The Law is for All

144 The Law is for All Obviously, the whole idea of exercise, mental or bodily, is to develop the involved organs in a manner physiologically and psychologically proper. It is deleterious to force any faculty to live by an alien law. When parents insist on a boy adopting a profession which he loathes, because they themselves fancy it; when Florence Nightin­ gale fought to open hospital windows in India at night; then the Ideal mutilates and murders. iii:60 Every organ has “no law beyond Do what thou wilt.” Its law is determined by the history of its development, and by its present relations with its fellow-citizens. We do not fortify our lungs and our limbs by identical methods, or aim at the same tokens of success in training the throat of the tenor and the fingers of the fiddler. But all laws are alike in this: they agree that power and tone come from persistently practicing the proper exercise with­ out overstraining. When a faculty is freely fulfilling its function, it will grow; the test is its willingness to “Strive ever to more”; it justifies itself by being “ever joyous”. It follows that “death is the crown of all.” For a life which has fulfilled all its possibilities ceases to have a purpose; death is its diploma, so to speak; it is ready to apply itself to the new conditions of a larger life. Just so a schoolboy who has mastered his work, dies to school, reincar­ nates in cap and gown, triumphs in the Tripos, dies to the clois­ ters, and is reborn to the world. Note that the Atu “Death” in the Tarot refers to Scorpio. This sign is threefold: the Scorpion that kills itself with its own poison, when its environment (the ring of fire) becomes intolerable; the Serpent that renews itself by shedding its skin, that is crowned and hooded, that moves by undulations like Light, and gives man Wisdom at the price of Toil, Suffering, and Mortality; and the Eagle that soars, its lidless eyes bent boldly upon the Sun. “Death” is, to the initiate, an inn by the wayside; it marks a stage accomplished; it offers refreshment, repose, and advice as to his plans for the morrow. But in this verse the main point is that death is the “crown” of all. The crown is Kether, the Unity; “love under will” having been applied to all Nuit-possibilities of all Khu-energies of any Hadit- central-Star, that Star has exhausted itself perfectly, completed