Blind aspiration is characteristic of plants and the things called inanimate. The higher animals are conscious of their needs and pursue the objects that they desire. Man, as man, rightly aspires only towards that of which he has some knowledge, or towards the knowledge which will give de-finiteness and light to the mysterious impulse that presses him onward and upward towards things higher than any that he knows.

An aspiration towards an unknown object can have no assurance of ever reaching its goal. If it is not known it may not exist; or if it exists it may not be attainable. It is unreasonable to assert the attainability of a thing that is itself unknown. And even when the object is known there can be no assurance of attaining it unless the means thereto are also known. And even when the object shall have been attained, there is no assurance that it will prove satisfactory, unless the right method of enjoying it is known. And even if the object, after having been attained, prove satisfying in itself and on one side of the nature, there is no assurance that it will be completely satisfying, under all aspects, and on all sides of the nature, unless all the highest and most universal objects of possible aspiration are known, together with their relative importance and value.

There is no possible human activity, whether interior or exterior, individual or collective, which does not depend for its efficiency and fruitful-ness upon right knowledge. To effective action he who acts must either possess the requisite knowledge himself or be guided in his action by someone who does possess it. Ignorance is the taproot of all the disunion, discord, wretchedness and misery of the world; of all the ugliness and error and iniquity; all the impotence, all the folly and all the hatred.

It is through knowledge of economic laws that vast wealth is accumulated.
It is through knowledge of the art of living that happiness is attained to.
It is through knowledge of aesthetic principles that beauty is woven.
It is through knowledge of the laws of psychological and physical life that health is established.
It is through knowledge of the norms of duty that virtue is gained.
It is through knowledge of strategy that great generalship is achieved.
It is through knowledge of diplomacy that nations are aggrandized.
It is through knowledge of mechanics that epoch-making inventions are accomplished.
It is through knowledge of the heart-truths that love is won.

For lack of real knowledge fortunes have been dissipated, education has proven unavailing, beauty has been under-mined, health has been ruined, virtue has been lost, empires have been disrupted, talents have been rendered unprofitable and hearts have been petrified.

No one kind of knowledge is sufficient for perfect and universal success, and no one kind of ignorance is sufficient to account for all failure. It is the knowledge of the real System of the Universe that is above all requisite; and it is ignorance of the System of the Universe that is utterly fatal. Right knowledge cannot be summed up in one single formula, unless it be one that is universally explanatory; and such a formula would be an empty phrase to those who did not possess at least in outline, the whole body of knowledge of which it is the quintessence.

Right knowledge is knowledge that corresponds to the things known. Ignorance that knows itself to be such invites knowledge; it is an open vessel ready to be filled; it is a zero above which the next step is a positive integer. But the ignorance which imagines itself to be knowledge is a minus quantity; it is a vessel that must first be emptied of its worthless contents before the priceless wine of truth can be poured into it. There are some men who know innumerable things most of which are not so; they have the semblance of learning without the reality, and they are the dispensers of the Sodom-apples of knowledge sometimes fair to behold but within full of ashes.

Right knowledge is that which includes, or has back of it, a full and luminous and harmonious explanation of all things and all human ideas, containing a solution of all problems, a reconciliation of all contradictions, a revelation of all essences and reasons and ends and purposes. That knowl-edge which is not universal or possessed of a background of universality is ignorance. Just as a low degree of heat is cold and a low degree of light is darkness, so a low degree of truth is error. And a man is chilled instead of warmed by a heat less than his own, and beclouded instead of illuminated by a light less than that which is adapted to his physical vision, so he is besotted instead of enlightened by a knowledge less than that which corresponds to his needs and aspirations, to the exigencies of his reason and to the purposes of his existence.

Right knowledge is demonstrated to be such by every human faculty and by all human experience. The knowledge which is really contradicted by reason, intuition, experiment, observation, or any other possible means of attaining to truth, is a base counterfeit, and any apparent evidence of it, of whatever kind, is spurious and worthless and can be demonstrated to be so.

A right knowledge is that which is adapted to the intelligence of him to whom it is imparted. Just as too intense a light blinds the eyes and too intense a heat destroys the body so the Perfect Truth when suddenly impart-ed to him who is not prepared to receive it is more destructive than error it-self; and is indeed the Greater Error. The eyes blinded by excess of light can see less than those that peer through the dimmest twilight; the body disinter-grated by a too intense a heat is frozen into an insensibility as great as would have followed from a total deprivation of it.

Right knowledge provides a goal for every aspiration and brings all aspirations into harmony. It is the vindicator of every ideal, the substance of every dream, the light of every effort, the fructifier of every action, the earnest of every fruition. All the treasure of the world cannot buy it; but as the price of them all it would be cheaply purchased.
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The reader who sincerely desires right knowledge, for no end less worthy than the insurance of rightness and effectiveness of aspiration, is invited to communicate further with the one from whom they received this paper, stating that they have read it with interest; or, if they do not know where to reach them, with the person whose address is herewith given. But if they have not already read the OPEN INSTRUCTION ON ASPIRATION AND ATTAINMENT they should first ask to be supplied with it.
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