fellow-westerns only worldly-wise. For to great commercial enterprise,
the Parsees add a stubborn conservatism in religion.

[Sidenote: The Theosophical Society and the national feeling.]

IV. _The Theosophists_ are the only other new religious organisation
whom we can notice.--Them too the new patriotic feeling has very largely
shaped. Founded in America in 1875, the very year in which the [=A]rya
Sam[=a]j was established in Bombay, the Theosophical Society professed
to be "the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity," representing
and excluding no religious creed and interfering with no man's caste. On
the other hand, somewhat inconsistently, it professed to be a society to
promote the study of [=A]ryan and other Eastern literature, religion,
and sciences, and to vindicate their importance; and it appealed for
support, amongst others, "to all who loved India and would see a revival
of her ancient glories, intellectual and spiritual." At the same time
the society professed "to investigate the hidden mysteries of nature and
the psychical powers latent in man." The society naturally gravitated
towards India, and by 1884 had 87 branches in India and Ceylon, against
12 in all the rest of the world. Its career might easily have been
predicted. Inevitably, when transplanted to India, about the year 1878,
such a society came under the spell of the new national consciousness
already referred to. For a time Theosophy shared with the political
Congress the first place in the interest of New India, and crowds of
educated Indians still assemble whenever Mrs. Besant, now the leading
Theosophist, is to speak. One of the rules of the society, however,
saved it from the descent into politics that has overtaken the [=A]rya
Sam[=a]j and tainted it as a religious movement. Rule XVI (1884) forbids
members, as such, to interfere in politics, and declares expulsion to be
the penalty for violation of the rule.