no conscious remembrance of the faults for which he
atones, or the sorrow for which he is recompensed. If he is steadfast
through countless rebirths, the slow turning wheel will bear him higher
and higher until he begins to ascend the successive planes, discovering
in each plane for which he has fitted himself a new wealth and reality
of existence, until at last he is lost in the Infinite Existence and his
struggle is ended.

Perhaps the word "struggle" as here used is wrong. Deliverance for the
East is not so much struggle as acquiescence. For the theosophist desire
is the master mischief maker. Desire leads us in wrong directions,
complicates our spiritual problems and thrusts us against the turn of
the wheel. We are rather, according to the theosophist, to reduce desire
to its simplest terms, thereby freeing ourselves from restlessness,
above all taking care not to hurt or embitter others.

_Theosophy Produces a Distinct Type of Character_

There is no denying that here is a faith capable of producing a
distinctive type of character. It tends at its best toward an extreme
conscientiousness and an always excessive introspection; it creates also
a vast and brooding patience. "In countries where reincarnation and
karma [the law of Cause and Effect] are taken for granted by every
peasant and labourer, the belief spreads a certain quiet acceptance of
inevitable troubles that conduces much to the calm and contentment of
ordinary life. A man overwhelmed by misfortunes rails neither against
God nor against his neighbours, but regards his troubles as the result
of his own past mistakes and ill-doings. He accepts them resignedly and
makes the best of them.... He realizes that his future lives depend on
his own exertions and that the law which brings him pain will bring him
joy just as inevitably if he sows the seed of good. Hence a certain
large patience and philosophic view of life tending directly to social
stability and to general contentment."[68]

[Footnote 68: "The Ancient Wisdom," Besant, p. 273.]

If such a faith as this be informed with humaneness and be deeply
tempered with the principle of sacrifice, it may, and does, result in a
distinct type of real goodness. It is possibly a good faith for helpless
and more or less despairing folk, though it likely creates many of the
evils from which it desires to escape. The very reach and subtlety and
even splendour of its speculation will make a strong appeal to minds