which we have to win the different virtues one by one. Will you please explain why Christ should have felt any temptation to be relieved from his great task. Why should he have said, "Remove this cup from me," and have to pray in anguish in order to be victorious over temptation? I think that he should by then have got over this stage.
This question takes it for granted that the legend told of Jesus in the New Testament of the Christians is an actual history. It is not; the 'Gospel' story is merely an idealized fiction, written by Christian mystics in imitation of esoteric mysteries of the 'Pagans,' showing the initiation trials and tests of the candidate for initiation; and it is not very well done, there being much error and many mistakes in the 'Gospels.'
A man called Jesus -- the Hebrew name being Jeshua or Joshua really lived, who was a great and good man; also an initiate into the secret doctrine of his period; and around him, after his death grew up many legends and tales, which were woven in later days -- say a century after his death -- into the so-called 'Gospels.'
Yes, the questioner is right in saying that once we have fully conquered a temptation, we are safe from future attacks of it, but only provided we are watchful and on guard eternally.
Re the animal kingdom: Many species are dying out today. Some day the life-wave having moved on to Globe E -- Globe D will have merely sishtas left on it. Will there be any animals in the Fifth Round? Many students are mixed up on this; so am I. If there will be animals in the Fifth Round, will that mean the animal kingdom as we know it today (but more highly developed), or only some of the highest species?
When a life-wave, any life-wave: human, animal, vegetable, mineral, elemental, or dhyan-chohanic: moves from our Globe D on to Globe E, it leaves sishtas behind on this Globe D. What are these sishtas? They are waiting for the same life-wave which will have passed through the globes on the ascending arc, to come down the globes on the descending arc in Round Five; and when they reach Globe D, our earth, these sishtas will begin to increase in number because of the incoming monads from the life-wave, and the same life-wave -- in the case of your question the animal life-wave with its subordinate life-waves or orders and varieties and genera, etc. -- will begin to tend to expand. Consequently there will be animals in the next round.
But here is a very interesting point: the animals will tend steadily to pass into nirvanic rest, I mean their monads will from now to the end of our chain-manvantara. Every round will show fewer animals, the reason being that as time goes on and as the steps up the ascending arc are passed one by one, fewer and fewer animals will be able to make the grade upwards. The calls of matter will be too strong. Thus at the end of the Fifth Round on Globe D, the sishtas of such animal life-waves will be much fewer than in the preceding round on this globe, because the monads will be entering their Nirvana for the reasons above stated. Otherwise stated, the individuals of those animal life-waves will have largely died out from this plane because the monads will have gone into Nirvana; and during the Sixth Round the animals, although much more progressed than now they are, will be extremely few; and before the Sixth Round is ended will have died out entirely, with the exception of the anthropoid apes and possibly some of the higher monkeys. The anthropoid apes will have become then no longer anthropoid apes really, although their more evolved bodies will still continue, but they will be very, very low humans in quasi-anthropoid bodies, nevertheless humans of low grade. During the Seventh Round even these will have disappeared, but their monads during the next chain manvantara will be low humans in appropriate bodies then.
Thus generally speaking, animal monads tend more and more on the upward arc to go into Nirvana. Their bodies, there being no monads to incarnate, will tend to die out.
The cause of this is that the door into the human kingdom, (which means the attaining of self-consciousness), closed in the middle of the Fourth Round; and the animals now are just hanging on as it were because of the impetus or momentum they got in coming down the descending arc. This momentum has carried them up to the present will carry them onward even into the Fifth Round where, as stated before, they will mostly die out because they cannot climb higher. The spiritual self-conscious nature has not evolved forth from their monads; and consequently there is no sufficient attraction upwards in them, and thus they fall back behind the procession, and die out.
In other words the animals will no longer reproduce themselves. The monads of many animals have already entered their Nirvana even during this Fourth Round -- the grossest of their kind. Some of them, those which still remain, persist mainly by the momentum spoken of and because of dawning mind in them which still keeps them here.
Could you give a little explanation of the difference between Theosophy and Buddhism as it is generally taught today amongst the masses?
