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Whether the epithet was rightly or wrongly applied is the very issue to be settled between us; but it was certainly not due to any negligence or carelessness on my part. It is further alleged in the article under examination that when I said that the seven-fold classification was conspicuous by its absence in many Hindu books, I must have meant "some special orthodox." This allegation has no foundation whatsoever. I was not speaking from the standpoint of any special orthodox system and could not have referred therefore to any special orthodox books. The word 'many' is taken advantage of by my critic for the purpose of attributing to me an intention which I never had I could not very well have said that the classification was absent in the whole range of Sanskrit mystic literature unless I had examined every book on the subject. I did not come across this classification in any book that I have read, though I have perused many of these books. If my learned critic means to assert that it would be found in some book which I have not read, she ought to name the book and the author. A classification like this should not be allowed to rest merely on the basis of a theoretically possible inference without some clear and definite proof of its existence. And, again, I really cannot see what authority my critic has for asserting that, in making the remarks commented upon, I desired to remain strictly "within theoretical and metaphysical and also orthodox computations" of the microcosmic principles. For the purposes of this controversy a distinction is drawn between occult theories which are theoretically and metaphysically good, and those which are good for "practical demonstration" whatever the expression may mean. This is simply absurd. Occultism is both a science and an art. Its scientific principles, if they are correct, must be consistent with the rules of their practical application which are, as it were, but matters of inference from the said principles. Any system of occultism which has got one set of principles for its theory, and another set of principles inconsistent with the former for its practice, would be but an empirical system which could hardly be called scientific.
