ilated. It is not denied that
what was spared was good; there is no suggestion of a universal
infection of physical or moral evil; it is simply that what is good and
useful relatively to a lower state of being must perish with it if the
latter is to make way for something better. And the illustration is the
more suitable in that the purpose of this paper is not ethical, but
points to a metaphysical conclusion, though without any attempt at
metaphysical exposition. There is no question here of moral
distinctions; they are neither denied nor affirmed. According to the
highest moral standard, 'A' may be a most virtuous and estimable person.
According to the lowest, 'B' may be exactly the reverse. The moral
interval between the two is within what I have called, following
Swedenborg, the "continuous degree." And perhaps the distinction can be
still better expressed by another reference to that Book which we
theosophical students do not less regard, because we are disposed to
protest against all exclusive pretensions of religious systems.

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* Of the higher religious teachings of Mohammedanism I know next to
nothing, and therefore cannot say if it should be excepted from the
statement.
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The good man who has, however, not yet attained his "son-ship of God" is
"under the law"--that moral law which is educational and preparatory,
"the schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ," our own Divine spirit, or
higher personality. To conceive the difference between these two states
is to apprehend exactly what is here meant by the false, temporal, and
the true, eternal personality, and the sense in which the word
personality is here intended to be understood. We do not know whether,
when that great change has come over us, when that great work* of our
lives has been accomplished--here or hereafter--we shall or shall not
retain a sense of identity with our past, and forever discarded selves.
In philosophical parlance, the "matter" will have gone, and the very
"form" will have been changed. Our transcendental identity with the 'A'
or 'B' that now is** must depend on that question, already disclaimed in
this paper, whether the Divine spirit is our originally central
essential being, or is an hypostasis. Now, being "under the law" implies
that we do not act directly from our own will, but indirectly, that is,
in willing obedience to another will.

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* The "great work," so often mentioned by the hermetic phi