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II.There seems to be nothing very sublime in the language used by Mr. Kiddle in the passage under consideration; and it may be easily seen from the other letters written to Mr. Sinnett by the Mahatma concerned, that the said Mahatma's English vocabulary is not more limited than his own and that he is not wanting in power of expression. It is, therefore, very difficult to see why the Master should have borrowed Mr. Kiddle's language, unless some good reason can be shown for it.
II.There are certain expressions and certain alterations of Mr. Kiddle's language in the passage in question which show that the Mahatma never intended to borrow Mr. Kiddle's ideas and phrases, but that he rather intended to say something against them. "Where the Spiritualistic lecturer says that "the world advances," the Mahatma says that "the world will advance" for the purpose of showing that this change in ideas must iuevitably take place by reason of the great cyclic Law to which the Universe is subject. Where the lecturer says that "the agency called Spiritualism is bringing a new set of ideas into the world," the Mahatma emphatically affirms that "it is not physical phenomena" that he and his brother Occultists study, but "these universal ideas" which are as it were the noumena underlying all physical manifestations. The contrast between the Mahatma's view of the relationship between these ideas and physical phenomena, and Mr. Kiddle's view is striking. The latter thinks that new ideas are being introduced into the world by physical phenomena, which the former thinks that new physical phenomena have begun to manifest themselves by reason of a change in these general ideas (noumena) which govern all physical phenomena in the objective world. It seems to me that even the word 'idea' has been used in two different senses by the Mahatma and Mr. Kiddle respectively. The former means by the word 'idea' the original form or type according to which the objective manifestation takes place. And this is Plato's meaning which the Spiritualistic lecturer has not properly understood. Mr. Kiddle, on the