That is a good question, and one I like, because if I were not a Theosophist, I most emphatically would have accepted the doctrines of the Lord Gautama, the Buddha, as the most humane, the most philosophic, the most generous, the most princely, not only in their attitude towards men, but in the effect they produce upon men.
The difference is that between the mother and a very lovely daughter. The sublime mother is Theosophy, the lovely daughter is Buddhism. I would say that even as Buddhism is practised today, some 2500 years after the passing of its great Founder, even today it is the most theosophical of all the religions existent, the most generous, the most tender in its understanding of human problems; and in its dealing with them, without a vestige of anything that is harsh, unkind, or colored by hatred in any form. It has no doctrine of arbitrary punishment. Its doctrine of retribution based on cosmic law or karman, is retribution infinitely just. The evil that ye do will live after you, and ye yourselves the doers of it will meet it one day, and until ye undo the evil that ye have wrought it will abide wonderfully logical, satisfying, and comforting.
Just see how this takes hold of the human heart. The true Buddhist says of his injurer: "He has injured me terribly. I pity him. I desire no revenge. That would be but adding my might to the evil that is wrought, for some day the evil that he wrought upon me will fall, helpless man, upon him, and in addition he will have the evil that that evil-doing wrought in his own character. A double evil. I, his victim in this life, will receive recompense, double the recompense of the wrong, the injury, done unto me, because I shall have retributive compensation for the wrong, and because I do not in my turn hit back at my injurer, I have the increments of strength of character thus growing out of the injury wrought upon me, which is a double good to myself, who have suffered. I have the recompense in my own soul, that I know how to be patient and strike not, bit not back."
Divinity breathes through that. It is the very heart of pity, of compassion. And that is pure Theosophy. In other words, Buddhism is but a lovely daughter of a still more lovely mother. Christianity is its daughter, Brahmanism is its daughter, Taoism, all the religions of India, Persia, China, Egypt, of ancient Europe, and of the Americas. They all sprang from this one source, our God-Wisdom, as we call it, kept in the Guardianship of the Mahatmans, greatly evolved men. But I think that Buddhism is the loveliest of the daughters, because the truest. Fidelity has crowned her. Justice has followed her footsteps.
Mr. Judge says in LETTERS THAT HAVE HELPED ME: "Each man who determines in himself that he will enter the Path, has a Guru." Will you please tell me what Guru this is and how one may find that Guru?
It is quite true that any man who determines in himself that he will enter the Path has a Guru, as Judge said. However, this Guru may be either one or both of two things: first, his own Higher Self, than which there is no loftier Guru for a man on earth; and second, also one of the Teachers who because of spiritual and psychological sympathy inborn or inherent, is the natural Teacher for such aspirant; and this is the fact whether the aspirant knows anything about it or not. Some day when the aspirant has grown to the stature enabling him to receive open instruction, this will happen, but it may be ages before this direct instruction is received consciously. But the fact remains that every human being is as it were by Nature's occult sympathy allied to some greater Teacher; and he must be ready for the time when he may be put in direct touch either with his own Higher Self, or with the outer Teacher or Guru who will help him to come in touch with his own Higher Self. But remember that the inner man, the spiritual man, the Higher Self, is the loftiest Teacher that a man can have.
In view of the teaching of Theosophy: "Once a man always a man," what would be the explanation of some of the Oriental teachings that speak of a man's coming back to earth as a tiger or an elephant, etc. -- and also of the many traditions in western countries of a beast being possessed by a human spirit?
No human being ever incarnates as a beast. Let that fact stand as unequivocal and without exception. And this is for the reason that there is absolutely a mental-psychical barrier preventing a human mind from entering a beast psycho-vital apparatus. Of course, this could be done by an act of magic, by some Black Magician, and hence have arisen the stories of werewolves, lycanthropy, and so forth. But this act of black magic simply proves the general and invariable law: that no human being ever can, in the course of nature, incarnate as a beast.
