All researches at first hand in the early days of a science have some danger: chemistry, electricity, had dangers for their pioneers, but not dangers from which wise people and brave should shrink; and I fear for the future of the Theosophical Society if it follows the track of many of the religions and lets go its hold of knowledge of the other worlds, and comes to depend on hearsay, tradition, belief in the experience of others, and the avoidance of the reverification of experience.

For it must be remembered that in giving a vast mass of knowledge to the world, H.P.B.distinctly stated that these are facts which can be reverified by every generation of observers; she did not give a body of teaching to be swallowed, to be taken on authority, to be accepted by what is called faith; but a body of verifiable teachings, facts to be examined over again, facts to be experimented on, to be carefully studied, as the scientific man studies the part of the world he knows.

Unless we can do that, I fear we shall tend only to become another religion among the religions of the world; that we also shall lose our power over the thought of our generation, and to that which has been done so splendidly in past years--the spreading of these ideas so that they are becoming commonplace now among cultured and intellectual people--pause will be given, and the spreading influence will be checked, because we have left part of our work undone, part of our message unsaid.

And I would urge on you in relation to this that which I said in a sentence at the beginning of my address, that there is one condition of research into these matters common to ordinary science and to the science of the higher worlds, and that is a balanced judgment, acute and accurate observation, and a constant readiness to reverify and recast earlier observations in the light of the later ones that are made.

All science grows by modification as more and more facts are collected by the scientific observers, and no scientific man would make any progress in his science, if he were always in the reverential attitude of the devotee before a spiritual truth when he is working out experiments in his laboratory.