131
nevertheless, is prepared to declare that "those who seek to find fault with" him "and become hostile to" him "are prejudiced and stubborn." Probably if understood "hermitically" and (we are called upon to construe the Swami's article in this manner) they may disclose some other meaning, and I sincerely hope they will. Meanwhile I trust he will not be pleased to consider me as either "prejudiced" or "stubborn" if I venture to defend the position taken up by the editor of this journal (who belongs to the same school as I do) as regards the subject in disputes.
I will begin by respectfully informing the learned hermit that it is not childish "to scrutinize and try to understand the wording of a question before attempting to answer it." Nobody has found fault with his style, nor has any one thought of "attacking" him. On the other hand, every attempt was made to weed out the grammatical errors in his article (the foot-notes to which have provoked his anger) before it was printed. But controversies like the present one can never come to any satisfactory conclusion unless the disputants clearly understand each other. I claim the right to remark that in the shape his articles generally reached the Theosophist Office, it became next to impossible to correctly ascertain the real meaning of the "idea" he tried to convey, so long as the latter found itself successfully concealed under what he terms his "style." Philosophical disputations apparently formidable in their appearance have often been found to have their origin in the various meanings attached to a single word; and it will be no exaggeration to say that innumerable creeds and sects have arisen from disputes about mere words. Under such circumstances, it may be humbly submitted that it is extremely improper on the Swami's part to lose his temper in spite of his Nirvikalpa Samadhi as soon as an attempt is made to analyse his question and ascertain its real meaning. Even now, after so much discussion, it is not easy to see what the editor is called upon to prove? If the Swami had merely asked the editor to explain more fully the assertion contained in one of the issues of this journal to