On the other hand, when a sorcerer, or a man of continuously evil life, through many, many incarnations on a steady downward grade, grows less and less human until the rupture with the spiritual and human monad takes place, in which case there is no longer a man, but merely the lower quaternary with somewhat faint impressions or psychical shadowings of humanity in it -- when this takes place, I say, the entity is no longer a human ego, but as it were an abandoned lower quaternary or human machine, virtually a human shell, which already is so degenerated that it is practically on the level of beasthood. But the humanity, the ego, the human being, of it has long since fled.
Such an abandoned vehicle is attracted to beast-bodies and even to plant-bodies, by the natural attraction of likes, at a still lower degree of descent and dissolution of the lower quaternary. Yet this is not, please note, the incarnation of a human being, because such a degenerated, disintegrated, semi-annihilated human quaternary is no longer really human. An analogy is a human body enlivened by a human soul forming a man. When the body is laid aside at death, the man is gone, but there is the form of the man, the life-atoms of the man which disintegrate and pursue their way. The body is given to the dust, and many of the life-atoms even of such a true man which belonged to the body, incarnate in beasts because again of natural attraction of like to like, of animal to animal, as has already been explained. I hope this is clear.
Be it noted, however, that such cases of degenerate human quaternaries, while fairly numerous in actual fact, are nevertheless actually quite rare or infrequent when compared with the immense number of beings forming humanity.
In THE OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY I came across this statement in chapter xiv, p. 124: "The Chinese always were a nation of astronomers, and have recorded observations reaching far back of the Christian era, but as they belong to an old race which is doomed to extinction -- strange as the assertion may appear -- their conclusions will not be correct for the Aryan races." Somewhere I believe you have said that China was on the upward trend of the present cycle. We have searched for the reference but have not been able to find it. What is the truth of this matter? Mr. Judge may have written in a wider sense than you, who may have had in mind a small, specific cycle.
The questioner's understanding of my meaning is quite correct. Here we have a case where brief statements, each one correct, refer to different things; and readers who are too quick in perusal and not thoughtful enough, immediately say: Oh, a contradiction. There is none! The facts are as follows:
The Chinese, that is the pure Chinese or those nearly pure in race, are the degenerate descendants even today of the Seventh Sub-Race of the Atlantean Root-Race. Consequently, when we take in the immense periods of geologic time, they have nearly reached their end; and speaking in immense time periods are soon "doomed to extinction"; but, speaking in terms of smaller time-periods such as we humans easily can grasp, that is to say of several thousands of years, which are small geologically, the Chinese still have a brilliant future before them, and are now on the upward rise. There will be Chinese for thousands of years yet, although steadily mixing and showing a tendency to die out as pure Chinese.
Thus Judge is right because he was referring to long geologic periods so to speak. I was right because when I spoke, I was referring to the shorter time-periods of some thousands of years, or a good many hundreds of years. Actually the Chinese today are striving to come to the fore again as a national unit, and they will do so, and very soon, perhaps within a hundred years, and have a relatively brief period of power and glory, and then they will go down again; perhaps later rise to another still shorter period, and then go down again; and keep doing this until finally they vanish as a racial unit. Thus we can say with Judge that they are "doomed to extinction," for the reasons above given; and we can say with equal truth that they are rising on an ascending small cycle. What happens with the Chinese happens, or will happen, with all other racial units. Each has its turn; each has its beginning, its growth, its culmination in power and splendor, its senescence and decay, and its vanishing.
Please say how these two quotations can be harmonized: the wave of spiritualistic phenomena . . . has been aided by the Nirmanakayas." (Last para., chap. xi, ECHOES FROM THE ORIENT) and ". . . the most insane and fatal of superstitions -- Spiritualism." (THE MAHATMA LETTERS TO A. P. SINNETT, p. 284.)
This certainly does look like a contradiction, but it is instead a paradox, and can be easily reconciled. I speak from recollection, as I have not the book at the moment before me, but as I recall the passage in Mr. Judge's Echoes from the Orient, when the entire context is taken into careful consideration, he himself reconciles the paradox. This reconciliation lies in remembering two things, first that Spiritualism as it is commonly understood is a "superstition" and a very "fatal" one, that is as it is understood by spiritists generally, who look upon human beings after death as being merely a prolongation or continuation of the ordinary human earth-men in a purely mythical Summerland, where they appear to be living in a kind of inane and idiotic atmosphere of self-satisfaction. In fact, it is nothing but a dream-situation, and takes no account of the septenary constitution of man, nor the different parts of this constitution, and the destinies which these various parts respectively undergo after death.
