ning that course, so that by conscious effort we may
progress more directly towards the goal. It is a science, because it treats
both these subjects as matters not of theological belief but of direct
knowledge obtainable by study and investigation. It asserts that man has no
need to trust to blind faith, because he has within him latent powers
which, when aroused, enable him to see and examine for himself, and it
proceeds to prove its case by showing how those powers may be awakened. It
is itself a result of the awakening of such powers by men, for the
teachings which it puts before us are founded upon direct observations made
in the past, and rendered possible only by such development.

As a philosophy, it explains to us that the solar system is a
carefully-ordered mechanism, a manifestation of a magnificent life, of
which man is but a small part. Nevertheless, it takes up that small part
which immediately concerns us, and treats it exhaustively under three
heads--present, past and future.

It deals with the present by describing what man really is, as seen by
means of developed faculties. It is customary to speak of man as having a
soul. Theosophy, as the result of direct investigation, reverses that
dictum, and states that man _is_ a soul, and _has_ a body--in fact several
bodies, which are his vehicles and instruments in various worlds. These
worlds are not separate in space; they are simultaneously present with us,
here and now, and can be examined; they are the divisions of the material
side of Nature--different degrees of density in the aggregation of matter,
as will presently be explained in detail. Man has an existence in several
of these, but is normally conscious only of the lowest, though sometimes in
dreams and trances he has glimpses of some of the others. What is called
death is the laying aside of the vehicle belonging to this lowest world,
but the soul or real man in a higher world is no more changed or affected
by this than the physical man is changed or affected when he removes his
overcoat. All this is a matter, not of speculation, but of observation and
experiment.

Theosophy has much to tell us of the past history of man--of how in the
course of evolution he has come to be what he now is. This also is a matter
of observation, because of the fact that there exists an indelible record
of all that has taken place--a sort of memory of Nature--by examining which
the scenes of earlier evolution may be m