Excerpt from The Theosophical Quarterly, Vol. 12 Will, as the one indubitable evil, the greatest of all misfortunes, the infallible root of unhappiness and misery. These practical students of divine things would, therefore, ask themselves, when they were confronted with one or another of the burn ing questions of the clay, whether those who espoused one or another cause were seeking with a Single heart to find and obey the Divine Will, or whether their movement was not, perhaps, a conscious or unconscious expression of self-will. If this latter, then it stood condemned, and its fruit could be nothing but confusion and misery. What are the burning questions of our modern life? There is, to begin with, the Woman question, of which the question of equal suffrage for men and women is a minor concrete expression; there is the Labor question, growing daily more explosive in this and other coun tries; and there are questions of politics, of the church, of religious life. On all these, the imagined group of practical students of divine things would find themselves, by the very force and tendency of their lives, in possession of very clear and definite views. In one sense, therefore, for them these Modern Problems would not exist; they would have ceased to be problems, Since their solution would have been found, not by speculation, which is always a somewhat uncertain light, but by sheer force of living, the great solver of all problems. What view would this supposed band of students of life hold on that exceedingly controversial matter, the Woman Question? Prob ably, Some such view as this. Holding that the one vital thing in life is to seek the Divine Will, and, finding it, to obey, they would hold, to begin with, that this is the vital thing for men and women equally. While they do this, they are safe. On all other paths, they are doomed to confusion and misery; the misery which besets any living thing which is out of harmony with its own fundamental law. IS the motive power of the Woman Question, taking it in its largest sense, the effort to find and fulfil the Will of God? Or is it, perhaps, an expression of self-will? This is the first question which the supposed practical students of divine things would raise. And they would, perhaps, find, to their astonishment, that the prophets and prophetesses of the Woman Question have never even raised that most fundamental question, but, assuming themselves to be altogether right, have gone boldly, even wildly, ahead, pursuing their problem to all kinds of practical issues, before they have even sought for its first principle. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.