of others. All alike, as he well knows, are but
learning a lesson; and he smiles at the socialist
and the reformer who endeavor by sheer force
to re-arrange circumstances which arise out of
the forces of human nature itself. This is but
kicking against the pricks; a waste of life
and energy.

In realizing this a man surrenders his
imagined individual rights, of whatever sort.
That takes away one keen sting which is
common to all ordinary men.

When the disciple has fully recognised that
the very thought of individual rights is only
the outcome of the venomous quality in himself,
that it is the hiss of the snake of self
which poisons with its sting his own life and
the lives of those about him, then he is ready
to take part in a yearly ceremony which is open
to all neophytes who are prepared for it. All
weapons of defense and offense are given up;
all weapons of mind and heart, and brain, and
spirit. Never again can another man be regarded
as a person who can be criticized or
condemned; never again can the neophyte
raise his voice in self-defense or excuse. From
that ceremony he returns into the world as
helpless, as unprotected, as a new-born child.
That, indeed, is what he is. He has begun to