B.C.; four years after which date,
according to the usually accepted tradition, Laotse was born.
Thus we find the cycle preceding that of Greece mainly occupied,
in China, by the lives of the two great Teachers.

We should have seen by this time that these two lives were, so to
say, parts of a single whole: co-ordinated spiritually, if not
in an organization on this plane. Laotse, like H.P. Blavatsky,
brought the Teachings; he illuminated the inner worlds. That
was his work. We can see little of him as he accomplished it:
and only the smallest fragment of his doctrine remains:--five
thousand words, out of his whole long life. But since we have
had in our own time an example of how these things are done, we
may judge him and his mission by this analogy; also by the
results. Then came Confucius, like Katherine Tingley, to link
this wisdom with individual and national life. The teachings
were there; and he had no need to restate them: he might take
the great principles as already enounced. But every Teacher has
his own method, and his need to accentuate this or that: so time
and history have had most to say about the differences between
these two. What Confucius had to do, and did, was to found his
school, and show in the lives of his disciples, modeled under his
hands, how the wisdom of the Ages (and of Laotse) can be made a
living power in life and save the world.

Contrasting the efforts of that age and this, we may say that
then, organization, such as we have now, was lacking. Confucius
did not come as the official successor of Laotse; Laotse,
probably, had had no organized school that he could hand over to
Confucius. He had taught, and his influence had gone far and
wide, affecting the thought of the age; but he had had no
trained and pledged body of students to whom he could say:
'Follow this man when I am gone; he is my worthy successor.'--
All of which will be laughed at: I firmly believe, however, that
it is an accurate estimate of things. When you come to think of
it, it was by the narrowest margine that H. P. Blavatsky, through
Mr. Judge--and his heroism and wisdom alone to be thanked
for it!--had anything beyond the influence of her ideas and
revelation to hand on to Katherine Tingley. In the way of an
organization, I mean. Very few among her disciples had come to
have any glimmering of what discipleship means, or were prepared
to follow her accredited successors.

And Confucius, in his