It is the old folly of the everlasting personal, unchanging ego, which the Christians have adopted in another form; and the spiritists do not realize the truth. Hence, spiritism as understood is actually a truly "fatal superstition."
On the other hand, in a world which was typically materialistic when H. P. B. came to do her work in the West, which generally, excepting good Church people, had no belief whatsoever in the survival of anything in man, which looked upon man as being little more than a body, and his mind and emotions and ethical sense a kind of ethereal effluvium of the purely material forces working in the human brain -- to such a world, I say, the teachings of the spiritists, which taught that there was something more in man than a mere physical body, even if it was only a kind of prolongation of the ego in a dreamland, was an idea which represented something higher than the grossly materialistic views of the scientists, and the equally materialistic views of the church people.
It was this touch of not exactly spirituality, but of looking to something higher than the material body, which was the part of spiritualism fostered by the Nirmanakayas as instilling in the mind of the materialistic West that man was something more than the physical body, which as this West then thought as represented by its science, was the be-all and end-all of man.
Now the spiritistic phenomena which were utterly unexplainable by the materialistic science of the day, did instil thoughts of something more being in man than merely his body, unknown forces of a psychic and mental kind, which were, however, falsely called "spiritual"; and the foregoing is just the reason also why H. P. B., when she first began her public work, began to work among the spiritists, because they were trying to free themselves, however erroneously, from the dominant materialistic thought, teaching, tendencies, and soul-destroying hopelessness of the time. It was in this minor manner that the Nirmanakayas did, as it were, aid and support the spiritistic phenomena in so far as these latter were genuine and not faked.
Thus you see, the two quotations are not contradictions, but together form a paradox, and are easily explained in the above manner.
To summarize: Spiritism itself in the light of true knowledge is a "fatal superstition"; but yet the spiritistic phenomena when genuine and not faked are true, and taught and even yet do teach the materialists that man has forces in him and faculties and attributes which the materialists cannot explain by referring everything to man's physical vehicle. Hence these genuine phenomena were supported and even aided at the time, although now no longer aided, by the Nirmanakayas.
What light do the Theosophical teachings throw on the question of Euthanasia?
Euthanasia, a Greek word meaning 'easy death.' I take it, from trying to probe into the thought of the unknown querent, that he or she is referring to modern propositions painlessly to kill certain ones of the human race whom certain others judge to be quite ready to pass out?
Do you need to ask me a question like that? Do you honestly think that any human being is wise enough, profound enough in insight, to see beyond and within and above the tortured body? Why, the majority of the proponents of this system of doing away with the suffering of loved ones do not even recognise that there is anything beyond the tortured body. Their hearts are wrung and in turn tortured with the suffering they see.
It is often compassion that gains adherents for this theory. But I am not one of them. Modern medical science is amply able to still the pains. As long as there is life, that unfortunately afflicted, karmically unfortunately afflicted, soul is learning. How could we stop the abuses that almost invariably would arise should the practice of Euthanasia become legalized in any civilized country? Think of the doors it opens to criminal practices of many kinds under the hypocritical guise of compassionate action! Euthanasia is far too dangerous. Think about it. No safeguard sufficiently strong could be thrown around the beds of our helpless and trusting loved ones, should such a proposition become a law. I am against it ethically, spiritually, because of the compassion in my heart. I would never dare to take the life of a fellow human being, even under the guise of pity!
One of the basic ideas underlying the Theosophical Teachings is that we are eternally evolving in Eternity. Now this does not seem to be a logical statement. Surely Eternity implies a static conception of everything in it. One can evolve in time only -- one cannot evolve in Eternity as Eternity implies an absence of time, and if there is no time, what can the individual evolve in? Is it logical to assume that we are evolving from infinity to infinity in Eternity? It seems to me that if an entity is a dynamical evolving thing, then it must have a static background to evolve against. On the other hand, if it is a static thing, it must have a dynamic background to be static against. Surely the very word evolution means growth IN TIME. Then if that growth is in Time, it cannot be in Eternity. Then if it is not in Eternity, it must have had a beginning and it must be working to an end?
A thoughtful man and a deep question. He is right in his remarks about evolution being a finite process, which nevertheless takes place within the bosom of endless Duration, or what Westerners call Eternity; and there does seem a logical quirk here, but it is a seeming one and not a real one, for the following general reasons: All evolution takes place in periodic, repetitive world-periods, called manvantaras, separated, each one from its successor, by equally long world-periods of rest, called pralayas. Now, these periods of manvantara and pralaya succeed each other in serial order throughout eternity, that is throughout endless Duration, for it is impossible to imagine a beginning of them, or impossible to imagine that they ever can cease. If we can so imagine, then we should ask ourselves: How is it that they are now? Eternity is not an actor. It cannot produce things, for eternity can produce only eternals; and no such manvantara or pralaya, however vast its time-period, is anything more than a wink of the eye in endless Duration.
Now, this line of reasoning shows us that precisely because these periodic intervals exist, and we cannot ever show that they at any time did not exist, nor can we at any time show that in the future they shall ever cease to exist, we are logically driven to infer that they must have been continuing thus throughout eternity. But the evolving beings, what we call the monads, are each one of them rooted in eternity so to speak; i.e., the very essence, the highest, loftiest, divinest essence or substance of each such monad, is eternity, infinity, itself. Thus it is only the outward aspects, the garments or veils or what the Hindu mystic calls the 'dreaming' of Brahman, which evolve in the serially succeeding manvantaras and pralayas. Thus it is that the process of evolution is finite, because it deals with finite and evolving beings and things. Yet the heart or essence or inmost of the inmost of these beings is utter divinity, is eternity, is infinity; and the Hindus express this beautiful phrase, and so do we Theosophists, by the Sanskrit words: Tat twam asi -- THAT thou art!
What is the general attitude of Theosophists towards an armed force, military or naval?
Emphatically, as the Theosophist's first thought, being a lover of his fellow-men, he is opposed to war, and violence of any kind, with all his heart. But we are sane people, and I do not think any sane individual today would go so far as to say that the armed forces of the United States are out for ruthless violence or for slaughter. To me they are like a national police; and they do a policeman's work in the world, something very fine indeed; and the ideal armed forces of any country stand for the same thing. If we did not have police patrolling our streets, see what would happen to us, to our lives, to those we love, and to our property!
Now if force is misused, that we condemn emphatically; but we do not condemn -- as sane, honest, earnest people who love our fellows -- the proper application of strength where strength only will bring about peace and order, and when used honestly for the protection of the weak and helpless. The armed forces of a country certainly can be misused and abused, and that is a crime; and it has happened again and again and again in the history of the world. But we must not condemn the armed forces of our country, of any country, which in theory, and usually in practice, stand for the preservation of order, the upholding of right and law, and the assuring of honest and peaceable men and women that their daily pursuits are safeguarded and protected.
Militarism is one thing; that is the abuse. The preservation of law and order by even armed strength if need be is not abuse. A lunatic hastening to set fire to a building, or to do some foul crime -- should he be allowed to do it merely because he is human and because we love our fellow-men? What sane man would say that? He must be prevented even by strength and controlled force if it has to be called forth. But that is not ruthless use of strength; it is decent use of strength.
A Theosophist stands for love, brotherly love; but love is sometimes strong, it is never weak and feeble. It upholds right, protects the weak, insists upon justice, will even raise its strong arm to bring these about if there be no other way. In the latter case, pitiful perhaps -- but we have to face facts.
Some day the human race will outgrow the need of armed police forces for its protection, will outgrow the need of surgery, will outgrow the need of remedies for human disease and other ills. But as long as we human beings, with our millions in the prisons showing conditions as now they are, cannot control ourselves, wreaking violence upon others if we have the chance, or perhaps because we are at times too weak to hold ourselves in against temptation and evil-doing, society has to be protected, and it is proper. We grieve over it, but we are sane people and recognise facts as they are.